**[~1:13] Council Member Joe Vinson (Chair, SeaTac):** It is 2:31 p.m. I’m Council Member Joe Vinson. I would like to welcome everyone to the third Highline forum meeting of 2026. For those who don’t know, I am a CATAC council member. We are here in Burien and continuing our hybrid format which we initiated a few years ago. Each jurisdiction has different technological capabilities to manage our format. So please bear with us as we work through any glitches that may arise.
First I would like to thank community co-chair Tuckwell Council President Armen Papion for chairing the first two meetings of the year. I would like to also acknowledge port commissioner Hamdi Muhammad who is unfortunately unable to join us today. Next I would like to welcome many members of the SEA stakeholder advisory roundtable, otherwise known as StART, who are here today either in person or virtually to hear a presentation on the SAMP NTP SEPA draft EIS, and I’m glad you are able to join us.
I also want to recognize the numerous representatives of the elected offices from around the region that are here with us today. Do we have anyone from Congressman Adam Smith’s office?
**Laura (online):** She’s online. Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
**Vinson:** Thank you. I also see we have the mayor of Burien, Sarah Moore, is here as well. Council member JC Harris of De Moines — online. Is he online? Yes. Nice to see you.
As always, we’ll have Dave go through the jurisdictional list of those four members that are attending today.
**Dave Kaplan:** From the city of Burien, Council Member Alex Andrade and interim city manager Bob Larson, and alternate Roco Devito as well. From De Moines, Mayor Yoshiko Grace Matsui. And from the city of Federal Way online, we’ve got Council Member Lydia Sephidas Dawson and policy manager Bill Vadino. Don’t see anyone from Norky Park yet. From SeaTac, Council Member Joe Vincent present. And I think we’re anticipating city manager Young at some point, and interim deputy city manager Evan Maxim is online.
Haven’t seen anyone from Tukwila yet. From Highline College, Vice President for institutional advancement Josh Gersman. From the Highline School District, I know I saw school board member Angelica Alvarez. She should be back in a little bit. And then from the port, aviation managing director Wendy Ryder.
Board member Angelica Alvarez from the Highline School District.
Thank you, Dave.
**Vinson:** Thank you, Dave. I also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Burien’s interim city manager, Bob Larson. Hey Bob. It’s a pleasure to meet you and thank you to the city of Burien for hosting this forum today. In addition, we also would like to recognize representatives from other organizations. I’ll read down the list here.
Tiffany Washington, CATA’s new deputy city manager. Tiffany, online? Josh Hoff, planner for the city of Federal Way. I’ll just read down the list here. Anthony Himmstead, contract lobbyist for the city of De Moines. Sky Lauron, community engagement officer for the Federal Aviation Administration. Michael Church, program analyst for the Federal Aviation Administration. Ryan — and I’m sorry, Ryan, if I’m pronouncing your last name incorrectly — Ryan Quigtar, Community Service Response Team, King County Executive’s Office. Katie Drool, South King County Government Relations, Sound Transit. Brian Davis, vice chair, Burien Airport Committee. Barbara McIchael, Friends of Highline Forest. Linda Wong, SeaTac Airport Community Coalition for Justice. Dr. Breck and Le — Washington’s Physicians for Social Responsibility.
We also have Jeff Harbaugh, Burien StART representative. Karen Veloria, Burien StART representative. Barton DeLacy, De Moines StART representative. Moria Bradshaw, Normandy Park StART representative. Will Booth, SeaTac StART representative.
And just to let you know, a couple of other forum members who have joined — Council President Papian and council legislative analyst Laura Humphrey have joined online. Hey, nice to see you guys. Thank you.
Okay. The next item on this agenda: public comments. Do we have any public comments? Nobody signed up in advance?
**Kaplan:** Nope.
**Vinson:** No public comments.
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**[~7:30] HOST UPDATE — City of Burien**
**Vinson:** On to the next topic on the agenda, host update, city of Burien. Mayor Moore.
**Mayor Sarah Moore (Burien):** Thank you and welcome to Burien. Those who are here visiting today, we’re happy to see you and honored to be able to host this meeting today. We do have a little deck that will be going up, but I’ll just start by saying that Burien’s a very special place. It has small town charm and big city opportunities. You can enjoy cuisines from around the world on our streets, recreate in more than 400 acres of parks and open spaces, and attend vibrant community events all year long when you visit Burien or live here.
Next slide, please.
This is just a little bit summarizing what I just said — that Burien is a vibrant creative community where the residents embrace diversity, celebrate arts and culture, promote vitality and treasure the environment.
Next slide.
A little bit more about who we are. I’m one of more than 50,000 people who call Burien home. We are a young city. We’ve been incorporated for just over 30 years. You can walk around Burien and meet people who are former leaders and founders of this city, which is I think really exciting and kind of a treat. And we’re a diverse community where a language other than English can be heard in one of every three households.
Next slide. The city of Burien is a council-manager form of government. There are seven council members who serve the city at large. We serve four-year terms which are staggered so that we’re not all changing out at the same time. Burien also has four advisory boards and one ad hoc committee that advises the city council on economic development, human services, the airport, planning and parks, and the arts. And these are our council members — we have a couple of them here today. Council member Andrade and council member Dvito.
Next slide, please.
A little bit about our staff leadership. We’ve already acknowledged, but Bob Larson is serving as the city’s interim city manager. He has been on the job since April 28th. We also have an experienced leadership guiding our city’s departments to success. And despite limited staffing and resources, our team gets a lot done. In the next few slides, I’ll touch on a few of those highlights from the last 12 months.
Next slide, please.
So we’ll start with some community support. As the closest level of government to our community members, we are able to design programs that are directly responsive to community needs. I was telling someone yesterday — council members here among us are the people that someone’s going to walk up to in the grocery store or at an event and tell us the things that they need and the things that are bothering them. In the last year, our neighborhood grant program was able to fund community celebrations and habitat restoration. Our arts and culture grants are supporting senior choir groups, teenage mariachi workshops, and accessible theater productions. The city’s human services grants address priority themes around safety, access to living wage jobs, school success, and creating a sense of belonging. And Burien residents participate in our Electrify Burien program and are able to afford to weatherize their homes and upgrade to more efficient appliances while helping support our climate action plan goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the face of rapidly rising costs. Our utility tax relief program helps lower income residents to afford necessities like water, sewer, solid waste removal, electricity, and phone service.
Next slide, please.
Burien is a safe and welcoming community. Our annual events calendar is packed with cultural events, artistic performances, and community celebrations. We host annual traditions like the popular Dia de los Muertos event, Lunar New Year, and Arts Aglow, which is a summer festival. We’re home to a weekly farmers market, a three-day pride celebration, and numerous block parties. We’re inviting all Buriens to experience the world in one city for the FIFA World Cup — working with partners to host watch parties, a youth soccer tournament, and a multicultural festival at our local museum. We’re one of the first cities in the region to have a dedicated event for Welcoming Week, celebrating our immigrant and refugee neighbors, and will host our sixth consecutive event this fall. This year, our city council passed a resolution supporting our immigrant and refugee community members and we launched a multilingual directory of immigrant-related resources on our website. The city council has also authorized a 0.1% public safety sales tax adjustment starting in July to help offset the ever-growing costs of keeping our city safe.
Next slide.
We steward growth. Burien continues to make investments in our growing city. We’re working to address the child care shortage, aiming to open nine home-based centers before the end of the year. We’ve partnered with groups like Latino Civic Alliance to provide youth internships, and we partner with Weld Works to create employment pathways for those impacted by incarceration, homelessness, or substance use disorder. Last year, we secured $850,000 in federal appropriations for a public market project at the request of Representative Gaipal. And we’ll brighten up our commercial corridor with even more murals that will start to go up next month, so come back and look for those. We’re encouraging development on our Choose Burien website and campaign and recent council approval of opportunity zone applications. We’re using technology to support local businesses, hosting an online business directory called Shop Local Burien and moving the B&O tax process from a burdensome paper form to an easy online portal. We’ve made exceptional progress on implementing the Burien 2044 comprehensive plan focused on achieving equitable housing growth, adding jobs, mitigating displacement, and removing impediments to development and meeting state legislative requirements. We’re incorporating the best science into our planning work to become better stewards of the environment.
Next slide, please.
Infrastructure — kind of my obsession. Our utility rates are rising at an alarming rate. We know this is an issue that will require collaboration and advocacy. Burien is also collaborating with neighboring cities on reviewing airport impacts and reviewing the sustainable airport master plan NEPA and SEPA environmental impacts. We developed a comprehensive safety action plan to address transportation safety, working towards eliminating fatalities and serious injuries due to crashes. And we’re working on our transportation impact fee program to help fund major projects. This year we launched Fix It Burien, a very successful app allowing community members to easily submit issues they see around the city like potholes and graffiti.
Next slide, talk a little bit about the environment.
