## Call to order and roll call
**Commissioner Calkins (Commission President):** This is Commission President Ryan Calkins convening the regular meeting of June 9, 2026. The time is 12:07pm. We’re meeting in person today at the Port of Seattle headquarters building, Commission chambers, and virtually on Microsoft Teams. Clerk Hart, please call the roll of all commissioners in attendance.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Commissioner Calkins.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Here.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Commissioner Cho.
**Commissioner Cho:** Present.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Commissioner Fellman.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Present.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Present.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. And I understand Commissioner Mohammad is on her way and will be here shortly. We do have a quorum established.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Clerk Hart.
**Clerk Hart:** Just a quick reminder, please turn your cell phones to silent if you’re in the meeting room. And for anyone participating on Microsoft Teams, please mute your speakers when not actively speaking or presenting. When you’re at the dais, please turn off your computer speakers and silence your devices. Please also remember to address your request to speak through the chair and wait to speak until you have been recognized. You’ll turn your microphones on and off as needed. All votes today will be taken by the roll call method or by general consent, so it is clear for anyone participating virtually how votes are cast. Commissioners will say aye or nay when their name is called.
**Commissioner Calkins:** We are meeting on the ancestral lands and waters of the Coast Salish people with whom we share a commitment to steward these natural resources for future generations. This meeting is being digitally recorded and may be viewed or heard at any time on the port’s website and may be rebroadcast by King County Television. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.
*(Pledge of Allegiance)* I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
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## Approval of the agenda
**Commissioner Calkins:** The first item of business today is approval of the agenda. As a reminder, if a commissioner wishes to make a general comment for or against an item on the consent agenda, it is not necessary to pull that item for separate discussion. Rather, a commissioner may offer general supporting or opposing comments later in the meeting. However, it is appropriate, if a commissioner wants to ask questions of staff or wishes to have a dialogue on a consent agenda item, to request the item be pulled for separate discussion. At this time, are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda or any motions to rearrange the order of the day, Commissioners? Commissioners, the question is now on approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented?
**Commissioner (unidentified):** So moved.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** I’ll second.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right. Since there is no — all right. Is there any objection to approval of the agenda as presented? Hearing none, the agenda is approved.
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## Executive Director’s report
**Commissioner Calkins:** Next on our agenda is the Executive Director’s report. Deputy Executive Director Goon, you have the floor.
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** Good afternoon, Commissioners, and Happy Pride Month. I’m filling in for Executive Director Metruck today while he concludes a trip to Washington, D.C. to advocate for federal support for Washington’s critical maritime resources and industries.
As our region prepares for the FIFA World cup occurring over the next several weeks, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the efforts that the port has put into preparations. Aviation and maritime teams are coordinating operational readiness, wayfinding, staffing and customer experience initiatives to support the region’s role as a host city.
Last week, the airport launched its World cup engagement efforts with a FIFA pep rally featuring Commissioner Cho, our Managing Director Wendy Rider, Airport Mascot Jet and community partners, creating excitement among employees and travelers. Ahead of the tournament, Commissioner Hamdi Mohammed joined regional leaders and community partners to announce the distribution of 1,400 complimentary match tickets for local youth, expanding access to World cup events across diverse communities.
Last week, our five airport working groups dedicated to FIFA preparation and response completed their final check ins, and yesterday the airport hosted the arrival of team Belgium.
All six of the new international services planned for 2026 have now begun operations. Since we last met, Alaska Airlines launched two new services to London and Reykjavik, giving SEA 62 service options to 36 international nonstop destinations on 29 different airlines.
We have just a few finishing touches coming on large scale viewing areas, customer and employee engagement campaigns and family friendly programming throughout the terminal. And finally, on Wednesday we will have the grand reveal of our C Concourse expansion project at the airport, further elevating the customer experience with additional dining and retail and other amenities, and tripling the square footage of that existing building. This is all work the airport needed to do anyway, but pushed to complete in time for FIFA, and as you can tell, the airport is ready.
Moving to the Maritime side, Waterfront activation efforts for FIFA are also advancing with the city and community organizations, including a fan zone, programming and public events centered around Pier 58. On your drive today, you may have noticed the recently completed series of public art installations at Pier 69 that celebrate the connection between Seattle’s natural environment and its working waterfront while enhancing the visitor experience ahead of the World Cup. These new installations support a broader strategy to increase activity, visitation and public engagement along the north waterfront for years beyond the tournament.
With the completion of waterfront improvements in the Elliot Bay Connection project, the Port has realized its vision of a continuous and activated corridor extending from Terminal 46 to Fisherman’s Terminal. These investments strengthen public access, support waterfront tenants and contribute to the long term economic vitality of key port properties. June also marks several new waterfront amenities including food truck operations at P69, the opening of Elliott Bay Connections, improvements at Myrtle Edwards and Centennial park, and the arrival of Cafe Hagen at the north end of Centennial park later this month.
We’re also working to ensure that the entire region benefits from the kind of visitation that these events bring. Last week we announced the 35 recipients of the 2026-27 Tourism Marketing Support Program which goes to support tourism projects within King county and Washington State. I will not name all 35 projects here, but you can find more information on this $600,000 program on our tourism development website. Congratulations to all the teams for making all these milestones during a very, very busy spring.
Turning to today’s Commission meeting, I’d like to highlight a few items on the consent agenda. Item 8D is an IDIQ that supports our safety inspection efforts on our capital construction sites. Item 8H is a simple renewal of an interlocal agreement with King county for regulatory enforcement actions for Hire Transportation Services. Having this agreement in place is essential for continued operations of a service our customers depend on. Finally, our new business agenda today includes two bond resolutions and we have three items under Presentations and Staff Reports. Commissioners, that concludes my remarks.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Deputy Executive Director Goon.
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## Committee reports
**Commissioner Calkins:** At this time, we are now at Committee reports. Erica Chung, Strategic Advisor, will provide the report. Erica, go ahead.
**Erica Chung:** Good afternoon, President Calkins, Commissioners and Deputy Director Goon. I have several committee reports for you. It’s kind of long, so I’ll try to read it fast.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Take your time.
**Erica Chung:** Okay. On May 19, Commissioners Cho and Mohammad convened the Aviation Committee with two agenda items. Commissioners received briefings on the sound insulation repair and replacement Program, biometrics at the airport and a brief update on FIFA preparations. Following the sound insulation briefing, Commissioners recommended that staff host a public presentation on the program to increase transparency, to improve community understanding, and to ensure residents have direct access to information about eligibility, timelines and the next steps.
On Tuesday, May 19, the Equity, Workforce Development and Conditions Committee met and received updates on two items. Commissioners Hasegawa and Mohamed received an update from EPIC, the Port’s consultants, and the feasibility study for the SEA childcare facility. Staff also briefed the Committee on the progress of the Healthcare policy directive for SEA workers.
Sustainability, Environment and Climate Committee met on May 19 with Commissioner Calkins convening the meeting with one item for discussion, the SEA Climate Action Plan.
The Highline Forum met on May 27 with SEATAC Council member Joe Vincent chairing the meeting. At the meeting, host City of Burien Mayor Sarah Moore provided an update on the City policy priorities. Port staff then presented the SAMP Near Term Project SEPA Draft EIS, the same presentation the Port Commission received the day prior, covering project need, environmental review elements and public comment opportunities. Members received a presentation on Education pathways and partnerships from Highline School District and from Port on our investment and support for educational partnership. Port Aviation Director Wendy Ryder provided an update from the April 29th START meeting and noticed START steering committee request for a full SAMP Navigation Near Term Project SEPA Draft EIS briefing at its June 24 meeting. During the round the table updates, representatives shared news on FIFA World cup preparations, capital projects and community events.
The Governance committee met on May 28 with Commissioners Calkins and Hasegawa in attendance. The legal team and presenter provided two briefings for the Governance Committee. First, the Employee Code of Conduct Amendments briefing overview changes occurring to both structure and content of the Employee Code of Conduct, which are administrative in nature. Second, the Committee received a briefing related to First Amendment standards at the airport, including process comparison at other airport jurisdictions, the permit process for requested activities, and established location for First Amendment activities.
The audit committee met on June 4 with Commissioner Felleman presiding and Commissioner Mohamed and Public Member Sarah Holstrom in attendance. The Committee received the Results of the 2025 financial statement audit from Auditor Baker Tilly, received an audit report from the Port regarding the Baggage Optimization Phase three project and review of associated pay applications, heard updates from Internal Audit Director Glenn Fernandez regarding open audit issues, approved an update to the 2026 audit plan and adopted global internal audit standards for port audit processes and procedures. The Committee further received performance audit reports on the Maritime Maintenance Time Approval Control, the Capital Project prioritization process and the Procurement Personnel Service Agreement. With respect to the Time Approval Control Audit Review, the Committee recommended the Port consider an enterprise wide system change for HR payroll, and requested a report back on the progress of audit recommendation in 2027. With respect to the Capital Projects Prioritization process audit, the Committee as well requested a status update on the audit recommendation in 2027. This concludes my report.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you so much, Erica. That was a marathon.
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## Public comment
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right. The Port Commission welcomes public comment as an important part of the public process. Comments are received and considered by the Commission in its deliberations. Before we take public comment, Clerk Hart, can you please display the QR Code to our Public Comment Rules of Procedure? Perfect. Thank you. For members of the public providing public testimony, it is essential that these rules are followed. Written copies are also available at the door. With that, Clerk Hart, can you please call our first speaker? And I think let’s do all of the in person first and then we’ll finish up with the online.
**Clerk Hart:** Mr. Commission President, our in room list is significantly longer than our online list. Do we want to maybe alternate for the first few online and get them out and done. Okay. And then we have approximately 16 speakers. Do we want the timer at two minutes or one minute today?
**Commissioner Calkins:** Let’s do two minutes.
**Clerk Hart:** Okay. Thank you, sir. Give me just one moment and I’ll pull that up. Thank you. So for everybody providing public comment today, I’ll call your name from the list and then I’ll ask you to repeat your name for the record and identify the agenda item or topic related to the conduct of port business that you’ll be speaking about. We’ll begin virtually with Mayor Mary Miller.
**Mary Miller:** Mayor Mary Miller in support of the Sustainable Master Plan.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Please proceed.
**Mary Miller:** Thank you very much. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Mary Miller, Mayor of North Bend, and the ability to move people and goods efficiently is the foundation of economic growth, innovation and opportunity in today’s world economy. Connectivity is essential — connections to customers, suppliers, talent and markets around the globe. SEA Airport is critical for our region, serving approximately 53 million passengers each year. That number is expected to grow to approximately 57 million over the next decade. Those travelers are coming regardless. The question is whether we will be prepared to serve them through a world class airport or whether they will continue to face increasing congestion, delays and an experience that falls short of what our region deserves. The Port of Seattle has done an impressive job maximizing capacity within this airport’s current footprint. The projects completed ahead of this summer’s World cup are a great example of the port’s creativity and commitment to improving the passenger experience. But there is a limit to how much can be accomplished within the facilities that were never designed for today’s demand. That is why I support the Sustainable Airport Master Plan for a second terminal. The investment is about much more than about adding 19 new gates. It will provide additional roadway capacity, expanded curb space for pickups and drop offs and new parking garage and additional TSA screening checkpoints — improvements that will benefit every traveler who uses SEA. Great regions invest ahead of growth rather than react after infrastructure has been overwhelmed. The Sustainable Airport Master Plan is an investment in our economic competitiveness, our global connectivity and the future of our region. I urge you to move this project forward. Thank you for all your hard work and efforts, Commissioners. Thank you for your time and consideration.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mayor Miller.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Our next speaker from the room is Alex Tsimerman.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Alex. Please go ahead and repeat your name for the record and your agenda item or topic related to the conduct of port business. And then I will start the timer.
**Alex Tsimerman:** It’s okay, no problem. Yeah. My name Alex Tsimerman.
**Clerk Hart:** You start timer and your topic, Alex, that you’re speaking on today, agenda number 10. Okay, thank you. Please proceed.
**Alex Tsimerman:** Yeah. My name Alex Tsimerman. I’m president of Stand Up America. I candidate for 15 elections. I spoke every day in council chamber more than 5,000 times. From Tacoma, Seattle and Everett. I prosecute. But Seattle country government, you know what has been seven times in seven times. Case is dismissed. I have 7,000 day of trespass. 7,000 day of trespass. Nobody in America have 7,000 day of trespass. This how local government, democratic fascism, treat people who have different opinions right now about money. Number 10 is the money. From my understanding, we’re talking about million and million dollars right now. The situation what as we have right now and I live here for 40 years and for 40 years I speak in council chamber is trying to understand what is going on under Democrat control right now. We spend too much money so we own right now is spent for nothing. Billion and billion dollars. You right now in number 10, what is you talking about another couple hundred million dollars. I don’t understand why it’s going on. Classic example. You talking about this, your staff talking about this. I cannot understand one word. They talking very fast and nobody talking how much money you own. For example, Seattle Transit, you know what this mean? Seattle Transit. Transit. Seattle Transit right now on $35 billion. So I go to this meeting for many years in only last week, last month, people know so they own $35 billion. They steal $35 billion. It’s a classic example, guys, what is local Democrat fascism junta doing to us everywhere? Viva Trump. We were new American revolution. Stand up slaving happy cow. Stop steal us money.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thanks, Mr. Tsimerman. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker joining us virtually is Jim Koontz. Jim, please go ahead and repeat your name for the record and your agenda item that you’re speaking on today or your topic related to the conduct of port business. And then I’ll start the timer.
**Jim Koontz:** Great. My name is Jim Koontz and I’m speaking on the sustainable airport master plan.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Please proceed.
**Jim Koontz:** Hi, my name is Jim Koontz. I serve as the CEO of the Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority. We are the lead economic development agency in the Greater Wenatchee Valley. We also own and operate the Pangborn Memorial Airport. And commercial air service is very important to our region. The regional port would like to express its support for the Port of Seattle’s Sustainable Airport Master Plan. The greater Wenatchee Valley relies on Seattle as our gateway to the world. It’s not only from our two flights a day from Wenatchee into the airport, but it’s also our citizens coming by bus and many driving over to this airport to serve as the gateway. As we travel, it’s very indispensable to us to make sure that this airport expands and accommodates future growth. We believe that the proposal that we have viewed for a second terminal is exactly the kind of investment that keeps our region, like ours, competitive. Not only is it a new terminal building with 19 gates that rural communities would like to access, but it also comes with a lot better roadway configuration, more curbside pickups and drop offs, and a new parking garage. Seattle currently handles 53 million passengers a year. Plans to grow to 57 million. And those travelers will be coming to Seattle whether we’re prepared or not. Let’s be prepared. Let’s make this really important investment in not only Seattle’s future, Tacoma’s future, but the State of Washington’s future for air travel. We strongly encourage the Port of Seattle Commission to adopt and execute the projects outlined in the Sustainable Airport Master plan.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mr. Koontz. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker from the room is Elizabeth Valentini.
