Commission President Caukins: This is Commission President Ryan Caukins reconvening the regular meeting of May 26, 2026. The time is 12:05 p.m. We’re meeting in person today at the SEA Conference Center and virtually on Microsoft Teams. Clerk Hart, please call the roll of all commissioners in attendance.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Beginning with Commissioner Caukins.
Commissioner Caukins: Here.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho: Present.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman: Present.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Present.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. And Commissioner Mohammed.
Commissioner Mohammed: President, thank you so much. You do have a quorum.
Commissioner Caukins: Thanks. All votes today will be taken by the roll call method or by general consent. So it is clear for anyone participating virtually how votes are cast, commissioners will say aye or nay when their name is called. We are meeting on the ancestral lands and waters of the Coast Salish people with whom we share a commitment to steward these natural resources for future generations. This meeting is being digitally recorded and may be viewed or heard at any time on the port’s website and may be rebroadcast by King County Television. Please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance.
[Pledge of Allegiance]
The first item of business today is approval of the agenda. As a reminder, if a commissioner wishes to make a general comment for or against an item on the consent agenda, it is not necessary to pull the item from consent. Rather, a commissioner may offer general supporting or opposing comments later in the meeting. However, it is appropriate at this time if a commissioner wants to ask questions of staff or wishes to have a dialogue on a consent agenda item to request the item be pulled for separate discussion. Are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda or any motions to rearrange the orders of the day? I’m paying attention online here too. Go ahead, Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman: I seek a brief conversation on item 8D without pulling it.
Commissioner Caukins: Without pulling it. Did I hear you correctly? Just to ask a question.
Commissioner Felleman: Okay.
Commissioner Caukins: And so, Clerk, we will—he can raise that question when we get to the consent agenda. Is that correct?
Clerk Hart: If Commissioner Felleman has a question to ask, we should pull it. If he just wants to comment about it, then we don’t have to pull it. But if we want staff at the table to answer a question, then we do need to pull 8D. How would you like to handle that, Commissioner Felleman?
Commissioner Felleman: I’ll just make a statement. I’m sorry. I’ll just make a statement.
Commissioner Caukins: All right. And we will do that right before the consent agenda. Any other motions to rearrange orders of the day or items to be pulled from consent agenda? Okay, commissioners. The question is now on approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?
Commissioner: So moved.
Commissioner: Second.
Commissioner Caukins: The motion has been made and seconded. Is there any objection to approval of the agenda as presented? Hearing none, the agenda is approved as presented. Next on the agenda is the executive director’s report. Executive Director Metruck, you have the floor.
Executive Director Metruck (8:08): Thank you, President Caukins. Good afternoon, commissioners. Before we begin today’s business, I want to reflect on Memorial Day, which our nation just honored yesterday. Memorial Day is a solemn reminder to our nation to pause and remember and honor those who gave their lives in service to our nation and to recognize the families who carry their memory forward. I hope yours was all a meaningful one. Tomorrow here at the Port of Seattle, we will hold a Memorial Day observance at Pier 69 to reflect together on those that made the ultimate sacrifice. I encourage staff and community members to join if they are able.
Of course, Memorial Day is also a travel milestone and for those that have been on site at our airport or seaport, you have seen the activity firsthand. I appreciate the staff who were on duty over the long weekend keeping our airport and seaport safe, secure, and operating smoothly. It’s been a month since our last meeting and we have quite a few major milestones that we have reached. So, I appreciate your patience as I share some updates on those operations and some highlights.
Starting with maritime, Seattle welcomed two brand new cruise brands to our homeport fleet this season. MSC Cruises made its maiden Seattle call on May 11th with the MSC Poesia beginning the company’s first ever Alaska season from Pier 91. Virgin Voyages’ Brilliant Lady followed with its maiden voyage on May 21st, introducing an adult-only itineraries to Alaska from our terminals. Both brands align with our sustainability expectations, including shore power readiness and voluntary environmental commitments and are expected to draw more international travelers and pre-post stays in the region. Thank you commissioners who participated in the welcome events for these two new brands. The activity is clear on the waterfront and it’s great to see the sidewalks busy and local restaurants and businesses full.
Summer is also a busy season at Seattle Tacoma International Airport and we’re off to a strong start. Since the commission last met, Alaska Airlines inaugurated two services, including its first European destination to Rome, which was also our airport’s first service to this critical destination. Delta Airlines inaugurated new non-stop flights, including the first ever service to Barcelona, Spain from Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and the second service to Rome. We have now welcomed six new international services this year at SEA. We also have important facilities milestones approaching. Since we last met, significant progress has been made on the construction of the C concourse expansion, which we are pleased to announce will open to the public next month. Our teams are pushing hard to open this incredible space before FIFA, and we are so proud that they are on track. We are planning a media reveal for June 10th and it will be really eye-opening when people see how big the facility is and how capable it is. Stay tuned for the public official public opening date which will be announced very soon.
I mentioned FIFA and we have just 19 days until the first World Cup match and FIFA-related excitement is showing up all across our facilities. We have our countdown clocks in the airport and in lobby areas. Branding and promotions are going up at the airport all month and next. Hopefully you saw some of the material on your arrivals this morning. Work began last week on four murals being painted by two local artists on the columns outside Pier 69. Bigger than human-sized soccer ball was installed at Pier 69 in the lobby. Hard to miss. And the airport will receive one of the iconic whale tail illuminated art pieces. Seattle match dates are June 15th, June 19th, June 24th, June 26th, July 1st, and July 6th. We’ll continue to brief you on our planning and operations as the matches approach.
Turning to today’s agenda, I have four topics I want to highlight for you. On the consent agenda is one item for related actions within the C Concourse Evolution Program. This program was briefed to the commission at our last meeting in April. We will be back to the commission with a large authorization later this year. This consent item you are being asked to approve today allows the team to advance critical electrical work at the 188th Street duct bank crossing. It will manage change orders and contract actions and complete pre-construction activities that are necessary. On the action agenda, we are asking you to authorize amendments to the existing Norwegian Cruise Lines Holdings lease. We are very pleased with the outcome of this long-term agreement in terms of return to the port to the region and advancement of key environmental sustainability and economic development initiatives. On the briefing agenda, we’re bringing you an update on work to assess the feasibility of establishing a childcare facility to support SEA worker families. This work was directed by the commission by commission order 2025-04.
And finally, we are briefing you on the State Environmental Policy Act Environmental Impact Statement for the SAMP near-term projects, the Sustainable Aviation Master Plan. We provided notice to the public 30 days ago to make the community aware of this upcoming publication which occurred last Friday. We’ll be taking public comment for the next 60 days, which is double the amount of time required by the state and longer than the NEPA public comment period. Part of the briefing will go over the outreach plan to ensure broad participation including community meetings, multilingual materials, and engagement across local and underrepresented communities. And commissioners, this concludes my report for today. Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you for that report, Executive Director. We are now at committee reports. Erica Chung, commission strategic adviser, will provide the report.
Erica Chung (14:14): Good afternoon, President Caukins, commissioners, and Executive Director Metruck. I have three committee reports for you today. On April 20th, Commissioners Caukins and Felleman convened the Sustainability, Environment, and Climate Committee with two items for discussion and briefing: an update on the sustainable evaluation framework for T91 Uplands Phase One and the Maritime Climate and Air Action Plan implementation. On April 21st, the Equity, Workforce Development, and Conditions Committee met to provide Commissioners Hasegawa and Mohammed with an update on the status of the SEA healthcare policy directive. Staff provided a timeline and a core policy framework for the policy directive, including addressing key conceptual, legal, and implementation challenges. On April 21st, Commissioners Cho and Felleman convened the Waterfront Industrial Lands Committee with two items for discussion and briefing: the preliminary analysis of the suitability for development of the Awasa site, and the potential impact to the port from the recently released Coast Guard records of decision. This concludes my report. Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you, Erica. Any questions for Erica from commissioners? All right. The port commission welcomes public comment as an important part of the public process. Comments are received and considered by the commission in its deliberations. Before we take public comment, Clerk Hart, can you please display the QR code to our public comment rules? For members of the public providing public testimony, it is essential that these rules are followed. Copies of the rules are also available at the door. Thank you, Clerk Hart. You can go ahead and call our first speaker.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Commission President. Members of the commission, give me just one moment here to pull open our timer. And will that be the one minute timer today, sir?
Commissioner Caukins: Yes, please. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: We’ll start virtually today. I will ask each speaker to repeat their name for the record and their agenda item or topic related to the conduct of port business. And after they go through that process, I will then start the timer. So we will begin virtually with council member Joe Vincent. Calling for council member Joe Vincent.
Joe Vincent (Public Comment, 17:01): Present. Can you hear me?
Clerk Hart: We can. Thank you. Please go ahead and repeat your name for the record and your topic that you’re speaking about today and then I’ll start the timer.
Joe Vincent: Yes, I’m Joe Vincent. I’m here to speak on item 11B on today’s agenda. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. SeaTac council member Joe Vincent here. SeaTac is the host community for this airport. I’m here today to talk about item 11B and I want to talk about whether the public has a fair shot at reading this document and commenting on it. I have three quick asks. First, the timeline. On May 18th, the cities of SeaTac, Burien, and Des Moines asked the port for a 90-day comment period. On May 21st, the port said no. The next day, Friday of the Memorial Day weekend, the document dropped. More than 6,500 pages across 24 documents. Appendix C alone is over 1,600 pages. The federal review last year was roughly 1,200 pages and the FAA gave us 53 days. This one here is more than five times bigger with seven more days. I’m asking the commission to give us 120 days closing September 19th. Second, the language. The DEIS is only in English. The port plans to translate outreach materials into 10 languages. I’m asking the commission to apply that same standard to documents the people are actually being asked to comment on—at least the summary, Chapter 1, and the environmental justice appendix. Third is access. Appendix J, the noise appendix. It is not opening. I tried multiple downloads. Noise Info reported the same problem. I’m asking the commission to make sure the comment clock isn’t running on documents the public cannot see. Thank you for your time.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, council member. Next speaker. Our next speaker from the room is Brian Davis.
Brian Davis (Public Comment, 19:13): Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Admiral Metruck, good to see you. Brian Davis from Burien. Speaking about the SAMP EIS, you know, this agency is fond of touting its green credentials. For instance, the transition to electric vehicles for the airport ground fleet. With all due respect, that’s like using a handheld extinguisher on a four-alarm fire. Because at the same time, you are also perfectly willing to hide behind archaic science and perpetuate a cycle of damage, both economic and environmental, to neighboring cities and their residents. I’m talking specifically about your unblinking acceptance in the airport master plan of the 65 DNL noise measurement standard used to define high noise zones near the airport. The federal government adopted 65 DNL in 1979, nearly 50 years ago. We have learned much since then about how noise affects people’s physical and mental well-being, and 65 DNL does not cut it. The World Health Organization now defines high noise as anything above 40 dB. We also know according to current acoustics science that frequency matters and we’re talking here under this SAMP of going to 1,500 takeoffs and landings every day. I go back to something that I heard Commissioner Mohammed say at an event in Burien last fall. It’s time we look at port authorities not just as engines of commerce but as guardians of equity, transparency, community well-being, and community health. I fear today that we are a long way from that place. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Moving virtually to Randy Fierce.
Randy Pierce (Public Comment, 21:12): Good afternoon. My name is Randy Pierce. I’m speaking in support today. I am the airline chair for the Airline Airport Affairs Committee and as such I am representing all 54 airlines that operate at SEA. As chair I am coordinating a unified letter of support for the Sustainable Airport Master Plan from all airlines demonstrating our shared commitment to this vital initiative. It’s rare for airlines to agree on much but on SAMP we’re united. That alone speaks volumes about its importance. Why does this matter? SAMP projects are essential for the region’s needs. In 2014, SEA served 37 million passengers. By 2025, almost 53 million. Our region is growing, and the airport must keep pace. SAMP is the only way to meaningfully meet the needs of the traveling public. Without it, service to travelers will decline, opportunities for local jobs, and economic development for the surrounding communities will be stifled, and the port will be unable to meet its Century Agenda goals. Ultimately, SAMP is about supporting our region’s economy and future. Thank you for your time and support. Together, we can ensure SEA remains a driver of growth and opportunity for all.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Next speaker. Moving back to the room, Kelly Coughlin.
Kelly Coughlin (Public Comment, 22:42): Kelly Coughlin from the Snoqualmie Valley Regional Chamber, talking about the expansion. In today’s economy, connectivity is essential. Businesses depend on reliable access to customers, employees, vendors, visitors, and new markets. For the Snoqualmie Valley Regional Chamber, Seattle Tacoma International Airport is more than a transportation hub. It is a critical economic driver for communities across King County and the Puget Sound region. For Snoqualmie Valley, this matters. Our hotels, restaurants, farms, trails, events, and small businesses all benefit when visitors and business partners can easily access our region. SEA also supports employers who rely on strong connections to customers, workforce, and regional partners. As passenger demand continues to grow, our region must be prepared. The question is whether we will meet the growth with a safe, efficient, and world-class airport experience or face more congestion, delays, and missed opportunities. That is why the chamber supports the Port of Seattle’s proposal for a second terminal. Additional gates, improved road access, more curbside capacity, expanded parking, and more TSA checkpoints are important investments in our region’s future. SEA expansion strengthens connectivity, supports tourism, improves mobility, and helps ensure long-term economic success for business and community throughout our region.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Coughlin. Next speaker. Moving back to our virtual speakers, McKenzie Chase.
McKenzie Chase (Public Comment, 24:18): Hello, McKenzie Chase here on behalf of Expedia Group to speak on the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. Good afternoon. The Seattle Tacoma International Airport is critical to Expedia Group as both a Seattle-headquartered company and a travel company that helps travelers book trips around the world, including to our hometown. We’re your neighbors on the north end of Elliott Bay, and we have thousands of employees who live and work in the region. We also have employees around the world, making the Seattle Tacoma International Airport critical to our business’s success. Millions of Expedia’s travelers begin or end their journey at SEA, making it the front door to our hometown. Expedia strongly supports the port’s continued investment in SEA through the Sustainable Airport Master Plan and upgraded projects. SEA currently handles 53 million passengers a year, and that’s projected to grow by 4 million within the decade. We believe the proposal to build a second terminal is exactly the kind of investment that keeps regions like ours competitive. Without continued investment, we risk limiting growth and opportunity for the region. I want to thank the commission for its leadership and we are excited for the future.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Chase. Next speaker. Our next speaker from the room is Jeff Harbaugh.
Jeff Harbaugh (Public Comment, 25:56): My name is Jeff Harbaugh. I’m in my third term as a member of the Burien Airport Committee and at least my second term as a community representative to StART. Last fall, the SAMP found no significant impacts requiring any action regarding noise or particle pollution from airport expansion. Last Friday, we got the same result from SEPA. These are administrative procedures and the outcome was expected. That doesn’t mean that the port’s projected 30-plus percent growth in operations over 10 years will have no negative impact on the citizens of the surrounding cities. I know that because I have stated at StART meetings that there would be significant impact and I’ve never gotten any push back from the port StART participants. Do any of you believe that there’ll be no significant impact on noise and health issues as a result of this expansion over 10 years? I’d love to hear from you if you do. Much of the SEPA SAMP—annotated copy of the SEPA identifying additions, deletions, and changes. If you could do it quickly, please, that would be nice. We’ve only got 60 days and I guess 56 actually. Thank you for your time.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Harbaugh. Moving back to our virtual speakers, I have Ben Brookman.
Ben Brookman (Public Comment, 27:23): Thank you. My name is Ben Brookman. I’m here to speak on the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. Good afternoon, commissioners. I’m the vice president of real estate and airport affairs for Alaska Airlines, and I am here to reaffirm Alaska’s support for advancing the port’s Sustainable Airport Master Plan at SEA. As SEA’s largest carrier by flights and by passengers, Alaska is deeply invested in the airport’s long-term success. We support bold, timely infrastructure investments to meet the growing regional demand. Our continued growth, including our combination with Hawaiian Airlines, is expanding opportunities for travelers through our hometown hub. We’re adding new global destinations with our new fuel-efficient widebody aircraft like the 787 Dreamliner and we recently began service to Rome and London and we’ll start service to Reykjavik later this week. By 2030 we plan to operate at least 12 intercontinental routes from SEA. As demand grows SEA must remain efficient, sustainable and capable of serving the travelers, communities and regional economy that depend on it. SAMP is essential to achieving that future. Alaska and the port have a strong track record of partnership on major capital projects including recently completed SEA Gateway project which opened earlier this year, transforming the guest experience in our lobby. A key element of SAMP, the proposed second terminal with secure connection to the N concourse, is a critical investment. The new terminal will expand capacity, reduce aircraft congestion and improve the passenger experience. We support this vision and appreciate the port’s collaboration. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Brookman. Our next speaker virtually is Eric Fitch.
Eric Fitch (Public Comment, 29:04): Thank you. I’m Eric Fitch. I’m the executive director of the Washington Public Ports Association. I’m speaking to agenda item 11B. I am here on behalf of our 75 member ports. Washington’s public ports are independent special purpose governments charged by the legislature upon their creation with operating transportation facilities to promote commerce. At our core, our ports share a simple mission—providing transportation options to the people of Washington, operating facilities like marine terminals, marinas, railroads, and airports. The airports my members operate are not luxury facilities. They are essential public facilities where Washingtonians go to travel, to see loved ones, to connect with friends in faraway places, and access medical care and travel for work. They create jobs in their communities, and they facilitate commerce and the flow of goods. My members who operate commercial airports and the communities they represent see every day the impact of congestion at our state’s primary commercial service airport. We have been engaged with Olympia discussions in the legislature around the site of a future commercial service facility and have members on the Commercial Aviation Work Group. My members are investing now to serve the demand they see at their facilities, but it is clear that the demand will continue and cannot be met at SEA alone. The recently published Washington Aviation Systems Plan confirms what we already see. Existing facilities cannot accommodate all unconstrained demand. So investments like you’re considering today must go forward. We urge you to consider them and advance them. And thank you for your time.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Fitch. Next speakers from the room are from Americans for Equality.
Erica Hort (Public Comment, 30:50): Thank you for having us, commissioners and staff. My name is Erica Hort. I serve as director of community engagement here with Americans for Equality and will be speaking about 11C. Americans for Equality was founded in 2019 and it was created to bridge the gap between high growth careers and residents. We serve residents in about 22 cities from Washington to Oregon. I started my journey off as a student and then moved on to our internship program. And with that program we developed about 40 individuals. We have three core programs. One that helps with resume writing and helping with getting jobs. Our second program is more of our professional and technical skills education program. And our third program is our internship and we’re working on figuring out ways to branch into port-related green jobs and also solar jobs as well. Thank you guys so much for your time and for allowing me to speak.