Burien joined partners from SeaTac and the port in November to celebrate the completion of the Miller Creek restoration project, improving fish passage, storm water infrastructure, and restored riparian habitat. The Green Burien Partnership’s annual report brings together community members and private and public agency partners to restore and care for Burien’s parks and urban forests. 100% of all these program costs were covered by grants, partnerships, and existing staff time. The city received a grant from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative to benchmark our urban forest program against a new standard for urban and community forestry. Our goal is to equitably increase canopy cover to 40% by 2038. We also secured our Tree City USA status for the 25th year in a row. Our sustainability division has expanded their impact by partnering to host community recycling events, food waste prevention workshops, and Stormfest, an outdoor storm water education event for sixth graders.
And that gets us to our last slide. See you in Burien. Many of you are already here in Burien. Thank you for being here and thank you for your time today. I love talking about Burien. So please reach out anytime and we welcome you to come see for yourself what makes Burien so special by coming for your next meal or enjoying a fun local event in our city. Thank you all.
**Vinson:** Thank you, Mayor Moore, for sharing many great things about the city of Burien, and also once again thank you for hosting this forum.
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**[~17:13] SAMP NTP ENVIRONMENTAL UPDATE**
**Vinson:** The next item on the agenda is the SAMP — excuse me — the SAMP NTP environmental update. We have listed here Sarah Cox, director of aviation environmental and sustainability, and Steve Rybolt, aviation environment and sustainability — both representing the Port of Seattle.
As we are all aware, the long-awaited sustainable airport master plan near-term projects, SAMP NTP, state environmental policy act draft environmental impact statement — the SEPA EIS — was released last Friday, May 22nd. Yesterday, the port commission was briefed by staff on the draft EIS and an outreach process for soliciting public feedback. Here to provide an update on the environmental review process are Sarah Cox and Steve Rybolt from the port’s aviation environment and sustainability department.
Before we have Director Cox kick things off, I want to ask all of you to please hold your questions until the presentation is completed. Note down what questions you have to ask at the end. When we get to questions, the members of the Highline forum will have the first opportunity to have their questions posed and answered. Once we have had an opportunity to have their questions answered, we’ll be soliciting questions from the members of the StART committees. Director Cox, please begin when you are ready.
**Sarah Cox (Port of Seattle, Director, Aviation Environmental and Sustainability):** Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Sarah Cox, and today Steve Rybolt and Claire Gallagher and myself will be providing an overview of — just a reminder of what is in the master plan scope of work, the projects that are there, what happened during the NEPA process, and then now where we’re at in SEPA and the outcome. Before we jump into those details, I did want to pass it over to our aviation director, Wendy Ryder, just to provide some context about SEA in our region and the demand that we’re seeing for aviation in our region.
**Wendy Ryder (Port of Seattle, Aviation Managing Director):** Thanks, Sarah. Thank you, Mayor Moore. That was really a great presentation and I love your passion. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. And thank you again for being here today.
Just a couple of comments about the importance of SEA’s role in our region — all of our region. Developing an airport master plan that effectively accommodates growth is really an FAA requirement. I think of it as similar to the comprehensive planning process for cities. We know that growth is coming to our region and the demand for air travel will continue. The state demand forecast update that we saw 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 Fields completing the proposed master plan projects. This clearly underscores the need for the master plan projects to continue. 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 all of the work that the SAMP team has done on the draft EIS being presented to you today, and we always encourage community members across the region to review the document, ask questions to understand the analysis that’s applicable to the standards, and to submit your comments before the end of the 60-day comment period. So with that, I’d like Sarah and Steve to go ahead and proceed. Thank you.
**Cox:** Thank you. Next slide, please.
So as I noted, these are the topics we will be covering through today’s presentation.
Next slide.
And as I mentioned, I wanted to provide an overview of the 31 near-term projects that are elements of the master plan. The purpose of these projects is to address future passenger and cargo growth, ensure our airfield infrastructure meets FAA airport design standards, enhance the efficiency of our airfield layout including the taxiway layout, and also to meet our projected fuel storage demand, which includes our sustainable aviation fuel initiatives.
One of the primary projects in the master plan — as you can see in blue at the bottom of the screen — is a new 19-gate terminal. Because we operate on such a constrained footprint — we operate at a very high passenger and operation load for our physical size compared to many other airports — when we do development, it requires a kind of domino effect. We have to displace other facilities to accommodate the new terminal. That includes the displacement of our current fire station, some maintenance facilities, and cargo facilities. You’ll see the relocation on the upper left — a maintenance campus on the top portion in brown — and then some cargo facilities on the bottom right, as well as the fuel farm expansion on the bottom left.
Next slide please. So I just wanted to do a quick refresher on what is the purpose of environmental reviews. It is to identify the potential impacts of the proposed projects that were developed during our planning work — those 31 master plan projects — and this evaluation begins by validating the future passenger and operational volumes. Then we identify existing environmental conditions, and once these baseline conditions are identified we then conduct our impacts evaluation — identify potential impacts with and without the projects moving forward.
For this environmental review we assess the potential for impacts with the near-term projects and without the projects in both years 2032 and 2037, meaning we look at the potential impacts if the projects are built versus without building the near-term projects. There are three important considerations I’d just like to note. With or without building the near-term projects, the airport will continue to grow. For example, we will see an increase of approximately 20% of our operations in a 15-year period without building the NTPs. Whereas it will be approximately 23% growth with the construction of the near-term projects. This is about a 3% difference between building or not building the near-term projects.
I’m going to start saying NTPs instead of near-term projects because it’s a mouthful. SEA already has many programs and plans in place to reduce our environmental impact. This is important to note because these are included in our evaluation, and these programs and plans continue to minimize our impacts as SEA grows — we’ll provide details on these in subsequent slides. The large majority of the proposed projects take place within the existing footprint of the airport with no planned property acquisition, and if impacts are identified, the analysis evaluates those impacts and if required identifies ways to avoid, minimize, or mitigate them.
On this slide it represents 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 green line and the blue lines that you see there.
The forecast is an extremely important component and requirement of the environmental review. It has also remained constant as we progressed both through the NEPA and the SEPA processes. The forecast of demand for passengers and operations is the basis for identifying impacts and modeling all of our assumptions.
And I want to review the forecast with you as there are constraints that we identified that affect the evaluation during our update. During the update of the forecast, the analysis identified that the small footprint of SEA will continue to constrain operation levels. SEA will start to see slower growth from today’s operational levels around 2026 — this year — due to these constraints. So if the NTPs are approved, SEA will see some increase in our operation rates after the NTPs are constructed. However, after 2037, we will return to a constrained operating environment — one factor being a continued need for aircraft parking. So with or without these projects being constructed, the demand at our airport will remain high. That demand can mean aircraft getting larger, or flight schedules could be spread out more to fit more operations at our existing gate configuration.
As mentioned in the previous slide, the purpose of the NTPs is to accommodate passenger growth at an optimal level of service. Next slide, please.
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 we also have many voluntary policies and programs in place, in addition to past required mitigation, that were taken into consideration. These past investments include $40 million in our preconditioned air system that allows aircraft to turn off their engines when they’re at their gates instead of idling, $60 million in past storm water infrastructure, and current infrastructure improvements of over $150 million in aircraft deicer treatment.
Next slide, please.
And I just wanted to note — under the NEPA process, I think everyone is aware that FAA was the lead agency, and as the operator of the airport, the port of Seattle/SEA is a sponsor. Under the SEPA process, the port of Seattle is the lead agency and I am the SEPA responsible official for the airport.
Next slide, please. And I will now pass it over to Steve to talk through the NEPA and SEPA findings.
**Steve Rybolt (Port of Seattle, Aviation Environment and Sustainability):** Thank you, Sarah. Mayor Moore, thanks for hosting us, and nice to see a few of you multiple days in a row. I want to take some time to review the findings in the NEPA EA, and the reason being is it’s really the foundation — or a large component — of what was done in the SEPA draft EIS. The NEPA EA evaluated 16 resource categories. Only one of them found significant impacts, and that was surface transportation. All other resource categories identified no impacts or impacts that were less than significant.
Next slide.
What I’d like to do is now review the Federal Aviation Administration’s finding of no significant impact and record of decision, also known as a FONSI/ROD. The NEPA EA identified a decision-making document — that’s the FONSI/ROD — and what it does is identify required mitigation and minimization measures that the port will have to enact if the projects move forward. Surface transportation again was the only environmental category identified as having a potential significant impact, and this will require mitigation.
I’ll discuss transportation in the next couple slides. Some of the minimization measures include: for historical, architectural, archaeological, and cultural resources — an inadvertent discovery plan for certain near-term projects. Simply, if we’re digging the ground and we find things, we have specific requirements that we have to follow. For biological resources, we’re required to make sure that when we’re constructing projects we’re not removing nests or doing things during nesting periods for certain species. For water resources, we have specific storm water requirements that we’re required to report to the FAA and the National Marine Fishery Services, or NMFS. And for hazardous materials, pollutant prevention, and solid waste, we have to have plans in place should we encounter any type of contaminated soils or hazardous waste during construction. Those are just a handful of a variety of requirements that we have to follow.