**Elisabetta Valentini:** Hello. Good morning. I am Elisabetta Valentini. I’m honorary consul of Italy and I am represent Vice Consul of the Consular association of Washington. So today I am speaking on behalf of Mark Gunter, who is our President and is Consul of Ethiopia, and on behalf of the entire Consular Association. So first of all I would like to congratulate all of you for all the work you’re doing. And I’m talking about the sustainable master plan for the airport, being more than 50 consuls with all our communities here in Seattle. So on behalf of the Consular association of Washington, with over 50 consulates residing in the State of Washington, we want to express our strong support for efforts to continue to invest in Seattle Tacoma International Airport. The international airport serves as a critical gateway for our region. And the continuing growth in demand for air travel is a direct reflection of the success of the region. However, that demand has put incredible strain on Seattle’s current facilities. Without any near term prospects for another major commercial airport in the region, it is essential that the Seattle International Airport find a way to continue to provide a high level of services to travelers. The consular community in particular are keenly interested in the Seattle International Airport as a transportation hub, not only for the consulates themselves, but for the trade and foreign direct investment that is made by the communities that they represent in Washington State. Eight out of the ten top trading countries with Washington State are currently members of the Consular Association. So Seattle International Airport represent a critical infrastructure component and partner with the Consular Association. We’re pleased to see the progress on the Port Sustainability, State Environment Policy act, environmental review of the Sustainable Airport Master Plan near term projects. Without its current and future investments, the airport will become a choke point on growth for the region, making it harder for employees, tourists, customers and family members to travel to and from Seattle. Businesses will site their facilities elsewhere. Tourists will take their leisure dollars to other destinations. And our region will miss out on key opportunities for major events. So we urge to continue moving forward with the proposed SAMP projects, particularly the second terminal, to ensure that our region has a world class air travel facility that it needs. So thank you again for all your work and personally I want to thank everybody because we have the first Alaska flight and Delta flight to Rome. So when I went to the gate and I saw Rome on the sign, I almost cried. So thank you. Thank you very much. And I’m speaking for myself, but my fellow consuls are very happy too. So thank you everybody.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Valentini. And I was going to ask if you had the chance to use the new Rome connection. All right, Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker joining us virtually is Dana DeBelle.
**Dana DeBell:** Hi, Dana DeBell with Delta Airlines speaking on SAMP.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Dana. Please go ahead and proceed.
**Dana DeBell:** Thank you very much. Thank you, Commission. Thank you, port staff. I wanted to speak today to express support for continuing to move the review of the SAMP process forward under SEPA. It’s important that as the airport and the region continue to evaluate needs for accommodating future growth and demand, that we continue to move the SAMP process forward so that we can continue to have options for how to address the future needs for the airport, for the community and for the customers that the airport serves. I want to commend the staff on the great work that has been done so far and look forward to working with all of you going forward. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Dana. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker from the room is Maria Revolo Martinez. She’s got her own cheering section. Maria, please go ahead and repeat your name for the record and your topic today, and then I’ll start the timer.
**Maria Revolo Martinez:** Awesome. Maria Revolo Martinez. I am here to discuss the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and the three year Strategic Briefing receipt. Good afternoon, Commissioners. As mentioned, my name is Maria de Jesus. I grew up in and around the south park community and I’m a two year member of the Port Community Action Team. It wasn’t until college that I learned that the Duwamish was a Superfund site and that residents in the community of south park and Georgetown experienced higher rates of asthma and have a 13 year life expectancy than people living in other parts of Seattle. Learning that changed my direction in my life. It inspired me to become a landscape architect and focusing on helping communities shape and design their own spaces. One thing that has frustrated me is how little information community members have about what is happening in our own backyards and the decisions that affect our lives. That’s why I joined PCAT. Through PCAT, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside community organizations, residents and the Port to help bridge the gap between the Port and the communities most impacted by Port related operations. While the program has evolved over the years, community needs evolved too. The focus of our work may shift, but the goal remains the same. Ensuring the Duwamish Valley is included in efforts that build community capacities, support healthy environments and communities and create economic prosperity in place. While there are endless efforts within PCAT, the two areas of work that I’m especially excited about are. First, the investment that we’re making to connect youth under 18 with port related career opportunities through field trips, education and exposure to aviation and maritime industries. These experiences can help young people see pathways to rewarding careers and I hope that the Port continues to expand these investments in order to reach our shared agreement in Resolution 3767, the CBC goal number three, community or economic prosperity in place. Second, being part of the PCAT Budget committee and building a shared decision making model of the Port’s DVCEP budget and sponsorship processes while making decisions that help support direct investment in the community. And this is in order to build decisions for the community and by the community. PCAT is making a real difference in my community by supporting residents and local organizations that are doing important work every day. In the current political climate, now is the time to double down on this kind of community investment. The Port has the opportunity to be the Port of the future and continue setting an example for ports across the country. Thank you for your time.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Revolo Martinez. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our final speaker that we have joining us virtually today is Joey Bolden. Joey, please go ahead and repeat your name for the record and your topic and then I’ll start the timer.
**Joey Bolden:** Joey Bolden, Assistant Executive Secretary for the Seattle Building Trades, speaking on behalf of the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon again. I’m Joseph Bolden representing the Seattle Building Trades. And on behalf of the 20,000 construction workers and their families across the region and our 19 affiliate unions, I want to strongly encourage you to support the proposed Sustainable Airport Master Plan. The Sustainable Airport Master Plan is important for many reasons. But for the building trades, it is about creating economic opportunity for thousands of working people. The huge investments that have already been made at the airport have resulted in the creation of thousands of good family wage jobs for skilled craft people. These are the kind of jobs that bring strength and diversity to our regional economy. The building trades are working with the Port to help build communities through critical economic development projects that reflect the community the Port serves. We’re building communities by building better with the highest quality craftspeople, by being inclusive, by being innovative and by working in partnerships such as strong partnership we have with the Port. The Port’s investments bring new people into the construction field through pre apprenticeship programs, apprenticeship programs and training that have helped bring more women, more people of color, veterans and others who are disadvantaged into the construction industry. Port supported apprenticeship programs like ANEW and PACE are providing pathways out of poverty. We believe job sites should reflect the community. Through our strong training programs and partnerships with the Port and many other partners, we are building the next generation of construction workers from our local communities. The Port of Seattle has done a great job maximizing the capacity of its current facilities. But SEA has reached its limits on what is possible with the existing facilities. We believe that the proposal to build a second terminal is exactly the kind of investment that keeps regions like ours competitive. Now is the time for the Port to move forward. SEA’s expansion is essential to our region’s future and our economic success depends on it. Thank you for all your service and partnerships.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mr. Bolden. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our next speaker is Gladys Clemente.
**Gladys Clemente:** Good afternoon. My name is Gladys Clemente. I want to talk about the agenda, item 11A, Duwamish Valley Equity Program and three year strategic planning. Well, as I said before, my name is Gladys. I work as a skills and leadership development program manager at Villa Comunitaria. I had lived and worked in south park for more than nine years. I speak to you today both as a leader and a representative of the community. For a long time, the Duwamish Valley did not have a place where families could gather, build their skills and learn about opportunities close to home. We had no infrastructure for workshops, for capacity building or for connecting people to jobs and career pathways. The hub changed that. Villa Comunitaria used the hub for community workshops and for events made possible for OCR sponsorships including Day of the Family, Otia de la Familia and our back to school celebration where hundreds of families gather each year. What I value most of the trust we build, the port and the DBCEP team listen. They understand our community and we move towards shared goals together. That kind of trust is not something I can say about every government agency and it matters. Looking in the next three years, I hope the port keeps investing here, that the hub grows into a true center for career pathways, green jobs, especially for young people. And raising two teenagers in South Park, they are part of community organizations that develop programs for them. I want every young person here to have those opportunities without leaving the neighborhood. I also ask the board to keep clean air, clean water and clean soil as a priority so that the industry and families can share this valley. Well, thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Clemente. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our next speaker from the room is Alexis Parmer. Alexia. Alexa. I’m sorry, I can’t read it. Please go ahead and repeat your name for the record since I did such a lovely job with it.
**Alexia Parmer:** Yeah, no worries. I’m Alexia Parmer and I am here on behalf of PCAT and I’m going to be talking about 11A. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Hello. This is my first time doing anything like this. I had a whole script and y’all have been read many scripts. So I decided to just talk to y’all as a person. Yeah, I’ve been a part of PCAT for about two years now and joined because I have always been really interested in policy. For about three years I was on the route to become a lawyer. Then Covid hit, I did one year online and I was like, I can’t do this. So yeah, I just started like working odd jobs, nannying, cat sitting, dog sitting, X, Y and Z. You don’t need to hear my whole life. But then I heard about the PCAT opportunity to work at PCAT and the opportunity to advocate for people who are being impacted by a bigger entity. And I love that I’m here because it’s not just like the Port of Seattle as this system. It’s like people and yeah, it’s faces that I can put a name to and that I can actually come and speak to or email. And so, yeah, I just want to encourage commissioners and people who are even in the room who have any desire to help the Duwamish Valley gain access to clean air, clean water, clean soil, and just healthier living experiences to reach out to PCAT. We want to continue to grow and expand and that is hard with the limited amount of budget. And so, yeah, a little hearing about how much money is being like invested into certain things that are great for economic prosperity. Yes. But also wanting to dial down to real, like not saying that the people who are like flying and doing X, Y and Z within airports aren’t real people, but people who are impacted day to day and who don’t really get highlighted. And so just wanting to. Yeah. Reach out and say that we are here. Again. I’m Alexia and you want to send us the email, please go ahead or visit us at the hub in South Park. Yeah, we’re here and we want to reach out and extend our hand to y’all. So thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Parmer. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker from the room is Angeli Dodge.
**Angeli Dodge:** Hello, I’m Angeli Dodge and I’m speaking on 11A with the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Angeli Dodge and I serve as the Duwamish Valley Program Manager in the Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment. I’m here on behalf of the city to express strong support for the Port’s Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and the important work happening at the Duwamish River Community Hub. In addition to my professional capacity working in the Duwamish Valley, I am also a Duwamish Valley resident and a South park homeowner of over 14 years. The Duwamish Valley is home to a diverse and hard working community that contributes greatly to our regional economy. Yet many residents and small businesses still face barriers to opportunity. The Port’s investment in the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and the Duwamish River Community Hub helps open doors to business support, workforce pathways and long term wealth building, ensuring that communities that live closest to the Port’s operations share in those economic benefits. Our partnership between the city’s Duwamish Valley Program and the Port is helping align community aspirations with regional economic growth. This collaboration proved its value during the 2022 South park floods when the hub became a critical resource for residents. Since then, the Duwamish River Community Hub has become a known location to receive critical community resources. Together with the city of Seattle and the port, we are building a coordinated place based ecosystem that supports small businesses and expands economic opportunity for those historically left out. I urge the commission to continue investing in the community driven solutions and to mainstream, excuse me, community driven solutions. And to maintain strong support for the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program so that we can create long lasting change and shared prosperity for the frontline communities that call Duwamish Valley home. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Dodge. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes, our next speaker is Robin, I believe it’s Robin Schwartz.
**Robin Schwartz:** Hi, my name is Robin Schwartz and I will be speaking about the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and particularly the Duwamish River Community Hub. Thanks. Hi everybody. Thanks. My name is Robin. I work at the Duwamish River Community Coalition. I’m also on a couple of other community groups including the South Park Neighborhood association and I co facilitate a group called the Flood Community Advisory Group which is made up of flood impacted folks in south park. And I also live in South Park. So in those capacities, I am at the hub multiple times per week, sometimes three or more times per week. It’s been a really valuable resource. I think you guys probably have heard that there isn’t a lot of accessible meeting space in the Duwamish Valley in South Park. So it’s great to have that space. The team has been extremely flexible and responsive to us, asking for ways to make it more accessible, which has been great. Let’s see. Oh, so we’ve been really grateful for your investment in this program. We do. We continue to be impacted by the port, air, pollution, freight, all sorts of stuff. So I hope that you will continue to invest in the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program going forward. I would love to. As I think, as Maria said, I’d love to see continued and robust career and job pathways for all of our community members, but especially our young people. That’s it. Thanks so much.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Schwartz. Clerk Hart, next speaker. I just love the snapping going on behind me.
**Clerk Hart:** Our next speaker is Marianne, I believe is Heik.
**Mariana Heik:** Hi, good afternoon. Mariana Hayek talking on behalf of 8F. So it’s always a pleasure to come before the commissioner. So good afternoon. So I’m here to speak on behalf of the North Coast States Carpenters Union which has the luxury of representing over 57,500 members here. This matter presents an opportunity for the Port to strengthen its contracting policies going forward. We have seen firsthand how labor disputes can create uncertainty, disrupt operations and place port projects at risk. In this instance, Swinerton Builders has failed to provide the Notice required under G.04.15 regarding a labor dispute that threatened project performance. While existing contract language establishes notification requirements, we should also examine whether further projects that are not covered by a community workforce agreement need additional protections. Specifically, I encourage the Port to consider adding stronger pre qualification standards or labor harmony provisions for contractors seeking port work. Contractors should be required to demonstrate that they have mechanisms in place to maintain labor stability, communicate emerging disputes and minimize disruptions to port operations. The goal is not to favor one party over another. The goal is to ensure continuity of operations and protect public investments. When contractors bid on port projects, they should be prepared to meet not only technical and financial requirements, but also standards of responsible labor relations and transparent communication. The Port of Seattle depends on reliable project delivery. Strengthening our pre qualification requirements and considering labor harmony language would help ensure the future contractors are prepared to meet that responsibility. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Heik. And Ms. Heik, Ms. Calkins says hello. Caller Heik, by the way, that’s my former teacher. All right, Clerk, our next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our next speaker is Lisandro Vela.
**Lisandro Vela:** Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Lisandro Vela. I’ll be speaking on agenda line 8F. I’m here speaking today as a representative of the North Coast State’s Regional Council of Carpenters. I want to raise a concern regarding Swinerton Builders and the failure to notify the Port of Seattle of an active labor dispute impacting work at the port. Your contract are clear under general conditions G. Contractors who are aware of an actual or potential labor dispute that could delay work are required to notify the Port promptly and no later than 24 hours after discovery. This requirement exists for a reason. It allows the Port to assess risk, protect operations, mitigate disruption before they impact projects, tenant workers and the public. When a contractor fails to provide the notice, the Port loses the opportunity to manage situation proactively. The contract further states failure to comply with these obligations may constitute a breach of contract. We believe they breached the contract. This issue is especially important because Swinerton is currently performing work at the port while also pursuing future port projects not covered by the state CWA. The Commission has consistently emphasized the importance of responsible contracting practices. Responsibility means more than submitting the lowest bid. It means honoring the contract obligations, communicating transparency, protecting the port from avoidable disruption. As we consider future procurement, I believe contractors should be evaluated not only on the cost and qualification, but also demonstrating compliance with the port requirements and the commitment to the labor stability the port deserves. Partners who follow the rules, communicate openly, uphold the standards expected on the public projects. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mr. Vela. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our next speaker is Chris Coulter.
**Chris Coulter:** Hi, I’m Chris Coulter with HNTB. I’m speaking on SAMP.
**Commissioner Calkins:** You can pull the mic up more too. There you go. Does that work? Yes, go ahead.
**Chris Coulter:** Great. As Deputy Executive Director Goon was sharing updates on the port’s preparation for FIFA, I was reminded how here in Seattle, we have always considered ourselves one of the most welcoming cities in the world. And our airport is the front door to that world. It is time to build the much needed airport improvements along with implementing the community mitigation strategies that will keep pace with our growing region. The Port Sustainable Airport Master Plan creates the much needed framework for these improvements as well as the community mitigations that get to go with them. I want to thank commission for going above and beyond your national peer airports by doing additional voluntary study above and beyond the NEPA EIS. You have listened to the community. Finally, on a personal note, as a former port team member who was here when we thought 26 million annual passengers a year was incredible, I’m excited for the future of this airport and what it means for the people of our region. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mr. Coulter. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our next speaker is Heather Peel.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Peel. Peel. Thank you, Peel.
**Heather Peel:** Commissioners, thank you for your service. My name is Heather Peel and I’m a Seattle resident and I’m speaking on agenda item 11A, the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program. And I sent a letter last week that I hope you all had a chance to read, and that is that the Duwamish Valley is actually pretty big and goes all the way up to Elliot Bay. And I just want to bring it to everyone’s attention that the Duwamish was straightened out by the industrialization of Seattle. Duwamish longhouses were burned along there. The Duwamish were told to leave the Seattle limits by a city ordinance that actually was never repealed until the town of Seattle went away. In the city of Seattle, incorporated in 1869, I noticed that in the documents pertaining to this program, there was mention of Duwamish Tribal Services or Duwamish participation in 2022-2024. And I would just ask, can you please connect with the Duwamish Tribal Services now, at least for communication. I understand a lot of the programs that are for south park are economic development, but I think the communication, especially about the overarching planning, is really key. Here sitting next to me, wave your hand, is Christina Pearson. She’s the Executive Director of the Duwamish Tribal Services. And I hope that those who spoke in a heartfelt manner about PCAT will come and meet Christina and that your staff or the port staff will bring their business cards to Christina. She’s happy to be involved and I really recommend that you speak to her. And finally, I wanted to say that I noticed there’s a new sign by the water taxi where the elevator is for the Seattle side of the water taxi. And there’s a great new sign about Ballast island. And I was really, really encouraged to see that there was consultation with Duwamish on that sign. That’s the first sign in the waterfront that I’ve seen that included that. Thank you very much.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Peel. Clerk Hart, next speaker.