Omar Qureshi (Public Comment): Commissioners, thanks for allowing us to speak here. My name is Omar Qureshi. I’m the CEO and co-founder for Americans for Equality. As you heard from Erica, we are an organization that helps people prepare for new jobs, technical and non-technical. Some of you might have already seen some of the preliminary information sent by Eddie Rye Jr., chairman of our board. Let me give you a bit of a quick context. I’ve been in tech for about 23 years. I’ve taken about 2.2 million miles’ journey from SeaTac. That’s roughly nine one-way trips to moon, which nobody wants to take. If you do 4.6 round trips, 60-plus countries, and what I would tell you is that the meetings and the sessions that were the most impactful were those that were full of diversity, and what I mean by diversity is diversity of ideas, cultures, things that bring us all together. And I believe that Port of Seattle generally speaking embraces diversity that is a net positive for the community, for the workforce. In the age of AI that becomes way more important. You’re going to hear from my colleagues on some of the other things we are doing. Thank you.
Juan Iribe (Public Comment): Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Juan Iribe, AI data analyst for Americans for Equality. On behalf of the program, I went through all stages of the program. I started off as a student. My journey last July 2025, went through a 12-week program just to go ahead and get some introductory level on the topping buzzing topics right now such as AI, data analytics, and cybersecurity. What I found in this program that I haven’t been able to find anywhere, even in the University of Washington, is being full of a room of people of color inspired to uplift one another, not only in their nine-to-five jobs, but being able to take hold of those abilities and skills that we learned and take it back to our communities back home, uplifting individuals of all ages. Upon this program, I’ve been having the amazing experience now as an intern to go ahead and use what I did learn in that 12-week program on real-world projects and being able to take that back to my nine-to-five and upskill myself. SeaTac is a gateway to a lot of individuals coming into Washington state and I am more than happy to go ahead and expand this program to the SeaTac community, which I know a lot of individuals and residents will only be able to positively impact themselves from. So, thank you guys for your time today and hearing me and my team there.
Daniel Triesko (Public Comment): Commission President, commission team, thank you for having us again. My name is Daniel Triesko. I’m a program manager at Americans for Equality. To give you an idea, I’ve started this internship program about three months ago. I’ve been able to hone down skills that I’ve never had before. I started my journey as a chef with my parents owning a catering company and trying to learn and develop skills with them. It was really hard when I was learning a lot by myself and now I’m able to take a lot of these skills and especially even teach my father these things, teach my sister these things and really see how much of an impact technology can really make for us. To Juan’s comment, we are in development of a mobile app. So we want to be able to meet people where they are, wherever they are regarding transportation issues, accessibility issues to provide them the services right there and build a better future for not just us but for everyone else that comes through our doors. So we ask for your guys’ support and thank you again for having us.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you all for your comments. All right, Clerk Hart, next speaker.
Clerk Hart: Just one moment. I want to do a sound check on the microphones. Can everybody hear the speakers virtually?
Virtual participants: Yes.
Clerk Hart: Wonderful. Thank you for that confirmation. Our next speaker from the room is Karen Veloria.
Karen Veloria (Public Comment, 36:44): Karen Veloria. This is regarding the SAMP. Thank you for having me, port commissioners. My name is Karen Veloria. I’m a member of the Burien Airport Committee. I’m the Burien community representative for the StART committee. I’m a member of the SeaTac Community Coalition for Justice. I’m newly retired after a 34-year career with Seattle King County Public Health and I’m a longtime resident of the Boulevard Park area in Burien. I’m here to ask the port to reconsider the request to extend the public comment for SEPA to 90 days instead of 60. This review is so large and complex, it’s hard for the average person to understand. 60 days is just not enough time for the cities’ residents and community groups to analyze and discuss, especially as it comes at the same time during the World Cup activities. Our communities already see, hear, and smell the consequences of living close by a major airport. Our children have more incidents of asthma. Our neighborhoods are being rezoned. The port has promised community engagement with multilingual access. 90 days should give you more time to fulfill that. Please reconsider my request. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Veloria. Our next speaker from the room is Sonia Forester.
Sonia Forester (Public Comment, 38:16): Good afternoon. My name is Sonia Forester. I’m Seattle district manager for the Associated General Contractors of Washington and I’m speaking on the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. AGC represents contractors, specialty construction firms and their skilled employees that build and maintain critical infrastructure at SEA. Our members have direct experience working with the airport’s operational constraints and understand the complexity of delivering projects in an active environment. Projects of this scale require significant planning, coordinated phasing, and early alignment of resources to minimize disruption and ensure successful delivery. Delays in advancing planning and environmental review can lead to higher cost, reduced workforce availability, and decreased efficiency in project delivery. Our members are committed to incorporating environmental compliance and sustainable construction practices into everything we do here. Early clarity helps us achieve better environmental outcomes and helps reduce risk for the airport and for contractors during construction. Advancing these improvements in a timely manner will support system reliability and improve project efficiency. We encourage the port to continue moving forward with these investments. Thank you very much for your time.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Forester. Our next speaker from the room is Linda Wong.
Linda Wong (Public Comment, 39:50): Linda Wong, speaking to the SAMP comment extension. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Linda Wong, and I am asking you to extend the SEPA public comment period to 90 days. This is a basic fairness request, not a delay tactic. This review is high stakes for the lives and future of people in airport-impacted communities. These decisions affect community health, housing stability, traffic, and whether families can stay and thrive in the neighborhoods where they have built their lives. Impacted communities need enough time to read, discuss, translate, and respond to materials of this size and complexity. Your own SEPA materials emphasize clear public translated and easy-to-understand information. And they say that community voices should shape real decisions, not just be collected during the comment period. The cities of Burien, Des Moines, and SeaTac also formally requested a 90-day comment period, saying 60 days is not enough to review a draft EIS of this scope, technical complexity, and consequence. The extension is in your power to grant. Nothing I found in the Washington administrative code prevents this. A public process is not meaningful if the people most affected do not have a real chance to participate. Please extend the comment period to 90 days. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Wong. Our next speaker is Seth Mill.
Seth Mill (Public Comment, 41:21): Good afternoon, Commission President and Commissioners and Executive Director Metruck. My name is Seth Mill. I’m with the King County International Airport Community Coalition and with the SeaTac Airport Community Coalition for Justice. I’m here to basically say that we do want to urge you all to expand and extend the comment period for SEPA from 60 to 90 days. I see this as a class and race issue because as you look around this room here, we are all privileged to be in this room in this space. There are people who cannot make it here because they have nine-to-five jobs and have other barriers. And we want to make sure that we provide time and space to reach those who do not have that privilege to just get in the space and access the information as you’ve heard from my other colleagues and community members. So we just want to ask to make sure that that space is going to be inclusive as you all have worked towards inclusivity and we want to make sure that voices from everywhere in the region are included in the comments for SEPA. So I urge you all to really reconsider and extend that comment period from 60 to 90 days. Thank you so much.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Mill. Our next speaker is Barbara McMichael.
Barbara McMichael (Public Comment, 42:47): Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Barbara McMichael and I will be talking about 11B. I had the pleasure of doing an airfield tour sometime in the last several months and I was pretty dazzled by the green initiatives that are taking place here at the airport. It was a privilege to take the tour and I learned a lot. But I want to really encourage my commissioners to do more to consider our local communities. You’ve heard me talk about this before. Please listen to our local electeds in our local airport-adjacent cities. Please extend the discussion time to 90 days. It’s a tough—6,000 pages is a lot to consider and to communicate to our communities. I also wanted to talk about the fact that the city of SeaTac, I know, has offered several times to buy that 45-acre parcel in the heart of North SeaTac Park where the lease is about to expire and there hasn’t been movement from the port on that. And we need that park to keep our communities clean, healthy and happy. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you so much, Ms. McMichael. Our next speaker on our list is Sarah Moore.
Sarah Moore (Public Comment, 44:11): My name is Sarah Moore, speaking about topic 11B. I am encouraging along with the cities of Burien, SeaTac, and Des Moines that we keep or add the public comment time to 90 days. We have a lot of goals in common between the cities of Burien and SeaTac and Des Moines and the airport. We all want to see SeaTac airport be a world-class airport that it is and can be. We want to have the prosperity that comes with that. But as the faces that go to the grocery store and speak with the community members, I’ve had people ask me to read this SAMP with them so that they can understand it better. I’ve had people ask for help preparing statements about it, help preparing questions. It is a dense, complicated topic that intersects with the end of the school year, graduation, holidays, busy summer plans that people are making. People want to give public comment. People are eager to share their concerns, their questions, and get things answered and addressed and live in a clean, healthy, safe environment. So, please give us the time to make that happen.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, council member Moore. Our next speaker is Susan Fedori. Apologize if I’ve pronounced it incorrectly.
Susan Fedor (Public Comment, 45:57): My name is Susan Fedor. I’m here to offer comments related to item 11B. I strongly urge the port commission to extend the SEPA comment period to 90 days as well as to commit to the sale of the 45-acre parcel of North SeaTac Park to the city of SeaTac. Thousands of residents and advocates have been fighting long and hard to preserve this necessary green space in the name of public health and climate resilience. Elected officials have a moral obligation to prioritizing the well-being of our communities, especially those in close proximity to the airport where they are forced to endure outsized impacts of air pollution, noise pollution, and extreme heat, which are increasing in direct correlation to a diminishing tree canopy. It has been scientifically proven the most effective defense against climate change is mature trees. They’re not just an icon of Pacific Northwest, but an ecological necessity. Excessive clear cutting, which has been increasing in our region the past few years, tilts the natural ecological system into a spiral of drought and flooding, which doesn’t just cause harm to people, it is incredibly expensive to mitigate. The port’s clearly stated mission includes stewarding our environment responsibly and holding yourselves accountable. Increasingly, environmental stewardship is giving way to corporate interests that prioritize maximum profit over public health and safety. Please put actions to words and commit to the sale of this extremely valuable and vulnerable forest to safeguard collective well-being and a healthy future for all. Thank you.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Ms. Fedor. That concludes our signups for today.
Commissioner Caukins: Is there anyone else either present on the Teams call or with us in the room today who didn’t sign up but who wishes to address the commission? Okay. At this time, I’ll ask the clerk to please give a synopsis of any written comments that we’ve received.
Clerk Hart: Thank you, Mr. Commission President, members of the commission, Executive Director Metruck. For the record, we’ve received seven written comments for today’s meeting. These have been previously distributed to you and will become a part of today’s meeting record. Lores Erickson of Seattle Metro Chamber, Samantha Lee of Seattle Southside Chamber of Commerce, Kayla Coffee of Aerospace Futures Alliance, Sonia Forester—believe who spoke here as well already—and then Michael Katsy from the Economic Development Board write to support the proposed projects in the Sustainable Airport Master Plan as described in the State Environmental Policy Act draft environmental impact statement. I do want to note for the record that we did receive under general correspondence several other pieces of correspondence requesting that the public comment period be extended. And I want to note that we have an email address for those comments which is samp@portseattle.org for SAMP comments to be received.
Commissioner Caukins: So for anybody listening, and clerk to clarify, folks are more than welcome to reach out to commissioners on any topic, but if you want your SAMP-related comments included in the public comment for SAMP, you do need to send it to that email address. Can you repeat it one more time?
Clerk Hart: Yes, thank you. That is samp@portseattle.org.
Commissioner Caukins: Appreciate that.
Clerk Hart: And then as well, Linda Wong and council member Joe Vincent submitted their written comments in support of their spoken comments. And that concludes the written comments we’ve received today.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you, Clerk Hart. Hearing no further testimony, we will move on in the agenda. Our next order of business is the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are considered routine and will be adopted by one motion. Items removed from the consent agenda will be considered separately immediately after adoption of the remaining consent agenda items. Is there a motion to approve the—actually, I’m going to take a moment here for Commissioner Felleman. I know you had a comment on one of the items.
Commissioner Felleman (49:46): Yes. Thank you, Commission President Caukins. I just am hoping that we will have a further discussion on either a commission meeting on the 9th or the 23rd to flesh out some of the insights that have been garnered after the first graduating class from Maritime High School so we can have lessons learned and progress going forward. And also if there are other programs that are similarly doing this workforce development, it would be great to sort of look at the various different programs that we’re supporting. I’m just hoping we can get that on the agenda in the near future. But thank you very much for all the work you’ve done to support Maritime High Schools.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you, Commissioner Felleman. I wholeheartedly agree and I think this is a good opportunity, particularly as we approach the 2027 budget conversation, to really examine that closely and make sure that our dollars are being spent in the most effective way possible to achieve our goals around workforce development. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda covering items 8A through 8F?
Commissioner: So moved.
Commissioner: Second.
Commissioner Caukins: All right. The motion was made and seconded. Commissioners, please say aye or nay when your name is called for approval of the consent agenda. Beginning with Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Mohammed.
Commissioner Mohammed: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. And Commissioner Caukins.
Commissioner Caukins: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Five ayes and zero nays for this item.
Commissioner Caukins: And with that, the motion passes. We now have two new business items today. Clerk Hart, can you please read the first item into the record and then Executive Director Metruck will introduce it.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. This is agenda item 10A. Authorization for the executive director to execute amendments and assignments associated with the existing lease for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings incorporating a financial contribution to the Pier 66 shore power project.
Executive Director Metruck (51:49): Commissioners, this amendment represents a significant milestone and one of the port’s most consequential maritime partnerships, advancing our economic, environmental, and community commitments while reinforcing Seattle’s position as a premier cruise gateway to Alaska. The proposed amendments extend the current lease through 2035 with two additional 5-year extension options tied to demonstrated progress on decarbonization and sustainability, creating long-term business certainty alongside meaningful accountability. A centerpiece of this agreement is Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ $15 million contribution toward the Pier 66 shore power installation, accelerating the port’s goal of electrifying all cruise berths and positioning us to meet the commission’s directive of 100% homeport shore power connectivity by 2027. The agreement also establishes ambitious environmental commitments, continued participation in the underwater noise reduction programs, and collaboration on long-term decarbonization pathways. The amendments also reflect the port’s commitment to equity and community impact with provisions supporting workforce development, educational ship engagements, small and disadvantaged business participation, and anti-human trafficking efforts. Taken together, these amendments demonstrate how the port can use long-term business agreements to generate measurable economic value, accelerate environmental leadership, and strengthen community benefit, all through a single strategically aligned partnership. Presenting this afternoon is Linda Springman, director of cruise business and LA Bay operations.
Linda Springman (53:23): Thank you, Executive Director Metruck, commissioners. Thank you. I’m here today to ask for authorization to execute an amendment and assignment to the current Norwegian Cruise Lines lease. To begin, just as an overview, at the port, we have a number of ways to engage with our customers. Our tariff, which provides rates and regulations around use of our facilities. Preferential berthing agreements, which are multi-year and providing berthing rights in exchange for guarantees and allow the ability to add other non-financial elements into the agreement. And then third, leases—in addition to multi-year guarantees can include unique terms including in this case operation of the facility at Pier 66.
Our strategy with long-term agreements and leases is to use them to partner on a path to zero carbon emissions and other environmental benefits, broadening economic impact while strengthening our own financial outlook long term, which in turn supports infrastructure agreements. And as a reminder, Norwegian Cruise Line was the first line to commit to cruise homeport operations in Seattle more than 25 years ago.
The specifics of this amendment and assignment provide long-term financial certainty and economic predictability for the port. In addition to contributing financially towards shore power at Pier 66, it provides environmental commitments to connecting to shore power, piloting a non-fossil fuel by 2028 in our harbor, sharing data to support transparency and emissions accounting, and equity elements such as support of community organizations, including ship tours and supporting anti-human trafficking programs, of which they are already a server on the port’s effort.
The specific terms of this agreement beyond the current 15-year lease that runs through 2030 in its current form with one 5-year option include the immediate extension of the 5-year option taking them through 2035. It also adds two five-year options to extend at mutual consent. It includes the $15 million contribution to shore power infrastructure and it has a minimum annual guarantee of 325,000 revenue passengers per year. In addition to that, it adjusts the financials so that passenger and dockage fees are capped at 4.5% annual increase and that baseline is reset to 90% of tariff each five years beginning with 2030. So, we don’t get too far off of the port tariff numbers.
The financial return to the port is significant. It’s estimated to be $194.4 million over the initial 10 years, the remaining into 2030 plus the 5-year extension. So, $194 million over that first 10-year term. And then that assumes the current ships and occupancies but it has a floor—a guarantee of $116 million should their numbers decrease for some economic reason. If both options are exercised, the estimated revenue is $516 million or $316 million at minimum guarantee. And as a reminder, both of the five-year options are at the port’s discretion with explicit consideration around sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction performance.
Regarding the greenhouse gas reduction pathway, the three NCL ships and the one Oceania ship are currently connecting to shore power ahead of the 2027 order. They have committed to the participation in port emissions inventory and providing data regarding fuel use to add to our dashboard.
In addition, they’ve committed to piloting a non-fossil fuel by the end of the 2028 season. As a company, they are striving to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 25% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline and strive to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions across their global fleet over this same time.
Other environmental elements. They are signers onto the Ecology and they continue to adhere to the stormwater best management practices, participate in Quiet Sound and will incentivize use of low emission shoreside equipment.
Beyond the environmental efforts, they have committed to a responsible sourcing effort to promote a variety of underrepresented groups toward increasing economic impact for small, WMBE and tribal businesses. They will participate in community initiatives through in-kind and/or cash donations regionally to support low-income and/or minority communities in the local area. This could mean workforce development, ship tours, or similar. And I know there is a partnership they’re working on right now that I can’t announce for them, but hopefully they can announce very soon.
Again, I mentioned that their data will contribute to building out our cruise dashboard by providing elements related to shore power, fuel, emission reduction technologies, and innovations by vessel to name a few.
And finally, this agreement supports a number of our Century Agenda goals around economic growth of the region, being the greenest port in North America, being a model for equity, diversity, and inclusion, and being a highly effective public agency.
I would request your approval for Executive Director Metruck to execute this amendment to extend the lease for the outlined terms as well as the assignment, which has been fully vetted by our finance team. It changes the signer from Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings to instead name each of the three individual cruise brands: NCL Bahamas Limited, Oceania Cruises Limited, and Seven Seas Cruises Limited. Thank you. And I will open it up for questions.