Next slide, please.
It’s important to note that the SEPA EIS carried forward all of the conditions that the Federal Aviation Administration identified in the final NEPA EA. The port will mitigate impacts related to surface transportation. For surface transportation, the NEPA analysis evaluated 114 intersections in and around the airport. Impacts were broken down into four categories.
Category one were intersections where constructing the NTPs would create a deficient level of service that did not meet local or state requirements. These intersections require physical mitigation — roundabouts, signalization, rechannelization of roads — to bring them back to an acceptable level of service based on city or state standards. Category two are intersections where typically level of service was already or currently failing. The NTPs were adding to that failed level of service. In these situations, the port would be required to mitigate through either a monetary contribution, paying local city building, or some combination thereof.
There were two other categories also identified — categories three and four. These either had no impact as a result of the near-term projects, they were at an acceptable level of service, or the near-term projects actually improved the level of service. Throughout the analysis, the port worked with transportation staff with WashDOT, the cities of Burien, De Moines, and SeaTac and Tukwila to consult on the assumptions we had made as well as the analysis, and also to ensure that our mitigation that we were proposing was acceptable.
Can we go back a slide?
The analysis identified 26 intersections that would require mitigation. We estimate this is about $40 million in improvements that would have to be made. All mitigation is going to be required if one trip-generating project moves forward. So for example, if we start with a north airport expressway relocation, it would trigger all 26 intersections to be mitigated if no other NTPs occur.
Next slide.
The SEPA technical analysis was conducted to complement the rigor of the NEPA EA. The document specifically identifies where new analysis was conducted. We’ve heard very clearly over the last few days that there’s interest in having — I’ll call it a cheat sheet — to identify where new SEPA information is located in the document, and we’re currently working on that right now. There are requirements in SEPA that were not covered in NEPA. This includes greenhouse gas emissions and climate, additional analyses for surface transportation, housing, plants and animals, and cumulative impacts.
There were also additional analyses voluntarily undertaken in SEPA — this was really identified as scoping that was conducted for the NEPA and SEPA, as well as comments that we heard as part of the NEPA EA. This includes a more in-depth air quality analysis, human health risk assessment related to toxic air pollutants, review of particulate matter specifically ultrafines, review of human health and impacts associated with noise, and environmental justice. Some of these were removed by the current presidential administration and they’ve been brought back into the SEPA document.
Next slide.
**Cox:** Can I just make a note? Brought back, but also additional analysis performed.
**Rybolt:** Yes. So they were brought back, updated to where we are today, and then additional analyses occurred. Thanks, Sarah.
The results of the draft SEPA EIS were similar to findings in the NEPA EA. Mitigation was identified for surface transportation — it was brought forward from the NEPA EA. One of the reasons why limited impacts were identified is really a result of past and current practices at SEA. What Sarah alluded to — the port and SEA have many programs and policies in place that minimize our environmental impact. Many of which have been implemented and are required by our commissioners. This includes preconditioned air, electric ground support equipment, storm water best management practices, sustainable design and construction in our capital projects, and more recently our land stewardship plan. These programs and policies that are already in place will continue into the future.
Next slide, please.
So I want to jump into the SEPA EIS specifically. This slide represents the 16 elements of the environment that were evaluated under SEPA — very similar to NEPA, although there are some wording differences. For example, in SEPA it’s called plants and animals; in NEPA it’s called biological resources. In this situation we looked at state-listed endangered species versus in the NEPA EA it looked at just federally listed endangered species. So we now include both in the SEPA EIS.
Next slide please.
I want to dive into the specifics of the things that are covered in the SEPA draft EIS. We updated our air quality analysis. Under NEPA we do what’s called an emissions inventory — we essentially look at what are the air emissions essentially in a box. For SEPA we took it a step further. We updated the model and we did what’s called dispersion modeling. Dispersion modeling is a very complex model where we have a variety of grid points — you can see all the dots on the map. We essentially look at how aircraft, how equipment move, how vehicles move, and we model emissions based on weather and topography at each of those grid points. So it’s a very refined technical analysis. It’s not often done at airports — it’s actually rarely done at airports.
The findings: we do have temporary air quality increases related to construction, however they’re short-term in nature. In the long term we do have increases in operational emissions, however they continue to be less than significant. This is consistent with what we saw in the NEPA EA, and there were limited impacts related to air quality.
Next slide.
We heard during scoping that human health was a huge consideration and a concern to the public. So we conducted a human health risk assessment specifically using the outputs of the dispersion modeling. This really looked at toxic air pollutants. You can see in this map we used all our grid points and we looked at toxic air pollutants and risks to cancer and other health-related concerns. They were all below the de minimis thresholds identified. Emissions would not exceed health-based air quality standards. Where you do see some of the darker green, those are again related to construction emissions and will be temporary, and they’re also not near any permanent residences.
Next slide, please.
As mentioned previously, there are a lot of programs in place that have really reduced our air emissions and will continue to do so. On the construction side, we have BMPs — no idling, specific fuel use, new equipment. For operations, we have preconditioned air, electric ground support equipment. We have renewable natural gas in our boilers. We’re working on alternative fuel fleet airside vehicles, alternative fuel and electric vehicles, and really working on strategies to minimize cars to and from the airport.
Next slide.
We also heard that ultrafines were of much interest to the community. We did a literature review specifically looking at particulate matter — it’s kind of like the dust particles in the air. We looked at what’s out there today specific to ultrafine and ultra-ultrafine particulate matter. The findings were really that the state of the science doesn’t support independent causal ultrafine particulate effects to human health — specifically it acknowledged that there are ultrafines in and around areas in this region, however they cannot be associated with any specific thing at this point in time, nor can they really be differentiated between PM10, PM2.5, and the smaller particles in the aviation industry. There’s just a lack of broad-based epidemiological long-term studies that need to be done.
Next slide.
Specific to climate — we do have a commission resolution that requires us to look at climate impacts, as well as SEPA requirements. Similar to air quality, we have many programs in place that adhere to this. We do have increases in greenhouse gas emissions. These are primarily revolving around our scope 3 emissions, which are really related to aircraft. We don’t directly impact those but we continue to work with our carriers to look for ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Next slide.
Similar to air quality, these are the programs we identified that are very much related to our climate reduction or greenhouse gas reduction programs.
Next slide.
Noise and human health impacts. We heard very clearly and loudly during scoping and during the NEPA EA that understanding human health and noise was very important. The air quality analysis was not updated as part of the SEPA EIS — we continued to use the analysis conducted within the final environmental assessment. However, we did conduct a literature review to understand what are the potential human health impacts of noise. The findings were that noise does have impacts to people below the 65 DNL — specific to level of annoyance or sleep disturbance. However, there are no regulatory standards to really enforce or make changes specific to that at this point in time. Similar to ultrafines, it just lacks a broad-scale aviation-focused studies.
I think it’s important to note that the FAA recently conducted a noise annoyance study. They just released the data — or allowed the data to be released — about four weeks ago. The port supports further study and examining of a metric beyond the 65 DNL, and we’ve been on record to support that when they’re ready. I don’t know what that is. In the current administration there’s not a rush to get into it, to be frank.
Next slide.
Noise impact reductions. We do have a lot of things that we try to support — our airlines and things that we try to do to minimize noise. Specific to construction, we have requirements to really muffle noise when we can. We follow all state or local ordinances specific to construction. Specific to operations, we have our Fly Quiet program. We limit run-ups in the evening hours the best we can. And we have our current Part 150 that’s ongoing right now, and we have past Part 150 studies as well.
Next slide.
**[~43:18] Clarifying exchange on Part 150:**
**Unidentified voice:** Can you go back one slide? What is a Part 150 study?
**Cox:** Thank you. So the Federal Aviation Administration — Part 150 is the regulation that the FAA does. It’s a voluntary program that allows airports to go in and identify — you create a noise contour — and if things fall in or around the 65 DNL, which is their general threshold, it provides opportunities for the airport to seek funds from the federal government to insulate homes and provide other voluntary opportunities to help the community in and around that 65 DNL — which is day-night level.
I just want to note that in our 2014 Part 150, it expanded to include multifamily homes, places of worship, and we’ve been working with the Highline School District — as bonds are passed for redevelopment in the schools — to include sound insulation measures in the schools as well. And we’re currently in a new Part 150. This fall we will be reaching out and having more public engagement on the steps of the Part 150, and also in 2027. We’re at the phase now where we will be seeking input on compatibility measures from the community to be able to present to the FAA.