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. Our final speaker signed up today is Diana Leo.
**Diana Leo:** Hi, my name is Diana Leo and I am here to provide a testimony in support of the Sustainable Airport Master Plan.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Go ahead, proceed.
**Diana Leo:** Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Diana Leo and I’m the VP of Government affairs at the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce. I am here today in strong support for the Port of Seattle Sustainable Airport Master Plan. The Business community is clear. The investment is not optional. It is foundational to the economic future of our region. Our member businesses, from small family owned firms to large employers, rely on the Seattle Tacoma International Airport every single day. They use it to bring in clients, ship products, attract talent and connect with partners around the world. When SEA works well, our businesses work well. When it doesn’t, we feel it in lost deals, delayed shipments and frustrated customers and employees. The draft EIS confirms what our members already know. Demand is growing and the existing terminal cannot keep pace. The airport handled 53 million passengers last year. That number is projected to reach 56 million by 2032, with or without new facilities. The question before the port is not whether those travelers will come. They will. The question is whether our region will be ready to welcome them in a way that reflects the world class economy we have built here. From a business perspective, the economic case for moving forward is compelling. The draft EIS itself notes that NTPs would generate new jobs, airline staff, retail workers, maintenance crews, and would support indirect economic growth in hotels, restaurants and businesses across the region. SEA is not just a transportation hub. It is an economic engine. And these projects keep that engine running. We also note the connection between increased cargo capacity and economic opportunities. Our region’s manufacturers, agricultural producers and companies depend on the capacity to move goods. Expanded and modernized cargo facilities at SEA will directly serve the economic interests of businesses that depend on the import and export of goods, thus strengthening our position as a trade hub for the Pacific Northwest and beyond. We understand that growth comes with impacts and we take those concerns seriously. But the DEIS shows those impacts are manageable with mitigation measures for traffic, protections for water quality and commitments to address noise. The alternative, doing nothing, carries its own serious costs. Crowded terminals, missed connections, and a region that signals to the world it is no longer open for business at scale. The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce urges the port commission to finalize this DEIS, adopt the proposed action and move forward with construction. The time to act is now. Our businesses, our workers and our region’s future are counting on it. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Ms. Leo. That concludes our signups for today. Is there anyone else present on the Teams call or present in the room today who didn’t sign up or who wishes to address the commission? Please step forward, state and spell your name since we don’t have it written down. And state the agenda item or topic related to the conduct of the port you wish to speak about for the record.
**Waleed Afzal:** Howdy, folks. My name is Waleed Afzal. It is spelled W-A-L-E. And I’d like to speak with the airport expansion, the master plan.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Proceed.
**Waleed Afzal:** I am in strong favor of pursuing this and continuing the studies and eventually just getting expanded. I think the work, the investment is a fantastic opportunity for us to increase our competitiveness, especially with rivals, especially with regional rivals such as Vancouver and San Francisco and Portland. Being able to get visitors in here increases tax revenues that can be spent in the city of Seattle and for welfare and also makes it easier for workers, for businesses, et cetera, to work within the city of Seattle and nearby towns. And it can also improve logistics, even going into the inland Northwest. And I think this is a fantastic opportunity for us just to get a huge advantage and modernize our airport to where, yeah, we have a lot of capacity. We can make things cheaper. We can make things more efficient. I think it’s a fantastic idea. And I second a motion or a thing that was made earlier, a testimony that was made earlier in contacting with the Duwamish, because I think they’ve been a people that’s been impacted from things such as redlining for God knows how long since the Denny expedition. And, well, this is their land we’re squatting on. We’re sitting on it. And that place, South Park, Georgetown area is underfunded, undersupplied, not given enough resources. So please do. Thank you very much.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Mr. Afzal. Any other interest in public comment? All right. At this time, I’ll ask Clerk Hart to give a synopsis of any written comments that we’ve received.
**Clerk Hart:** Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Commission President, members of the Commission and Deputy Executive Director. For the record, we have received nine written comments for today’s meeting. The following people submitted correspondence in support of SAMP projects as part of the public review of the SEPA Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Robin Twyman, Seattle Representative for the United Kingdom Government Office. Mark Ganter, President of Consular association of Washington. Christina Hudson, Chief Executive officer for One Redmond, One east side. Brad Jones, Executive Director, Visit Bellevue. Josh Brown, Executive Director of Puget Sound Regional Council. Skyler Schmidt, Senior Manager, Seattle Hotel Association. Mark Mullet, Mayor, City of Issaquah. Kyle McLaughlin, executive vice president of Aviation Clear. And then finally concluding with Kelly Curtis, Mayor City of Kirkland. And that concludes the written comments we’ve received today.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, Clerk Hart. Hearing no further testimony, we’ll move on in the agenda.
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## Consent agenda
**Commissioner Calkins:** Our next order of business is the consent agenda. Items on consent are considered routine and will be adopted by one motion. Items removed from the consent agenda will be considered separately, immediately after adoption of the remaining consent agenda items. At this time, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda covering items 8A through 8H.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** So moved.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** Second.
**Commissioner Calkins:** The motion was made and seconded. Commissioners, please say aye or nay when your name is called for approval of the consent agenda. Beginning with Commissioner Cho.
**Commissioner Cho:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Fellerman.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Muhammad.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Calkins. Aye. Thank you. Five ayes, zero nays for this item. With that, the motion passes.
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## New business — Item 10A: Bond refunding resolutions 3849 and 3850
**Commissioner Calkins:** We have one new business item today. Clerk Hart, can you please read the item into the record, and then Deputy Executive Director Goon will introduce it?
**Clerk Hart:** Yes. This might take just a couple of minutes and a cruise ship. This is Agenda Item 10A. Introduction of Resolution Numbers 3849 and 3850. Issuance and Sale of intermediate lien revenue refunding bonds in the aggregate principal amount not to exceed $250 million. And issuance and sale of first lien revenue refunding bonds in aggregate principal amount of not to exceed $70 million. And this is again associated with resolutions number 3849 and 3850.
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** Commissioners. We are introducing two bond refunding resolutions that support the Port’s ongoing commitment to prudent financial management by taking advantage of favorable market conditions to reduce future debt service costs and strengthen long term financial flexibility. These actions would authorize the issuance of refunding bonds to refinance existing airport and seaport debt originally issued to fund major capital investments. By replacing higher cost debt with lower cost financing, the Port expects to generate meaningful savings while maintaining the strong financial foundation that supports our capital programs and credit profile. Leading us off today is Chris Wimsett, our CFO.
**Chris Wimsett:** Great. Thank you, Deputy Executive Director Goon. Good afternoon, President Calkins and members of the Commission. My name is Chris Wimsett, Chief Financial Officer. Today we have two debt related resolutions as mentioned. Both for your consideration are opportunities to refund debt issued in 2015 or 2016 and that refunding would be for savings. To take us through the brief slides, I’m joined by Interim Director of Corporate Finance Scott Bertram, as well as Angie Rose, who’s principal financial analyst. While today is, I believe, Angie’s first time before the Commission, she has been a key force behind the scenes since joining the Port as a College intern in 2010. She has worked on 13 port transactions since 2015, including perhaps the bonds being refunded today. Angie has helped raise more than $4.7 billion in that time. So with that I’ll turn it over to Scott to summarize the first resolution.
**Scott Bertram:** Thank you, Chris. And good afternoon, Commissioners. Let’s begin with next slide please, with the Resolution 3850 which covers the planned refunding of up to 66.4 million of outstanding first lien bonds. These outstanding bonds were originally issued in 2016, but actually refunded bonds going back to 2007. These bonds initially financed various capital improvements for the Seaport businesses. Assuming the Port’s debt service targets are met, which we expect, this refunding is expected to generate at least 2 million of debt service savings. These bonds will be issued as tax exempt private activity bonds subject to AMT. This is consistent with the tax status of the underlying bonds being refunded. The 2016 first lien bonds that are going to be refunded here have a scheduled final maturity in 2032. So shorter term bonds. But I want to turn it back over to Chris to talk a little bit about a potential debt restructuring option that we are weighing as part of this transaction.
**Chris Wimsett:** Yeah. So due to a couple of factors, most notably the acceleration of the South Concourse Evolution Project, there is a period of time where debt issuance would be accelerated from where it had previously been forecasted, which causes a little bit of compression in our debt service coverage ratio, which is one of the important ratios that ratings agencies look at. And we actually judge our own financial health by. And so due to pressure specifically in years 2031 and 2032, one of the things that we’re considering is a use of up to $25 million in cash to cash fund the call of the 2030 and 2032 maturity bonds based on financial conditions, based on market conditions on the day of bond sale. This would not be a deviation from the use of cash to fund the payment of the bonds under any other circumstance. It would just be a — and it’s not a change of the use of the cash. It is just a change of the time of use of cash. And what that does is provide a little bit of additional relief on the coverage ratio in those years. So this is partially a result of our general fund balance being above our target sufficient that a use of $25 million for this purpose would not represent any form of pressure or any sort of negative impact on the general fund balance in terms of our target.
**Scott Bertram:** Thanks, Chris. Could we fast forward a couple slides here? One more. There we go. So, moving on to the second resolution we’re introducing today, resolution number 3849. This covers the planned refunding of up to 225.8 million of outstanding intermediate lien bonds. These bonds were issued in 2015 and 2016 to fund or refund various capital improvements at the airport. The refunding of these bonds is expected to generate at least 8.3 million of debt service savings if we meet our savings targets, which we currently expect. The 2026 intermediate lien bonds will be issued in two series. We’ve got, based on the underlying tax status of the refunded bonds, we’ve got a series of tax exempt governmental bonds and we’ve got a series of tax exempt private activity bonds. With that, I’ll turn it over to Angie to cover the remaining slides that outline the actions before you today.
**Angie Rose:** Thanks, Scott. My name is Angie Rose. I’m a principal finance analyst with the Corporate Finance Group. Good afternoon. Resolutions 3849 and 3850 are similar in all material respects to other first lien and intermediate lien resolutions. Oh, actually, could you move that one slide, please? Here we go. Thank you. They are issued pursuant to the respective lien master resolutions and provide for approval. Delegation limits are as follows. On the intermediate lien, maximum PAR amount of $250 million, maximum interest rate of 4.5%. On the first lien, the maximum PAR amount is $70 million with a maximum interest rate of 4.5 percent. If it appears we may exceed these limits, we would request further authorization. The bonds will be sold by Siebert, William Schenck, and the bond sale must occur within one year. Next slide. In terms of next steps, we anticipate final adoption of these resolutions at the next meeting on June 23. We will meet with the rating agencies the week of July 6th. The bond sale is scheduled for August 5th, with closing on August 20th. This concludes our briefing and we can assist with any questions.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Commissioners, any questions? Commissioner Fellerman.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Question for you, Chris. Are we able to use the money we have from the T30 settlement for the cash?
**Chris Wimsett:** We could, actually. The T30 settlement is one of the contributors to the cash value of the general fund being higher than — being above target right now. So you know, dollars are fungible, and so any source of cash in that respect can be attributed to any use, but certainly.
**Commissioner Felleman:** So that just makes it. It’s like new money for this short period of time that. So it really doesn’t affect our current cash flow. Correct?
**Chris Wimsett:** Correct. And the way I think of it is we could either replace the bonds with new bonds or we could replace the bonds with cash. And in this case, the proposal would be to retain flexibility to use cash as a substitute for new bonds to ease pressure on the rating. This just makes it that much easier.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Commissioner —
**Commissioner (unidentified):** How’s it going? No questions, just a comment. Good math. $2 million goes a long way. And so I appreciate just the creativity and always looking for the opportunity for us to make sure that we’re in excellent financial condition. I just think about other areas in government where literally all of them are in the red right now, and we still stay above float. And we are in the midst of putting forth our budget priorities, and we have some difficult decisions to make, and we’re looking at maintenance, and we are asking folks to have cut scenarios, and $2 million will go a really long way in the conversations that we’re able to have. So I just want to commit. And our fantastic financial team. Thank you for your support and your guidance.
**Chris Wimsett:** We’ve got a great team, and every creative solution you see is a result of their diligence and creativity.
**Commissioner Calkins:** My question is, you know, we’re in this pretty volatile financial period right now as a result of the conflict in Iran, the tariffs, a number of other things that are creating kind of unusual pairings of financial numbers. And I’m wondering if we’re intending to do this in a couple of months, is there anything you anticipate between now and then that could significantly change what we might have to pay for to offer these bonds? In other words, is it an ideal time to issue bonds or should we wait until things are a little bit more certain, or is this a good moment because of that uncertainty?
**Chris Wimsett:** That’s a great question. So these are refunding bonds and refunding bonds have to be issued kind of pursuant to when the bonds are eligible to be refunded. So I would say that a significant new money deal, this would be a pretty volatile time to be going to market for a significant new money deal. If you’d asked most market practitioners six months ago, their expectation would have been for lower interest rates 12 months from now. Whereas now, given inflation numbers are still pretty high, employment at the national level is still outperforming expectations, it’s a reasonable expectation that interest rates will be higher in 12 months than they are today. So I think our relative risk for this fairly modest refunding over the next few months is fairly low. It would take an awful lot for 20 year and 15 years on the curve in the present to get higher, to become higher rates than a 30 year curve was when we issued the bonds or a 25 year curve was when we issued the bonds. So overall, I think our opportunities for savings here are going to be robust despite short term headwinds. But a sober look at long term headwinds is always a good idea and that’s certainly a reality right now.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Terrific. Angie, great job on your debut. Thank you. Excellent. Really well informed. Hearing no further questions for this item, is there a motion and a second to introduce resolutions 3849 and 3850?
**Commissioner (unidentified):** So moved.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** Second.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Is there any further discussion or debate on the items? Clerk Hart, please call the roll for the vote. Commissioners, please say aye or nay when your name is called. Thank you. Beginning with Commissioner Cho.
**Commissioner Cho:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Fellamon.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Hasegawa.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. Commissioner Muhammad.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Aye.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you. And Commissioner Calkins. Aye. Thank you. Five ayes, zero nays for this item. All right. And with that, the motion passes. Resolutions 3849 and 3850 will be back before the Commission for Adoption on June 23, 2026. Thank you all.
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## Item 11A: Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and three year strategic plan briefing
**Commissioner Calkins:** We are now at presentations and staff reports. Clerk Hart, can you please read the next item into the record? And Deputy Executive Director Goon, can you introduce it?
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** Yes. Thank you. This is agenda item 11A, Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and three year strategic plan briefing. Commissioners, today we are providing a three year milestone update on the implementation of Resolution 3767 and the Duwamish Valley Community Benefits Commitment, a long term partnership that reflects the port’s commitment to equity, environmental stewardship and shared prosperity in communities most directly impacted by Port activity. This update highlights how the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program has evolved from policy into action, strengthening collaboration with community leaders, expanding access to workforce and economic opportunities, supporting environmental health initiatives and creating lasting infrastructure for community engagement. Joining us today is Sharmi Ajmera, Senior Program Manager, Duwamish Valley Engagement, External Relations; Jose Chippertoni — excuse me — Senior Program Manager, External Relations; and Priya Diaz, Port Community Action Team Member. Thank you.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Thank you, Commissioners. It’s great to be here with you today. I’ll briefly apologize for my voice. I have two kiddos under the age of three and they’re very generous with their germs. But I’ll do my best to make sure.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** Very relatable.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** I figured several of you will really understand. But thank you so much for having myself and my colleagues here today. We’ll take a moment to introduce ourselves and then jump into our agenda. My name is Sharmi Ajmera. I’m the Senior Program Manager for Duwamish Valley Engagement and I’ll pass it to one of our PCAT members who’ll be presenting with us today.