Commissioner Caukins: All right, commissioners. Are there any questions for staff at this time? Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho (59:50): I just really wanted to thank Linda, you and the entire team for being able to bring this to us with what I would say are industry-leading provisions in the contract, especially when it comes to some of the environmental sustainability things. We’d like to see the human trafficking work and whatnot. I often like to say that we like to set examples for the industry when it comes to how cruise industry should be operating in our harbors and I believe that this is an extension that does that. So, I really do appreciate you taking our principles in stride and making sure that they’re baked into some of these contracts. So, thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman (1:00:37): You’re still on mute. There you go. I bet. Thank you, Linda, and the cruise team for continuing to work to raise the bar, keeping us at the top of the list of ports that pursue sustainable practices in the cruise industry. I do appreciate the fact that Norwegian will be contributing to the shore power effort expense towards electrifying 66, which was more heroic than any other given the submarine cable, and this is something that I’ve made sure was a priority—known priority to me. I do want to note that the provision that they are using to offset the cost of that is one that we’re not going to be providing future cruise lines for. It was an incentive matter to encourage people to stay another day or so when visiting—taking a cruise. And that incentive I believe now is no longer part of our leases. And so basically they are not going to be receiving this money rather than actually paying new money. Is that an accurate representation?
Linda Springman: That’s correct, Commissioner. A part of the existing lease has a marketing fund and that marketing fund will, starting with this year, go towards funding the $15 million contribution and it will sunset—that takes it basically through that five-year extension and it will sunset after that.
Commissioner Felleman: Thank you very much.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Mohammed, any comments or questions?
Commissioner Mohammed (1:02:41): I’ll make a quick comment since you called on me. Put on the spot. I want to thank you all. I appreciate the presentation and a lot of the times when there’s great work happening, we tend to not quickly make so many comments or have questions. And this is one of those items today where I appreciate the work that has gone into it and I’m looking forward to supporting this item. Contracts are a tool for us as a commission and the port to meet our environmental goals. It’s one of the ways that we can use it as a pathway to meet both our sustainability goals and make the updates that we’re looking for. I appreciate the briefing on this and the information that’s been shared and just appreciate staff hearing us as commissioners when we talk about protecting our air, our water quality and pushing the industry forward to reach our sustainability goals, and that is outlined in this update today and just appreciate it. Thanks.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Felleman, go ahead.
Commissioner Felleman: Thank you again. I just hope that we could have some discussion about what this fuel pilot project is so that we have transparency and understanding because obviously changing fuel is one of the most significant ways we can reduce the carbon footprint of any maritime operation. So just look forward to hearing that conversation.
Commissioner Caukins (1:04:27): And my comment pertains to some of the foundational work that Linda, you, and Sandy, you have done in setting up—and also Stephanie John Stebbins, who I don’t know—oh, there she is—have done to set up these lease negotiations. A significant chunk of the work around sustainability was a result of the partnership that was built through the Pacific Northwest to Alaska Green Corridor. That often and regular engagement that our team has with not only the cruise lines but with CLIA, with other ports, I think has surfaced a number of priorities that we may not necessarily have been aware of had we just been trying to do this on our own. But because we have that comprehensive corridor where we’re talking to folks in Alaska and here in industry and environmental groups, it’s helping us to understand not only where there is low-hanging fruit to make significant progress quickly, but also how we can set the stage for even bigger goals down the line. And I think this contract—you know, while the partner probably wouldn’t have volunteered to do these things—because they’ve been in communication with us and understand our value set and why it’s so important for us, we’ve been able to negotiate what I think is a win-win for the two sides on this, particularly as it pertains to addressing some of the environmental and economic benefits concerns related to the industry. So, with that in mind and with a lot of gratitude for staff for all the work you’ve done to set this up, I’m definitely going to support it. Oh, and I see that Commissioner Mohammed has another comment question.
Commissioner Mohammed: I just have a quick question. Thank you, Chair. When will the next contract come before us? Or maybe I should say, when will the next cruise contract or agreement come before commission for review?
Linda Springman: We don’t have another one in the works right now, but I am hopeful now that our two new brands have joined the market that they will be interested in something like this long term. So, we’ll start those discussions. And we’ve also presented a proposal to Royal Caribbean Group and we’ll be in conversation with them. So, I don’t have a next one coming.
Commissioner Mohammed: Okay, great. That’s helpful just timeline-wise. And then my other question would be around—are any of the environmental standards or performance measures that are in this lease going to be adopted as a template for future leases?
Linda Springman: Absolutely. Yeah. I think you’ll notice that the elements of this agreement are very similar to what you saw in the Carnival agreement in 2024 and we hope to continue to include those and continue to push the limit a little bit. Continuous improvement.
Commissioner Mohammed: That’s really helpful. Really helpful. Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: All right. Hearing no further questions for this item, is there a motion and a second to approve it?
Commissioner: So moved.
Commissioner: Second.
Commissioner Caukins: The motion was made and seconded. Commissioners, is there any further discussion or debate on this item? All right, Clerk Hart, can you please call the roll for the vote? Commissioners, please say aye or nay when your name is called.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Beginning with Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Mohammed.
Commissioner Mohammed: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. And Commissioner Caukins.
Commissioner Caukins: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Five ayes, zero nays for this item.
Commissioner Caukins: With that, the motion passes. Clerk, please read the next item into the record and Executive Director Metruck will then introduce it.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. This is agenda item 10B, authorization for the executive director to approve 30% design development for the emergency power scope of work of the Main Terminal Improvement Program in the requested amount of $7 million of a total estimated project cost of $350 million.
Executive Director Metruck (1:08:42): Commissioners, this project is a critical infrastructure investment in safety, resiliency, and long-term reliability of SEA’s main terminal and concourses. The program will provide the emergency power infrastructure necessary to support modern smoke control systems and major terminal modernization efforts, including SEA Gateway and the C concourse expansion. This request advances the project through 30% design, allowing the port to refine scope, cost, and delivery strategies before returning for full construction authorization. The work also supports the port’s sustainability and infrastructure renewal goals through significant upgrades to the airport’s electrical backbone and emergency power systems. Chris Castleman, capital program leader, will present.
Chris Castleman (1:09:34): Good afternoon, commissioners. As you heard, my name is Christopher Castleman. I’m the capital program leader for the Main Terminal Improvement Program, emergency power. The Main Terminal Improvement Program, emergency power, will provide emergency power to the main terminal concourses B, C, and D. This is driven by new additions, age of the existing systems and future demand. This ultimately will improve the safety of the airport. The sustainability framework tier-one project is electrical in nature and due to its emergency use condition is driven pretty much exclusively by national electrical code requirements, and we’re here to ask for authorization to go to 30% at a cost of $7 million, and then, as you heard, Director Metruck will be back to ask for the remaining amount.
Project will provide two three-megawatt generators adjacent to the parking in the southeast corner of the garage behind the garage, the southernmost helix. As well as bring in power from the north and south substations just outside the airport. And then once inside the terminal, we’ll remove decommissioned generators and install new distribution centers.
As we mentioned, we’ll be back to see you in the back end of 2027, with design running through the end of 2029. Thank you. And then obviously we’ve got our project running through back end of 2031 to 2032 as of today.
Right now we’re planning and we look forward to moving forward to 30% design. We’ve still got some stuff to work through and move over to the right toward highly certain scope definition and cost and schedule. And again, our ask today is for $7 million to complete the 30% design of this project. Do you have any questions?
Commissioner Caukins: All right. With that, are there any questions for staff from commissioners at this time?
Commissioner Hasegawa: Sure. Can you not hear me? Sorry about that.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Hasegawa—Commissioner Mohammed. Thank you.
Commissioner Mohammed: Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: All right. Well, your brevity is matched by the commissioner’s brevity. I’m curious to know—this is simply, I shouldn’t say simply, this is a project to ensure that our emergency power systems, which only operate when we don’t have power provided, say, from the grid, are up to date and working properly. Is that correct?
Chris Castleman: Yes. We’re also—a big part of it is to ensure that we have enough juice for our smoke control system. The smoke control strategy at the airport is to provide a specific kind of smoke control. The emergency power that we’re bringing here is going to be able to fuel that and make sure that it works and functions properly.
Commissioner Caukins: And it runs primarily on backup diesel generators that operate only in the event of an emergency.
Chris Castleman: Part of this will—the part of it that’s going to drive smoke control we’re bringing in from the north and south substations as you saw.
Commissioner Caukins: Okay. All right. While expensive, this seems like a very important and necessary project and so appreciate you bringing it to us for design costs and we look forward to the full authorization down the road. Executive Director Metruck, any further comments before we make a motion? I see Commissioner Felleman has a hand raised. Commissioner Felleman, go ahead.
Commissioner Felleman (1:13:20): You raised an important question, Commissioner Caukins. If this is a backup system, I’m surprised to hear that we’re then relying on the grid. The current system—I mean, it seems to me having backup generators is more—you have a greater independence of more of a catastrophic failure. So, could you help me understand what’s on the diesel side versus what’s on the grid side?
Chris Castleman: Of course. There are three—for today’s discussion there are three types of emergency power we’re talking about. The first is 700, which is emergency systems, 701 which is legally required standby, and 702 which is optional—so optional standby systems. The 700 and the 702 are going to be off of the diesels. The 701 is going to be from the north and south substations. That’s going to be the one that provides the smoke control, the juice we need for the smoke control. The essential power, the 700—the egress lighting, the elevators, fire pumps, things like that—will come from the generators that we have on the southeast corner of the garage. So, answer your question.
Commissioner Felleman: My question is more like—why? How did you decide one versus the other?
Chris Castleman: Sorry, say again, please. I didn’t understand.
Commissioner Felleman: Why is some generator versus electrical?
Chris Castleman: Well, first of all, the 701 legally required has to be redundant and the draw on it is going to be so big to fuel our smoke control systems that we can’t cover that with just diesel generators. We have to go to—we’re going to the north substation and the south substation and those in fact work as the redundancy. So if one goes down, the other picks it up and covers it.
Commissioner Felleman: So, thank you. Okay.
Commissioner Caukins: Any further questions or comments, commissioners? Okay. At this time, I’ll entertain a motion to approve the item.
Commissioner: So moved.
Commissioner: So moved.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Felleman, you’ll be a second on that one. So, the motion was made and seconded. Commissioners, is there any further discussion or debate on the item? Hearing none, Clerk, please call the roll. Commissioners, please say aye or nay when your name is called.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Beginning with Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Commissioner Mohammed.
Commissioner Mohammed: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. And Commissioner Caukins.
Commissioner Caukins: Aye.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. Five ayes, zero nays for this item.
Commissioner Caukins: And with that, the motion passes. Thank you, Chris, for the presentation.
Chris Castleman: Thank you so much.
Commissioner Caukins: We are now at presentations and staff reports. Clerk Hart, please read the next item into the record, and we’ll have Executive Director Metruck introduce it.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. This is agenda item 11A, the SEA Child Care Center feasibility study initial briefing.
Executive Director Metruck (1:16:39): Commissioners, following your order earlier this year, staff have been advancing both the SEA Child Care Center feasibility study and the development of a childcare navigator program intended to support airport workers and employers. This briefing presents initial findings from the feasibility study, including workforce demand data, operational models, potential partnerships, funding opportunities, and lessons learned from peer airports. The work was developed with EPIC, a national consultancy with direct airport child care experience, including a comparable study at Denver International Airport. The findings reflect extensive engagement with airport workers, employers, childcare experts, and peer airports with a goal of identifying practical, sustainable approaches that strengthen workforce recruitment, retention, and operational resiliency at SEA. Today’s discussion is an opportunity for commissioners to provide feedback on the initial findings as staff continue refining the analysis ahead of study completion later this year. Presenters this afternoon are Eric Schinfeld, senior manager of federal and international government relations, Steph, the chief impact officer at EPIC, and L. Sanderson, engagement director at EPIC as well. So with that, Eric, for you to begin.
Eric Schinfeld (1:17:55): Absolutely. Well, good afternoon, commissioners, Executive Director Metruck. Again, my name is Eric Schinfeld, senior manager of federal government relations, which has nothing to do with today’s topic. But really, really pleased to be here today. Like Executive Director Metruck said, a year and a half ago now, actually February 2025, you passed an order directing staff to do a feasibility study on the potential for a child care center near the airport to serve the needs of airport workers and their children. And so, as Executive Director Metruck said, we are just absolutely thrilled to have EPIC with us. Their expertise in child care for employers generally, but specifically their work with Denver International Airport and their understanding of the airport environment made them an obvious choice to do this work for us. We’ve been working together for almost a year now. And I really have to tell you, they’ve done such an amazing job at really data-driven, research-oriented, both qualitative and quantitative analysis of what it would look like and how to best do a child care center near the airport for airport workers.
Now, I want to be really clear that today’s report is an interim update on our findings. We are not coming with any recommendations. We still have significant work to do and so we will be back to you this fall with actual recommendations, actual findings. Today is really an opportunity for you as commissioners to of course hear an update on where we are, but more importantly to shape where we finish this process. What are the unanswered questions that you hear today that you have that you want to make sure that we do before we finish this work? Questions you want us to make sure we answer. And so we’ll really look forward to your feedback on not only what we present, but what we don’t present. And that’s the opportunity you have here today.
I do want to say really quickly that we are of course always standing on the shoulders of giants here. I want to give full credit to Julie Collins and the Imagine Institute who did the initial work that really set up our ability to look into this specific issue. They did the work generally analyzing the need for child care at the airport and for the workers who work here at the airport. And then specifically all of the many many many people who have been working with us. We have an internal steering committee team. We’ve reached out to a number of external partners at the state and at the local level. I want to call out in particular Rick Duncan, Darlisa Calhoun, Kira Lee, Danielle Hataf, and Brad Erger who have just been really fantastic partners in us getting to this point. So again, I will turn things over to EPIC to go through what we have found so far. And again, really looking forward to your feedback and your questions.
Steph (EPIC): I’ll just introduce myself really briefly. Steph from EPIC, the chief impact officer. It’s been such a delight to work with you all at the Port of Seattle and so wonderful that you all are really looking into this critical infrastructure for supporting the airport. And with that, I will turn it over to L to take us through the presentation.
L. Sanderson (EPIC) (1:20:44): Awesome. Thanks, Steph. Thanks, Eric. Really excited to be here with you all today. And also thanks in advance. We have a lot of slides that I’m going to go through pretty quickly. So whoever’s turning the slides, thank you for doing so. And with that, we’ll get started.
Here’s our plan to talk through today, starting with an overview of what the project has been, what we’ve learned, and then what models we have explored. And then finally end with some next steps.
As Eric mentioned, this project started when you all realized that childcare challenges were in fact not only impacting the families at the airport, but also the business and the operations of the airport itself. And so through this project and work so far, we’ve identified that there is an opportunity to address those gaps and those challenges with a child care center. A huge piece of that is coming to understand what different peer airports are doing and how they’ve been successful in implementing childcare centers themselves. What we found is that a childcare center is feasible at the airport. It does require significant investment. This can be from the airport. It can also be through a variety of different funding sources and partnerships that we’ll talk through as we go.
Here’s an overview of the main topics we’ve worked on in the past several months. And as you can see, the biggest piece was gaining a better understanding of what do employees need and what have other airports taught us and then diving into what does the potential model look like.
I want to talk through first what have we learned from other airports. So the next slide will show four different airports that have or are about to have a child care center. And there are a couple things I want to point out that’s consistent across all of them. As you can see in those first two columns, the capacity is much smaller than the number of badged employees. So using LA as that example, 90 capacity, 50,000 badged employees, and that’s consistent across all of the different examples. And not only is that capacity small, but what they find is the population they’re serving, 30% of that capacity is filled with airport employees while the rest of it is being served by the community or is serving the community. And then finally, all of the airports are supporting the childcare center through funding—capital funding and operational funding, whether that’s through in-kind rent or direct investment. And then when they think through tuition, they’re really optimizing for affordability for their employees.
We were fortunate enough to go actually visit and learn more about SFO and Pittsburgh childcare centers. A couple different differences and similarities stood out to us. The differences was mostly in structure in the way that they have set up their relationship with the operator, the way that they’re approaching investing, and the way they approach tuition for their employees. The similarities are key and consistent across all airports, but using airport revenue, enrolling community families, and emphasizing affordability as a necessity for the airport workforce.
Moving forward, our goal here is to share with you what we’ve learned from employees and employers at the airport. The next slide will share insights from a recent survey we did in March along with the SEA employee survey, which despite a smaller sample size still outlined a meaningful interest and demand in a child care center. It also showed that when people think about the key drivers of enrollment—affordability, hours, and commute or proximity—come to mind. Affordability, perhaps unsurprisingly, being top of that list.
It shows why this is important. Three years ago in an employee survey specific for child care, employees noted that these child care challenges are impacting their ability to show up to work. They’re changing or reducing their work hours or they’re quitting their jobs because of these childcare challenges. No matter how much they love their job and working at the port, they have to say goodbye due to their childcare responsibilities.
Not only is this impacting employees and airport families, but businesses also say that having child care would have a positive impact on their business. So you see from the graph, retention and the ability to hire kind of come up top when you think about when employees mention having a positive impact. But really across the board, across all of those different metrics, over half of employees are saying it will have at least some type of positive impact on their business.
If we move to the next section, now after learning a lot more about what employees are interested in and what peer airports are doing, we’ve isolated three different models and focused on one to begin with and are really excited to explore the other ones as well. So I’ll let Eric talk through those first.
Eric Schinfeld: Absolutely. Well, thanks again, L, and thanks Commissioner. So when we think about the quote-unquote feasibility of a child care center, there’s really three definitions of feasibility that we’re looking at. One is the feasibility to us, the Port of Seattle. Is this something that we can legally and financially and organizationally make happen? Second, of course, is the feasibility for a childcare operator. Is this a business model that would actually work for a childcare operator to come in and make happen? And then third is the feasibility for the actual employees. Could we do this in such a way that actually is affordable and accessible for people who work at this airport? So all of these different models are trying to figure out which of these different models meet all of those different feasibilities in different ways.
And of course each of these models has its own pros and cons, right? A model for example in column one where we are the owner of a space or the leaser of a space and then we have a tenant come in and operate a childcare center on our behalf—that has a lot of benefits. It means that we can have much more control about the location, about how that works, about what the relationship with the operator is. And of course, it has some costs as well. That means that we’re much more on the hook for some of those costs. The second column sort of divides the baby there, no pun intended, which is a terrible analogy to use for a childcare presentation. And what I will say is that it is a perfect balance of what we’re trying to meet here, by looking at a little bit less control but also sharing that responsibility and potentially sharing some of those costs with another partner. And for example in San Francisco at SFO, they actually have a direct partnership with San Mateo County, the county there near SFO, and using that partnership where the county actually is the one with the concession relationship with the operator and the airport pays the county to help subsidize the cost of their employees using that childcare center. And then third, of course, is a just a straight-up center-based partnership. You go to an existing child care space. You say, hey, what if we give you a certain amount of money to ensure access and affordable access to people who work at the airport? And that of course is sort of the lightest lift in terms of the airport’s work but comes with the least amount of control and potentially also does not add to the overall capacity of childcare supply in the region.