**Rybolt:** Thanks, Sarah. Next slide please.
Environmental justice. We know this is an area that was removed from the NEPA — it was removed from the final NEPA EA. There was an analysis conducted in the draft NEPA EA. We brought that analysis back into the SEPA EIS. We updated it and did additional work here. We used the Washington State Department of Health’s disparity index as well as the port’s equity index. These have a variety of factors that go beyond just environmental impacts — everything from social-economic considerations. There are about 30 indices within the port’s equity index and around 20 in the Department of Health’s index. What it really does is identify vulnerable populations.
There’s no doubt in and around the Puget Sound area — the urban areas — that there are highly impacted communities. What we then did is look at our study areas. You can see the blue line, the purple line — we’ve maximized all of the study areas to look at where do we have potential impacts as a result of the NTPs, and overlaid those with the indices that we identified. And while there were impacts in and around the airport, they were limited and below significance thresholds. Thus there were no impacts to environmental justice communities.
Next slide, please.
As I mentioned just a second ago, just talking about how the SEPA analysis really drove the impact evaluation for environmental justice — looking at the 16 different elements of the environment and then overlaying with the variety of indices that we looked at.
Next slide.
Cumulative impacts. This was a category within the draft — and sorry, it wasn’t in the draft EA. It was removed from the final environmental assessment. We brought this back into the SEPA EIS and updated it. We looked five years back, we looked five years forward. We looked at projects at SEA — NTPs and non-near-term projects. We also looked at projects in the communities around the airport including State Route 509 and other known capital or transportation projects. And we looked at how, putting all together, do they create an impact. In the end there was no significant cumulative impact related to putting all the projects together.
Next slide please.
So, next steps. The draft EIS was released on May 22nd, which starts a 60-day public comment period. Public comment periods for an EIS are traditionally 30 days — that’s required by the state. It allows a 14-day extension. The port is taking a 60-day public comment period, which ends on July 21st. As we get comments in, we review those, we will respond to all comments, and then we will present those to our commission as a final EIS is released. We’re hopeful that we can do that by the end of the year. Once that occurs, there’s a 21-day appeal period which is set by the state.
It’s important to note that just because the environmental review is complete does not mean that the near-term projects will move forward. It requires commission approval for any single or group of projects to move forward. This is traditionally what happens for any capital projects at the board. So every project does undertake some environmental review. This is just a big comprehensive look at a suite of projects — as Sarah noted, like comp plans. And now I’ll turn it over to Claire.
**Claire Gallagher (Port of Seattle, External Relations):** Usually I project well anyway. People tell me to be quieter.
Next slide, Dave.
Thanks. Steve, thanks for stepping through that amount of technical material. What you have on the screen here are dates that hopefully you’ve seen a little bit before already. We did go ahead and send out notification 30 days before we published — which was a commitment we had to community members both for the NEPA activity and for SEPA — and let you know that since this has been quite a long process, we’re on schedule, we’re on track. We told folks in that April date yes, we’re going to be able to publish the next month. So we did publish on Friday, and that kicked off a 60-day comment period. Steve, I think you mentioned 30 days is what’s required for an EIS under SEPA — it’s very specific in state law. So we’ve gone ahead and doubled that comment period, and that would take us to that mid-July date that you see on screen.
With that 60-day time period, I want to flag we have in-person public meetings the week of June 22nd. We have the StART meeting right there in the middle of that week as well, but we’ve worked around it so that there isn’t a conflict. Evening meetings, but also a Saturday midday meeting to try and address a range of needs and availability for folks. We’ll also be offering virtual meetings — we’re going to hold them after the in-person meetings. That way if there are things we learn or things that we want to update or do a little differently, we can take advantage of that.
The public meetings are going to be an open house or workshop format. The amount of technical material that Steve has covered today — we’ll have stations for each of those areas, with the technical staff there and the ability to really get into conversations and talk with folks about what’s top of mind for them, what they have questions about, what they’d like to know more about. And we have found consistently that that is a format that works best for a range of audiences.
I have heard some feedback about — what are you going to hear from people? How are we going to stay current with what you’re receiving? And I’m doing some work about how I’m going to report out what we can capture and share, because I’m happy to do that. I think that the way we’re going to present the material and engage with people is the best situation for this type of technical study, and I want to make it work for people and have them feel that it will be something that adds value to the whole process.
Go ahead to the next slide, Dave. Oh, and I’ll just note those meetings are all held in schools. I think several of them are ones that we had during the NEPA process as well. We find that that space lends itself pretty well because we’ll have — I don’t know — I think it’s 40 different stations, right? We cover a lot of stuff, so we need a lot of room for people to move around.
The public comment will also be able to be captured at the in-person meetings. The virtual meetings are more of a webinar format, but still with a live chat just like we’re using today. So it’ll be a lot like what we’re doing today — we’ll do a live presentation, there’ll be a live chat, we can answer and respond to comments and questions in the chat. So I hope that’ll be useful and allow people to participate who aren’t able to or do not want to come to an in-person meeting.
You can see some of the areas that I’m really focusing on as we’ve designed the outreach and engagement. I’ve got a great team of people with our own port specialist and then consultants — in communications materials including translation, including communications to underrepresented communities, the community engagement building on the folks at the port we work with, especially through our South King and Port Communities Fund grant recipients, but also working with a couple of firms — the VA agency and ECOS — to build on their networks and move our reach further beyond what just the port has available. And a lot of that is about — as you see the bottom bullet — meeting with community groups, going to their meetings, bringing presentation materials, translated materials in several cases, and trying to just offer a range of platforms and channels that will move not only the information but the ability to engage to a wide range of audiences.
We’re translating in eight languages in addition to English. That’s two more than we did during NEPA. That’s based on — we always check in with the school districts about what are your top languages — and we’ve also gathered some new information from our outreach work. So we’ve added Cambodian and French in addition to the six that we had during NEPA.
I think that’s pretty good coverage, but what’s great is for translation as well — we have a language line and we’re using online translation through closed captioning with the slide presentation, etc. That just opens up 100-plus languages for folks to take advantage of.
That’s it. Back over to you.
**Rybolt:** Yeah. Thank you, Claire. Just want to say some key takeaways. There was substantial new technical analyses done — air quality was one of them, noise and human health as well as environmental justice, some of which was included in the draft EA, and has now been brought back and updated. There were no significant impacts identified beyond surface transportation for the draft SEPA EIS. We published last Friday. It’s a 60-day public comment period. You can make comments on our web page, which is samp.ca.com or samp.org.
Highly encourage everyone — if something comes up, you can call, you can email, I said you can hand deliver — we want to know your comments and questions. When things come up versus hearing them through other mechanisms, trying to update and make sure everything’s accessible as soon as possible. So far so good. There have been some hiccups, but we’ve addressed them really quickly.
Can I let me add one more thing, because I somehow lost a slide I used to count on. We have a great SAMP website — it’s seasamp.com. It’s a site specifically for the project. You can go to the port’s website and you’ll see a link to it, or you can go to it directly. All of the document we’re talking about today is available electronically. Then there are hard copies — physical copies — one of which is here in this library. But they’re in the Highline cities — there’s one in Tukwila, one downtown at port headquarters at Pier 69, there’s one at the airport. And when we prepare the work for the in-person meetings, the boards will be translated, and so we’ll have the translated boards available online. That’s going to be another way for people to look at the information specifically and get some more information. So I’m sorry that’s not in there — Dave, maybe when you send the version out, I can put that slide back in and we’ll make sure everybody has access to it.
**Cox:** And Claire, there’s a hard copy right behind us in the library.
**Gallagher:** I know. That’s why I said it’s in the library here. So don’t everybody get up at once. Let’s finish.
—
**[~58:25] QUESTIONS — Forum Members**
**Vinson:** Awesome. Thank you, Claire. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Sarah. Before I open it up to forum members, as the chair I do have a couple of clarifying questions. I noticed that the deck notes mitigation identified in the NEPA EA was carried forward into the draft SEPA EIS. Can you describe what enforcement mechanism ensures that those NEPA commitments are actually being delivered, and what recourse do the cities have if the commitment isn’t being met?
**Rybolt:** Yeah, really good question. So the FAA is essentially the one who will be enforcing those requirements. We have what — there’s an environmental protection specialist that works for FAA. We essentially have a checklist that we must adhere to. I have an internal one that we’re developing to make sure that every time we build something, that we adhere to those, and they are in our construction documents, etc. I routinely meet with the FAA at least once a month. As we start to move into these projects, if they move forward, we will essentially run down every time we talk in terms of are you doing X, Y, and Z. We also have to submit — FAA is very process-oriented to say the least. And when we move forward with capital projects, there’s a long process that we have to follow with them. As part of that process, they will actually have their own checklist to make sure that we’re adhering to requirements identified in the NEPA EA.
**Vinson:** Thank you. So it sounds like it’s the federal government that will be the enforcement aspect that the cities could turn to?