**Priya Diaz:** My name is Priya Marita Diaz and I’m a PCAT member.
**Jose Chippertoni:** Hello. Jose Chivertoni, Senior Environmental Maritime Community Engagement. Nice to see you.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Thank you. Next slide, please. So today we’ll be giving an update on the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program at large. Specifically, we’ll be giving an update on the Port Community Action Team, or the PCAT, which Priya will do for us. And then we’ll also talk about the three year strategic plan, which is one of the requirements under Resolution 3767. So it’ll be our strategic plan for 2026 to 2029. And then we’ll end with an update about the Duwamish River Community Hub. Next slide, please.
So to give you all a brief overview of the wide ecosystem of partners that we work with and where everyone fits, I wanted to take a moment to talk about several of the partners that we work with under this program. So first, of course, we work with several internal teams at the port. We have over 30 staff members at the port who are participating in our interdepartmental team. They work on a variety of projects that touch the Duwamish Valley in different ways. And so we bring those folks together at least once a quarter to meet with our PCAT members on a regular basis to talk about all sorts of different projects and programs that impact the Duwamish Valley and work with them throughout the course of the year on many of the things we’ll talk about in our strategic plan. And then, of course, we also work with several public agencies at the federal level, the EPA, we work with the city of Seattle. You heard one of our colleagues from the Office of Environment Sustainability during the public comment period. And we work with others like the Department of Ecology at the State, King County, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. And then, of course, one of our core governmental partners is the Northwest Seaport Alliance. And we work very closely with their External Relations team and also their Environment and Sustainability team. And then core to all of the work that we do as a program are the community relationships that we have across the Duwamish Valley. So that includes, of course, the Port Community Action Team, but also includes several nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups, community organizations, many neighbors and residents in the community itself, and of course, the users of the Duwamish River Community Hub.
So in that ecosystem of partners, PCAT is one of our core community partners. They are connected to different organizations and parts of the community, and they really serve as a bridge between the port and the community at large. And then the last box you’ll see on the screen is, as you heard from several of our public commenters, there’s a growing focus on youth and education. And so we’re building partnerships with several schools in the Seattle Public School system, the Highline Public School system, particularly Maritime High School and Aviation High School. And we work with many youth serving organizations in the Duwamish Valley as well. So there is a lot of partners that are brought to bear on all of the work that we do in the Duwamish Valley. Next slide, please. I don’t know if I can click it for her since Michelle had this stuff away. Oh, you got it. Okay. And I’ll pass it to Priya to speak about the PCAT.
**Priya Diaz:** Thanks, Sharmi. The Port Community Action Team was formalized through Resolution 3667 in 2019, and over the last six years, PCAT has served as an innovative model for Port community engagement. We are a long term, consistent and relational community group that serves as a bridge between the Port and the broader Duwamish Valley community. PCAT is really unique among community engagement models for public institutions. Great examples are the partnership between the port, PCAT and the community on the Duwamish River People’s park and the Duwamish River Community Hub. These serve as physical reminders and models of effective collaboration with the Duwamish Valley community. We mentioned that PCAT serves as a bridge connecting organizations and groups. For example, last month several community engagement professionals who are members of the International Association for Public Participation, IAP2, came to our space at the Duwamish Valley Community Hub to learn about the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program, PCAT and the work we’re doing together in the Duwamish Valley. We saw the slide earlier about the many different organizations that PCAT is connected to, creating a larger network of collaboration. So PCAT is a model for what sustained relationship building and decision making with community can look like. And why do we do this work? For the PCAT, the investment in this program is an investment in healing the relationships between the institution of the port, the people of the Valley and the environment, the land and the river. It is an attempt to reckon with the historical legacy of pollution by industry and repair harm that has been done. It is a movement towards more sustainable systems of being in relationship to each other and to the earth. This program is an important model of good governance at a time when we can feel the lack of positive and caring relationships between governmental agencies and communities nationwide. So it’s not a time to shy away from equity related work. It’s a time to double down on investments in the community. And there’s a lot more work to do. With the collaborative work of PCAT and support from the Port, we have planted a seed with the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program that has only started to take root and sprout. We want it to grow into a forest that powers and heals our region. Next slide, please. Oh, actually, yeah, go forward one. Oh, yeah, okay. Oh, no, sorry. Back one. Yeah, I’ll speak to it. I’ll speak to it here. Yeah. This one. Yes.
So about the PCAT. We are 11 members. Our members live, work and pray in the Duwamish Valley. And it’s important to note that the PCAT members, we have our normal day jobs in the community, as organizers in community organizations, as educators, as business owners, and we participate in PCAT during our evenings, our weekends and our lunch hours. We do the work because we care about the people in the community, about the land and the Duwamish River. Since 2019, PCAT has also had 100% turnover with current members serving about two or three years. And we’ve been working with our valued consultants to do a lot of internal organization work to develop systems based in equitable decision making practices and values. Because members are part of PCAT part time, our consultants are critical to bringing these new systems online and general support of PCAT participation in the program. We have a number of committees organized to work together to accomplish the goals of the community benefits commitment, and I think we’ll go in more detail to this later, but one thing I’d like to mention is the importance of the Duwamish Valley Community Hub, which is right on the corner when you enter south park over the bridge. We have so many youth and community members who use this space along with PCAT events and port offices. And I recently learned that the Hub building was actually built in 1930. It started as a residence and was converted into a pizza place in 1981. And it was a business for 40 years before PCAT and the Port came together to rent it for community use. We wouldn’t be able to do the work we are doing and develop this program without a dedicated space for the program. And we hope in the future to develop the hub further in order to meet the needs of the community fully. Thank you so much.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Priya, next slide please. So now we’ll talk a little bit about the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Plan strategic planning process. So we’ve been working on this strategic plan for the last six to eight months and we really took it as an opportunity to revisit the goals of the CBC, work with our internal partners at the Port, our governmental partners and our community partners to find a few key areas to focus on over the next few years. As you all may remember in the resolution, there is a lot packed under each goal and there’s a lot of work that the Port has already been doing over the last six years and that we’re continuing to do. So we really wanted to take this strategic planning process as an opportunity to do a gap analysis and see what have we already done addressing several of the things in the CBC and what are the current needs of the community right now. Where can we really focus on two or three high impact areas under each goal to have the biggest impact on the community. And the goal is really to use the strategic plan as a North Star so that we can be very thoughtful and entirely intentional in prioritizing time and resources within those few areas of the CBC over the next several years. Next slide please.
And this was truly a co creation process between the Port and the community. We have had several ongoing meetings quarterly, as I mentioned, between the Port’s interdepartmental team and PCAT. And that was really the starting point for a lot of this work for the strategic planning process. On top of that, both port staff and PCAT members regularly attend meetings at neighborhood associations. We go to events in the community. We connect. We had multiple meetings with several different community based organizations and nonprofit groups in the Valley to really understand what do folks need right now. There’s a really large ecosystem of different folks doing work in the Valley. Where can the Port fit in so that we’re being really thoughtful about complementing the work already done, not being redundant in things that are already being offered to the community. So the PCAT took it upon themselves to organize several community dinners to really dive into a few of those key areas in the CBC. For example, they hosted several hub visioning sessions with current users of the Hub so that we can better understand what that experience is like for them. How can we improve accessibility? What are some barriers that we can remove to make it easier for folks to access that space? And then what are things that might need to change to make the Hub more usable both for community and for Port staff, which Priya just alluded to. We also did a survey of all of the existing plans by governmental partners and organizations in the Valley to see what are folks already working on? There’s so many different things happening in the Duwamish Valley. So again, where can the Port fit in to provide something unique and meaningful to the community? And then we of course did several planning presentations to let folks know, here’s what we’ve heard, here’s what we’re thinking to put in the strategic plan. We did an open house to kind of gut check and make sure that we were on the right track. So this was truly a collaborative process that we undertook to create this plan for the next three years. Next slide please.
So now we’ll go goal by goal. And since this team has not been able to come before the commission for a couple of years, we wanted to do a little bit of a look back and share some of the highlights of what we’ve accomplished over the last three years. By no means comprehensive, but kind of a good highlight reel of some of the work we’ve done under each goal. And then we’ll transition to talking about what we’ll be focusing on for the next three years. So we’ll start with goal number one, Community and Port capacity building for ongoing collaboration. As Priya mentioned earlier, over the last couple of years we’ve onboarded a completely new cohort of PCAT members. So all of the founding members of PCAT that helped pass the resolution in 2019 and 2020 have transitioned off and we have all new membership now. We also had two of those founding members of PCAT actually join the port as staff members. One of them is my colleague Jose, who you’ll hear from in a moment, and another, Buntai team, who’s on our aviation community engagement team. And then we created the position that I’m in now, which is a position completely dedicated to supporting the Duwamish Valley Engagement program. Over the last couple years we’ve hosted almost — every — we’ve hosted almost 200 events and organizational sponsorships in the community. Last summer we celebrated the 5th year anniversary of the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and the PCAT. And we’ve onboarded new consultants for supporting PCAT with community capacity building and racial equity training to support both the PCAT and Port staff as we engage with the incredibly diverse community in the Duwamish Valley. Next slide please.
So with all of that work behind us, as we look ahead to the next three years, there’s a couple of key things we heard from community of how we can build on this momentum. So our first objective under this goal for the three year strategic plan is to build a really comprehensive, language accessible communication strategy for the program. This will include things like more regular updates to our website, making sure that we have a more consistent form of communication with the community. So we’re going to start a quarterly newsletter so that there’s a regular cadence for when our community partners can expect updates from us and invitations to collaborate. And we’re going to launch a more robust social media strategy so that we have ongoing communication with the community through platforms that people use the most often. The second objective is continuing to support PCAT’s organizational capacity building for longevity and for their future recruitment efforts. So PCAT has been extremely intentional and thoughtful about building a robust governance strategy for themselves. So how PCAT works as a body that is attached to the Port, but really wants to retain autonomy and connection to the community, creating their own decision making process as a body and then thinking really thoughtfully about how they transition more gradually for PCAT members to roll off of PCAT so that they’re bringing on new members a little bit at a time and creating a really thoughtful onboarding strategy for them, because I think many of them would share it was a little abrupt to have so many PCAT members leave all at once. So they really want to have that institutional knowledge passed on over time so that PCAT as the body stays really strong. And then the third objective, which we’ll talk about a little bit more at the end of the presentation, is expanding use of the Duwamish River Community Hub to build more capacity for both the community and the port to make the best use of that space. And with that we’ll go ahead and transition to the next slide and goal number two and I’ll pass it to my colleague Jose.
**Jose Chippertoni:** Thank you, Sharmi. Commissioners, I will now shift our focus to cover specifically goal number two of the CBC, that is Healthy environments and communities. And first I will give you a quick overview of some of the highlights, as Sharmi was mentioning, that the program has achieved, and after this also talk about some of the major objectives we want to pursue in the next three years. So one of the highlights I want to tell you about is the development of the Duwamish River Parks Management Strategy, which is a key milestone, bringing together community voices, PCAT members and port staff to assess our nine existing Duwamish River Port parks. Through surveys of parks conditions and extensive committee interviews, the team identified key findings to guide targeted investments and now this strategy serves as our North Star for implementing necessary improvements, ensuring continued collaboration between marine maintenance and staff, PCAT members and Duwamish Valley residents.
The other highlight is the unprecedented floodwaters that happened in 2022, displacing dozens of south park residents. When the Duwamish river overtopped its banks, homes, businesses and city streets were suddenly submerged as the tide surged beyond predicted levels due to a confluence of heavy rains, extreme atmospheric conditions and rising sea levels. During this critical emergency, Port staff immediately stepped in to help, coordinating with other community leaders and city governments and working around the clock to keep the Duwamish Hub open for flood relief so families could warm up and get support services.
The other highlight I want to tell you about that is so important is the grand opening of the Duwamish River Peoples Park, the DRPP. This marks a major milestone in the Duwamish Valley. It is the largest and most recent port park development in Duwamish Valley. Located just three blocks from our beloved Duwamish Hub, this park serves as both an indispensable ecosystem for the river and a living classroom for youth and scholars studying habitat restoration, government and community collaborations and environmental transformation. It represents one of our most successful collaborative projects, over 20 years in the making, encompassing everything from cleanup and construction to innovative funding models. This achievement stands as a powerful testament of what Port of Seattle and community can accomplish together for long term environmental stewardship. Having been a PCAT member when this wonderful project came to fruition, it’s an honor for me to steward this initiative from the Port side. One of my favorite aspects of my role here at the Port is hosting community members and community alliance large about and sharing the rich history of what makes this unique park so meaningful.
For the next slide, I’m going to switch us gears so I can tell you a little bit about the future objectives and some priorities we have identified for this goal. And before I jump into that, I think it’s important to mention that we are committed to supporting community driven collaborations to address climate and environmental health impacts focusing on critical areas such as air quality, truck traffic noise, green space and water quality. This means we have to work closely with maritime environmental sustainability teams, our colleagues at the Northwest Seaport Alliance, PCAT members and also other environmental leaders and groups such as the DRCC Cleaner Program. These collaborations are essential for bridging gaps and making meaningful connections. So for objective number one, cleaner and climate change. We will continue our education and engagement efforts, but we will focus a lot of our efforts with the Powering Maritime Innovation Project, which is an EPA grant assessing the feasibility of alternative maritime fuels in our region. We have a two pronged community engagement strategy, a Community Liaison project led by my colleague Piches Thomas, and an online community engagement platform we’re hoping to pilot this year. For Objective 2, Port Parks and Habitat Restoration. This objective keeps us pretty busy throughout the year. We’re hoping to continue our community engagement and outreach, especially around Port parks and habitat restoration, hosting and collaborating more than 20 events per year ranging from river festivals, Duwamish boat tours, Gateway Park North Celebrations, Duwamish alive sponsor events, etc. We will also be working very closely with our Marine Maintenance on the Duwamish River Parks Management Strategy. And lastly, the last objective 3, it has to do with the Duwamish River Superfund Cleanup Engagement. We’re hoping to continue the close collaboration we have had with the MES remediation team and we’re hoping to collaborate on projects such as T25 that is coming alive pretty soon, but also T115 and T117 throughout open houses, hosted luncheons, on site tours and other initiatives where there’s an opportunity to bring community participation in projects and decision making. So with that, I’ll turn it back to Sharmi. Thank you. Next slide please.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** So that brings us now to goal number three in the CBC, Economic Prosperity in place. So over the last three years, one of the biggest accomplishments under this program was the span of the Duwamish Valley Green Shops program, which I believe ran from 2021 to 2024. Over the course of that program, they served eight cohorts of trainees and had 44 youth participate in the program and 43 adults. As that program sunsetted in 2024, we transitioned to a new iteration of that program, the Duwamish Valley Career Navigator Program in partnership with OEDI at the Port and now Workforce Development under the Economic Development team. And that is a really amazing program that is providing wraparound services and direct career navigation services to folks in the Duwamish Valley to get them connected with port related industry career opportunities. And then the last highlight is the South King and Port Communities Fund has now expanded to include several new geographies, one of which is the Duwamish Valley. So we’ve been working closely with that team on outreach efforts so that folks in the Valley know that’s an opportunity now open to them. Next slide please.