So these are the three models we’re looking at. And I want to be really clear what we will show you over the next couple of slides. We have done the analysis on what the first column looks like. We have not yet done the analysis of what the second two columns look like in terms of actual costs. We are going to do that. And so please when you see the next few slides, please don’t see it as a recommendation from us. It is not our recommendation. It is our analysis of the first column. And you will see a very similar analysis by the time we’re done of the second two columns. So I’ll turn things back over to L.
L. Sanderson: Exactly. Thanks, Eric. So, keeping in mind that the next couple slides I’m going to walk through are that first section and definitely the start of this conversation. And we’ve taken that port-led childcare center model and leveraged all of that insight we’ve been able to gather from airports and the employees and built an operating model and a governance structure that provides accessible care specific to the needs of airport employees in addition to affordable care that works for the employee so that they will actually use the center. And so all of this is not cheap. And so as you can see on the next slide—actually, before you go to the next slide, sorry, if you can go back one slide. So a couple of these things, again, this is a working model. We developed this working model to really be able to then do the financial analysis. So this is, again, this is not our recommendation that it has to be this size, that it has to be for these kinds of kids and for these hours, but we had to make some decisions in order to have something tangible to analyze. So this is what we’re working off of. Certainly as we continue the analysis, we will continue to hone this model.
Eric Schinfeld: I will say really briefly here since we’re on this slide, the importance of location cannot be understated. And I’ll give you two really quick examples of that. We went to Pittsburgh and initially their offices for the airport authority—so the port staff at Pittsburgh were in the airport and about half of the people using the childcare center at Pittsburgh were the airport authority staff. They moved the airport authority office building 10 minutes away and half of those people stopped using the childcare center. We know it’s a really big deal when people think about their commute, when they think about how far outside of their commute they’re willing to go to bring their children towards their workplace. This is a really, really important criteria. So I just wanted to emphasize that as well.
L. Sanderson: Yeah, no, thanks, Eric. That’s really great context.
Commissioner Caukins: And I see Commissioner Mohammed’s hand there. Commissioner, do you have a question now or do you want us to wait till the end?
Commissioner Mohammed (1:31:48): Yeah, and maybe you guys can speak to it as you’re wrapping up or going through the slides. You spoke a lot about the employees’ reaction to this. Can you maybe speak to the employers at the airport that you have talked to at SeaTac airport? I’m thinking Delta, Alaska, and what do the companies think about this in general? And what sort of role have they played in other airports that you guys have analyzed?
Eric Schinfeld: Absolutely. So, if you can go back three slides, please. Four slides. So, you’ll see that we actually—you’ll see here that we do have data about generally what employers are interested in. This is from survey data here at SEA. We also did a focus group with several SEA tenants just a few months ago. It was incredibly, incredibly valuable to hear directly from them and we’ve talked to some of the airlines as well. I will tell you, Commissioner, that at other airports, none of the tenants or the vendors are paying into the child care center in terms of being organizationally a sponsor. And yet a huge percentage of the people using the child care center are those tenants and other business partners. We went down to SFO, we had a chance to talk to a United Airlines employee. United Airlines employee had all of his kids in the child care center and he said to us, “You know, I was actually going to switch jobs away from the airport, but I couldn’t afford to because I’m getting such a good deal on the childcare center.” And we paid him to say that. No, we didn’t pay him to say that. That was his honest feedback. It was amazing to hear that. So, we know that this is a benefit to the employers. But we have not seen it as something where the employers at other airports pay into. This is much more a thing where the airport sets it up and then the people who work at the airport benefit from it. So we have not asked here at SEA for anyone to specifically pay into this. That’s not been part of our analysis. We’ve said, if we did this, would it be of interest to you? And we’ve heard from businesses large and small that this is absolutely something that would make a huge difference in terms of recruitment and retention as you can see here on this slide.
Commissioner Mohammed: Thank you. That answered my question.
L. Sanderson: Great. Awesome. Great. Thanks, Eric. And so this slide illustrates the core child care financial challenge that is across the board, which is it costs more to provide care to children than families are able to afford. And so when you take that the next step and you focus on making a center that’s affordable to airport employees, that gap between the cost to provide care and the tuition only increases. So that means that there is a significant investment required to make sure that the care you’re giving is accessible and affordable to airport employees so that they’re actually using the child care center. I think we’ve seen at other airports similarly that when it’s affordable to people they’ll use it.
We’ve outlined a couple different ways you can approach closing that gap. There’s the operating aspect and the capital aspect. And for both sides, you can have obviously the airport investing. There’s also a multitude of other different sources you can leverage whether it’s a government resource, a philanthropic resource, or working with a potential partner. And so all of these sources can contribute to helping maintain an accessible and affordable childcare center and bridging that gap between the tuition and the cost of care.
You’ll see just how meaningful that investment will be. That’s that $822,000 number. And so that’s the amount required to make sure you’re prioritizing airport families when you’re building this center. That investment can come through layered funding as we talked about on the last slide or in-kind rent.
Eric Schinfeld: So, just to reemphasize what L just said. So that $822,000 is the gap for the child care operator, right? So an operator comes in, they try and operate a child care center. There would be that $822,000 difference from what they could earn from tuition and public subsidies versus what it would cost to operate the childcare center. So this is very different than saying, well, if the airport wants this, they would have to write a check for $822,000. That’s not what this slide says. This slide says that the operator would have to come to the airport, to philanthropy, to individual donors, to others who could help support this. And one of the things we’re going to be doing tomorrow is touring a nonprofit childcare center to understand how nonprofit childcare centers do bridge that gap from multiple sources. Like L said, obviously the rent is a huge portion of that. We do know that for example in Pittsburgh, they do provide the rent free to their child care center. So, that is a huge subsidy that the Pittsburgh airport offers. And I will also say that while $822,000 is a lot of money, it does, if you compare it to what SFO pays, which is $1.4 million a year, it actually is sort of around what you would expect in this type of analysis.
L. Sanderson: Great. Thanks for adding that context, Eric. We’ll start to outline—to Eric’s point, location is so important when we’re thinking about this childcare center. Again, we want employees to use it. And so, how do we find a site that’s most impactful? You’ll see that we started with STOCK. It’s a close option that makes the center as accessible as possible.
Eric Schinfeld: And I’ll just say really briefly for those of you listening at home, STOCK is the name that we colloquially call the office building across the street that the port purchased a few years ago. So that is a multi-tower office building that we own. It is right across the street from the airport, right across International Boulevard.
L. Sanderson: Yeah, thank you for that. I could not explain that better myself. So that comes at a large build-out cost as you see. And so we’re spending a little bit of time the next two days and we’ll continue to look at what other site options might be less expensive while keeping in mind how important location is to airport employees.
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah, you may or may not be surprised by $15 million. $15 million is in my mind quite a bit of money. The reason that it is that much money is that any regular office space like the STOCK building across the street, you essentially have to fully retrofit it to be suitable for children. The plumbing alone to be able to have toddler-size sinks and toddler-size toilets, you really do essentially have to rebuild a significant amount of the infrastructure, which is why that cost goes up there. This is, as I said earlier, this is all in column one of the model—the port owns or leases a space and then has a vendor concession tenant operating that space. And like L just said, this is a building that we own. So we obviously wanted to analyze that. Tomorrow we are going to see an existing school space that we’re really interested in that potentially could be a lease option for the port in the future, and understanding how much cheaper it would be to lease a space and then to retrofit a space that’s already been designed for children. So this $15 million is the high end of what this first column of a port-owned or leased tenant-operated model looks like.
L. Sanderson: Yes, it’s really important to keep in mind this is for that one specific model. And so as we talk through next steps, you’ll see that when we think about immediate path forward over the next two days, we’re really excited to be here with you today and to be sharing all the work that we’ve done. Over these two days we’ve also been facilitating focus groups with employees to continue testing that model we showed you earlier and making sure that the model that we’re working from is really the one that works for employees. And then finally, to what Eric just said, we’re going to visit a site that will help us learn more about what other sites are out there and could be good options for this one specific model. And so these are very much the immediate next steps and as we look forward, the larger path forward is looking into those other two models that Eric mentioned. So we’re really excited to be able to share what we have with you today and to continue working and building out those two models to share with you later on. And with that I’ll ask if you have any questions.
Commissioner Caukins: Wants to jump in first. Commissioner Hasegawa.
Commissioner Hasegawa (1:40:52): Thank you. Well, this makes me very, very happy. We’ve waited a really long time to get the results of this feasibility study, and I’m so excited to see the options and the potential path forward. And so I just also want to take a moment to acknowledge the work that’s led up to this point through Julie Collins’ leadership and the entire team at the Imagine Institute. And thank you to the fabulous folks of EPIC for building upon that and the presentation today.
This has always been a really personal topic because I ran for the port with a four-month-old. I took the oath of office with a one-year-old, and now I’ve got two childcare-age children. And I’m paid $54,000 a year for both of them to attend my friendly neighborhood child care center. And it is out of reach for so many people, that we’ve studied this at the Port of Seattle. It is the result of seeing the trend that our friends over at Port Jobs alerted to us, which was that people, and in particular women and women of color, are exiting the workforce not out of a sense of empowerment but out of economic dilemma. And that it’s beyond this being the right thing to do for our workforce, for our community members—we have the data here in front of us that says that there is an operational need for that. And so thank you for helping us articulate that and for engaging the stakeholders that they too can see the opportunity in this.
I wanted to start—can you go to slide six for me please? Thank you very much, Aubrey. So for some of the options that you took a look at for like the STOCK building in particular, there are other potential properties that could be a good use. And I’m wondering, we talked a little bit in committee about the potential for using some of the vacant space around a light rail station, given the data that says that folks will use child care not just close to where they live or work, but along where they commute. Is that something we’ve been able to look on for the suggestion of my colleague, Commissioner Mohammed?
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah, I’ll take the first go at that and yes, absolutely. So, one of the things that we’re really focusing on in this next tranche of work, like you’ve heard, we’ve looked at about four or five different spaces so far. We’re going to continue to look at spaces to really understand the different options, what are the pros and cons. And so, we are looking at spaces that meet one of two criteria or ideally both. One is a 5- to 10-minute drive from the north employee parking lot, which is where most of the employees end their commute, and/or close to a light rail station. STOCK, the building we looked at, luckily is both, which is really nice, but there are plenty of other options that meet one or both of those criteria. So, we’ll continue as we finish this work to look at other spaces that are along a light rail path. And of course, one of the benefits of being along a light rail path is you can be a little bit further from the airport but still be able to have people get off, drop off their kid, and get back on. So, we really are trying to understand what the pros and cons of that are and make sure that whatever it is works for people because that’s going to be the most important thing. Will people actually use it if it’s in that location?
Commissioner Hasegawa: Yeah. And then the capital and operational costs, or the funding for that—both are appropriate uses of airport funds?
Eric Schinfeld: Correct. I will say that we have seen, as we said earlier, other airports are absolutely using airport revenues, both aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenue depending on which airport they are.
Commissioner Hasegawa: When we studied this earlier, part of the reason why we need to go to the other airports and figure out how they did this was because of potential legal hurdles and authorization from the FAA to be able to use funds for this. So how did we clear those hurdles and what did we find?
Eric Schinfeld: So again, I think everything comes with risk as the lawyers tell me every night before bed. But not in that way. So, the—sorry, I don’t know where that came from. So, everything comes with risk when you’re making legal decisions with FAA-controlled dollars. And what I think is really important is these airports—we looked at these airports not only to learn what they do, but also because they’re setting precedent, right? They’re really showing us that they’ve done this. SFO’s done this for 20 years. And they’ve been able to work successfully at doing that using airport revenue. So, we really appreciate that. Obviously, we have very specific situation here at SEA with both federal law, but also state law. We would have to really figure out exactly what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. But there is precedent that we can look at that other airports have used.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Speaking of risk, if you go to slide 19 talking about STOCK, and obviously it’s something that we have to examine because it’s within our portfolio and it makes sense for the geographic reasons that you laid out. But, you know, I as a mom don’t necessarily want my kids playing around on a playground that used to be a parking lot. So can you tell me about the NEPA, SEPA analyses that would have to go hand in hand with that and other potential challenges?
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah, absolutely. So, one of our first stops in this entire process was go to the state agency, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. They are the regulatory and licensing agency for childcare centers in Washington state. And we wanted to engage them early because it was really important for us not to go down a path where all of a sudden we were like, here’s our great recommendation. The state says that’s totally illegal. You can’t do that. So they actually came with us to our first set of site visits, gave us advice and counsel on which sites could or could not work. I will tell you that from a regulatory licensing perspective, they have no concerns about having an airport child care center near the airport. There’s no state law or state issues in terms of the licensing to have a childcare center there. Obviously we do the analysis in all the different ways as we’re looking at spaces to make sure that it’s safe and healthy and all the other things. And it’s wonderful to have playgrounds.
Commissioner Hasegawa: I think there’s also a tremendous benefit to having access to green space and one of my favorite green jobs projects that we gave you a grant to was actually converting a former parking lot into a green space. So, I wonder if there’s a green development opportunity there.
Eric Schinfeld: Absolutely.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Can we please go to slide 16, talking about contributions from partners. Would that mean, like, if we were to have contributions from airlines for example, would that go toward—in the context of that conversation, there’s what it costs and then what people can afford, and how are we going to be able to close that gap? And if we were to have contributions from partners, would that go towards some sort of subsidy fund that we would manage or would that be something that they manage directly with their employees and say, “Well, we’ll pay part of your child care.” Is that something that’s bargained? How does this work in other places?
Eric Schinfeld: Sure. So, that’s not something we’ve analyzed in terms of how we would do it if we did that here. What I will say is that all of the current airport child care centers, it is just the airport writing a check or providing the rent-free subsidy or whatever that is. There are some of those childcare centers have additional relationships with other employers. And that’s something that where that employer has a direct relationship with the child care center. What all of these major employers are doing whether it’s the airport or whether it’s Dick’s Sporting Goods in Pittsburgh or whoever else is, they are ensuring two things. One, they’re ensuring that the cost of child care for their employees is lower than the market rate would be. And second, they’re ensuring priority access. And so those dollars go to in some of those other airports. I think again when we talked about that $822,000, that’s the gap for the operator. And so ultimately however you get that money to the operator is something that we would continue to analyze.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Okay. And then if there’s nothing saying that we over the course of time should only ever have one childcare center. In fact, we’re already thinking this way in terms of some of our potential properties for serving the maritime workforce as well. Do you see there being a potential outcome or space for us to try different models concurrently?
Eric Schinfeld: One of the things we’ve really learned from these airport childcare centers is it’s really a five-year buildup because people who have child care for the most part just keep their own child care. It’s the people who have new child care needs, maybe an adopted baby, a newborn baby, that they are looking for a childcare space that would take advantage of an airport childcare center. So you start with those babies. Those babies grow up into toddlers and preschoolers and then you backfill. And so within that five-year period, then you have your full child care center. And I think we’ve learned a lot of not only what works at other airports, but also what has not worked at other airports. Other airports have not done a very good job marketing this opportunity. And so they’re under-enrolled for actual airport workers and backfill with a lot of community. What they’re all realizing now is it’s time to change that. You know, we went to some of these—we went to SFO, they’ve been around for 20 years and they said we finally got into a direct conversation with some of these big employers. It took them 20 years. We obviously would not start in that same way as them. We would start directly with those employer conversations whether it be private sector or federal government employers, whoever, and make sure that we’re really marketing this. Our goal is to fill as many of these slots as possible if we had a childcare center with the people who work here at this airport. That’s the problem we’re trying to solve, is that employee retention and recruitment issue here at the airport.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Can you go to the slide—I’m going to wrap it up here—that demonstrates our three different options that you’re going to dig into.
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah. Next slide, please. Oh, sorry, two slides. There. Yep.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Okay. So it’s my understanding that this third option, center-based partnership, would not actually have any net positive options for child care for the community. Correct?
L. Sanderson: So we’ve seen examples—not airport-based specifically but examples—where employers will work with an existing childcare center and they can provide a capital investment that will allow them to increase the capacity of their center. And so really increasing the capacity so that for example you increase that capacity enough for the airport slots while maintaining that continued capacity for community. But that’s not the same as starting up a new center with a 100-plus new slots.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And so I just want to lift that out for my colleagues that this third option being one that they’re going to dig into for me—what we are looking to be able to address is three things: affordability via the availability and the accessibility. And so adding to the net positive in an expedient way in a way that gives us more quality control over that structure and those outcomes—for me, in the hierarchy of needs, that would be the most important.
And finally, I just want to talk about this co-investment versus port-led, these two options. And I just wonder, is it appropriate to be thinking about these in the context of something that is for-profit versus something that is a public good? Something that is available to workers as a special purpose government trying to operate multiple lines of business and maintain the operations of an airport. And, you know, like, we are not doing this to get rich. That’s not what it’s about. It is for our airport operation and our need, and that’s the return: keeping people employed, keeping them to work on time every single day for the long term. And so the co-investment model, I think, there’s pros and cons, and I look forward to digging a little deeper into that, but I am really excited about all the amazing progress towards being able to stand up a brick-and-mortar operation. Can you just close it out by telling us a little bit about timeline and we can when we can expect something a little more refined?
Eric Schinfeld: Absolutely. So, our goal is to finish the rest of this analysis by September. And then we’re happy to work with the commission and the executive director to figure out when the appropriate time is to come back both to committee and to commission and give our final report on potential recommendations. Our goal with the final report is not only to say we think this is the best path, but also really provide a very specific set of proposed next steps. If this is the right recommendation that the organization wants to take forward, here’s how we get there from here—one, two, three, four, five.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And I look forward to this continuing to come up in our Workforce Conditions Committee to continue guiding the direction of that work. Thank you very much.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho (1:54:20): Yeah, first and foremost, thank you for putting this into a nice, neat, succinct framework for us to think about. I especially appreciated the different business models that we could potentially pursue. I’m curious—I think it was SFO that had a 30% registration rate from port employees. Are those employees of SFO or are those workers at the airport?
Eric Schinfeld: That’s total workers at the airport. So they’re not airport employees.
Commissioner Cho: Okay, great. So they could be airline workers, they could be baggage handlers.
Eric Schinfeld: Exactly. Flight attendants, etc.
Commissioner Cho: Okay, that’s good to know. And then the other 70% are just public. They’re community members.
L. Sanderson: Community members. Yeah. So they could be people that used to work at the airport or just people that live nearby in the community. And so they’re really working, as Eric mentioned, really working on increasing the percentage of airport employees that are working there. And one of the things that we saw at SFO is that location really matters there as well. So that facility is about a 10-minute drive south of the airport. Which is, you know, if anybody knows Bay Area traffic, not ideal in terms of the commute patterns for their employees. So that’s one of the hurdles that they’re working through.