**Rybolt:** Correct.
**Vinson:** Thank you. I will open up questions to the forum members. Dave, if you can help me identify any questions. Any questions on this presentation?
**Bob Larson (Burien, Interim City Manager):** Bob Larson, city of Burien. For the surface transportation improvements — you identified category 1 and category 2 improvements for mitigation, for those capital project construction costs that you identified. Does that also include capital maintenance for ongoing?
**Rybolt:** Yeah, it’s part of the process. So that’s for what’s identified for the mitigation specifically. I’ll just use a roundabout as an example. As part of our design and construction, our hope is to work with the local cities. If they want to beautify the inside of the roundabout, that’s an option that we would consider. We have put out agreements to the cities to identify how we work through that. It also includes non-motorized components as well. So if there are bike lanes, sidewalks, etc. that we want to include as part of that, that will be part of the design process that we’ll work with the cities on. So it’s not just us coming in and putting a signal in. It does have additional components that we are eager to work with the cities on.
**Cox:** And can I add, Bob — obviously we would be doing the work in jurisdictions outside of the port’s authority. So we would be having an agreement — a use agreement or whatever would be captured — prior to any of that work being done.
**Larson:** Great. Thank you.
**Vinson:** Any other questions?
**Larson:** I have another question. Yes. Somebody else wants to go first — I want to be respectful of that.
This one was entertained by the port commissioners yesterday, but I need to reiterate it on behalf of at least Burien — I’m also speaking perhaps in regards to the comment period of 60 days. There was a request made for a 90-day review period, and that included the cities of Burien, SeaTac, De Moines, and Federal Way. My question is whether that is still being actively considered by the port commissioners.
**Gallagher:** One of us — we’re all looking at each other. Yeah, Bob, thank you. I think you did hear the commissioners acknowledge from the dais yesterday that they received that request and that they will consider it. I don’t have any change in status at this time, but it’s in there, it’s active, and we’ll keep things updated.
**Larson:** Great. Appreciate that. Thank you.
**Vinson:** Thank you, Bob. Claire, I do have a question, and this one’s coming from the community. For folks in our cities who want to comment but aren’t familiar with SEPA — what’s the most effective format for a public comment to actually influence the final EIS? Is there a difference in how the port treats comments at a public meeting versus written submissions versus the website portal?
**Gallagher:** That’s actually a great question. I’m going to start and then I’m going to kick it to Steve for a very good reason, which I will note in just a minute.
There isn’t a difference. What’s really important is that comments be submitted in a way that they’re part of the official record. The cleanest way to do that is going to be either at an in-person meeting — and we have a stenographer or court reporter, various words are used — that will capture verbal comments and that becomes part of the record. If it’s submitted either by email, directly through the website, that’s perfect. If you mail something to Steve, that’s perfect. If you mail something to the commission office, to me, to the airport front desk — that is less than perfect and we want to make sure that it gets to Steve to be recorded in the record. We will work with the commission office and their staff. We did this during NEPA and during scoping, and we have to always remind them — remember to send it over to the project so that we can record it. I’m going to continue to emphasize — if you just send it directly to the project, that’s the cleanest and best way to do it. They’re all weighed the same, they all have the same value.
And I’m going to ask Steve to speak to that because Steve is the one who’s going to oversee the several hundred or thousand comments and make sure that each one is reviewed and responded to.
**Rybolt:** However you receive them — I read every comment that comes in, just to be fair. There are four primary ways of submitting a comment. One is via email, samp.org. Going to the web page where there’s a portal that you can submit a comment. You can send a letter via USPS. And then the fourth is you can come to a public meeting and give verbal comment to a court reporter and stenographer. Those are the four primary ways.
I want to note that if there are accessibility considerations, please reach out via the SAMP or my port email, and I will do everything in my power to make sure I provide the best accessibility for submitting and receiving comments.
I just want to emphasize what Claire said — sending a comment to our commission is not official. It has to come in through those four mechanisms, or through reaching out specifically and asking for accessibility considerations. Same with verbal comments — public comment at the commission meetings is certainly appreciated, but it’s not going to count, and we have to make sure to capture it correctly.
**Gallagher:** I did want to add — translation services would be available for comments. Please let us know if that needs to be worked in, as well as any other accessibility. We know how to do it. We want to bring it forward if it’s needed. So please just work with us. And again, we have a specific project email which is samp.org.
**Vinson:** Council member Papian has a question.
**Council President Armen Papian (Tukwila, online):** Yes. Thank you, Dave. So I understand there’s active outreach to cities around SEA, but a lot of the information is also very technical. Is there also outreach to our planning departments so there could be possible feedback provided?
**Rybolt:** I can speak to specifically the surface transportation component. As we developed that analysis, we worked with transportation staff at the local cities — planners, public works, etc. — to really get their input. We did essentially increase the study area of the transportation intersections based on what we heard from them. So we have engaged with them as part of the NEPA EA process. Nothing has changed related to surface transportation, so there’s been no additional work in that arena. Agreements were sent out during NEPA to figure out how we move forward. I’ll just say those are on hold at this point in time. Eventually we will want to work in agreement with the city to know how we best move forward.
But in regards to what you mentioned broadly — there’s a lot of new technical information in the SEPA document — I think it’s important to note that a large majority of the analysis is in the NEPA EA, and that has been available and fully available to the public since November of last year. The new analysis is really going to be the air quality, the literature reviews, some of the environmental justice analyses — those are new specific to SEPA. So there’s not a huge voluminous amount of information that’s brand new. Most of that information has been available with the release of the draft EA.
**Cox:** And Steve, let me add just a couple things. Council member Papian, thanks for your question. Working backward — as Steve mentioned earlier in his presentation, we are going to prepare a shortcut resource that we’ll flag for you — here’s the NEPA work, here’s the SEPA work, in these categories you can find it. Because even though it is delineated in the text, it’ll be easier to have it called out for folks to read and get through more quickly.
Council member Papian, your feedback is exactly one of the things I’m looking for. We did engage quite a bit with transportation and public works departments, but while Dave Kaplan gets to go to each of your city councils and present — and I think you’re starting that even next week, Dave — we would be happy to sit down with any department or group of city staff. That’s what we’re here to do — help us, tell us what’s important to you and where to connect, and we will make it work. We’re happy to come talk to your planning department. Dave can follow up — Dave is handling the cities. Marco Melanise, who several of you know, who is our lead for StART roundtable, is doing his more typical community engagement — chambers and other groups with whom we work. And AJ McClure — who some of you may or may not have met — AJ leads our South King and Port Communities Fund work. AJ is especially leading the community engagement to underrepresented communities, grant recipients, others that we engage with, and working with the consultant team to help broaden that. So I hope that’s helpful to you, council member, and thanks for your question.
**Papian:** That answer was very helpful. Thank you.
—
**[~1:11:03] QUESTIONS — StART Members**
**Vinson:** Dave, do we have any additional questions online?
**Kaplan:** Looks like we’ll also open it up to questions for our members of our StART committees. Any questions from the members of the StART committees?
**Karen Veloria (Burien StART representative):** My name is Karen Veloria and I’m the Burien community representative on the StART committee. I have a couple of questions if that’s okay. The first one is regarding the open public meetings — on those four days, will there be in-person translation on site?
**Gallagher:** There will be at least Spanish and Vietnamese. And we have a language line iPad setup that can pull up other languages on request, and it does it on screen but it’ll be a person operating it.
**Veloria:** Okay. I wanted to make sure about that. Also, in all the presentations that I’ve been to — and we understand how big SEA is getting and how we need it, and there will be a 30% increase in the next few years or whatever it is, we have a busy airport — how do you explain to somebody who lives under the flight path, which I do, that there’s no significant impact, when I live there, when I breathe the air, when I see the flights, when I hear the noise? How can you say that there’s no significant impact? That’s my question, or statement, or whatever — but I just had to get that out.
**Gallagher:** I’m going to loop back and tell you — can you please write that down also? That’s a great comment for us to receive. I’m not really joking — just trying to be light-hearted. We want to hear that, and this is the kind of stuff that we’re saying and we’re saying and we’re saying, because we live there.
**Rybolt:** Yes. Thank you — really good question. And please say them to our official mechanisms to submit a comment. The four mechanisms: one is an email to samp.org, two is go to the website and there’s a portal on the website which you can fill in, you can send me a letter, and you can also come to one of the public meetings and talk verbally — there’s actually a fifth, you can hand-deliver.
**Veloria:** But will I get an answer?
**Rybolt:** When we receive all the comments and the comment period is closed, we will respond to all of those comments.
**Veloria:** Okay. Thank you.
**Vinson:** Thank you. Do we have any additional questions from any members of the StART committees?
Moving right along. So I do want to thank Sarah and Steve and Claire for the presentation today. For everyone attending, here are some important reminders. The public comment period is open until July 21st, 2026. Port staff are providing presentations to our city councils the weeks of June 1st, June 8th, and June 15th. Open houses are being held the week of June 22nd with meetings specifically in SeaTac, De Moines, Federal Way, and Burien. Online open houses are also being held. I want to thank everyone who attended to hear the SAMP presentation today. It’s important that you submit your concerns through the formal process that we heard, to ensure that your comments are on the record. Please attend the open houses whether in person or virtual, and also please submit your comments through the website at sca-samp.com.