So as we look ahead to the next three years, under our first objective, it’s really building out what we started late last year with the Duwamish Valley Career Navigator program and adult workforce development. So this year we started doing weekly office hours at the hub where folks can either walk in off the street or make an appointment with the Duwamish Valley Career Navigator to get support, getting placement in training programs, apprenticeship and pre apprenticeship programs, or just directly into jobs and also providing wraparound services so that folks can get the other support they need. Maybe help with a driver’s license or other documentation to ensure that they can access those job opportunities. We’re also working closely with the workforce development team to make sure that we’re doing targeted outreach in the Duwamish Valley to connect folks there to some of the other really great career navigation programs we have here, like port jobs through the airport, pre apprenticeships, and of course the Maritime career launch, which I believe will restart later this year. The second objective, which you heard from many of our public commenters, is folks in the Valley are really asking, what can we do to support youth? The Duwamish Valley Career Navigation program serves folks who are over the age of 18. So the second objective is really focusing on young folks under the age of 18. And so there’s kind of two tracks that we have with that. First is continuing to invest in the Port’s High School internship program. As many of you probably remember, last year we heard from one of our community partners, Paulina Lopez from Duwamish River Community Coalition, about how we needed to do better, making sure that there was equitable representation of youth from the Duwamish Valley in the high school internship program. So we’ve worked very closely with our Talent Connections team, and this year we’ve reserved a minimum of two spots in the program for youth from the Duwamish Valley. And we’ve also partnered with Talent Connections to host several information sessions directly with youth serving organizations and schools in the DV. And we’ve done application workshops. We’ve worked with students one on one to help them through the application process. We’re right in the middle right now of making offers, but based on the preliminary data, I’m really happy, and we’ll share more later, that there’s been a lot of fruits of that labor this year and a lot more kids from the Duwamish Valley both applying and being offered positions with the internship. The second thing that we’ve heard from folks is kids just need to know what these careers even look like and get exposed to them. So this year we’re piloting several field trip opportunities for youth to be able to come and explore port related industry careers. And we’re pairing that with what’s the next step. So forming partnerships with organizations like the Museum of Flight, for example, that offer all kinds of really amazing summer programming for kids to learn more about careers in aviation. So we’re trying to set up really cool field trips to get them excited about these opportunities and then pairing them with additional education and exposure opportunities so that they can keep learning about them as they continue through middle school and high school and then hopefully enter those careers as they graduate high school and move into the next phase for their careers. The third objective is coordinating port resources and partnerships to support small businesses. So what this has looked like is working with our economic development department at the port to understand what are the existing things that we already have. The existing services, opportunities, partnerships to support small businesses, meeting with small businesses in the Duwamish Valley to understand what do they need, what are the specific barriers that they face to growing their businesses and trying to figure out what are the gaps between what the port offers, what other organizations offer, what folks need in the Valley, and then creating some tailored programming to help small businesses in the Duwamish Valley thrive and also to get them connected to these great opportunities, doing business with the port, getting into our contracting opportunities, working as vendors for the port, or accessing programs like SEA Sparks at the airport. So through a combination of those, we’re hoping to help businesses in the Duwamish Valley be really strong candidates for those port related opportunities. And then the fourth objective goes back to the South King and Port Communities Fund, now that it’s expanded to the Duwamish Valley, wanting to make sure that we’re working with that team to do targeted outreach, make sure that folks in the Valley know these are opportunities available to them and helping make sure that they have really strong competitive applications when those RFPs open every year. Next slide.
And now we’ll move into the last part of our presentation, which is an update on the Duwamish River Community Hub, which is really like the physical nexus for all of this programmatic work that we offer in the Duwamish Valley. Next slide please. So as Priya mentioned briefly before, and as a refresher, the Duwamish River Community hub opened in 2020. Prior to that, it was a family pizza parlor that had operated in the neighborhood for 40 years. As the port adopted it, it first served as a field office for our maritime environment, sustainability and habitat restoration teams to work on Duwamish River People’s Park. As that project came to a close, the MES team still regularly uses the hub to service the other parks and port properties in the Duwamish Valley. We also host several cohorts of the Washington State Conservation Corps who help with a lot of the work that we do in those port properties. And then we also have port teams, including the Duwamish Valley Community Equity Program and my colleagues who support the maritime environmental community engagement work out of the hub as well. But the biggest users of the hub are our community partners and you can see on the slide just a few of the organizations that regularly use the hub and really rely on it for a lot of the programming that they offer in the community. And there’s been a lot of really great work that we’ve done there. If you switch to the next slide, I’ll go through just a couple of the highlights just from 2025 for the Hub. So just last year we had almost 300 bookings. 90% of those were external bookings. So community partners using the space. It was over 1,000 hours of programming. Throughout the course of the year, we had 21 unique users of the Hub, including four super users, one of which you heard from earlier. A colleague, Robin from DRCC, is there all the time. DRCC is a heavy user of the Hub. And over half of all of the events and the uses of the Hub were specifically targeted towards youth. We have multiple youth serving organizations that regularly use the space pretty much on a weekly basis, sometimes multiple times a week. And all of the uses of the Hub are really directly aligned with port related work. So a lot around green jobs, environmental justice and sustainability, maritime and aviation industry. And then of course with our career navigators, a growing segment of the time at the Hub is dedicated to workforce development and job training. Just in the time that the Hub was open, we’ve had over a thousand events hosted there. And as you heard from some of our community commenters, it really is a critical resource for the community and one that they really come to depend on. And then I’ll pass it to Priya if there was any other things that you wanted to share about the Hub.
**Priya Diaz:** It’s a very special place for all of us and it really is in such a central location. You know, it’s right there next to the river. I remember when I first kind of started coming to south park, there was really, especially back then, nowhere to meet. Right. Even the community center was being renovated, so we didn’t have a community center. The South park hall was sort of the one space that was available above the coffee shop. And I was actually getting involved through the cultivate south park events as a small business person. In the parking lot behind the coffee shop, we would have the mercaditos where everyone would come together and we were serving free food for the community, handing out groceries during COVID, all masked, but still socially distant, but still learning and getting to know each other. And so the hub being a space in that zone right next to the river has been so important since COVID, I would say. And it did open during COVID actually, which is pretty remarkable.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Yeah. Thank you, Priya. It is a really special place and we’re grateful for several of the commissioners who’ve come down to visit the Hub and meet with our community partners there. Next slide, please. So we’ll go ahead and wrap up the presentation portion with just a few brief remarks on what’s next. So we’ve now finalized our three year plan. We’re sharing it, of course, with port commissioners, with our team at the port, and we’ll also share it with our community partners. And then we’ll just be working on implementing phase one, tracking our key performance indicators and metrics, tracking the outcomes of all of the work that we outlined, and we’ll be producing annual reports so that our colleagues at the port and in other governmental organizations, community and commissioners, can track our progress and see how we’re doing against these really ambitious goals. And with that, we’ll go ahead and pause the presentation part and open for questions.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Commissioners, any questions or comments? Commissioner Fell? Commissioner Muhammad.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for this presentation. And I just want to start by appreciating both the community members who participate in supporting all of the activities that are happening in the Duwamish Valley area, both staff and also the PCAT members. And I’ve come down to the hub and visited with PCAT members in the past and just really appreciate the advocacy that goes into that for both the programming, the space as well as the community, the health of the community. I am someone who lives right in front of the river myself in Allentown and spent a lot of time in that waterway and understand really the importance of protecting that community and its health. And so just lots of gratitude to you all for doing this important work and uplifting our community. I did have a couple questions. So it seems like the hub is being utilized and there was a lot of advocacy that has gone into keeping that space for community. And I just wanted a little more clarification on the type of activities that are happening there. I know that you mentioned there’s over 1000 hours that has gone into programming. Can you kind of break down a little bit the programmings that are port led or the ones that are just like us renting the space out? And it’s pretty much community led?
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Yes, thank you for the question, Commissioner. So as I mentioned, about 90% of the bookings are really specifically community members renting the space. And some of the most frequent users of the hub use it for youth led programs. So we have the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps that meet at the hub once, sometimes twice a week throughout the year to offer their programming. We also have the Duwamish Valley Sustainability association, which is another youth serving organization that comes to the hub once or twice a week to offer programming. The Duwamish Valley Clean Air Program, which my colleague Jose mentioned earlier, which is the coalition of community organizations, governmental partners, including the port and Northwest Seaport alliance, meet there regularly, I think on a quarterly basis. And then we have several community groups that are looking to do environmental related programming. We have several groups that come to visit Duwamish River Peoples park and need a place to like, you know, stop first to learn a little bit about the park and then go on a tour of it. And then there are different community groups that are doing career navigation and outreach services that are very complimentary to the port work that we do. And then of course, a lot of the port related work that we do there is related to workforce development. So as I mentioned, we have every week the Duwamish Valley Career Navigators spend a full day, so sort of having open office hours for folks to be able to get those services. And then we’ve started this year doing port led, in partnership with the Duwamish Valley Career Navigators, hiring events and career fairs. So we did our first one in April and I think we had 250 to 300 community members come through to get connected to job opportunities.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** That’s really helpful. And I remember in the past one of the issues that had come up was, is the port the best entity to be managing the rental of that space? How have we addressed that? Is there someone on staff that now is just dedicated to supporting community members who want to rent the space? I know in the past there was discussions about should a city be managing those rentals? And also makes me think about other spaces that community members want to be able to access that are port owned. And so I just wonder how you all have been able to manage the inquiries and the request to rent that space.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Yeah, we have a program coordinator, Joycelyn Chui, who started this year, whose one of her main responsibilities is supporting the hub and really trying to streamline some of those processes so that it’s a little more accessible. So, for example, one of the things that we’re doing under the first objective with some of these communication updates is there’s really no reason we shouldn’t have like an online booking form for the hub or a calendar so folks can see the availability. That takes up a lot of staff time in the past and that’s something we could automate. So we’re trying to find creative ways to sort of make it a little less burdensome to do the administration of the hub. In terms of the port continuing to be the primary entity in that space, I don’t foresee that changing in the future, although you heard from my colleague at the City of Seattle. I think that there’s opportunity for the future as we think about the future of that space and maybe further investments by the port in the Duwamish Valley in partnership with some of our other governmental entities, of maybe a partnership on the space so that we could open up even use of it more with a general purpose government so folks could use the space for wider purposes. That’s not something that we’re currently able to pursue given our current budget climate, but it’s something that I hope that we can plan for and build a partnership with the city to explore in the future.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** That’s really helpful. And I guess maybe this additional comment is for my colleagues. I know we probably all get inquiries and requests for community members wanting to rent our conference spaces, whether it’s the World Trade and other places. And then it’s pretty difficult and it can be very pricey as well. And at times when we get reports out on it, it’s also underutilized. But I think this model is worth thinking about and make some of our spaces more accessible to the public for conferences that community members are hosting. I know I get contacted all the time where an organization wants to host a conference and they want to access our space, one of our conference spaces, and it’s very difficult and expensive and just a cumbersome process. And so I think this is a very creative model that you all put together and it’s working and I know it wasn’t easy to do initially and so I’m glad to hear that it’s working well. I have two more questions and turn it over to my colleagues. I also heard in the presentation on, I think it was like slide 5 maybe, Priya, you said this, that there’s been 100% turnover for the PCAT members. Is that because the term limits exist or did people just naturally decide to do other stuff? I know it’s always hard to do volunteer.
**Priya Diaz:** Yeah, exactly. Although it’s paid but not full time work, obviously. No, yeah, very part time. You know, capacity and people’s questions — capacity changes and I think also sort of a natural, you know, being involved in something for a while and then moving on. I know that a lot of the former PCAT members are still amazing people in the community doing, you know, leading nonprofits, doing amazing work and we’re still connected to a lot of them, or some of them are now port employees. You know, like, we’re like super connected still. But yeah, like the fresh new ideas and perspectives also the new people bring. I think there was a desire for moving on to the new thing and bringing in some new ideas. But yeah, there’s not a limit. There’s not like a — you can only serve on PCAT — yeah, we don’t really. Yeah, I really value, I mean, for me, and I think the PCAT as well, really value this institutional knowledge that we carry as we learn more and more about the port. It’s taken me two years to like kind of wrap my head around what is the port anyway? Like, before this, I had no idea what the port was. I was like, oh, that’s government. That’s — wait, there’s the city of Seattle, there’s the county, and there’s also this port thing. Like, what is that? And there’s like this big airport thing. Exactly. Yeah. So it really, it took me a while to get more and more awareness around how I as a community member even relate to this institution. So, you know, we don’t have a limit, I would say right now. But yeah, I think we could all agree with you on that. There’s a lot of people who feel that way.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Lastly, I also heard you all share that there are consultants. Sounds like multiple consultants supporting this work. What does that look like? Like, what are their work, their scope of work and are they both supporting PCAT and are they supporting the staff as well? I think sometimes that can — if anyone wants to clarify that.
**Priya Diaz:** I can say a little. So I think the PCAT really values sort of our independence as an independent community group. And because we’re only doing this part time and coming into it on our lunch hours and after work, the consultants really are a support for us to, you know, be able to participate and also help us build capacity and just support our meetings and give us trainings and things that we need to learn more about and to center our work in equity. And yeah, so there’s, I think maybe Sharmi has more to say as well.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Maybe you can say — that’s helpful. Maybe you could say just a little bit about maybe how they’re supporting staff and what that work scope looks like.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Yeah, absolutely. So there’s two consultants that support PCAT in the program. There’s a capacity building consultant that, as Priya mentioned, are really focused on helping PCAT members think through, like, how do you create a governance structure among a group of 11 strangers who come together to try to work with this big government entity and connect them to the community. So they’ve really been supporting them in thinking through what does that look like? How do we create a shared decision making model as a group? What does it mean or look like to work as a liaison between government and community? Because many of the folks on PCAT, some of them are seasoned activists, advocates, they have that experience. Some of them are really young and they just really care about their community and they want to participate, but they don’t necessarily have that same background. So the consultants really support them in that. And then they serve as really core partners for port staff to understand like what PCAT as a body, like what they’re doing. We can’t be in every single committee meeting or every single thing that they do. We try to attend as much as we can, but the consultants are really like the through line kind of helping PCAT form and support the work that they’re doing as this sort of like autonomous entity, but then also helping stay connected to the port and helping kind of translate between all of the bureaucracy that PCAT members need to navigate on behalf of the community and then port staff as well.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Okay, great. Thank you for that, providing those clarifications. I would love to understand that a little more. I think sometimes when it’s community focused initiatives, there are work that staff take on and there’s work that consultants take on and it can be really expensive and we want to be able to see as much as these limited dollars also go out to support community projects directly and so love to learn a little more about that. Thank you.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Sure. I just wanted to add my voice to expand on that answer. Also, Commissioner — through Commission President Ryan Calkins — that, you know, what I heard clearly from this presentation and the public comment was that we have, over the course of time, brick by brick, built community trust with this disparately impacted community with generations of wrongdoing. And that history also exists with other governments, especially at the city of Seattle. Just frankly, what I’ve heard. And we are the trusted entity here and there’s just bureaucracy to see in the needle to thread as to whether or not the partnership could happen with King County. But right now we have been working in thought partnership with PCAT and the external relations team to think about what the best and highest use and model is for that hub property. And that first hurdle that we cleared two years ago as a commission was making sure that we extended the lease because it was such a valuable community asset. When we — we heard — we did how many activations in the hub in the last 365? Almost 200, 195. I mean, we’re going on almost every other day at least of the year that it’s being used. Right. A tremendous benefit. And then we’re hearing their proposal of how they want to reimagine that footprint to optimize the physical space. And so I think that we found our role in facilitating this for public benefit. And I’m really proud that what the port does on a macro level, which is public infrastructure for public benefit, is happening right here in a very, you know, budgetarily small but very grand community impact sort of way. So the hub being a piece of this presentation and the way that it’s being used, I think if you pull up the exact right questions to ask. I also wanted to just echo what my colleague was noticing about the consultant fees and I’ve sat with this because is it about 2/3 of the PCAT budget, right? Went to consultant fees over the last year?
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Yeah, I think about that. It depends on how you look at the budget. Right. I mean it was a significant — and it’s the question to ask. But when I think about the intensity of the work that they’re doing, how much of the value in this model is empowering them to have self determined priorities and needing the support to see that through and all the deliverables that we’re getting through the other points of this presentation, does it make sense to ask us to do that? What’s the alternative in order to get the same results. And that would be allocating another FTE which would actually — it could become more expensive.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** So, you know, we are in the conversation where, you know, we’re asking everybody to look at the needs to haves versus the nice to haves. So I just wanted to vocalize and just bring up that question because I do think it was the right question to ask. I’m thinking about it too. I also am incredibly pleased to hear out of this presentation a new focal point of youth. Specifically I love your framework of one deliverable for youth under the age of 18 and then young adults as well. I think that’s so special and incredible as we are intentional about connecting folks in redlined and environmental justice communities to industry opportunities. And I heard you say that we have formal partnerships that we are continuing with the local schools, Aviation high school, maritime high school, which we also fund separately. I’m wondering, what about some of the after school programs or summer programs that are happening just down the road at the Museum of Flight, we hear about what a community asset that is. And is there a relationship there for PCAT as well?