Commissioner Cho: Got it. So there’s potential for there to be more. It’s just a little logistically inconvenient for them. And so I’m curious, you know, if this were a facility offered to just port employees, or let me ask you it this way: Are there airports out there based on your research that have—that are full with just airport employees, or has it always been this hybrid of employee children and public?
Eric Schinfeld: So the Pittsburgh airport has started with just an airport employee model. And they are not full and so now that they’ve made this sort of initial push to say how many airport workers, they are now going to look at expanding to community to fill the rest of those slots. So they started just airport. And again their goal is to fill it all with airport. But so far they haven’t been able to do that. Again that takes multiple years and so they’re in the meantime. In Pittsburgh, I just want to be clear, airline employees, baggage handlers—yes, TSA employees as well—are using that Pittsburgh facility.
Commissioner Cho: And then just so that I understand the third model, which is partnering with an existing childcare provider—that is not additive in terms of childcare, right? So it’s a zero-sum situation where if the port were to partner with an existing childcare center, provide them a payment to guarantee X number of slots, those would essentially be slots we’re taking away from other families that could potentially need them. Is that right?
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah, like L said earlier. It is possible to structure something where the child care center would expand itself if it had that guaranteed investment from the port, but that’s a TBD. So, it could be that, but it could just be taking slots that are otherwise available to others.
Commissioner Cho: Great. I think one thing that we might consider here is, you know, obviously, given that this childcare center might not just be servicing workers at the airport, you know, we have a lot of near-airport community, you know, and cities that might benefit from this as well, right? So like STOCK is very near, you know, city hall, [if SeaTac is] willing to work with us on a co-investment model that allows City of SeaTac employees to utilize this, right? And so what I’m getting at here is, is there a flywheel effect here that we can create that allows us to leverage some other regional governments and their childcare needs so that we can all work together on this. I’m not against having a certain percentage for airport employees and having everyone else be the general public. I think that’s additive and productive as well. But to the extent that we can provide this service to public service employees who need it beyond just port employees, I think that would be great.
Eric Schinfeld: Yeah, that will definitely be part of our analysis for the second model.
Commissioner Cho: Great. Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Mohammed or Commissioner Felleman. Any questions or comments?
Commissioner Mohammed (1:58:40): No additional questions or comments for me. I did receive this briefing in the Workers Conditions Committee and just want to thank Eric and EPIC for the work that’s gone into this and all staff who has pushed this forward. And Commissioner Hasegawa, especially, thank you for your leadership in moving this forward.
Commissioner Caukins: Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman (1:59:09): Yeah, I appreciate all that information. Very interesting. I was just a little surprised at the lack of the tenant contribution through the other models. And do you have any explanation for that?
Eric Schinfeld: It’s not something that we’ve heard a lot from other airports pursuing as an option. So it’s certainly something where if we were interested in going out and passing the hat, certainly could be a model. But I think from what we heard, and L and staff can correct me if I’m wrong, it just has—it’s just something they have not done. I guess I would say if you’re using airport revenue, some of that revenue is of course coming from the tenants and the airlines through earned revenue. But certainly nothing additive that we’ve seen at the other childcare centers.
Steph (EPIC): I’ll also just add I think one of the things that we’ve learned is many of the airlines and other larger organizations are really thinking about equity across the different airports in which they operate, the different locations in which they operate. And so things like this bring up sort of a sensitivity around that. So I think it’s not to say that there’s not possibility there. But it may not be the easiest path forward for some organizations like the airlines and those that have multiple operating locations around the country.
Commissioner Felleman: Setting a precedent is what they don’t want to do is what you’re suggesting.
Steph (EPIC): I don’t know if it’s as much about a precedent as it is about equity. But I guess my thought has been more about thinking about equity across the country, less so than a specific precedent. So just thinking about one location having a set of opportunities that is not the same that is being funded by that specific employer versus a condition that is different in Seattle, for example, because of something that the port is doing, rather than an investment that the employer is making. And of course, you know, it doesn’t take a direct investment from that employer to the port or even to the childcare operator. If an employer had or created a child care benefit to their employees, the employee could use that additional funding to buy a slot in the child care center. So, there’s different ways that employers can support their employees if there was a childcare center.
Commissioner Felleman: And to your point, if it’s part of airport revenues, they’re contributing anyway. All right. Thanks so much.
Commissioner Caukins (2:01:44): So my thoughts on this. I really echo Commissioner Hasegawa’s perspective. From somebody who—I feel like I should have a wing named after me at the Bright Horizons where my kids went through because of the money I spent. Should be a Caukins wing at the Spring Street in Bright Horizons. But we benefited from the third model, which was Virginia Mason Medical Center had contributed some amount to ensuring that Bright Horizons would be located there and then that their employees would have access to it first, and luckily there were sufficient spots that my family that lived a couple of blocks away had access to it through wait list. And then I was able to drag my second two kids through with a legacy sibling basically. But, you know, we would have made the same decision if for some reason I would lose that child care by switching jobs. I likely wouldn’t have at the time because it was so difficult to get in and the service they provided was so necessary.
So I think when we’re looking at these options, I’m not quite as averse to the third as I think some of my colleagues are because I do think there is a market dynamic here that it would benefit. That they exist now for some reason. There’s a capacity that they’re meeting. If you then added 100 additional or 120 additional pupils to that mix, it might not happen immediately but I think the market would respond to that. But we’re talking about operating a childcare center in a system that is chronically under-meeting demand. And I’m not talking about SeaTac, I’m talking about the United States. And that striking number for me is that we are $8,200 per pupil per year under the market’s ability to meet demand. You have to subsidize 100 students with $820,000 a year to make it work. That is crazy. And yet we also know that the long-term return on investment in early childhood education is just about the best intervention in public policy that you can find. And so it’s crazy that systemically we are not investing in our ones and twos and three-year-olds to ensure that when they turn 18, 19, 20 they are productive, literate, happy, well-adjusted citizens. There’s so much that happens during those years, but when they have good accessible child care—I always thought of it as, you know, we’re turning our kids over to aunts and uncles who are going to take care of them for the day because we don’t live next to our aunts and uncles like we might have a hundred years ago.
Okay, rant aside, I think there is an element for the port of, you know, what are we contributing as a public agency to the general benefit of the communities in which we operate, and we can account for a certain part of that. I don’t think it’s $8,200 per pupil per year. So, I’m curious about that cobbling together of other sources of funding to support a center like this. And also, what I want to kind of think about internally is, how do we price in the near-term proprietary interests of the airport? How much would we be willing to subsidize child care so that we can attract the best and the brightest, so that the attrition rate of our employees is significantly lower, so that absenteeism is lower? You know, that’s a huge part of it. When you don’t have access to child care and you’re relying on a nanny or a loved one and that person gets sick, then you’re out of work too. And so we could at least estimate the quantitative costs that our employees are incurring and therefore our employers and us as an institution, and begin to knock down at least some of that $8,200 and be able to justify for operational reasons: how much are we in fact losing each year and would that roughly million-dollar contribution reduce those losses that are somewhat hidden?
And so as we continue this, I think that’s going to be an important part of it. And I do think—so, you know, if that is our goal, is to reduce that 820,000 to as close to zero as possible by proprietary interests, outside grants, and other sources of funds. And I really like Sam’s idea of seeking other major employers in the area to say, is this something you would be interested in contributing to in some meaningful way, whether it’s a municipality or other significant employers. I’m really impressed with the work we’ve done to get this far and just would say continue this work so that we have a concrete proposal in the future for us to vote on that we can with a straight face say this is worth the money and resources we’re going to put into it, and that our key partners, airlines, tenants, and others would say absolutely, that’s a great use of port resources. Thanks so much.
No vote on this one. Just a good one. And we’re going to move on to our next item. Clerk Hart, please read the next item into the record. And then I think Executive Director Metruck, you’re going to introduce this one too.
Clerk Hart: Thank you. This is agenda item 11B, sustainable airport master plan near-term projects environmental review, SEPA draft environmental impact statement, and public comment period briefing.
Executive Director Metruck (2:07:57): Commissioners, our region continues to grow and SEA’s continuing demand shows how important the airport is to support travel, economic growth, and job opportunities. Today, we’re here to update you on an important milestone in the Sustainable Airport Master Plan process. The draft environmental impact statement for the near-term projects under the State Environmental Policy Act is now open for public comment, which marks the beginning of a more visible and community-focused phase of the work. This is separate from the federal NEPA process which was completed last year. As a reminder, the information presented today looks at the near-term projects in the required analysis of their impact against applicable standards compared to not building the projects.
The master plan identifies near-term investments needed to improve capacity, efficiency, and operational resiliency, including terminal, airfield, and roadway improvements. Over the next two months, our primary focus will be public engagement. We expect significant interest and feedback, and we’re committed to a broad and accessible outreach process. The public comment period will remain open for 60 days, which is double the state requirements for environmental review, and will include in-person community meetings, virtual meetings, multilingual materials, and outreach designed to ensure broad participation across the region.
As we review this work, I want to underscore the value of SEA airport to the entire region. Just last week, the Washington Aviation System Plan produced by Washington’s Department of Transportation was updated to reflect that Washington state’s unconstrained demand forecast reaches 107 million annual passengers by 2050, even with the planned improvements at SEA and Paine Field in Everett, including those you were being briefed on today. And those airports only serve approximately 67 million annual passengers. The objective of our master planning process is to do what we can to prepare for the future. And I want to commend the team for everything they’ve done to advance this work and bring it before you today. So with that, I’m going to turn it over to Wendy Reiter, managing director of aviation at SEA, Environmental Programs Group. Claire, I see, is Claire there too? You’re listed on here, Claire. And now Sarah Potter, executive vice president, Landrum and Brown, and Steve Rybolt—which you’re not. Oh, there you are, Steve—the environmental program manager, to provide the briefing. So, with that, I’m going to turn over to Wendy to do that.
Wendy Reiter (2:10:41): Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, Executive Director Metruck. Again, Wendy Reiter, aviation managing director. Just a few things that I wanted to point out. First of all, I want to echo Executive Director Metruck’s comments about the importance of SEA’s role in the region. The state demand forecast updated just last week continues to project significant regional growth in air travel. The report identifies a gap of 40 million passengers annually that cannot be accommodated even with SEA and Paine Field completing the proposed master plan projects. This clearly underscores the need for the master plan projects. These projects are essential for positioning SEA to meet the demand we know is coming while making the most effective use of our constrained footprint. Without these investments, we risk limiting the region’s economic competitiveness and further eroding the level of service travelers experience. I want to recognize again the work of the entire SAMP team and the draft EIS being presented to you today. We encourage community members across the region to review this document, ask the necessary questions to understand the analysis and the applicable standards and to submit comments before the end of the 60-day comment period. But most importantly, I’d like the team to go ahead and go through the process. Thank you very much.
Steve Rybolt (2:12:14): Thank you, Wendy. Good afternoon, commissioners and Executive Director Metruck. My name is Steve Rybolt, senior environmental program manager with the port and the project manager for the Sustainable Airport Master Plan near-term projects environmental reviews. Today I’m here to brief you on the results of the State Environmental Policy Act, or SEPA, draft environmental impact statement, or draft EIS. I’ll start with a brief overview of the near-term projects, or NTPs. Review what was done under the National Environmental Policy Act environmental assessment, or NEPA EA. With me today is Sarah Potter, executive vice president of Landrum and Brown. Sarah is the project manager of our consultant team. She and I will discuss the results of the SEPA draft EIS and next steps. I’ll then turn it over to Claire Gallagher who will brief you on the current and upcoming outreach and engagement.
This slide visually shows the 31 proposed near-term projects. The purpose of the near-term projects is to address future passenger and cargo growth, ensure airfield infrastructure meets FAA airport design standards, enhances the efficiency of the overall taxiway layout on the airfield, and meets projected fuel storage demand, including sustainable aviation fuels initiative at the port. One of the primary projects is a new 19-gate terminal. This is located in the center of the screen in blue. This project will require reconfiguration of the airport expressway to serve both terminals, build a new aircraft rescue and firefighting station and a new maintenance facility which will be displaced, construct additional parking facilities for staff, ground transportation, and a receiving distribution facility for tenant goods. Other key projects include development of off-airport cargo facilities seen on the right of the screen, extension of taxiway alpha and bravo and other airfield improvements, and expansion of the fuel farm both seen on the left side of your screen.
The purpose of an environmental review is to identify potential impacts of the proposed projects that were developed in the planning work. The evaluation begins by validating the future passenger and operational volumes. Then we identify existing conditions. Once these baseline conditions are identified, we then conduct our impact evaluation, identifying potential impacts with and without the project. For this environmental review, we assessed the potential for impacts with the near-term projects and without projects in 2032 and 2037. Meaning we assessed the potential impacts if the projects are built versus without building the near-term projects.
There are three important considerations I’d like to emphasize as part of this work. With or without building the near-term projects, the airport will continue to grow. For example, operations will increase approximately 21% over a 15-year period without the near-term projects—that’s 2022 to 2037—whereas it will be approximately 23% with the construction of the near-term projects. A difference of approximately 3% between building and not building the near-term projects.
SEA already has many programs and plans in place to reduce our environmental impact. This is important because these are included in the evaluation and will continue to minimize our impacts as SEA grows. We’ll discuss these in subsequent slides. The large majority of the proposed projects take place within the existing airport footprint and with no planned property acquisition. If impacts are identified, the analysis evaluates those impacts and if required identifies ways to avoid, minimize, and mitigate those as part of the project work.
This slide represents the forecasted growth at SEA. It also visually shows the potential impacts of the NTPs—that is the increment between not building the NTPs and building the NTPs. That’s the difference between the bright green line and the light blue line. The forecast is an extremely important component and a requirement of the environmental review. It has also remained constant as we progressed within the NEPA EA and SEPA EIS. The forecasted demand for passengers and operations is the basis for identifying impacts and modeling assumptions. I want to review the forecast with you as there are constraints that were identified that affect the evaluation during the update of the forecast. The analysis identified the small footprint of SEA will continue to constrain operations levels. SEA will start to see slower growth from today’s operational levels around 2026 due to these constraints which are primarily gates and aircraft parking. If the NTPs are approved, SEA will see some increase in operation rates after the NTPs are constructed—again about 3%. However, after 2037, SEA will return to a constrained environment, one factor being a continued need for aircraft parking. With or without these projects being constructed, demand will remain high. That can mean aircraft get larger and/or flight schedules could be spread out to fit more operations at existing gates. And as mentioned in the previous slide, the purpose of the NTPs is to accommodate passenger growth at an optimal level of service.
The NTPs were evaluated under SEPA to identify potential impacts under a variety of regulatory thresholds related to the near-term projects. It’s important to note that the port also has many voluntary policies and programs in place in addition to past required mitigation that were taken into consideration during the evaluation. These past investments include such things as the preconditioned air, which is a $40 million investment, $60 million in past stormwater infrastructure improvements, and current infrastructure improvements for the design and construction of on-site aircraft deicing facilities at over $150 million.
This slide reviews the responsibilities under NEPA and SEPA. For NEPA, the FAA, or the Federal Aviation Administration, was the lead agency and decision maker. The port supported the drafting of the environmental assessment. For SEPA, the port is the lead agency and Sarah Cox is the SEPA responsible official. The port has undertaken an environmental impact statement.
I want to review the findings of the NEPA EA. This is important because much of the analyses and data from the NEPA EA was used within the SEPA EIS. The NEPA EA evaluated 16 resource categories. Only one resource category identified significant impacts that could be mitigated and that was surface transportation. All of the resource categories identified no impacts or impacts that were less than significant. I’ll now review the FAA’s finding of no significant impact and record of decision.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s finding of no significant impact or FONSI and record of decision or ROD for the NEPA EA identifies mitigation and minimization measures for many of the resource categories that will reduce impacts of the near-term projects. Surface transportation was the only environmental category identified as having potential significant impacts that will be mitigated. I’ll discuss surface transportation in the next slide. Other minimization measures include for historical, architectural, archaeological, and cultural resources, an inadvertent discovery plan for specific near-term projects; for biological resources, minimizing construction during bird nesting; for water resources, reporting stormwater information to the FAA and the National Marine Fishery Service; and for hazardous materials, pollution prevention and solid waste plans in place if hazardous materials are encountered during construction. All mitigation and minimization measures identified in the NEPA EA are being carried forward in the SEPA EIS.
The SEPA draft EIS carried forward the mitigation that was identified in the NEPA EA. The port will mitigate impacts related to surface transportation. For surface transportation, the NEPA analyses evaluated 114 intersections in and around the airport. Impacts were broken down into four categories. Category one: these are intersections where constructing the near-term projects created a deficient level of service and did not meet local or state requirements. Category two: these are intersections where there are failing mobility standards with and without constructing the near-term projects. The analysis showed that constructing the near-term projects would further degrade level of service at these intersections. These two categories will be mitigated. Categories three and four were intersections that either had no impact or improved level of service. Throughout the analysis, the port worked with transportation staff at the Washington State Department of Transportation and the cities of Burien, Des Moines, SeaTac, and Tukwila to consult on assumptions made within the analyses and also shared any proposed mitigation within their jurisdiction. The analysis identified 26 intersections that would be required. This mitigation is approximately $40 million in improvements. All mitigation will be required upon the first trip generating project moving forward. This would likely be the north airport expressway reconfiguration.
The SEPA technical analysis was conducted to complement the rigor of the NEPA environmental assessment. The document, specifically the EIS, identifies where new information and analysis was conducted within the SEPA EIS. There are requirements in SEPA that were not covered in the NEPA EA. These include greenhouse gas emissions and climate, additional analyses for surface transportation, housing, plants and animals and cumulative impacts. There was also additional analyses that was voluntarily undertaken in SEPA. This was a result of what we heard during scoping and during the public comment for the NEPA EA. Additional analyses include additional air quality modeling, human health risk assessment related to toxic air pollutants, review of particulate matter, review of human health and noise, and environmental justice.
The results of the draft SEPA EIS were similar to the findings of the NEPA EA. Mitigation was identified for surface transportation. This and all of the mitigation minimization measures as previously identified are being carried forward into the SEPA EIS. One of the reasons why limited impacts were identified are a result of past and current environmental practices at SEA. As I mentioned previously, the port and SEA have many policies and programs in place that minimize environmental impacts. These measures, many of which have been implemented at the guidance of the commission, include preconditioned air, electric ground support equipment, stormwater best management practices, sustainable design and construction, and the most recently land stewardship plan. The port and SEA will continue to implement these practices based on existing policies and directives.
This slide represents the 16 elements of the environment that were evaluated under the State Environmental Policy Act. There was only one area where mitigation was identified and again that is surface transportation. Other areas, similar to NEPA, identified areas where impacts increased but were limited and below significance thresholds. I will now turn it over to Sarah Potter to discuss the specific analyses and what was conducted under SEPA.