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**[~1:14:57] HIGHLINE PUBLIC SCHOOLS — FUTURE READY OVERVIEW**
**Vinson:** Up next, we have our Highline Public Schools Future Ready overview. Presenters — Janet Blandford, director of secondary success, college and career readiness with the Highline Public Schools.
**Janet Blandford (Highline Public Schools, Director of Secondary Success, College and Career Readiness):** Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I think I’ll wait a second until my slides are up.
Good afternoon. Thank you for having me today. Today I’m going to give a really high-level overview of the work that we’re doing in Highline to support students preparing for life after graduation.
Next slide, please.
Some of this may be very familiar to some of you around the table — more so than others. I’m just going to set the groundwork. In Highline, we say that our promise is that every student is known by name, strength, and need, and graduates prepared for the future they choose. And in the department that I lead — the secondary success, college and career readiness department — we make efforts to ensure that this is really an authentic promise and that students really do graduate with choices aligned to things that they want to do beyond graduation.
This promise is situated — next slide please — within four main priority areas in Highline: focusing on a culture of belonging, innovative learning, biliteracy and bilingual, and the part of the strategic plan that we focus on mostly is on future ready.
Next slide please.
To share some of the data that we look at as we develop our strategy — I wanted to share some of the most current data from our own students. Over 90% of our students tell us that they want to pursue education beyond graduation. And of all the options they are provided, a four-year degree is the most popular. So we know that our students aspire to continue their education, and it’s up to us in the system in collaboration with community and families to try to make that a reality for our students.
Highline Public Schools is a participant in the Washington State Guaranteed Admissions Program. Our students that graduate with a 3.0 GPA and meet the course requirements — the CARs — for college admissions in Washington state, if they meet CARs, they are granted automatic admissions to public Washington state colleges and universities except UDub Seattle. And then the one private college that we partner with on guaranteed admissions is PLU — they are a great partner with us. About two-thirds of the students in our secondary schools qualify for some form of financial assistance in higher ed. Washington state has very generous financial aid — it became a little bit less generous in the last couple of legislative cycles, but it is still very generous. So encouraging our students to take advantage of the generous financial aid that is available.
Next slide, please.
Both Highline and the state of Washington have had pretty flat direct enrollment rates over the last decade — they sit somewhere between 50 and 60%. We were getting close to and above 60% pre-pandemic, then we had a dip and we’re climbing back up, but it is pretty stable and it is a pernicious and persistent problem that we’re trying to address across the state, Highline included.
When we say direct enrollment, we are talking about students enrolling and continuing their education within their first year after graduation. Research shows that students who graduate and then enter higher ed within one year of graduation are more likely to complete than those who do not.
While our rates of direct enrollment have been pretty stagnant, when we look at the data — there was an analysis done a few years ago of districts across Washington state with more than 40% students of color. Of the school districts with more than 40% students of color and who have more than one high school, Highline Public Schools has the highest direct enrollment rate in the state of Washington. So we’re on to something. We’re not satisfied — we know more of our students want to go to higher ed than are actually directly enrolling. So we have work to do, but we take this data as a sign that we’re on the right track.
Next slide, please.
When we’re talking to our students and our families, we want to make sure that they understand that just going to higher ed in anything may not have the payoff. So we really want to make sure that our students and families understand what the high-demand careers and jobs are. We also want them to have really realistic information. Because of what a lot of people are hearing in the media and in the news right now, a lot of times students are getting a message that going into the trades is a really great pathway for them. It is a really great pathway for a lot of students, and it is hard to get connected to trade pathways straight out of high school. So we are encouraging our students who truly are interested in the trades to continue on in a technical or trade school, get certificates, do things that will make them more marketable in trades pathways.
Knowing the statistic that 75% of the jobs in Washington state and in King County will require some form of education, we really want our students and families to understand that. And it’s an unintended consequence that we are aware of and try to talk with our students and families about — because we have a relatively high minimum wage in our region, a lot of students will tell us that they would like to just go into the workforce directly after graduation. While we understand that that is a necessity for some of our students, we also want them to understand how continuing their education magnifies their earning potential. So trying to balance those messages with our students and families.
Next slide please.
So back to our promise. Our promise is that our graduates are prepared for the future they choose. And when we talk to students, we really want them to think about what are their skills, what are their interests, what are their values, what do they want to provide for their community. Based on that, we work backwards to have them think about the career pathway that makes sense — does it make sense for them to go into the military, or to a university, or to a technical or trade school? We are pretty agnostic on which post-secondary path, but we do want them to be thinking about which one makes the most sense for them.
Next slide, please.
So how we do that in Highline Public Schools — how we are working to improve — is that we have a 7th through 12th grade scope and sequence that is aligned to grade-level objectives. Our students during the school day — every student — have the opportunity to access experiences, information, and skill building that helps them develop their plan for post-graduation.
We encourage our students — on Friday morning I will be at Pacific Middle School. Tuesday is Sylvester. We will be at the middle schools where we’re inviting career professionals from the community onto our campuses to learn about different things. We do things during the school day so that it’s not just the students who opt in that get experiences, but all of our students who are present during the school day get these experiences.
Early on, up until 10th grade, we really want our students to expand and keep their opportunities open. We don’t want a seventh grader narrowing to something yet. We want them to keep broadening their ideas, and then about end of 10th grade going into 11th grade, we have them start to narrow their ideas. Multiple components — so it’s hands-on activities, it is lessons, it is inventories, it is different ways to know themselves and to know the opportunities that exist for them.
Next slide.
This is just a visual that shows the pathway that we have for our students starting in middle school going through graduation. You’ll notice sixth grade is on there because we actually do have students doing things in sixth grade. The state requires that activities start in seventh grade, which is why we say high school and beyond planning starts in seventh grade.
Next slide.
This shows just what I mean by a scope and sequence. Starting in middle school going through high school, we have a five-tiered approach: academic planning; SchooLinks, which is a digital platform that students log into — it’s where they might take a career interest inventory or a learning styles inventory, research careers, research colleges; lessons that are delivered within the school day; and each grade level has an event that happens during the school day. All of our eighth graders go to the University of Washington, for example. All of our 11th graders spend the day in an event called Future U on Green River College’s campus. So we give our students lots of different types of experiences along the way.
And we know that adolescents are not making these decisions in isolation — we need to find ways to integrate family and community engagement into all of this, and that is a real area of growth and interest for us. We know it’s very important.
Next slide please.
That’s the five components I just talked about. I mentioned earlier — seventh grade, high school and beyond planning. In seventh grade we are asking students to focus on careers. So they do a career interest inventory in SchooLinks and they reflect on their likes and dislikes. We’re really trying to help students understand that it’s equally important for them to understand what they don’t like as it is for them to know what they do like. We want them to know starting in seventh grade what the high-demand family-wage jobs are in the region, and we want them to have opportunities to interact with industry professionals.
Next slide please.
So what this looks like in seventh grade — we have a series of lessons, a pre-lesson where they’re doing the inventories in SchooLinks, and then we have a career exploration day where we invite industry professionals from a broad swath of the community — medical careers, Port of Seattle, you’ll hear in just a second, lots of different local folks come in and talk to our young people about the opportunities that exist for them. And we really impress upon them that it’s not just a 30 or 40-minute presentation — we ask them to share information about their personal journey. How did they get into the field? What drew them to it? What are the different access points into it? Can you do a four-year college or two-year college? And then have the students do some type of hands-on activity related to the career. So that is just an example of the type of event or the type of activity that we build into our scope and sequence, so our students have an opportunity to really begin exploring their futures.
That is my last slide, and I can certainly answer questions. I also know that Marco is going to follow up.
**Vinson:** Thank you, Janet. Are there any questions?
**Kaplan:** No questions online.
**Vinson:** All right. Well, Janet, thank you for sharing the district’s focus on diverse options and supporting our young people to find their potential. Really appreciate that presentation. Thank you.
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**[~1:29:46] PORT OF SEATTLE — EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS**
**Vinson:** Next up, Port of Seattle Educational Partnerships. Marco Melanise. Airport Community Engagement, Port of Seattle. Marco, please start when you’re ready.
**Marco Melanise (Port of Seattle, Airport Community Engagement):** Again, Marco Melanise. I’m part of the community engagement team out at the airport with the Port of Seattle. I just wanted to thank the Highline School District and Janet for being with us today.