**Sharmi Ajmera:** That’s something that we’re actively exploring and building. One of our PCAT members is actually looking at creating an event specifically for young folks in the Duwamish Valley to go to the Museum of Flight and learn about careers in aviation and get connected with many of the summer programs that the Museum of Flight offers. They also offer scholarships for folks to go to flight school, pilot ground school. So we’re definitely exploring and trying to build more of those partnerships. That’s why it’s one of the core parts of our strategic plan. We don’t have all of the partnerships in place right now since we’re only about six months into the year. But that’s something that we’re going to be pursuing over the next few years, is building a really robust partner network with schools and other youth serving organizations and getting them connected to those types of opportunities.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** That’s great. It’s a fantastic public private partnership to be able to deliver tangible workforce development opportunities to our local communities. And my colleague, Commissioner Fred Felleman, who has his own line of questioning, is thinking really critically in the context of this budget of how we’re going to be continuing to fund and expand youth opportunities into industry jobs. So thank you so much for this wonderful presentation and thank you so much for the work that you do. Our PCAT guests have left, but I was so pleased to see them provide public testimony today and hear directly from them how, post transition, PCAT went through sort of a renovation, a reorg. It sounds like we’re really on the right track. Sharmi, I just want to say, your presence at the port has been, I think, really important. My last question is for the strategic planning process. Is this something that happened and was facilitated in house, or is this something that was contracted out?
**Sharmi Ajmera:** No, this is something that port staff undertook, of course, in deep partnership with the PCAT and our community partners and lots of staff across the port.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Well, my hats off to you and the team who are facilitating this incredibly robust and thorough and difficult process. It is truly wonderful to be able to take in. I appreciate it.
**Commissioner Felleman:** And thank you for the presentation. It is really rewarding to see the evolution of this program since the original EPA grant and how much you guys have been able to do it. I was particularly moved by the multilingual boat trip I participated on this weekend. And you know, Commissioners are often asked to say something in the beginning and let the boat set sail. I saw two full buses full of kids roll in and I also saw a remarkably coordinated job of processing all this. Our public affairs guys kind of got it down. It was a pretty smooth operation. Everybody’s got their name tags and rolled in. And then I — it’s not a big deal for me to go on a boat ride. You don’t have to twist my arm. But it was remarkably exciting for me to see the level of enthusiasm of the kids that were there. And you know, and a lot of it’s self directed, really moving and parents were engaged. It was — you’re doing something right. So I really — I mean having that direct experience was really moving. And so thank you for that. I guess my primary thing when we first started this was — so I know the city and the county have programs and the first answer you guys gave me was, Christina was like, we have to have our act together before we can coordinate with others. I said that before and now the act is coming together and I don’t know, we’re on the third or fourth act at this point. And when it comes to the budget in terms of, you know, what is the best allocation of our resources, it would be really helpful to know, you know, what is the city funding, what is the county funding. And then, you know, you were pointing out what is the port’s role in that context. Obviously the community has these needs. You have these self derived planning documents with KPIs and all that good stuff. But how are these different government as a public agency spending public dollars. I don’t want to be redundant. Right. I want to be — it should be synergistic, more than the sum of the parts. So to the degree you can help us understand really what the port’s role is and whether, you know, the city, county, port should own that building. Should we be doing things more? I mean like, but who is the rightful owner of something like that? I think the need has been well established and, but, you know, it doesn’t seem to me like this is not a short term program. The port has invested a lot at this point, but I guess I would like to — always want to leverage our money. I want to see us, you know, bring in others. And to your community partnership and like museum of flights and that’s great stuff, but you know, these three governments have significant resources to leverage and so I would really like to hear how your strategy is for that.
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Thank you for the question, Commissioner. So I’ve started first with really trying to understand the programming offered through the City of Seattle in the Duwamish Valley. So you heard from my colleague Angeli Dodge, who works on the Duwamish Valley program with the Office of Sustainability and the Environment. And she and I have really developed a strong relationship and are working through right now a whole bunch of different opportunities that we’d like to pursue for complementary programming. So I think what the port does uniquely well is really getting folks connected with workforce development opportunities and port related industry. We have those connections, we have that knowledge base and we have a really deep well of support that we can draw from to help think creatively about how we do that with different communities. And where the city really comes in is that they can do so much more than we can do as a general purpose government, whereas we’re a special purpose government, which of course, you know. And so what Angeli and I have been talking about is where can the city bring a level of programming and resourcing that is more in that general purpose government purview? So more of those broader wraparound services addressing some of the other aspects of economic development like housing, that the port really doesn’t do, but that folks always ask about because usually regular community members are like, oh well, I know the port does this very niche thing. And the city does — they’re like, it’s just government. Tell me who can help me. And so we’re really trying to find that complementary set of programming and really think about how the city can bring some of their resources to bear and how the port specifically in the Duwamish Valley, we have something special which is the space, we have the community hub, which is truly an economic development resource center. It’s a space that we’re continuing to invest in. So how could we potentially bring some of that broader programming from the city and co locate it at the hub to really live into that vision of the Hub as a true economic development resource center where folks can access a myriad of resources, not just the very specific ones that are directly port related, that we’re able to offer through, you know, our legislative mandate. And so that’s one of the ways we’re exploring it. We’re also looking at just how we can provide complimentary programming. So when the city is hosting an event, invite the port, we’d love to come and talk about some of the services and programming that we offer and vice versa. So we’re exploring a lot of different ways to do that. With the county, that is next on my list. Now that I’ve established a strong relationship with the city, I’m actively pursuing relationships with folks at the county, particularly in their workforce development, to understand what are some of the things that they’re doing that again, maybe we can co locate some of those resources with the space that we have very centrally located in the Duwamish Valley, and expand the amount of services that we offer to broaden a little bit more. So we’re looking at a lot of different opportunities. I’m not sure exactly what will pan out, but there’s definitely a lot of really good partnerships that are starting to form.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Just two quick follow ups. So does the city do programming there?
**Sharmi Ajmera:** Not currently. That’s something that we’re exploring right now.
**Commissioner Felleman:** And then the county administers WRIA 9, the Salmon Recovery effort on the Duwamish. And we actually believe — I still fund the lower Duwamish Salmon Steward, where previously there wasn’t. There was middle and upper reaches of the Duwamish. So there’s a person there that sort of a county employee that the port has financial investment in that, part of all this habitat restoration efforts and stuff like that. They get also external funding to do that. It’ll be a function for the county to potentially contribute engagement for those community members. Right. Thank you.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Priya, Sharmi, Jose, thank you so much. My only comment is with the two Superfund cleanups that are — one’s commencing and another’s coming soon, these are huge potential opportunities to take what we learned at the Duwamish River People’s park in terms of engaging young people in that actual process and finding ways to get people involved, both as a, you know, opportunity to raise awareness among young people about careers that are possible, but also just to engage people in real economic activity that’s happening in their backyard, not importing workers to do that. So I would hope that as those projects commence and really get underway, that we’re using PCAT and DRCC contacts to really engage the community in employment opportunities, internship opportunities, getting fifth grade classes out to see it. I just think it was really successful with the rehabilitation of T117. And I just want to acknowledge how important Paulina Lopez has been to this whole conversation. And she came by and met with us recently and just continues to be a clarion for awareness for us as an institution. And so just to acknowledge her continued work there. Thank you so much for the great presentation. And I hope we don’t have to wait two more years to get an opportunity.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right. Clerk Hart, can you please read the next item into the record and Deputy Executive Director Goon introduce it?
**Commissioner (unidentified):** Point of privilege. Yeah. I just wanted to let our fantastic team in External relations and our support staff for PCAT know that I waited all year for this presentation and I love getting that update every single year. So thank you.
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## Item 11B: SEA Stakeholder Advisory Roundtable (START) annual report
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** Thank you. And this is agenda item 11B, the SEA Stakeholder Advisory Roundtable. That’s the START Annual Report. Commissioners, I’m pleased to present to you the Annual report on the SEA Stakeholder Advisory Roundtable, or start. START Commission continues to play an essential role to enhance the cooperation between the port and the Highline Forum members. Member cities of SEA tac, Berrien, Des Moines, Normandy Park, Tukwila and Federal Way. Alaska Airlines and Delta Airlines also serve on start. And the Federal Aviation Administration provides agency expertise. Over the last year, START has been focused on implementing tangible solutions that address aircraft noise and emission levels, as well as advocacy at the state and federal level. And joining us today is Marco Milane, Senior Program Manager, AV Engagement External Relations; Eric Schinfeld, Senior Manager, Federal and International Government Relations, External Relations; John Flanagan, State Government Relations Manager, External Relations; and Andres Mantilla, START Facilitator and Partner at Uncommon Bridges. Thank you.
**Andres Mantilla:** Hello, Commissioners. Thank you. My name is Andres Mantilla. I am partner at Uncommon Bridges and facilitator of the START Group. Thank you, Commissioners, for the opportunity to provide an update on the status of the Stakeholder Advisory roundtable progress in 2025 and 2026. I want to begin today’s presentation with a quick overview of the start, including its purpose and its structure. We can go to the next slide. We will have a few slides just to remind you all of the context of how and how START came to be and the context in which it’s operating. Next, I will offer, as the independent facilitator, provide a current assessment of where I think START is, the state of start, what’s working, where are there challenges, and what is the current focus of the group. Then Marco, Eric and John will cover the programs in more detail and specificity and initiatives that the NOISE Working Group and the Policy Working Group focused on in 2025, in the first half of this year. And then, of course, we’ll be available for questions at the end. Go to the next slide.
So START functions as an opportunity for knowing that SEA airport operations and location exists within dense residential communities and commercial areas in the Puget Sound. The Port of Seattle, through this effort strives to build open relationships with the community and the local cities and to give access to a discussion around impacts to foster trust, accountability and collaboration. And that was in that spirit a component of why START was formed in early 2018. Next slide. Working in close coordination with leaders from the six Highline Forum member cities, the Port of Seattle and its partners developed START to share information, collaborate and achieve results. START provides the Port of Seattle with a dedicated forum for discussing and tackling airport related issues of most relevance to airport area cities and their residents and a good two way conversation for collaboration on those issues. Next slide.
So a few context slides around the overview of how START works. Each city designates three members to serve on start, two community representatives that are designated from the city itself and a city representative who are joined by representatives from Alaska Airlines, Delta Airlines and the Port staff. The FAA, Federal Aviation Administration attends in an ex officio role and provides agency expertise as needed. The Aviation Managing Director, Wendy Ryder serves as STARTS Chair and Wendy is in the audience here today. Thank you. Thanks Wendy for attending. And meetings are typically every other month. They’re facilitated by uncommon bridges. I act as the facilitator and START Steering committee provides support, guidance and strategic direction for start. The port in the six cities and two airlines are all represented on that START steering committee and that’s governed by an operating agreement which I want to talk a little bit more about here today. The Steering Committee decides on the size and the extent of start’s membership, who can, who’s appointed, how they’re appointed and the different priority areas for START and what to include on START meeting agendas. At those steering committee meetings, the Port of Seattle comes with agenda items. Other the members are able to also propose agenda items for consideration and there’s an agreement of what the agenda should be and that’s proposed and used in the big START meeting and at that steering Committee. Any other changes of how START operates is also discussed there. START operates with a 100% consensus based guidance in what shapes all decisions and what decisions can be taken by start, its Steering committee and its two working group. The Port of Seattle provides START with staff support and technical analysis and expertise. However, the Port is also bound by that consensus based approach and cannot take unilateral action to shape agendas. None of the other members can do that either. It’s really 100% consensus of things that need to move forward. As part of the operating guidelines, two working groups were created to allow for deeper dive into issues and these kind of mirror the priorities that were identified earlier in 2025 and 2024. And those are the Aviation Noise Working Group and the Policy Working Group. And we’re going to hear more about their accomplishments in 2025 and 2026 today. And mainly a lot of the things that move to START for discussion come out of those working groups for consideration and additional learning so we can go to the next slide.
So as I mentioned, in 2025, 2024, 2025, START completed its strategics Priority framework. And we did that to try to get a better sense of how can the group come together around some intentional definitions of key problems, of things that were of most importance to the members. And it was an attempt to align the most pressing issues. And so through conversations and kind of call like an in person retreat somewhat, three strategic priorities came forward. And we, when we talk about strategic priorities, we see these items and we don’t say anything. Everything else that’s not on here isn’t important. But what we’re saying is that these are the things that the group wants to know most about. So that’s airport growth and capacity, efforts to reduce noise impacts, and then environmental justice issues, but with a particular focus on air quality issues. Those were the three kind of buckets, so to speak, that the membership identified as most important. This has helped streamline agendas in the meetings on the issues most relevant to START members. So as part of start, there’s a lot of reports around kind of the current state of things. With this Strategic priorities framework, we’ve been able to kind of narrow that and provide more space for discussion.
The 100% consensus in the operating agreement is a high bar that makes it difficult to make structural changes, including changes to membership. We’ve talked about membership in this body before. Policies and advocacies or advocacy without everyone in agreement. This has prevented us from taking either kind of a majority or minority position within the group, even as things move forward. So there has to be full consensus for things to move forward. And that has kind of served the group well in, in previous years. But as we look at this year and into kind of future years, as the policy issues become more nuanced and there’s perhaps some more differences of opinion, this is something that’s going to be really important for START to tackle head on in 2026. At the beginning in the work, when this first came together, a lot of really impactful, what we call low hanging fruit issues were addressed. This allowed us to be successful in Olympia. It allowed us to be successful in some of the fly INS in D.C. to influence legislation, to promote different programming, to advocate to the FAA and to our congressional delegation this year. We had difficulty getting into a shared legislative agenda in Olympia in part because the issues in front of us are more nuanced. There’s differences of opinion and we couldn’t get to that, to that kind of full agreement. You know, in Olympia, we did draft an agenda that noted where parties agreed and where parties didn’t agree. But kind of due to low attendance and kind of lack of commitment of showing there, we had to actually cancel our advocacy day in Olympia this year. And similarly, we canceled the federal fly in partial, I think partial partly because of these differences as well.
So some START community members have articulated a set of changes that they believe can help better improve the governance model. These include having a rotating chair of start, more access to the steering committee, including a broader membership list beyond the surrounding airport cities, including other elected officials, other county representatives, more access to setting meeting agendas, quicker turnaround of notes, moving away from remote meetings. You know, during the pandemic we previous in pandemic there were in person meetings that they have now moved to remote restructuring some of the public comment and leading more into leaning more into other practices used by other airport roundtables. There is a roundtable of airport roundtables group that happens that have that use different practices. And so I anticipate that these conversations will be an active part of the next steering committee member, next steering committee meeting where given our current operating agreement, these options have to come forward for discussion and potential action. And so, you know, I think the point here is that as we move forward in 2026, some of these more nuanced decisions need to be taken into consideration and determined for us to be be able to move forward, I think to address some of the community concerns. So that’s my assessment as the facilitator. Thank you. I will be available on this part for more questions towards the end, but we’ll turn it over to Marco next for the Aviation Noise Working Group. Thank you.
**Marco Milanese:** Commissioners, Marco Milanese. I’m the Community Engagement Manager out at the airport and heavily involved with START and the Aviation Noise Working Group. And thank you for the opportunity to address you today. So since its creation, START’s aviation noise working Group has focused on prioritizing and exploring potential near term actions to reduce and prevent aviation noise. Its membership includes a subset of START members along with the port’s team of noise specialists. And that includes Noise Program Senior Manager Ryan McCarthy, Mullen, Noise program Manager Tom Fagerstrom and Noise Programs Coordinator Paris Edwards and a big thanks to all three for all their good work over the years. They in turn are joined by Vince Mestri, who is a longtime aviation noise consultant who provides expert advice to the Working Group. Next slide please.