Sarah Potter (2:24:56): Thanks Steve and good afternoon everyone. All right, the SEPA EIS evaluated 15 separate environmental topics which are called elements of the environment. Most of these overlap with the NEPA resource categories but are called something slightly different. For example, plants and animals in SEPA is biological resources in NEPA. I want to reiterate what Steve previously mentioned. For each element of the environment, the EIS compares the impacts of building the near-term projects to the impacts of not building the near-term projects and identifies whether the incremental impacts may exceed significant thresholds. The SEPA EIS also identifies steps that can be taken to reduce, eliminate, or offset any of the impacts of the NTPs. As Steve mentioned, this slide shows the elements by level of impact similar to the NEPA slide. As with NEPA, only surface transportation had a significant impact that required mitigation. The next slides that I’m going to talk through highlight some of the additional analysis completed during the SEPA EIS.
As Steve previously mentioned, the SEPA EIS conducted additional air quality analysis beyond what is required for SEPA or NEPA based on feedback received during scoping and the NEPA process. This included conducting dispersion modeling to understand where aircraft and airport-related pollutants may occur at locations around SEA and at what levels. In NEPA, an emissions inventory was prepared which calculated the amount of pollution released. Dispersion modeling combines the data from the emissions inventory, weather patterns, and local terrain to estimate the concentration of pollutants at locations or receptors. The air dispersion analysis was performed following FAA, US Environmental Protection Agency, and Washington Department of Ecology modeling guidelines. The analysis found temporary construction-related emission increases during the buildout period and small long-term increases in operational emissions which is consistent with the NEPA EA. The SEPA EIS concluded the incremental increase in the emissions associated with the near-term projects would not exceed health-based air quality standards.
During scoping and the NEPA process, the port also heard community concerns about human health risks. In response to these concerns, the port included a human health risk assessment for toxic air pollutants in the SEPA EIS. Analysis showed elevated emissions would occur during construction, mainly near the second terminal, which on the map you can see is the darker green area. It’s important to note in that dark green area there are no residential areas. The analysis showed that pollutant levels at off-airport locations would still meet national health-based air quality standards and that emissions associated with the near-term projects would not increase cancer or other health risks above levels of concern.
When it comes to minimizing air quality impacts, existing practices at SEA already reduce construction and operational impacts and contribute to the relatively limited environmental effects that were identified in the SEPA EIS. This slide highlights some of these practices currently in place at SEA. And I will say based on my experience working at airports across the US, SEA is one of the most proactive airports when it comes to minimizing impacts to their local communities.
As part of the SEPA EIS, the port also reviewed completed studies on the potential effects of ultrafine particulates, UFPs, associated with airport operations. UFPs are extremely small particles that are part of a larger category of fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 that has health-based standards regulated by the Clean Air Act. The existing studies confirmed the presence of UFPs near airports. However, the literature review did not identify definitive causal evidence linking aviation-related UFP exposure that is separate from the health effects already associated with PM2.5 impacts. Further population-scale multi-year epidemiological studies beyond the scope of this project-level SEPA analysis are needed to better understand if UFPs independently affect human health, and this is consistent with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s decision not to independently regulate UFPs at this time.
The climate analysis in the SEPA EIS adhered to commission resolution number 36-650. The analysis included assessing risk to facilities and calculating GHG emissions. The results showed that implementing the near-term projects would slightly increase GHG emissions compared to the no action or not building the NTPs, and there are no large-scale risks to the port facilities. These emission increases are minor in the context of regional emissions and SEA sustainability initiatives would help reduce impacts. It’s important to note that most GHG emissions are a result of Scope 3 sources which are caused by operations and are not in the control of the port. Although the port does work with airlines to reduce impacts. Climate reduction measures are the same as those discussed for air quality which the port already implements.
The SEPA EIS did not conduct additional noise analysis beyond what was conducted in the NEPA EA. The NEPA analysis found that there would be increases in noise due to an increase over time of operations. However, the increase in noise would not exceed federal significant thresholds. As part of the SEPA effort, the port evaluated seven recent studies on the potential health effects of aviation noise, including the recent FAA initiated study that was released in March of this year. Those studies found that aircraft noise exposure at some levels can have impacts on annoyance and sleep disturbance. The study suggests that aircraft noise exposure has marginal potential effects on hypertension and does not affect the incidence of cardiovascular disease. Ultimately, there is a lack of aviation-focused studies necessary to understand the health effects of aviation noise.
Factors that help manage noise impacts from the airport during construction and operation are currently in place at the airport and would continue into the future. These include those practices shown on the slide where contractors would be required to adhere to the port’s, the State of Washington’s, and the City of SeaTac’s best management practices requirements during operation. The port also has several long-standing programs in place that will continue into the future, including the ongoing Part 150 study, which is examining ways to mitigate noise.
While the final NEPA EA removed the environmental justice analysis, the port included environmental justice analysis in the SEPA EIS. The port built upon the analysis that was included in the draft NEPA EA using data from the Washington Department of Health’s environmental health disparities map and the port’s equity index. The analysis screened if construction and operation of the SAMP near-term projects could affect one or more of the 19 factors from the Washington Department of Health and 30 indicators from the port equity index. It’s important to note that environmental considerations are only a component of the overall port equity index. It also includes accessibility, livability, and the economy. The SEPA evaluation found that the near-term projects would increase air emissions, traffic congestion, and noise, decrease tree canopy, and increase economic activity. However, none of these effects would cause significant impacts to vulnerable or overburdened populations. The near-term projects would support long-term economic growth in the region with beneficial effects on unemployment and jobs, two of the indicators in the port’s equity index.
There are many measures that have been identified and will continue to be implemented to mitigate and reduce impacts to environmental justice communities, including air quality, surface transportation, socioeconomics, and noise.
And lastly, the SEPA EIS considered cumulative impacts, which are the direct and indirect impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable projects in conjunction with the incremental impacts from the SAMP NTPs. The reasonably foreseeable projects include non-port sponsored projects within the cities of SeaTac, Burien, Des Moines, and also Washington Department of Transportation projects, specifically the State Route 509 project. The analysis found the incremental impacts from the SAMP near-term projects would not trigger a standard of significance.
Steve Rybolt (2:34:32): Thank you, Sarah. I want to discuss what happens next. On May 22nd, the draft EIS was released for public comment. SEPA under the Washington State Administrative Code requires a 30-day comment period for an EIS with an option to extend for an additional 14 days. The port’s comment period is 60 days and will conclude on July 21st. Once the comment period concludes, all comments will be reviewed and considered within the final EIS. All comments will be responded to. We will brief commissioners once comments have been reviewed. It is anticipated the final EIS and decision will be issued by the end of the year. This will initiate a 21-day appeal period. And it’s important to note that the completion of the SEPA EIS does not approve any of the near-term projects to move forward. The commission must approve any single or group of projects to move forward. This is how all capital projects move forward at the port.
Before I hand it over to Claire Gallagher, I wanted to note that we did receive comments that Appendix J, which is the noise appendix, was unavailable on our web page. Received a comment over the weekend from one individual or group and responded back to them immediately providing them with another link through the Department of Ecology that has our documentation, and it is now back up as of 7 a.m. this morning. And that was the only single email we received. So I’ll now turn over to Claire to provide an overview of our outreach and engagement programs.
Claire Gallagher (2:36:05): Thanks Steve. Commissioners, nice to be with you this afternoon. You’ve heard quite a bit about the work that the team prepared. I’d like to talk a little bit about how we’re going to share that. We know that this has been a really important and lengthy process and we’ve given a lot of thought and consideration to the outreach and engagement that we’ll conduct. I also want to note that I’m here speaking with you this afternoon, but I’m representing the work of several people—port staff, a consultant team. I have some of those folks here this afternoon if there are questions that come up, but just want to recognize the hard work that’s being done in our communications, community engagement, and our government relations teams as well as the consultants. So, thanks very much.
As you’ve heard commented already, you have some dates in front of you of the actual logistical steps of where we will be presenting the material. I do want to flag that we did indeed provide a 30-day in-advance public notice ahead of publishing, and just wanted to keep reminding folks when we were on schedule and when it was coming forward so that they were prepared. We did that during NEPA as well, but did it as well for SEPA, and then initiated this public comment period with the publication of the document on Friday and then the presentation with you today. The in-person meetings here listed are just one of the approaches that we’re using, but I did want to flag that we again are having them in a range of communities close to the airport, but also including a weekend date, daytime hours as well. And we hope that between in-person and virtual meetings, which I’ll come to in just a minute, that we’ll be able to encourage people to engage in a way that works best for them. Some people do like to come in person, some people like to take in information in their own speed and time frame.
One of the things we heard loud and clear from the commission, especially during the NEPA outreach, was to make sure that we did our best to remove jargon and that we kept the documents constructed in a way that people could really work their way through. Well, I’m speaking really of the outreach materials, the messaging, the advertising, the one-pagers. Those are deliberately, in my words, deconstructed to be more accessible. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job, but we’re going to keep learning as we go. And it was actually kind of fun to make Steve wonder if I was capturing it accurately as I kept going with simpler words and not repeating acronyms.
So, as usual and as you’ve seen us do before, we’ll be using multiple platforms and tools to reach folks, but I did want to call out that we have some additional video work that’s being done, which I think is going to be really interesting. And our consultant, the VA Agency, is the lead on that work and presenting it in graphic form to really encourage participation and to talk in a broad general sense as well about environmental review and about the port. We have upped the number of languages that we’re translating the materials to. Added a couple more from NEPA. We are making a special effort to—the boards that will be at the in-person meetings will be translated, available online in translated form, but also we’ll be capturing some presentations and through the use of closed captioning folks watching online either downloading a video or watching in real time can use closed captioning and translate to any number of languages on the screen.
We have some amount of materials that we use as handouts that are already preprinted, and we are using a postcard format again to reach over a 100,000 households around the general airport area, and that’s in the eight languages that we’re using. So that’s to drive attention and participation to the community meetings coming in June. We’re doing the type of outreach that we hope is valuable and that we’ll continue to learn from and expand more in SEPA than we did in NEPA. We have many levels of community meetings set up. We’re advertising in cultural media. We have a range of going to city councils and regional transportation boards, but also smaller groups, groups that request perhaps a presentation to them, but also using community-based organizing and liaison participants to lead that engagement and broaden our ability to go where people are, to groups that maybe the port doesn’t have as much of a relationship with yet. And so we’re looking to build on that. One of the advantages we do have however is the number of grant recipients from the South King and Port Communities funds over the last few years and we are touching base with those grant recipients and making sure to connect with them, partly to just let them know about the meetings, the opportunity to comment, but also to share and provide more information and really explain more about the master plan.
As I mentioned and showed you the dates, the in-person meetings are in mid-June. That’s halfway through the 60-day comment period. We’ll be offering virtual meetings following the in-person meetings, and those will be in a webinar format where we’ll have a live presentation. As I noted, the closed captioning will allow for translation on the screen for the viewer and we will take questions and provide answers in real time through live chat. I think I’ve talked a little bit about the media, but we, with our release and publication of the document, started that on Thursday and Friday last week. It’ll be in several of our existing port newsletters, but really pushing hard to expand the notice and visibility to various populations. And we do have the SAMP-specific website and of course from our port website it drives people to the SEPA website. I just want to note that, again, both in-person and virtual is both for convenience but also to expand the learning and the translation that’s available for the interested folks during SEPA. So we hope that we’re on the right track. We’ve done a lot of planning. We have people that have really leaned in and engaged. We are looking to broaden also our exposure with airport employees, which is a group that we didn’t get to as much under NEPA but we think that beyond obviously port employees, people here at the airport, that we want to make sure they understand what we’re doing, what we’re looking at, and what it means for them. So I will stop there. Aubrey, I think the next slide I’m going to turn it back to Steve. Thank you.
Steve Rybolt (2:43:53): Thank you, Claire. The release of the draft EIS is a major milestone for the port and SEA. Over the next 60 days, we will listen and hear from the public to really understand how it helps us make our decision as we work through to the final environmental impact statement. Some key takeaways: we did conduct substantial new analyses for air, noise, specifically human health and environmental justice. And we heard this loud and clear from the community based on scoping and comments from the NEPA EA. No new significant impacts were identified as a result of the draft EIS. And we published last Friday and initiated the 60-day public comment period. So, with that, happy to answer any questions.
Commissioner Caukins: All right, commissioners, who would like to ask questions or make comments? Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman (2:44:46): Thank you. And I fully acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that you guys have put into this. I just wanted to quickly address a couple of comments we received from the public. I am very keenly sensitive to comment periods and making sure that there’s adequate time for comment and the commission has been very deliberate in our thinking about the comment period. The decision for 60 days—we thought avoiding summertime and making it more, while being short, we were still trying to be considerate when public had the opportunity to comment. Having heard this additional comments, and we have about 15% more information due to the good work the staff have done, we’re taking it under advisement. We haven’t made a decision as an organization yet, but I just want to make sure you guys know we’ve heard you. And this would take the comment period from mid-July to mid-August. So you know there’s pluses and minuses there. And also just in terms of the SeaTac park question, we are waiting for the city of SeaTac to respond to our original conversation. So we are very much keenly aware of—there’s a June grant deadline that we are hoping to meet and so I appreciate folks also tracking that. But other than that, thank you for all the work. We hope that people will engage with the various public comment opportunities the port is providing and I can sympathize how large a document it is to synthesize. Thanks again.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you, Commissioner. Any other commissioners? Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho (2:46:37): Yeah. I also want to acknowledge the sentiment of constituents around having more time to respond. But I think it’s important to note that we really are only obligated to do 30 days from what I understand and there was a very deliberate decision to double that to 60 days given and knowing that folks would want more time. And so I hope the public would at least appreciate the fact that we are already going beyond what is required of us. I also want to acknowledge that despite what a report might say, that we understand that these projects and the growth of the airport does impact the community, right? We are not—that fact is not lost upon us, right? And despite the finding of no major impacts, you know, the port is fully committed to continuing the work that we are already doing in terms of environmental mitigation—planting trees to grow the tree canopy and really investing in our communities. So I really hope the people paying attention to this process is not led to believe that this is it, that this is the be-all end-all. The reality is that the port will be going beyond whatever conclusions were in the report to make sure that we mitigate any and all environmental impacts within our power. And so I would hope and I would ask that we are judged by the entirety of our work outside of just the SAMP, right? Because we do good work even now and we have plans to do even more work beyond whether it’s the SAMP or not, quite frankly. Right, in a hypothetical world where SAMP doesn’t move forward, we would still be investing in the community to do all the great work to mitigate the impacts of aviation in the community. Right? And so I think that’s worth pointing out and really just giving a shout out to our entire team when it comes to the work we do on the aviation side. You know, this is not going to be an easy process. It’s going to be a long process. I know there’s a lot of work ahead of you and the rest of the team in terms of getting back to those who comment on the SEPA, and I know that’s a huge lift. So, I want to thank you in advance for all the work that you’re doing. But it’s also important to acknowledge that we had a lot of community members today who voiced their concerns and we hear you.
Steve Rybolt: Thank you, Commissioner. I just wanted to emphasize that the environmental review looks at ways to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts. We will continue to really look for ways outside of environmental reviews to reduce our impacts and that’s a huge part of what we do in our team. So thank you, Commissioner.
Commissioner Hasegawa (2:49:31): Sure. Okay. So SEPA includes some of the criteria that were previously removed from the NEPA process when the Trump administration took office. Correct?
Steve Rybolt: That’s correct.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Okay. And then how does a member of the public tell where those differences are between the two documents? Where can we find a summary of those changes or those differences?
Steve Rybolt: Yeah, so really good question. So, first your question was what was removed? So, environmental justice, climate and cumulative impacts were all removed as part of the NEPA documentation. All of those have been pushed back into the SEPA EIS. We’ve really tried to be deliberate within the document on where SEPA analysis was new and it literally says SEPA considerations that you can look up in the impact analysis that says this is new material beyond what was done under NEPA.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And is that accessible online?
Steve Rybolt: Yes, it is. At libraries. It is online.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And it’s live?
Steve Rybolt: It is live online since Friday.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Was it disabled up until today?
Steve Rybolt: There was only one appendix—J, which was noise—which was primarily a lot of spreadsheets with numbers that were not available. So it went live as of this morning again. It worked when we posted it. I can’t tell you what happened over the weekend. It went dead. So there were three days over the holiday weekend where it was not live.
Commissioner Hasegawa: I would say about a 24-hour period.
Steve Rybolt: So I worked over the weekend just checking comments because I’m interested in them. And we corrected it as soon as we possibly could.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Okay. And then is that document translated into multiple languages?
Steve Rybolt: It is not. So Claire, do you want to speak to what will be translated?
Claire Gallagher: Yeah, the translation is largely for the documents to help move people to either the in-person meetings or the virtual meetings where translation will be available, but also if there’s a request for parts of the submittal to be worked through with translated resources, we’re happy to consider that. Of the thousand several hundred pages, it’s hard to say that we would translate all of it in all the languages. That’s not where we see the need. We see the need for people to dive into the section that they’re interested in and have a better understanding of it. But we’re always open to working with the requests that we receive.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And the work that we did with external relations and building out their community engagement and communications budget was specifically leading up to this moment. You talked about what some of the engagement looks like. Will people be able to come and ask their questions or dive into detail about their specific area of interest? Will there be translators available there? Are we thinking about taking into account where we’re finding the most public interest and then doing a synopsis sheet and then having that translated? I mean, as we continue to think about accessibility, how are we continuing to improve?
Claire Gallagher: Great, really good points, Commissioner. Thank you. We certainly use both in-person, I was going to say real people translators, but we also have the language line which offers many more language options, but those are available certainly at the in-person meetings and then as I said, there’s on-screen translation for the virtual meetings. We would really love to know how to make the documents and the materials more accessible so that it’s useful. So yes, we’re happy to have that dialogue. We are using community liaisons to really facilitate that exchange with community members and with the staff. And we also I think would like to give some thought to the question you had for Steve, which is where are the differences in these materials called out—should we try and elevate that, a kind of a primer on you can look here, here’s where you’ll want to look and see these differences? Because it is all delineated in the document but maybe there’s a more clear or straightforward way of flagging it for people. And we are open to translating where things are most meaningful for people and where they have a need.
Commissioner Hasegawa: Okay. And then can you describe how data resources were considered or applied during our analysis or during SEPA? We have the Washington State Department of Health environmental health disparities map. We have the Port of Seattle’s equity index. Were those applied?