As you’ve probably heard often before, the port is a limited purpose special-purpose government. And so, the criteria for what it can fund and why limits the port’s ability to directly fund and support local schools. However, the port is able to overcome this direct funding hurdle by channeling instead the time and skills of its employees to support programs and initiatives in the local schools and with education programming.
Port employees have been playing a role in local schools and education programs for years now — both programs designed by the port and programs also designed by Highline Public Schools. I can say with confidence that I think every port department at one time or another has worked with local students in the area — by serving on a classroom career panel, by taking part in an education-oriented exercise, or chaperoning students around the airport.
A good example of the port’s involvement in the local schools is with Highline’s career exploration days that Janet just described. Highline launched the seventh-grade career education program — I think two years ago — and the port has been able to have at least one team of professionals participate at every middle school within the Highline School District since the program’s inception. Port staff have talked about their career journeys, their role at the airport, and they design exercises that keep the seventh graders engaged and having fun as they learn about career options post-high school. And sometimes that’s not easy with seventh graders.
The photos on this slide highlight the construction project delivery team — you can see them up in the top corner there. They have the students build a structure within a tight time frame and then test that structure to see if it could withstand an earthquake. Photos on this slide also highlight the electrical and mechanical engineers at the airport who work with students and show how electricity gets conducted, using port-provided kits that teach students about the fundamentals of electricity.
Next slide, Dave.
Continuing with that same theme — you’ll see some other photos of students engaged in construction work, and in that lower picture there, learning about customer service practices. And on the right side there, under guidance from the airport’s accessibility team, how public facilities need to be designed and constructed to guarantee access for everyone.
I’m proud to report that on May 18th of this month, the port had four employee teams working with students at Cascade Middle School in White Center — including for the first time, representatives from signage and wayfinding. As Janet mentioned, Friday we’ll be at Pacific Middle School, or the temporary site for Pacific Middle School. And then next Tuesday, at the final day for the career exploration days, we’ll have a team over at Sylvester Middle School as well.
Next slide.
Beginning in 2024, port staff began coordinating more closely with the Puget Sound Skills Center, which works with local juniors and seniors in developing specialized career and technical credit and skills. For the past two years, the port’s communications staff has collaborated closely with students from the PSRC’s multimedia design program on a marketing campaign featuring the airport’s mascot, Jet the Sea Otter. You can see Derek from our video production team there on the left.
This year, for the very first time, ICT staff launched a program with the PSRC cybersecurity program to assist them with the design and launch of their year-end capstone projects — that’s the slide there on the right. And we’ll explore possibly some new options with the skill center come this summer as well.
The Boeing Academy of STEM Learning at the Museum of Flight manages several programs that expose and prepare students for careers in aviation. For several years now, port staff have worked really closely with the museum’s aeronautical science pathway program. These are seniors who receive two hours of instruction four days a week after attending their regular high school — so it’s a very serious and committed program, very rigorous. In the fall, port staff pose a challenge to the students that provides them with an opportunity to develop a creative way to make the airport’s limited terminal space work better. This school year, we had students develop new ways to speed up the process and make the experience for those catching buses to the rental car facility work a little bit better.
Then each spring, airport operations staff works with the students as they develop hypothetical ways and plans for Washington state’s next commercial airport. That program actually wraps up next month with judging on June 9th. You can see the picture of them working there with the students on the right.
And then finally, for nearly two decades now, port staff have worked closely with the students at Raisbeck Aviation High School on the port’s design and implemented environmental challenge. Students are divided up into consulting teams and develop strategies to an environmentally oriented airport challenge, while at the same time gaining exposure to non-traditional careers in aviation like environmental careers. The challenge involves a kickoff day, an airport field trip — you can see some photos of that right there — an in-school workshop day led by port instructors, and an end-of-year judging panel where the students present their approaches to the challenge and port staff act as judges.
This year’s challenge is centered around the 2026 World Cup and the significant increase in summer travel expected during that time, and the impact it will have on SEA’s operations — both related to waste and recycling and ground transportation. The field trip was just last week. The in-school workshops occurred earlier today and I know that Steve Rybolt took part in those workshops from our environmental team. We had our finance team go over as well, and Sound Transit also participated.
So that in a nutshell is some of the bigger educational programs that the port is involved with with local schools — but there’s also more to share. In the interest of time, I’ll just end it there.
**Vinson:** I appreciate that. Any questions for Marco?
Seeing none. Thank you for highlighting the efforts and the investment the port makes to help enlighten the students and the career possibilities that lie ahead.
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**[~1:37:06] StART UPDATE**
**Vinson:** Up next on our agenda, the StART update. Aviation managing director Wendy Ryder, Port of Seattle.
**Ryder:** Thank you so much for the opportunity to recap what we discussed at the April 29th StART meeting. The StART steering committee requested a presentation that would help prepare them for the release of the SAMP SEPA draft environmental impact statement or EIS. And so at the April 29th meeting, Steve Rybolt from the port’s environmental team was joined by Claire Gallagher from external relations to discuss the SAMP SEPA draft EIS. Steve and Claire covered SAMP’s near-term projects and why we do environmental reviews; the differences and similarities between NEPA and SEPA environmental review processes — why can’t they make these more simple? NEPA, SEPA — the categories within the final NEPA environmental assessment and the level of impact associated with each; the categories analyzed within the SEPA EIS and the additional analysis both mandatory and voluntary that was done; the planned public outreach including the four public and two virtual meetings; and how the port plans to reach underrepresented audiences and communities in the neighboring cities.
The presentation generated a very energetic question and answer session and I was pleased at how engaged StART representatives were during the meeting. The StART steering committee met last Thursday to decide on a focus for StART’s next meeting on June 24th. Continuing with the theme of the last few StART meetings, they agreed on a presentation very similar to the one given today at the Highline forum on the release of the SAMP SEPA draft EIS. I know many StART members are with us today, so a lot of what you heard will be repeated at StART’s June 24th meeting. However, I think that’s all right — SAMP is a strong interest to the neighboring cities, and giving StART members a second opportunity to engage exclusively on the topic has real value. And since the June 24th meeting is roughly a month away, we’ll consider some changes to the presentation to reflect issues and questions that arose today and will likely arise over the weeks preceding the June 24th meeting. That concludes my update and thank you again.
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**[~1:39:24] ROUNDTABLE UPDATES**
**Vinson:** Thank you, Wendy. Up next, we have our roundtable updates. At this time, can we go around the table so each Highline forum member can provide a group update on any emerging issues, opportunities, or other items? I’ll turn it over to Mr. Kaplan to call on folks by organization.
**Kaplan:** Highline College. Josh Gersman.
**Josh Gersman (Highline College, VP for Institutional Advancement):** Good afternoon everybody. Josh Gersman with Highline College. We are currently in what we call our sprint to commencement. Every day on our campus there must be at least two amazing activities that celebrate the year-end accomplishments of our students, culminating on Thursday, June 18th at the ShoWare Center in Kent, where we think we’ll have over 600 students who have signed up to participate in graduation walk and exercises. Anybody’s welcome to join us down there. And if somebody in this community wants to create a complex that we could fit 600 students and all their families so that we don’t have to go all the way to Kent, we’re happy to hear those proposals.
We also are starting our formal search process for our permanent president. I should take a step back — probably haven’t shared with this group that about three weeks ago, we learned that Dr. Mosby, who was our immediate past president who retired in December, passed away from his health concerns. The memorial service is this Saturday down in Sacramento, California. We have representatives who will be traveling down there. We’ve sent flowers and items on behalf of Highline College and our community. And for those of you who did know him, his impact and legacy will remain strong at Highline.
We have an interim president, Dr. Jamal Penn. She’s doing an amazing job. But under the direction of our board of trustees, we will be doing a national search that will include reaching out to the community and asking you all what you want — not just from the president of Highline College, but a chance to have some conversations about what the community is wanting from the college itself. Much like what we heard from Janet with Highline Public Schools and all the activities, we want to carry that continuum of learning and we want your input to help make sure that what we’re doing is meeting the needs and demands of our community. So with that, I’ll pass it back over to you, Dave.
**Kaplan:** Dr. Duran.
**Dr. Duran (Highline Public Schools):** Just a quick update for Highline Public Schools. We’re currently refining our strategic plan — that’s always a lot of community engagement and work with our staff. Also, CEFAC, which is our capital facilities action committee, will bring a bond proposal to the board to consider — about $600 million for our next bond.
The most exciting thing — we have three weeks left of the school year and graduations. We can’t wait to celebrate with our 2026 class graduates. And just like Highline College, beginning here in June, almost every day or every other day, we’ll be having some type of celebration or high school graduation. That is our Highline update.