The Working Group’s efforts to reduce and prevent aviation noise can generally be grouped into three general categories. The first one is Lessening late night noise and examples of this work include START’s late night noise Limitation Program, which is designed to incentivize air carriers to fly at less noise sensitive hours or transition to quieter aircraft and STARTS Informal Runway Use Plan which minimizes the use of the third Runway during the late night hours. Two Successful programs. Category two is tracking operational and community response trends. Examples of this work includes the Port’s monthly reporting on all noise complaints and comments submitted by the public and the more recent monthly tracking of aircraft go arounds to see if SEA is in a line with other similarly sized airports. And Category 3, which is implementing voluntary air carrier guidance and examples of this were work include discouraging aircraft reverse thrust upon landing, encouraging continuous taxis prior to departing and encouraging the minimum necessary thrust when taxing. All voluntary. Slide 9 please.
In 2025 and 2026 the group continued work on the Aviation Near Term Noise Action Agenda which includes several previously describe programs and efforts intended to prevent aviation to provide aviation noise relief to the cities surrounding sea. However, the work has continued with more of a focus on results monitoring, giving consideration to potential refinements and enhancements, and promoting outcomes both with internal and external audiences based on member interest. The Working Group is also dedicated to significant agenda time at many of their meetings to the Port Sound Insulation Program. This includes the single family home insulation work that’s occurred over the previous decades, the current focus on apartments around the airport and places of worship, and the pilot program targeting previously insulated single family homes. These were all regular topics at Working group meetings in 2025 and in 2026. Finally, along with appointed neighboring city land use planners, the Working Group members participated on the Part 150 Noise Studies Technical Review Committee and a Part 150 Noise Study is required by the FAA to update airport noise programs and establish eligibility for FAA grant funds and airports typically stand up a TRC or a Technical Review Committee during this study and task it with providing to technical input and guidance throughout the life of that study. Three working group meetings in 2025 dedicated significant agenda time to the work of the TRC and in fact last night’s Working Group meeting the Aviation Noise Working Group Meeting also included substantial Part 150 study focus. The working group members participated on the TRC as a de facto TRC members and were given significant opportunities to ask questions, provide input and offer recommendations to the consultant team managing the Part 150 study on the port’s behalf. Next slide.
And though not an official part of sart’s work, I know that Vashon island and the noise experienced by its residents often is raised during the START annual report. So I wanted to make sure that you were fully aware of the current happenings with that work. Port staff and the consultant teams managing the Part 150 study met with the representatives from Vashon island just last year to discuss the situation over the island. In tapping the consultant team’s expertise and years of experience, the port has asked the team to perform an analysis of flight paths and procedures over the island to see if there are any opportunities to work with the FAA to lessen the noise experienced by Vashon residents. The team should have their analysis completed by the fall and once done, we’ll schedule a follow up meeting with Vashon to share the results and any potential next steps. And now I’ll hand things over to Eric Schoenfeld.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Before you jump in, Eric, Commissioner Felleman has a question.
**Commissioner Felleman:** I really appreciate the fact that you were able to look into the Vascon question. We’ve heard a lot about that. I’m just wondering how that came about because I understand it’s always been this consternation about formal Vashon representation on start and so seems like the question was asked and just if you could help me understand that.
**Marco Milanese:** Certainly, yes. So I think that the opportunity came with the Part 150 noise study. So once we brought that consultant team on board, we do have the ability to a little bit flexible in terms of how we use their time and money to do work that is adjacent to a part 150 study. So once that team was on board, that gave us the opportunity to bring them on in and begin the analysis that’s happening right now. This is, it’s not officially part of start. This is something that we’re doing with the Vashon community through the Part 150 noise study. But we just thought it was important to bring it up today since it usually is of interest.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** I was going to hold my questions till the end, but I’m going to just follow Commissioner Felleman. Chair. So going back to the focus area for your committee, you included the sound installation. Are they specifically also looking at the pilot sound installation? Repair and replacement program.
**Marco Milanese:** Ryan McMullen, who runs the noise program, has been a regular provider of updates to that group and has gathered feedback from the working group on that program.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Do we know, like, what some of those recommendations has been? Because considering it’s a pilot program, there are. I am interested in some of the recommendations we’re hearing both from community members who are interested in this area. But considering START members are obviously folks who have worked on these issues for many years and have experience around this, what kind of recommendations do they have? Do they feel like this is going well? I’m curious to hear their specific feedback. I can come to a meeting and ask them to.
**Marco Milanese:** Yes, I wish Ryan was here to help answer that. But I do want to add that there has been some frustration that there was an assumption made by those in the community that more homes would qualify for reinstallation. So I see Sarah Cox is on here. Oh, and here comes Sarah. Okay, great.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** And I know we’ve gotten a briefing on this, me and Commissioner Cho, during the aviation committee. So there is something coming to the entire commission. But I’m curious to know specifically what we’re hearing from members of start.
**Sarah Cox:** Excuse me. Sorry. John, good afternoon. Sarah Cox, Director of Aviation Environment Sustainability. Yes. So with the sound insulation repair and replacement pilot program, we have been focused on an acoustic based approach. So is it still meeting the intention of the original sound insulation product that was installed? And the feedback that we have received was a request for expanded scope to include, you know, some of either the quality control or like, for example, if the windows are fogging, to include replacement of individual windows. So they’re looking at more, some of the more aesthetic elements associated with often windows that have been installed. So many of these were installed prior to 1993 and are past, you know, what is considered the life span of a window. And so those are a lot. That’s a lot of the feedback that we have received with respect to some of the aesthetic elements and also kind of wear and tear. The window doesn’t open and close, you know, like it used to. So the focus of the pilot has been on acoustic based. We have gathered that information in our technical reports and is available to the community on those findings that we received from our survey of those different levels of interest.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** And so are they communicating that the construction timeline is delayed? Are we delayed on the construction timeline?
**Sarah Cox:** I would say no, because we have just completed the acoustic testing and under our first round of acoustic testing, we have five homes that are eligible. And right now, three of those five are moving forward in the program. Two of them, just due to timing, they requested to be pushed out a little bit. And we are currently getting results back from another group of approximately 150 homes on acoustic testing. And we should have those results actually any day on any that would be potentially eligible under the pilot program.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** That’s great. It’s good to hear that we’re on time and that you guys are also consulting them as well. So appreciate you, Sarah, for that. I did have a question for also the consultation consultant. So Myers, are you also. Thank you for providing that information and also being clear about some of the challenges that the START committee members are sharing. Do you also facilitate the committees as well?
**Andres Mantilla:** Correct. I also facilitate all the two working groups in the steering committee.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** And so considering that you’re facilitating both and you’re hearing the challenges from the entire group and obviously you hear about the challenges from the community members as well. And it sounds like for many years the consensus voting model continues to be a challenge. And for me it’s disappointing to hear that that has also prevented the Olympia visit as well as the D.C. visit. And so as the consultant, do you see or are you providing recommendations to staff or the members around what they could be doing to make improvements? And has there been any discussions about considering restructuring the way START is because it was designed by the AIRPORT leadership. Right.
**Andres Mantilla:** So thanks for the question. Throughout the months and years that we’ve been doing this, there’s been conversation, recommendations about portions of the the operating agreement, for example, when public comment can take place. You know, it was at the beginning for many years and now it’s at the end. The format that we use in person versus remote, what we haven’t done is a kind of, kind of full scale look at the operating agreement in a couple years. And so as part of the conversation that we’ve had in the recent steering committee or two steering committees go kind of in advance of this meeting and then kind of following this meeting is going to be a broader conversation around that operating agreement and kind of some recommendations by myself, from myself to the steering committee around potentially what other models could exist.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Is your recommendation independent from the port as an organization?
**Andres Mantilla:** Yes.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Okay, that’s helpful. And have you guys moved from or who recommended moving to the webinar model versus like the previous model? That was before. And that’s something that we hear from the public during public comment and other commission meetings.
**Andres Mantilla:** The decision was made before my time. What I can say is that the request to go back to in person has come up. So several Times and the steering committee has preferred to stay virtual. But you can discuss the. Turn it over to Martha.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** I’m asking. So even if it’s in person or it’s virtual, it’s more about the public providing comments. Right? So if, let’s say you guys move to an in person model, does that mean the public can then provide comments at some point or does that still.
**Andres Mantilla:** Yeah, I mean, I think in an in person kind of two separate points, right? There’s kind of an in person meeting. The public could come into that meeting and provide public comment. Right now the public provides comment towards the end of the meeting. You know, perhaps you could have an in person meeting where the public provide comment towards the beginning of the meeting. And those are two separate things that exist within the operating agreement. That could change. But. But all start meetings are full start meetings are open to the public. And so members of the public can log in, watch the meeting, and then there’s an opportunity to provide comment at the end of that meeting.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** So then was the issue that was raised by the public then addressed around public comment? Because I thought that was. They were expressing that there’s been limitation on how they provide comments that they were struggling with.
**Andres Mantilla:** The current agreed upon format is in zoom webinar meeting. And so if you can log on, as you know, folks have done to webinar, you can see the presentation, but you cannot interact during the meeting kind of with the panelists until you are called to give public comment, then you are transfer from an attendee to a panelist and then you can interact and see and give that public comment which is limited to two minutes and then you’re put back as an attendee. So that’s the current agreed upon model in an in person setting, obviously that wouldn’t exist in the same way.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** And how were they doing it previously? Were members of the public just hopping on and providing talking in the chat and asking questions and jumping in? What was happening previously?
**Andres Mantilla:** It was pre Covid, so we were always in person. And so it was Covid that put us online. And then we quickly moved to the preferred webinar for format by our steering committee.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Okay, I’ll have to look back and see what some of those challenges are because I don’t seem to there’s not clarity between what they were frustrated with and what is happening today.
**Andres Mantilla:** I think at the beginning of the virtual meetings, one of the reasons why public comment happened towards the end was for the ability for the community to kind of speak on what was being presented. And so that was A decision that was made at that point. Those are the kinds of decisions that can be reversed in the operating agreement. As an example of bringing the public comment earlier to having it in person, to not necessarily having it to be about the agenda per se. Those are all things that could be considered. The shift was, I think, done initially to address some of those issues.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Okay, and then my last question on this is. So the recommendations that you’ll provide around the operational agreement, will that come to commissioners at some point?
**Andres Mantilla:** We can certainly report out to commissioners, but it’s a decision made by the START steering committee about their operating procedures.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** I would like to get a copy of that.
**Andres Mantilla:** The current operating procedures or the future plan?
**Commissioner Mohamed:** The future plan, of course, if there are recommendations around change that come from the construction consultant, I’d like to see that, if possible. Thanks.
**Marco Milanese:** Maybe I could clarify as well, too, about what you might have heard about the virtual meetings. I think one complaint you might have heard from members of the public is that when you’re a member of the audience watching the START meeting, your face isn’t seen on the screen. And so there were some members who expressed the interest. I want to be seen on the screen when watching this meeting.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Okay, thank you. Commissioner Felleman.
**Commissioner Felleman:** I just. I remember the last annual meeting. And Marco, I appreciate you hanging in there throughout this whole process, but it was the results. You know, we have nighttime, we have taxiing, we have flight patterns, whatever. So how are we doing on nighttime? Are we having. Are they changing machinery? Is there. What is the result of the. This ongoing effort? We should have a time series of reflection on results.
**Marco Milanese:** Yeah, that’s. I think at a point. We’ve also heard from members of our START group as well, too.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Wouldn’t that be the kind of thing we’d get in our annual reports?
**Marco Milanese:** We do provide pretty regular reporting online for all those results. And we’ve talked about. And it’s something we’ve discussed with the help of our concern. And having a dashboard that’s available somewhere in the PORTS website or somewhere else that would present kind of a regular tally of how we’re doing in a lot of our programs.
**Commissioner Felleman:** I’m just saying that an annual report can give us some synopsis of. And if there’s some seasonality to it or. I mean, this is where proof is in the pudding, right? Are we talking or. I also don’t envy you in having a question about moving from 100% consensus to something other than that while you still have 100% consensus. Rule of the road. So good luck to you. On that, But I’m just really interested to know when can we see annual data over the time series?
**Andres Mantilla:** Yeah, Commissioner, one of the things as part of the kind of air quality, but also is. And some of the comments from the committee is that these meetings tend to be very report out of things that are happening. And one of the things that we’ve tried to do is to create more space for deeper discussion, for example, around airport growth and capacity, having one agenda item where folks can really dig in. But that means being able to kind of be very transparent. And as things are moving up and down, you know, positive or negative as to what’s on, going, going on and being very transparent in this dashboard idea that Marco talked about so that folks can be able to see that and reference those things so that we have more time in the meeting to do the deeper dives. So that’s one of the things that we’ve been working on.
**Sarah Cox:** So, Commissioner. Sarah Cox, again, we do have an annual noise report out that does provide summaries and overviews of the various programs and their performance. And then also in the environment sustainability annual report, we also highlight what key initiatives have been accomplished over the past year. So there are reports that we are creating and generating, and we’ll just confirm that everyone has access to them. And also a reminder to the START team and members that those reports are available. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right, shall we continue with the presentation? Fantastic.
**Eric Schinfeld:** Commissioners, Eric Schinfeld, Federal Government relations work. Next slide, please. Next slide after that. So, as Andreas said and Marco said, there are two working groups. The first is the noise working group. The second is the policy working group. And of course, we have made this both a state and federal policy working group. We’ve really felt like there was opportunities to move the ball forward in a consensus model at both the state and federal level. And in past years, we’ve really shown that you’ve heard obviously, Andres talk about how it’s become harder, and there’s a lot of reasons why that’s become harder. Some of the specific issues at play, some of the overall dynamics as well. But I did want to say that we, as the support staff, are really still committed to this. We really still do believe that ultimately, when we can put aside some of our larger differences and focus on tactical and tangible change, there is still opportunity for progress. And so, next slide, I want to talk about some at the federal level, and then John will talk about some at the state level as well.
One of the things that you all know is that in 2024, we were successful in part because of our DC fly and in part because of partnership with our Congressional delegation in passing four of START’s federal priorities through the 2024 FA reauthorization. And I want to highlight one in particular, because at the end of last year, beginning of this year, one of those, which was the reauthorization of the environmental Mitigation Pilot program, was implemented this year. So $3 million was put into the appropriations process, was passed by Congress, and that money is now out in a NOFO for projects that can study effectiveness of previously installed noise insulation packages. Obviously, we’re doing that right now, and Robert Giacopetti on the airport grants team is in conversations with FAA about some of those costs, both that we’ve already taken on in terms of doing some of the analysis that you’ve heard about previously, as well as some of the work moving forward. So, again, just really like to highlight the fact that some of these things that we advocated for and actually passed in 2024 are now coming into fruition.
Similarly, one of the things we’ve talked about for a very long time is that the FAA should fund secondary noise insulation repair and replace. As you all know, the money that we’ve used so far for repair and replace has been money that you, as the commission, dedicated out of port levy funds. That’s $6.5 million. And so we’ve been really working for almost my entire 10 years at the port to try and make sure the FAA can pay some of that share as well. Thanks to our partnership with Senator Murray and Representative Smith, that policy did get passed into law in December 2025 through the National Defense Authorization Act. And timing being what it is, this week the FAA sent a notice to us saying that that program is now implemented as well, and they welcomed us to apply for those funds. So it’s really just an example of people think that policy is just a bunch of talking. It actually is mostly just a bunch of talking, but sometimes that talking actually results in tangible change that can make a difference in the lives of people in the community. So I just wanted to highlight those things. And I think the other reason to highlight these is not just to celebrate the success, but, you know, to Commissioner Fellman’s point, success breeds success, and success breeds more commitment to trying to find more success. So these are the kind of messages that we do take back to start and say, well, while there’s plenty of things that we’re arguing about and suing each other over and all of those things, there’s really a chance to make a difference. And so we do hope that people are willing to stay at the table and try and find those areas to work together on consensus. And we’re going to continue to do that. I think some of these changes, showing the community that we’re open to making structural changes to start to make them feel more engaged will then actually help them be more engaged in this sort of tangible way as well. So excited to have that conversation at our future steering committee meeting as well. Next slide. I’m going to turn things over to John.