Steve Rybolt: Yeah. So we’ve worked with BHTA and the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to really consult with her on how to go about this analysis and we used both the Washington State Department of Health’s disparities index as well as the port’s equity index. And the idea behind using those was to identify where communities were impacted in and around the airport. And as Sarah mentioned, not just environmentally, but socially, economically as well. And so what we did, we overlaid the impact analysis that we did with those areas. And as you can imagine, as probably as you know, most areas in around the airport and the Puget Sound region are highly impacted communities. And so based on that is how we did our analyses.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And how do we reconcile those analyses with some of the findings in SEPA saying that—if you go to slide 17 please—it says that the data is not mature enough in order to make a determination as to the impact of ultrafine particles on health. So when we’re seeing geographic disparities and outcomes per our equity index, how do we reconcile that with a determination that there’s no support for a causal ultrafine particulate effect to human health?
Steve Rybolt: Yeah. So we did two additional studies within the SEPA documentation. One was specific to ultrafine particulate matter, the other specific to human health and noise. I think both of these are really getting to your question—is how are they incorporated? Neither are incorporated within any of the indices. What we really wanted to try to do is understand what’s the latest science say and how can or can it be applied to what we’re doing here. And really trying to say, for example, ultrafines, we acknowledge that ultrafines do exist in and around airports. However, it’s really hard to delineate between different sizes of particulate. And so the other component we want to understand is, is there a regulatory mechanism for us to apply to look at how we reduce those. The answer was no, there’s not a regulatory mechanism. And also is there additional study that needs to be done to better understand how those impact human health for those in and around the airport.
Commissioner Hasegawa: When we approve Part 150 studies for the first time, the second time, was that based on data or was that based on like anecdote? Are we considering studies of people’s experiences as data? And if you go to slide 20, I’m just wondering, it says that there’s a lack of a study to demonstrate an impact of noise on human health, but that doesn’t negate some of our other projects for like Part 150 and sound insulation.
Steve Rybolt: Yeah. So, two components related to your question. So, first, the Part 150 study is on here. Part 150, sorry.
Commissioner Hasegawa: I was like, what’s the 180 study? Do I know it?
Steve Rybolt: It’s a different program. So the Part 150 looks at how we can address noise impacts in and around the airport and what we can do voluntarily or through, based on federal guidance, on how to get additional federal dollars to minimize noise impacts. We’ll continue to look into that. The other piece, I think, specific to your question on noise and human health is the FAA had a noise annoyance study and they just released the data for that study about four weeks ago that was included within this EIS to identify what’s the latest science out there. I think it’s important to note that the port highly understands that the DNL is the metric that’s used. FAA is interested in studying to identify—are there other options to address impacts of noise—and we would fully support the FAA studying it more. So we look forward to working with FAA when they’re ready. We know there’s some complications based on the current administration but more work needs to be done to identify other methods for identifying a regulatory mechanism to look at noise.
Commissioner Hasegawa: And so this is a lot of information to take in. And we’re hearing from members of the public that 60 days feels like a time constraint on being able to meaningfully absorb and analyze it. We, as Commissioner Cho mentioned, made the decision to launch with 60 days instead of the standard 30, knowing that folks would need more time. But what is our timeline and what are our options for possible extension?
Steve Rybolt: So, the state requires a 30-day public comment period for an EIS and allows up to a 14-day extension. And as we’ve noted, we have a 60-day public comment period. We really want to hear initially what individuals are interested in through the comment period. So far, we’ve received about 20 public comments. Half are very positive—build these as fast as possible. Others are please extend the timeline. Others are it’s noise around my house. So the more we can hear about what those impacts and considerations are, the better. As Commissioner Felleman alluded to, most of the analyses within SEPA is not new. So at the release of the NEPA final EA in November, a large majority of the information that’s within the SEPA EIS was released at that point in time. In general I could say the new information is about two and a half binders, most of which are large data sheets specific to the dispersion modeling. So we know it’s of interest. I have an IOU to go back and look at what are options for addressing the comment period and we’ll be coming back to you commissioners to look at those options.
Claire Gallagher: Thank you. And if I could just add a couple of comments, Commissioner. This is one of the reasons why we did take advantage of an expansion of resources, which is to put more feet on the ground, more people engaging directly into our various communities, making presentations and moving people towards not only the information, but also what are their areas of interest and how to help support their ability to comment, make sure that the information is transparent and accessible to them. So, I’m sort of hoping with a lot of foot soldiers that we can really buttress that engagement and take advantage of the 60 days that we have set. But we’re pretty nimble as well and we want to pivot and do what we need to do to have it be a satisfying, hopefully informative exchange of information with our communities. Thanks.
Commissioner Caukins: Okay, I want to give Commissioner Mohammed an opportunity if she’d like to make a comment or raise a question.
Commissioner Mohammed (3:01:39): Yes, thank you for the time. And thank you to the staff for the presentation and also the public who’ve provided comments and have expressed interest on this topic. I had two questions. One was from slide 22 regarding environmental justice. Sarah, you mentioned that the projects will impact noise and traffic—not using your words word for word but something along those lines—that the projects will impact noise and traffic. Are these impacts expected to be caused directly by the projects themselves or would they occur regardless due to projected increases in airport activity, travel demand and population growth that we’ve heard in the beginning of this presentation? But thank you for that.
Sarah Potter: Sure. Thank you for the question. Yes, noise and traffic will increase at the airport independent of building the near-term projects. As mentioned, the operations will continue to increase and that goes along with the surface transportation as well. So even if the near-term projects were not built, those would continue to increase.
Commissioner Mohammed: Okay. Thanks for that clarification. That’s helpful. I wasn’t sure if you were talking about the specific projects or the overall issue in itself and it sounds like the overall issue. Then my second question was around language access and I know Commissioner Hasegawa already spoke to this. Obviously language access is a core equity value that we share at the port and I just want to thank the staff for centering that in this work. And there’s always obviously opportunities to make improvement and change approach over time but just the thought that has gone into that is obviously real and want to express gratitude around that. My question is if someone were to request a full translation of the document, um, how is that going to be managed operationally or procedural-wise? Has that been thought of? Has that request come through to us? And let me just say that both the City of Seattle and King County both have really strong language access policies in place. And I say that because I’ve worked on those policies myself. But those policies specifically say that they do not go for a default translate everything, but that it is really on a request basis and more of a targeted approach to prioritize resources for where the needs are the greatest and where the translation can have the highest impact. And I feel like that is the type of approach the staff has already taken. But we are obviously hearing from the public and some folks who are talking about language access in this moment and it seems like maybe requests will come through and so I just wanted to know how you all intend to manage those if those requests do come.
Claire Gallagher: Thanks, Commissioner. We do expect—we’ve heard some of the requests also and I think your language with regard to the city of Seattle and King County is very relevant to our approach as well. I would also say that this is quite a technical set of information and so we would I think first and foremost go back to the requestor and try to better understand: for what purpose do you need the translation? How is it useful to you? Is there a particular area of focus that we can dive into and perhaps bring subject matter experts along, or focus on translating perhaps just the difference between NEPA and SEPA? But really is more about, how is this useful to you? So rather than just a blank translation, what is it that we’re really trying to help you accomplish? And again, this is why I believe that using community liaisons, using the outreach from community-based organizations who are on contract with us to assist and going to a range of groups where they are, not just having them have to come to our meetings, will help us have that dialogue in how can we make this beneficial to you, what is it that you’re wanting to accomplish, and that we can best support that, as you noted, with being mindful of resources, et cetera. That’s how I would see it evolving at this point on day three of the public comment period.
Commissioner Mohammed: Perfect. That’s really helpful, and you know, I think your approach is on point. It is really about balancing being mindful of resource limitations and that not every document or everything that’s in that file is considered useful for folks who are limited English speakers. And so really thinking about what will have the greatest impact when we’re focused around translation is important. It’s about creating access and equity and striking that right balance. So appreciate the thought that has gone into this and again, want to thank staff for bringing this forward, and to the public, we say we hear you. Please provide your comments. They are critical and we want to hear what you all have to say about this. Appreciate the time.
Commissioner Caukins (3:07:33): My comments have to do with—well, a couple of things. First is to highlight that while this is a vast trove of information for folks to go through, I appreciate, Steve, your comments about how much was accessible prior to the 22nd, and Claire, to your comments that the amount of work you all have put into organizing opportunities to help the public make their way through this, whether through roundtables and public meetings and virtual meetings and really just being available. So that as people are going through this, please know that port staff are willing to help navigate, whether that’s through language barriers or just, you know, having looked at these documents, it’s hard for a non-technical person to absorb it and that’s really the intent of these meetings.
The other thing I want to emphasize is at the close of 60 days our inboxes don’t close and we will have not authorized a thing at that point. Each one of the 31 projects requires commission authorization separate apart from this process. This is just simply the environmental review process. We will still need to make a decision about whether we move forward on any of these. And so your comments will be accepted up until the moment that we as commission make a decision on any particular project, and we actively will solicit your opinions on each project. So it I’m certain that there will always be a concern about needing additional time for public comment, but I really do want to emphasize that when it comes to the particular projects, the window will not close in 60 days.
So with that, I want to give one more opportunity for folks to make any comment or question and also to ask Executive Director Metruck if he had any comments on this particular topic.
Executive Director Metruck: Thanks, Commissioner Caukins. Yeah, I really appreciate the staff going through, and I do appreciate the comments from the public about this. And I think that one of the things I think that we took away in the comments is looking at how do we help them, looking at the work that was done within for the NEPA and then looking at the additional work that was done for the SEPA and kind of highlighting that—maybe annotate it as a different way, but look at that. That’s one thing that we can help within that time period. And part of that, the importance of that analysis—this analysis was built upon that analysis that was done for the NEPA. So you can expect a lot of the information to be the same because it was built upon it. And as it was pointed out in the presentation, they are the same category. So it would make sense that you build upon the same analysis and the same work that was done there. So I think that we can take that back. We will take that into consideration as we look at the comments that are coming in and hear the comments about it as we do that.
But I do want to point out, it was said earlier, is that for the actual comments to be on the record though, we want to call that out. That was mentioned there, but I just want to call that out as an important thing—is that that’s where the official comments come in. They are free to send them via email to both commissioners and port staff, but it’s really into the website—I don’t have in front of me—that that’s where the official comments come in. And I think that would be a good note for us to end on. Mr. President, is that website to have where comments come in officially?
Commissioner Caukins: Clerk Hart, you mentioned it earlier, the email.
Steve Rybolt: I can mention it real quick. The website where you can actually input comments is samp-sea.com. Or you can email samp@portseattle.org.
Commissioner Caukins: You can also send me a letter in the mail if you’re so inclined. You can hand-deliver it as well as an option. Not to your house, but to the front here at AOB. Okay, terrific. Thank you all. We are going to move on to the next agenda item. Thanks everybody for your work on the presentation and more to come. Clerk Hart, can you please read the next item into the record and Executive Director Metruck will introduce.
Clerk Hart: Yes. This is agenda item 11C, the 2025 Diversity in Contracting Annual Report.
Executive Director Metruck (3:12:01): Commissioners, this report reflects our ongoing commitment to ensuring port contracting dollars create real economic opportunity for women and minority-owned businesses across our region. Our results show progress, but we still have significant work to do to ensure that diverse businesses are included in our work. Today’s presentation by Mian Rice, Lawrence Coleman, and Emily Ho will provide the details of the 2025 portwide WMBE results and what is next for the program. So, with that, I’m going to turn over to Mian Rice.
Mian Rice (3:12:46): Thank you, Executive Director Metruck, Commission President, commissioners. Thank you so much for having us here today. I got to tell you, I’m really excited to provide this presentation to you and I also want to give a great excitement and thank you to both Steve and also Marbo for allowing us to represent them to give this presentation today. You’ll see as we go through the slides—that’ll take me about two hours—about how we actually did. None of you guys laughed or smiled on that one, but that’s okay. We have a wonderful time here in terms of our Diversity in Contracting 2025 Annual Report. It’s exciting and something which I can’t wait to present in front of you today.
Real quick, the agenda. We’re going to go through our 2025 Women Minority Business Enterprise results for 2025. We have our 2026 WMBE goals and then also some of our next steps as we continue to move the needle forward through 2026.
So before we get going in earnest and digging into 2025, I wanted to talk a little about the Diversity in Contracting policy directive. The purpose of Diversity in Contracting through the policy directive is basically to advance equity and address contracting disparities by increasing the utilization of women minority business enterprises and other disadvantaged firms. Previous goals—the previous resolution that we’ve had was established in 2019 through 2023 through resolution 3737—was to increase the amount of contracts, amount of spend to WMBE contracts up to 15% and also increase the number of WMBE firms doing business with the port to 354.
Now 2024 came around and we had a gap year to assess how we did from our previous resolution—the 15% and 354 businesses—how we worked with the community and also with different port staff. During that gap year, we adjusted a little bit our number of WMBE firms that we wanted to do. We adjusted up to 400 businesses for that given year. And then we rolled into our current year through this past July or July of 2025, a new resolution 3836, which provided our next five-year goals, which basically increased the amount spend up to 16% and then also increased the number of WMBE firms doing business with the port to 500.
So, before we get really dive into it, I wanted to get to the punch line and I wanted to give a big shout out to all the port staff, division directors, department directors and all the staff itself, including yourselves, commissioners, and everybody—just, it takes a village. So, let’s get to that next slide.
After that, I want to hit the pause button real quick. I want to show you how we have done since we started tracking and actually being very deliberative about getting more small and disadvantaged and WMBE businesses alike working with the Port of Seattle. Look at that. From 2016 all the way to 2025. 2025 we hit our goals. We hit the 15% and we hit the 400. We’ve done an outstanding job in terms of truly focusing and walking the talk in terms of really moving the needle forward as relates to the port and our policies and what we want to do. This is wonderful and I love to see it and I couldn’t be more proud of the Port of Seattle and all of its members and all the folks who are contributing to these results.
So with that, I’m going to hand the ball over to Mr. Lawrence Coleman to dive in a little more of the details as it relates to 2025. And with that, the ball is yours.
Lawrence Coleman (3:18:00): Appreciate that, Mian. Good afternoon, commissioners, Executive Director Metruck, and viewing public. I’ll be going through just WMBE utilization, our results. I’ll start at 2025 and then step back and just like Mian did, take a look at just how we’ve been tracking and trending. I’ll do my best to not just read numbers off of this slide. I know it’s late in the day but try to give you some context as we go through this. I do, before I get rolling, just want to echo the same sentiment that Mian said—just appreciative of port staff buying in, leadership buying in. I feel like we got a really good group of folks here at the port that support inclusion, particularly when it comes to our contracting. And so just, just really wanted to to pause and shout that out.
So this slide is a representation just portwide utilization specifically at 2025. So when we move down to just looking at the spend, I mean nearly a billion dollars in 2025 was spent by the Port of Seattle. And nearly—well over 151 million went to women and minority businesses. So 15.3%. Mian is being modest. This is our highest utilization on record for 2025 and so again shout out to folks buying in. We’ve come to this body a couple of times and talked about the importance of construction and construction really came through in 2025 for us and we’ll talk a little bit more about that later in the presentation, but doing nearly 14%—a lot of money gets spent on construction and so when we get really good utilization, it helps us out overall. And then non-construction continues to do its thing and we’ve seen some trends there when we talk about planning and such. But I would say non-construction, which includes professional services, just various consulting, goods and services continues to do its thing and stays kind of in that 16-17% range. But again, shout out to everybody at the port. I mean, we’re doing phenomenal in particular this year to spend, again, nearly a billion dollars and 15% of that going to women and minority businesses.
This is just a spend distribution breakdown and we like to visually show this. I think in particular now, I think folks talk about diverse business programs like impacting and taking away from the marketplace, but I think this pie kind of visually depicts that it’s not a lot when you talk about in the grand scheme of things, right? 85% of our contracting dollars and our spend is going to non-diverse firms. And that 15% is going to diverse firms, right? And so we like to start that just to really just give folks a visualization. We also like to share it because we like to share how things are allocated to various diversity groups in the bigger scheme of things. And so just starting at the bottom, uh, minority males are doing about 9% of that 15%. Non-minority females 5% and minority females 1%. And again, this will change from year to year. But again, this is just a bigger global look, and just visually when we kind of take a look at that, when you look at it as a pie, found that to be helpful for folks to kind of grasp just how things are distributed.
Now, this chart right here, it’s doing two things. And so first of all it’s, I believe, our way of demonstrating transparency, right? We go into communities quite often and folks are asking, you know, well how does that break down? We’ll share a WMBE number and then the community wants to know well how does that impact or are folks in my particular community getting opportunities, right? And so this is our effort to do just that. I won’t read all the numbers there but just want to point you to the bottom at the legend to kind of give you an idea of who’s earning and what. And it’s organized by color. That top chart represents spend in millions, and so as Mian alluded to or Mian spoke to earlier, you can certainly see just progress. I think is what I’d leave you with. It’s going to change from year to year. We took a look at 2025 for example, and you see that Native American-owned businesses earned about nearly 40 million but you go back in 2022 there was 3 million. Now, is that a result of our intentional efforts or the contracts? It’s the type of work, right? And I would say that’s a lot of pendulum swings, some of the changes, it is the scope of work we’d like to take credit for some of those changes, but some of those changes are really the result of some of the work that we’re doing. I would say the number that we probably have a really good opportunity to influence is in that number of WMBE firms that we work with, right? And so that’s that discretionary spend. Those are PCAR spend with those various buyers. And so as we move forward in the slide, you’ll see a breakdown of corporate, but a lot of that number is attributed to, I would say, even some of those smaller dollars. But again, this number will change from year to year. But if I could leave you with anything, I’d say progress is what we’re making when we come to when we talk about numbers, we talk about intentional utilization of folks in our community.
This is another portwide look and this is specifically on non-construction, and so as a lot of the port division directors will attest to, we’re at their door usually about October and November asking them to establish goals and that’s what this is a reflection of, right? What I appreciate about this slide and the way that we do this, it’s not just one department that is responsible. It’s this approach that the whole port is responsible all the way up to Executive Director Metruck on down to the various ELT members. And I’d say that’s what this is a reflection of. In 2025, we established goals, and the way I view this is we’re a team. There’s going to be years where aviation may not hit the target that they set, but corporate might, vice versa. Maritime may hit it, but you know, economic development may not. And so it’s not necessarily a reflection of folks didn’t work hard. It’s just the nature of sometimes the work that comes out. But I do want to attest to the various planning and the efforts that divisions and departments make to try their best to forecast to utilize women and minority businesses throughout the year.
There’s a lot to take in. This is the corporate breakdown in non-construction. I won’t read them all, but certainly we’ve tried our best to organize by spending for the department. And so the CFO is a combination of a few groups that would include IT, engineering, and environmental. I’d say those are the top three providing significant dollars. As I spoke to earlier, I like this slide because it shows accountability. It shows that we’re all in this together. And so a lot of the spending—so you might not see a lot in let’s just say a smaller unit, but you might see 10 firms that were used, right? And so everybody has an opportunity to contribute. And again, the same kind of responsibility and accountability that the divisions have, the departments have as well to establish goals on a year-to-year basis. Our team works with them to try our best to support them in achieving those goals. But again, if I could leave you with anything, I’d say that this particular chart speaks to the utilization of the women and minority businesses, the number, the number goal that we established, which is that 500 and in some years 400.