**Kaplan:** Thank you. For Tukwila, Council President Papian.
**Papian:** Hello everyone. Here at the city of Tukwila, we’ve been spending quite a lot of time trying to get our light rail station that was promised to us over 30 years ago, and we keep on working towards it. Unfortunately, the chair published the final proposal and our Boeing access road light rail station is only 30% into the design stage, and we’re not even getting a full 100% design stage, let alone funding to build the station. And so we’re doing everything possible to get that station. We’re working with 13 other cities across South King County, and thank you to other cities who have already signed on and are supporting our efforts. I know the city of De Moines is sending their own letter in support. Many of their constituents come to Tukwila for work — it’s actually their number one destination where the jobs are located for their constituents. And we have the King County International Airport, which provides nearly 21,000 jobs directly and indirectly. It’s a very large hub of jobs located here.
So it’s very disappointing to see that proposal, but we’re trying to be creative and working in other avenues to get that station — or if we don’t get that station, we’ll likely get maybe something else in return. But we’ll see where that leads in the future.
And then one last thing — we’re super excited for FIFA 2026. I’ll personally be attending the USA versus Australia game coming up on June 19th. There’ll also be a bunch of events across the city of Tukwila. We also have a dedicated website — it’s called tukwila26.com. Please feel free to share, feel free to join. I hope to see you at some of these events. That’s my update.
**Kaplan:** Great. Thank you. Council Member Vincent.
**Vinson:** Thank you, Dave. Sorry, I don’t have any prepared remarks for the city of SeaTac, but I can go through some notes really quick. Things have been moving in SeaTac. We’re deep in on the port negotiations — I’m on the ad hoc committee and those negotiations are working pretty well, I will say. Although I have my colleagues from the port in the room, it’s actually working really well.
On the public safety side, we onboarded a new police chief, Chief Marcus Williams, who comes to us from Sound Transit. Just looking at some stats here — for Puget Sound Fire, we ran 448 calls in the city of SeaTac for the month of April alone. We also had 48 CARES calls, which they also expanded to a 24-hour model, so we’ll continue to monitor that.
I did hear from the previous speaker — FIFA — something that I believe most cities in Western Washington are actively engaged in preparing for. I can’t wait till it’s over personally, but our staff, they’re doing an excellent job. We recently received a presentation from the Port of Seattle on human trafficking, and I was happy to hear that — the relationship between the city of SeaTac and the Port of Seattle being a leader regionally on that. That will conclude my update and I’m happy to take any questions.
**Kaplan:** City of Federal Way, Council Member Safodawan.
**Council Member Lydia Sephidas Dawson (Federal Way):** Yeah, thank you, Dave. I’ll start out by saying my condolences on behalf of the city of Federal Way to Highline College for the loss of Dr. Mosby. He was a great partner and a great person. It’s a huge loss for our community.
Our farmers market started a couple three weeks ago, and for those of you who are familiar with it, it’s located in a different place now — we moved it, and it’s now between the performing arts center and the town square park, really adjacent to the Sound Transit parking garage. So if anyone is interested, please come check it out. It ends in September and we’re really excited about that location.
There were several programs that we’ve had in the past — Touch-a-Truck was one of them, we had a shredding event, fishing for kids, different things that have taken place. Then there was a senior health fair that was extremely well attended and it’s getting bigger every year, so we’re excited about what our senior commission is doing in our community — very great advocates. And so it’s been very encouraging to see a commission being so actively engaged in what they’re doing.
We’ve had a number of proclamations — just last week we had a National Public Works proclamation, we had Police Week, and then an Affordable Housing Week proclamation. We’re really trying to be very intentional about acknowledging and recognizing these different events or activities happening in our community.
Last Saturday there was a Field of Honor that brought the community together to honor our fallen soldiers. It was well attended. And then this week we have Arts Explosion coming up — that’s also growing exponentially, being very well attended, and getting extreme recognition. I would highly encourage you — it’s free, it’s between May 29th and May 30th, at the Performing Arts and Event Center.
We have additional proclamations coming up, kicking at Federal Way like the rest of you during FIFA week. Ours is from June 19th through the 26th. And the SAMP town hall for us is on June 25th — we really want to say thank you to the port for coming to host this town hall in our city.
And then in July — July 4th — we’re going to have our Red, White, and Blues fireworks event. It’s highly attended by residents. So hopefully it doesn’t rain — I don’t think it’s rained in the past several years, but we’re going to have that also. I hope if you are available and in the area, please join us. With that, I’ll end my report. Thank you very much.
**Kaplan:** For De Moines. Mayor Matsui.
**Mayor Yoshiko Grace Matsui (De Moines):** Hello everyone. Thank you. Sorry, I’m a little under the weather. We have a few things coming up on our plate I wanted to speak about, but I was reminded that we are also in the process of completing our first strategic plan, which will be published later — either late summer, early fall. I’m very excited about ushering that in and really having a document which sort of charts our course as we call it, and helps us focus where our development efforts and staff efforts will go in the future.
Couple of things coming up. Very excited to say that the Redondo Fishing Pier is reopening after being reconstructed, the weekend of June 11th and 12th. I hope you come down. I’ve been told that it’s actually open now and if you went you could walk on it, but the ribbon cutting and all the fun events are going to be happening that weekend. We also have an event coming up for FIFA — I’ve spoken about here before — at the De Moines Theater, nearly all the way reopened. It’s going to be that USA-Australia game that the council member talked about. I believe that starts at noon — it’s a daytime game — free, open to the public at the De Moines Theater. Hope to see you there.
And then we also have our traditional evening Fourth of July event, which has actually transitioned to a daytime event. We are going to be sponsoring something called Stars, Stripes, and Sunshine on the 4th down at the marina. Folks can come check out a park run in the morning, stay for part of the farmers market, and then there will be entertainment, a beer garden, plus children’s activities — not in the same place — for folks to enjoy on our 250th birthday. Thank you.
**Kaplan:** For Burien. Council Member Andrade.
**Council Member Alex Andrade (Burien):** Thank you. I don’t have anything prepared, but I did put together a quick list, and then I can pass it along to our interim city manager and Mayor Moore to see if they want to add anything.
We do also have FIFA happening — Burien 26 — happening June 6th through July 21st, with various events happening throughout the city. And as you might have passed by, we have a jumbotron being put together. They’re working out the final kinks so that everything’s ready by the time the events start on June 6th.
We have our Pride celebration — a three-day Pride, June 5th through the 7th. Drag queen bingo on Sunday. Friday is a dance night party, and then the all-day festivity is happening on Saturday the 6th. We also have a Pride flag raising happening on Thursday, June 4th right out in front of our city hall. A Pride proclamation happening this coming Monday around 5:30 during our council meeting. A lockbox giveaway that’s happening June 5th here in Town Square. Stormfest is also happening June 3rd.
We also have coming up the Father’s Day car show, Strawberry Festival happening the weekend of June 20th through the 21st. And then lastly, farmers market is now open 10 until 6 p.m. — it’s our year-round farmers market, but as of back in May, it is now open until 6 p.m. Thank you.
**Bob Larson (Burien, Interim City Manager):** I’d be happy to share the details on Stormfest. The festival details: it’s June 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., at De Moines Beach Park. And then the other one is May 27th, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the same location, De Moines Beach Park.
**Kaplan:** Port of Seattle.
**Ryder:** Thank you. There are so many great things happening — it’s amazing. Just a couple of things for me.
In response to commission discussion in March, the Port of Seattle’s chief financial officer Chris Whimsat will be hosting two invitation-only gatherings for city managers, mayors, finance directors, and economic development staff — one in East King County and one here in South King County — to share information about the current global, national, and regional influences shaping the port’s forecast for trade and travel activity and informing the outlook for the port’s budget and plan of finance. He’ll be soliciting your city’s thoughts to share with the port and your South King County colleagues on current trends impacting your cities’ and businesses’ needs, challenges, and opportunities. Your key staff and mayor should have already received the invitation for the South King County breakfast scheduled for Friday, June 12th in SeaTac. Please RSVP as soon as possible. If you have any questions, contact Dave.
And then secondly, very exciting for us — our C concourse expansion project will be opening just in time for FIFA, which is very exciting. It is so beautiful — you’re going to love it. This is the first major project at the airport utilizing our sustainable evaluation framework. That means that sustainability was built in with the design rather than considered later. Those elements include fossil fuel-free systems for heating and cooking, rooftop photovoltaics, low-flow water fixtures, glazed windows. The project added four floors to an existing building, providing more open space for people to spread out between C and D concourses. It’s got a dozen more dining and retail options for passengers, needed office space, as well as Alaska Airlines’ brand new world-class World Club — just going to be incredible. We’re really excited for the opening June 11th. Thank you. That’s it.
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**[~1:58:21] CLOSING**
**Vinson:** Okay. We are on the last item of this agenda. Our next meeting will be July 22nd, hosted by Highline College. Looking very forward to that. The meeting will be in person and in hybrid format.
**Gersman:** We’ll be in building two on our college campus, with brand new audiovisual equipment.
**Vinson:** Awesome. Well, if there aren’t any additional questions, we will adjourn this meeting at 4:29 p.m. Thank you.
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