A few takeaways. Construction produced 60% over 60% of WMBE dollars in 2025. As I mentioned, we knew that construction would need to come through in a big-time way to continue to increase utilization, and it did this year. Port construction delivered 85 million in WMBE spend. That’s 13% of the $660 million in total spend, and again, that’s a record for construction spend. I’m not a causation person. I’m a correlation person, right? And so we do know there’s some things that we see in correlation with the increase in construction spend, at least for the port. Those are with alternative delivery projects. We find some really good utilization when we do see alternative delivery projects such as GCCM, and some of those came through in a big way for us. Highly specialized contracts are still a thing. And rightfully so, right? We’re a big complicated place and it takes sophisticated folks and work to get it done. And so but those do still impact our utilization. And then I’ll just move us along just really quick. We saw, and we still continue to see large service contracts such as janitorial, facilities maintenance. They’re driving significant utilization. And we’re also seeing prime contractors that are WMBE show up on some of these contracts.
I won’t talk in detail about this a lot. I think Mian touched on this earlier but again we just really wanted to show just progress. And so just from 2019 on, we’re continuing to make progress. I’d say with non-construction, the utilization, I think, tends to keep up with the spending, the WMBE utilization that is, and it’s pretty constant. I think we’re always looking at things that impact us. You know, I feel like we are kind of in this stagnant place and so we’re always looking at ways to figure out how to increase utilization or if this is what it is, right? And so again if I had to say to wrap up, 2019 to 2025, I think it’s a story of progress and it’s continuously steady.
And I’d say construction is probably our biggest story in 2025. And I think in years spending with diverse businesses hasn’t kept up with diverse spending the port had. As it went high, it didn’t necessarily keep up with WMBE utilization, except for the last two years, right? And so I’d say in 2024 and 2025, we saw that spending being lined up together and in sync. And so again, I think it speaks to a couple of things. Our scope was certainly right for folks that were interested in doing business with us. The delivery methods that we had such as alternative deliveries. And then as I transition, I want to give a shout out to outreach, communication, and training. And I think the port does a great job of that. And with that, I’ll pass my time over to Emily to talk a little bit about some of those efforts that support some of these businesses that want to do business with the port.
Emily Ho (3:30:15): Thanks, Lawrence. Good afternoon, Executive Director Metruck. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Emily Ho. I am the community engagement and training program manager on the Diversity in Contracting team. Our goals in training and outreach are threefold. Number one is just making sure that firms are aware of our opportunities here at the port. Number two is making sure that they have the resources and the information that they need to successfully pursue those opportunities. And number three, that those who are ready can actually scale up and grow their businesses.
I do not do this alone. I do it alongside my colleague Kelvin Dana, with the support of our small but mighty team of nine on the Diversity in Contracting team and with the incredible collaboration and support of our many port colleagues, the ones who are actually spending the majority of that $990 million last year. So for 2025, we continued many of the things that were very successful. A few of them being our accelerator small business mentorship program. We also attended many community engagement events, 10-plus, and also had a number of PortGen first-look webinars and networking events—six webinars in total and four networking events highlighting 13 projects across the port that really have a lot of opportunity for small and diverse businesses. We did this again with the help of our colleagues on the Aviation Project Management Group, the Waterfront Project Management Group, and the Aviation Maintenance team just to name a few.
So those were the things we continued. Some of the new offerings and programming that we had in 2025 was one-on-one speed networking that we introduced to our Aviation Industry Day that was super well-received by the businesses that participated in that. We also instituted new PortGen 101 orientation online webinars in collaboration with the Central Procurement Office that were really well attended. We also had a small business recognition pilot program that was actually led by the Aviation Project Management Group Change Team. So they took this on and it was their idea and we just kind of tagged along—was like, let us help you. This is such a great idea of recognizing small and diverse businesses. We collaborated with them on that and recognized I think four businesses at our end-of-year event last year. And then one other new offering that we had was the agreement that we had with Tabor 100 where we now actually have weekly office hours in Tukwila at the Tabor 100 hub alongside many of our other government agency peers to actually be on site to just meet any business who wants to drop by and is interested or has questions about contracting at the port. It can be really daunting to come to our offices, though folks are always welcome, but it’s totally something else to actually be in community and accessible on a weekly basis every Wednesday from 10 to 2 at Tabor 100.
So the results of some of these many efforts is we had a higher number of PortGen attendees than we ever had before at 284 unique WMBE businesses. We also had our highest number of new WMBE businesses that registered onto Vendor Connect, which is our contracting portal, at I think 137 new WMBE firms. So that was some of our 2025 training and outreach activities and outcomes, and I will hand it back over to Mian to provide a whole summary about 2025.
Mian Rice (3:34:24): Well, thank you, Emily. It’s been a lot of work. So, just in general, here’s a report card and I think you heard it already and I don’t think I need to reiterate a lot of this, but I got to tell you, total WMBE utilization, we’ve reached that record high, that 15%. Construction utilization, you know, I’m just gonna say 14%, 13.8%, I’m just gonna say 14. Spend record amount of dollars.
Some of the challenges—I think a lot of you guys know some changes up in the beltway or the federal side of the coin and they’re tinkering with the federal DBE program, which is their the federal small business program. There’s still some challenges as regards to some specialized work out there. A lot of it’s high dollar but low WMBE availability. Quite frankly, now we’re starting to the point of saying too many trainings where you’re calling us up again. So there’s some little bit of training fatigue starting to creep in a little bit. And then also just to continue to increase in the number of firms partnered with each other with us annually. It’s something which we don’t know where that plateau is going to be. So, we’re continuing to push, hence the new goals that we had from trying to get to that 500. So, where is that level? So, that is 2025.
We’ll get into 2026 goals and we’ll do one more slide here to hand the ball over to Lawrence again.
Lawrence Coleman (3:36:16): Appreciate that, man. 2026. Every year we carry on the goals that were established in the commission directive. And so 500 firms utilize, 16% WMBE utilization, 14% construction spend. However, what’s below you is the intentional work that I spoke to earlier about the various planning activities, the forecasting that the various departments and divisions do. And so aviation 14% is their target for 2026, economic development 5%, maritime 14% and corporate 18%. And again, corporate is that combination of all those various departments. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Mian to take us home.
Mian Rice: Okay, actually this goes to Emily. Emily, go ahead and why don’t you handle this one?
Emily Ho (3:37:15): Yeah. Training and outreach for 2026. So, we’re incorporating a lot of the feedback that we’ve received in the past to make training and outreach even more accessible and even more relevant to folks. And so that includes our accelerator mentorship program, which again is super well-received. A lot of the participants often ask me how can we have more of this. And we actually are joining on to the capacity building mentorship program. So we’re having another mentorship offering, and this one is done in concert with Sound Transit and WSDOT, who have been doing this for a few years now, and we’re joining along with the City of Seattle and King County. Executive Director Metruck signed this agreement with the consent of the commissioners earlier this year and we’re really excited to have this new mentoring opportunity where mentor and protege pairs are actually working alongside each other with officials for a duration of two years.
Another exciting new thing that we’re doing is instead of division-focused industry day—we had Aviation Industry Day, Maritime Industry Day—the last one we had was in this exact room and it had over 250 people. I think it was standing room only. The conference center staff who are amazing were like, “You can’t do this again because we have fire codes that we need to abide by and keep folks safe.” And we also heard feedback that construction companies didn’t want—they were like, “I want to meet other construction companies. I don’t necessarily need to meet also design primes as well.” And same with design firms. And so we went a different route this year. We’re doing construction industry day, architecture and engineering industry day along with other design disciplines as well as a goods and services day. Construction Industry Day already happened at the end of March. It was incredible. Architecture and engineering and design day is happening next week, June 2nd at Pier 69. And we have received incredible feedback about this new format so far. And they include even more opportunities for firms to do one-on-one speed networking. So not only the construction firms are doing that, that is being offered for the architecture and engineering and design firms as well.
And then lastly, we’re engaging a lot more with our colleagues across the port. We were engaging a lot with Aviation Project Management Group, Waterfront Project Management Group, but there’s a lot of spend that happens outside of those groups as well. And we’re engaging more with those teams and working alongside them as well and highlighting the many contracting opportunities that they have. So shout out to Port Construction Services, the engineering team, Aviation Facilities and Capital Programs, and our Environmental Programs colleagues for joining us and highlighting the many opportunities that they have. So that’s 2026 and I will hand it over back to Mian.
Mian Rice (3:40:29): All right. Well, thank you, Emily. Last but not least, we’ll get into next steps. So, one of the big things that we’re really trying to do here is to see what we can do about expanding small business and WMBE participation on our specialized scopes that we kind of mentioned earlier. We also want to continue to expand our direct contracting opportunities with A&E firms more specifically. And then also, one of the things—a number of things—sometimes when you’re dealing with small businesses, cash flow is king. So we really want to make sure that we try to do what we can about improving our prompt payment procedures, especially on our construction projects. And we heard from some of the contractors saying when there’s change orders, especially if it’s change order-focused, we want to make sure that we continue to streamline it, make sure that they’re not as impacted from the change order, specifically on our construction projects. And so we’re working quite a bit with the Construction Management Group as well as the Central Procurement Office, CMG and CPO more specifically.
We’re also in the process of developing a feasibility study to improve insurance flexibility for small businesses in collaboration with Risk Management. So we’re talking about owner-controlled insurance programs, OCIPs, and really take a look at that to help small businesses out. As well as we’re looking at providing continued technical assistance as usual, particularly on labor project labor agreements as well as badging requirements for small businesses that are interested in working with the port. That’s something that we continue to focus on as best we possibly can. And then also continued partnership with other government entities especially when we’re dealing with the federal DBE programs itself and the beltway and some of the changes that are happening out there and across the nation. And then lastly, this is something to keep an eye on—I think a lot of us in this room—is some of the economic uncertainties may impact some of the small and diverse business communities. And so really want to keep an eye on that and see what we can do about continuing to be a support factor as best we possibly can for a lot of those small and diverse businesses.
And this is the last one, just a big thank you. Before I get—I want to say a big thank you to it once again our boss as well as our Diversity in Contracting team and all their herculean efforts from Lisa Tran, Kelvin Dwa, Monica Dawson, Lisa Farr, Evan Namdi, and Vicky Hardwell, including the two wonderful dynamic people to my right. So big thank you to all of you guys, and that’s it.
Commissioner Caukins: All right, commissioners, any questions or comments? No questions. Go ahead, Commissioner Cho.
Commissioner Cho (3:43:51): No, I mean, first and foremost, congratulations, guys. This is fantastic. I’m so pleased to see that we were able to hit our goals despite, as Mian pointed out, the more national political environment we’re facing with the challenges that we’ve seen with the DBE program being under attack and some of the efforts of the federal government to curb some of our DEI efforts. We continue to remain steadfast in our commitment to these goals. Not only did we stay committed, but we reached them despite all that. And so I think that’s a huge accomplishment, something that’s commendable and we should be applauding the entire team for the work that you’ve done.
I’m looking forward to seeing how we can continue to grow. I know as you get higher up, it gets harder and harder to do. There’s less juice to squeeze, so to speak. And so for me, it’s kind of the natural next iteration of this effort is to figure out, okay, how do we fill the pipeline with more businesses that allow us to source more from WMBE businesses—in particular from on the construction side, because I hear all the time that they’re available. I mean, the contracts are there but the WMBE firms aren’t there. And so how do we build that pipeline in partnership with other agencies that I know very much value this as well, right? And so I think that’s like the next generation of diversity contracting here at the port. But meanwhile, I’m really liking what I’m seeing. I really hope the momentum continues and that we can hit those 16% targets that you’ve laid out for us in 2026. So, thank you so much for all the great work you guys are doing.
Commissioner Hasegawa (3:45:33): Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you and congratulations on helping us meet all of our goals. And one year ago when we were in this seat, we were like, okay, what’s the corrective action we have to take, and then the passage of our new goals plus a suite of some changes—I think the proof is in the pudding that it is meaningful and I am so grateful to you for that labor of love and then converting that into action for results. And thank you for pausing there. It’s definitely a moment for celebration. Because as we like to point out, every single year the clock restarts at zero to see how well we’re going to do, and we’re just growing. And that’s why having the percentage isn’t good enough. You also need the hard number and making sure that we’re actually growing year by year and keeping pace with um to scale. And so that happens on purpose. And so thank you for your leadership and your guidance. And then thank you for a peek around the corner as to what’s to come and what the future opportunities are. That’s I think always where our greatest interest is—celebrating what we’ve done and then saying and using that as a new floor and doing more, better, faster. And so, yeah, you’ve got, I think, a team of cheerleaders with all of us. And as we are moving into the next biggest phases of building, we are going to really put our pedal to the floor and seeing this as a conversion for real opportunities for WMBE businesses. Thank you.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you. Commissioner Mohammed or Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Mohammed (3:47:23): Yeah, I just wanted to quickly pile on as well. You guys are a phenomenal team and what I really appreciate about the way that you present the information—not only that you guys are hitting your goals, but there’s just a lot of transparency in the data that you’re sharing. And um as a public agency, that I think that is important for us to be transparent with the public on the information you’re receiving and how you present it is so easy to digest. And thanks for the advocacy that you all individually do to push for us to partner with more businesses. Thank you for the work. Appreciate it. That’s concludes my comments.
Commissioner Caukins: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Felleman.
Commissioner Felleman (3:47:59): I just want to express complete disappointment that you guys continue to exceed your goals. Just kidding, guys. It’s really wonderful to get this annual presentation. I always joke with Mian. I’m sorry that you’re so enjoying your work, but it’s fantastic to see. What I’m really impressed by is the fact that you set higher goals each time. That’s like, you know, jumping higher. Don’t rest on your laurels and you’re making your own goals. And the fact that it’s more integrated throughout the port. It’s another great indication that you’re on it. And I just still am always curious about how those goals are set. Where does that number come from? But I guess it’s that whole iteration in terms of knowing what’s in the field, what’s possible as well as then how hard you want to push it. I must say, you know, 15%, 16%—I’m glad to see the trend. Obviously there’s a more diverse world out there than that number. But long-term goal, what is the ultimate goal?
Mian Rice: Well, me personally, I have my own personal—I mean, I like to see 50%, but that there it goal. As long as as long as I’m here. But it really depends upon a lot of the availability that’s out there for DBEs and small businesses as well as our partnership with you commissioners and the executive staff to reach us to higher heights, a lot more than just the 15 to 16% in the near future. We have a SAMP coming around the corner. We have all these other projects coming around the corner. What can we do to continue to move that needle forward even higher than what we are today? So I would love to see in the next, quite frankly, in the next 10 years, 20 years, I would like to see us double or triple it, but that’s just me, in terms of number of WMBE firms that we actually work with. Percentages, there might be a different story of dollars going to them.
Commissioner Felleman: Well, I wanted to hear you be able to articulate that. I’m giving you the platform to say it. I appreciate that very much. Only thing I’d like to note is that with the native corporations, they really are, you know, they’re corporations. They’re not, you know, tribal communities per se. And I know that due to the work of the port, they’re trying to get Muckleshoot and Suquamish more engaged in providing services to the cruise industry and working with our partners at tribal governments at the local level. I would love to see that targeting effort. Like the port’s doing. If we can track some of that, that would be great because—I just came back from Alaska and the shipyard guys up there, they say, “Look, the Coast Guard vessels are being built. All these things are happening.” And the question is, do we have the workforce to do it? And what they’re tapping into is the native corporations, not just for backing the finances but actually the kids actually doing the work. And the last thing—it’s what the guy from JAG said. He was, “When I came into the maritime industry construction, only thing I knew was how to work hard.” He didn’t have to have the training. He just knew how to work. And I just thought that was a really important note to agree. And if people have the stewardship, the training and the internships, I think people are hungry and can rise to the occasion. So anyway, long story short, thank you for your work.
Mian Rice: Appreciate it. Thank you, Commissioner.
Commissioner Caukins (3:51:50): Emily. I have a question for you. The Tabor 100 office hours, what kind of attendance do you get? I mean, you’re not the only person there, but how many people show up?
Emily Ho: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s ranged from somewhere either like nobody to like three or four folks. We get the most success when we’re—we have a dedicated office space, but we have the most success when we’re in the actual center of the hub. And if we’re counting those numbers of just saying hi to folks, checking in on them, it would be more than that. So right now we just started not so long ago and we’re still figuring out what are the best times to go. Wednesday is the time that I think a lot of the other agencies are also there and there’s the most folks at Tabor. And yeah, we’re still figuring that out as to how to increase that number. But I think even if it’s just one each time and it’s somebody that we connected them to information and a contract opportunity that they wouldn’t have otherwise known about, that’s a huge success already.
Commissioner Caukins: Yeah, it’s—I really like the idea and it got me thinking about other venues where you could potentially show up in person. Maybe it’s not weekly but you know, where there might be opportunities to catch people who wouldn’t have otherwise heard about it. So great work.
That concludes our business meeting for today. Thank you for the presentations, Mian, and your team. It’s always encouraging to hear. Are there any closing comments from commissioners or motions relating to committee referrals from commissioners at this time? All right. I just want to make one announcement, which is that all June and July meetings of the commission will be held at Pier 69 because this space is going to be dedicated to FIFA-related events. So we will be relegated to the pier to borrow a soccer term. Executive Director Metruck, do you have any comments today?
Executive Director Metruck: Thanks, President Caukins. I do want to thank Mian and Lawrence and Emily for the presentation. And as Commissioner Hasegawa brought up, we reset every year. So, it takes that intentionality that Lawrence was talking about in order to reach those goals and it’s very admirable that we’re continuing to strive in the environment that we’re in. I do want to give—you mentioned also FIFA. I want to give a shout out to the teams that are preparing for us. It’s Julie Collins, Interim Chief Gilbo, and our cross-port teams. Karen Zogg Black is working overtime, her and Steven, more than ever. So, it’s all coming together, and the teams are, you know, they’re like that duck that looks serene on the top and meanwhile, they’re paddling like crazy underneath the water in order to move ahead. And that’s what the team feels like right now. But I want to give a shout out to all those teams as we’re seeing it come together. The next time we meet, we’ll probably be really close to those first games. So, I want to just give a shout out to them. Thanks.
Commissioner Caukins: Thanks, Commissioner. Terrific. Well, thank you all for a great meeting. Hearing no further comments and having no further business, if there is no objection, we are adjourned at 3:56 p.m.