**John Flanagan:** Thanks, Eric. Commissioners, once again, John Flanagan, Senior State Government relations here at the port. I am actually next on the agenda as well to run through the 2026 legislative session. So I don’t need to spend a ton of time here. I will quickly just touch on something that Andreas mentioned earlier in the Presentation. We were not able to come together on a full consensus agenda for start this year. It is ironic though, we ended up working with a bunch of the individual start members on a potential solution to a number of our problems later on in the session, all of which has to do with diverted aviation fuel tax. And I will talk in a lot more detail during the next presentation about that. Unless you’d like me to go into detail now. Go to the next slide. So thank you again for allowing us the time for this presentation. Just echoing what Eric said. I mean, despite kind of more nuanced environment that we’re working with here, you know, in each of these spaces, really seeing the dedication from everybody around trying to find solutions. And so, you know, everybody’s very passionate about the issues that are impacting their city and their government. So happy to answer any questions. And Marco and Eric’s back here.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Commissioners, any additional questions? Commissioner Mohamed.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** I have a quick question for Eric Schinfeld. I know he loves answering questions, so give you some airtime. For the dollars that Senator Murray secured. My understanding is some of that money was supposed to go towards the repair and replacement program. Do you know if that is being used or if that is. That is what we’re applying for? Reimbursement from the FA for?
**Eric Schinfeld:** Yes, for the repair and replacement program.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** So then I would say then additional dollars that we allocated towards the tax that were coming out of the tax levy, are we then going to consider using that for additional construction?
**Sarah Cox:** That could happen.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Sarah, if we’re saving $3 million, does that mean that. Yeah. So if we’re getting 3 million from the feds, does that mean we have an additional 3 million that could get 3 million. Is everybody right? Whatever we get out of that 3 million that we secure, is that the remaining. Are we going to use it for the consumer construction?
**Sarah Cox:** Yeah, we are.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** And part of that, or does that mean a commission action, by the way?
**Sarah Cox:** Yeah, part of that will be based on the number of homes that are eligible. And so we’re looking at currently how to maximize the best use of those funds with the number of homes that test eligible into the program. With the five homes that we currently have tested there is, we will not use up the entirety of that $5 million construction allocation. And then pending the outcome of what this next group of acoustic testing, how many homes test eligible in that, we will then do a relook at the program and have we additional outreach for homes that might be interested in acoustic testing.
**Eric Schinfeld:** If I can just add to that really quickly here. So the existing program that the port is working on right now is for homes that were insulated pre1993. Those were homes that were already allowed by the FAA to receive some reimbursement because of the lack of quality of sound insulation before 1993. The new legislation that was passed by Senator Murray, Representative Smith in December and is not now implemented as of this week by the FAA makes homes pre 2001 eligible. So there’s eight years, if math serves, of additional homes that when we’re ready to, we could potentially go back to, which would obviously again be additional opportunities to make those investments.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** That’s really helpful. And Eric, I recall Senator Murray giving me a phone call about our repair and replacement program and her securing the those dollars at that time. Would you say that if we didn’t have the pilot repair and replacement program that we would not have access to these dollars or wouldn’t even be considering it?
**Eric Schinfeld:** There is absolutely no doubt that not only would we not have the dollars, we also would not have gotten the legislation passed as well. The fact that the PORT was willing to put dollars in up front was the proof point. That said to Congress, actually, if you’re willing to do this, we’re willing to take a step. So there is 100% confirmation that that was what spurred the success. Yes.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** Thank you. And I want to thank my colleagues, especially because I think this took bold action from all of them. And I remember going into a number of executive sessions and public sessions and us debating over this, and, you know, it wasn’t something that was done. And it really did take us being bold and doing something new and pushing it forward, forward for us to be able to make these sort of changes today. So I thank them for their leadership and support of that and, you know, taking some risk. That concludes my questions. Thank you, Sarah and Eric and the rest of you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right, Commissioners, any additional questions? All right, thank you all so much. Great presentation. Good to see you, Andres.
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## Item 11C: 2026 state legislative session review
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right, Clerk Hart. Our final item on our agenda today is 11C. That’s the 2026 state legislative session review. John, I want you to know I advocated for you to go earlier in the agenda, but they reminded me that the other presentations had outside presenters and stuff he did. John, since you’re on payroll, We know how hard you work. John, so appreciate it.
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** Okay, Commissioners, this briefing provides an Overview of the 2026 state legislative session which concluded in March following the governor’s final bill actions. Despite a challenging fiscal landscape, it was a strong year for the port priorities. Our senior state government Environmental Relations Manager, John Flanagan will share more about some of our successes this last session and our presentation for the next one. Thank you, John.
**John Flanagan:** Thank you very much. As she mentioned, John Flanagan seems to government relations here at the port. Neither of our lobbyists, Brooke Davies or Nick Strehle are able to be here today to join us, but they send their regrets. There’s also just this little Easter egg for y’. All. Embarrassing photos of both Nick and Brooke scattered somewhere in the presentation if you want to try to find it at some point. Next slide, please. As in past years, I’ll lead off the presentation with a quick overview of the state’s current financial health. Spoiler alert, it’s bad. Then I’ll cover a couple pieces of legislation that impacted revenue, some important bills that are not directly related to the port’s key priorities. After that, quick progress report on the budget and policy priorities that the commission identified prior to the beginning of the session. And I’ll close with a timeline on our 2027 priorities. Next slide, please.
So, revenues. The current budget relies on a couple things. Number one, a billion dollars is currently set aside for state self insurance due to liability obligations. You’ve read a lot about that in the paper, I’m sure. $400 million transfer from the Climate Commitment account to the Natural Climate Solutions account to help backfill funding for things like local disaster and flood response. An $880 million transfer from the budget Stabilization account, the Rainy Day Fund, to the general fund. It assumes changes to some of the new state taxes that were passed last session as part of the largest revenue package in the state’s history. And the capital budget includes significant additional funding for housing backfills a huge sweep from the public works assistance account to the tune of I think like $380 million, something like that overall. And I would at this point point to the bar graph that’s on the screen in front of you. The operating budget suffers from an overspending problem. You’ve heard about this from other places. There are a number of reasons the state budget’s not in great shape. But more than anything, when you look even at just this bar graph that’s from prior to session, you can see that the states enacted operating and capital for 2027 will be about triple what it was in 2012. And actually I should have meant that slightly. The total enacted operating and capital including all investments was around 174 billion compared to 90 billion in 1517, so 10 years ago and 70 billion in 1113, which is the last austerity budget that the state passed. So despite passing the largest revenue package in the state’s history in 2025 and adding new revenue this past session, we are still anticipating a major shortfall headed into the rest of 2026 and in 2027. For folks that didn’t see it, last week the director of OFM sent a letter to all state agencies telling them to stop expanding programs, to prepare significant cuts and to not count on any new revenue that was passed this past year when they’re doing any of their budget calculations headed into 2027.
Quick update on the millionaires tax as a reminder, new 9.9% tax on any earnings above a million dollars each year. Again only on the earnings above a million dollars. Projected to generate about $4 billion in revenue starting with collections in 2029. The court challenge is pending. Initiative supporters are gathering signatures as we speak. They collected about 100,000 signatures in the place first, first week that they were out there doing it. They need 300,000 to be on the ballot. Things will be interesting. State’s credit rating Another thing just to know. Headed into this coming budget cycle, I mentioned the BSA transfer. $880 million wiped out the entire rainy day fund. Because of that, Moody’s in April gave the state essentially a year to show progress on the state’s fiscal health. If not, they will downgrade the state state’s credit rating and the state there will be a huge increase in the amount it takes for the state to borrow. Essentially it’s predicted to be anywhere from 250/million over the next four years or so. As you know, we’ve bonded to our entire capacity essentially as well. So that means that even the bonds that we have out there will become more expensive. The debt service on everything will become much, much more expensive over time. Last thing here. Maybe this is a bit of a highlight or not the worst news Major election year. All 98 seats in the House are up 25 out of 49 Senate seats. Per the filing day memo I shared with you all back in May. The Senate will have five vacancies in total. The House will have 12 vacancies in total and I will continue to update you on those things as we go.
A couple major non port legislation things I just want to cover really quick because I know there might be questions about them. There was a payroll tax that was drafted and did not pass headed into this past year. Again, provide details offline on that. There’s a data center bill that did not pass. The main thing there being that utilities would have to develop specialized tariffs to ensure that large data centers are paying their part. That also did not pass. And there was a Senate bill focused on prohibiting local, state and federal law enforcement from wearing masks while they’re interacting with the public. That did pass. It also gives individuals that are unlawfully detained by masked officers the right to private action. Next slide please.
Headed into Port Priorities. So economic development being the first thing we’ve let off with in past years as well. We finally passed the tourism bill. Very exciting. So we’ll be implementing recommendations of the Tourism Industry Workgroup that was created under legislation passed last session. The bill that we passed just now creates a tourism assessment program that will promote tourism throughout the state, requires an annual fee on certain tourism related industries, and creates an oversight board to propose the assessment and budget expenditures. Overall, it’s determined that it’ll be around 25 million to 55 million per annum that’s now going into state tourism. Very, very exciting. We finally are funding tourism in the state. We also saw some money in the enacted budget 300k for a statewide economic development and competitiveness strategic plan. There’s lots of detail in your memo about ongoing supports for business in the enacted budget. But a couple highlights really quick. Ongoing funding for Associate Development Organizations fund strategic growth areas in key sectors at 1.2 million, maximizing access to federal incentives and programs at about 7.5 million and 3 million for the joint center for Aerospace Innovation Technology on industrial lands. And I should have also included a mention of supply chain here. There were several housing bills that were discussed this year in Olympia. As in years past, we were successful in getting language that includes protection of industrial lands within those bills. So as you’re allowing allowable uses in certain areas, certain types of zoning, ultimately protecting industrial areas as well. Your memo also includes numbers on investments in supply chain and industrial areas. But a couple highlights almost 50 million for ongoing FIMSIB projects. That’s the Freight board projects, another 43 million to accelerate projects that are part of the National highway freight system, and 1.4 million for the Small Business Export Program through the Department of Commerce.
Real quick, Governor’s Economic Council and EO that should be upcoming. I hope I am not making headlines by saying this, but the governor is soon to sign an EO creating a state Economic Council. We will have representation on that council. It’s very exciting. One of the first things that will be before that council and one of the things that we’ll want to talk about will be establishing an International Trade subcommittee of some sort. And I won’t touch on World cup here. I’ll just say there’s lots of detail in your memo about various World cup investments that were made so that we are ready when everything starts in about five days, six days, something like that. Real quick. Some things that are kind of overhanging innovation zones. We’ve talked about this before. The idea that we are trying to build upon what’s been done with opportunity zones, what’s likely to be done with maritime innovation zones, hoping that the state will put forward some sort of policy program to establish additional incentives in areas like the MIC down in SODO to try and build on some of the successes and some of the cluster development that’s happening down there. On permitting and licensing, we were not able to pass House Bill 2198, Senate Bill 5968, which would have required executive agencies to track credentials and permits issued by the various agencies of the state, document timelines and incrementally published decision times. It would have required refunds if and when an agency kind of violates those timelines. So we’ll continue to push for that headed into the future. We were able to get a couple select things from the Washington Trade Strategy, sorry, trade Strategy document that we’ve had for a little while now. But we have, I would say, more items to check off than we were able to get this past session. I don’t need to go into those. Those will be in your briefing materials when we head into briefings for the 2027 session as well. Last thing I’ll mention really quick that you may have heard mention of some of our partners in the labor community are starting to push for a jobs package. There’s Not a ton of details there yet, but I hope to learn more soon and I can talk about it more intelligently in the future. Next slide.
So Workforce Education, Labor Kind of lumping a bunch of general things here together on childcare. I mainly just want to refer to you to the numbers in your memo and remind you all about the significant investment that was made this year from the Ballmer foundation for the Pre K Promise account. Long story short, they’re adding 10,000. They’re adding, I think 10,000 slots for kids in the ECAP program at the state level. Really great. Hoping to move forward with universal Pre K. That’s the overall goal. There were a couple legislative efforts this year to make the Working Child or, sorry, Working Connections childcare program whole as well. I don’t need to get into that. The numbers are in your memos. Overall, the state is finally having to be attainable to the things that we passed in prior sessions. Things are finally rolling online in order to ensure that every child has access to childcare training, et cetera, apprenticeships, Career Connected Learning the real news here is that the cuts weren’t as bad as they could have been coming out of this past year. A couple highlights from the memo Regional Apprenticeship Programs funded Apprentice Pathways Program funded State Registered Apprentice Program funded Job Skills Program is funded at 10 and a half million the CTE Careers Work Group is still ongoing Continued funding for the Seattle Maritime Academy Workforce Development Pilot and the partnership between Seattle Central Central College and Seattle Maritime Academy and then some things at L I, such as continuing the state Registered Apprenticeship Study that was enacted last year. Apprenticeship utilization requirements, responsible bidder criteria, things like that. Overall, it’s a really good time for us in the higher ed space, even as the other parts of the budget have been somewhat dire. Really quick Port workers and pers we were able to pass a bill this year, House Bill 2179 in partnership with some of the folks in the labor community. It addresses a discrepancy between the PERS statute and the PORT statute regarding dual enrollment in state pension systems versus labor pension systems. Overall, we were able to keep several units of workers whole in terms of how they are accessing their benefits ongoing. That’s the main takeaway. Moving forward, we continue to work on the Blue Schools initiative. I think there will be some things to actually push for this coming year. Hopefully there will be prevailing wage legislation heading into next year that requires wages on public works to be adjusted so they always meet the latest prevailing wage. And we will continue to work on a healthcare initiative for port workers. No significant progress coming out of this past session on that. That’s on me to a certain degree. It’s also because there’s just not a clean way that we’ve found across different state programs to continue that work. But we’re continuing the conversations at least with the relevant state agencies.
Moving on to aviation. Next slide please should be noted. Even headed into this past session or prior to this past session, effective management of the Olympic pipeline crisis was praised by lots of folks at the state level because of the way that folks responded to it. There were minimal disruptions in service at sea. It also led to some great conversations throughout the session about the resilience of our aviation Future Fuels network. Wendy was able to testify before the Transportation Committee. Lots of good contacts coming out of that from our friends in the legislature and talks about how we adjust that system for resilience and for SAF in the future as well. On saf. Some good news to start and then some tough news later. On the revenue side of things, we were able to fully retain the duty free sales tax that we passed two years ago that pays into the SAF account. We were also able to avoid an effort that would have fully repealed the other half of SAF revenues in favor of an effort in the enacted transportation revenue package that instead increased aircraft fuel excise taxes from 18 to 25 cents with 72% of that directed to the state aeronautics account and the remaining 28% to the SAF airport infrastructure account, which is a newly created account so that we can actually work on SAF infrastructure, not just incentives. As far as ongoing investments in SAF and kind of the expertise angle. We saw additional investments in the Cascadia accelerator to the tune of 6.85 million for developing the region partnerships promoting adoption of SAF. We also saw an additional 2 million for pre construction and site readiness at Payne Field, which obviously will pay dividends in the future. We were also able to secure an additional 5.5 million for the Applied Sustainable Aviation Evaluation center up at Pain Pain Field. And then on the infrastructure side of things, we created again that dedicated SAF infrastructure account which I think we will actually be able to access for some of the SAF infrastructure projects that the port looks to push forward in the future. We also were able to get some language in the enacted transportation budget that directs WSDOT Aviation to generate a report by October 1, 2026 identifying sustainable aviation projects for future funding by the legislature in subsequent sessions. Probably not this coming year, but 2028 and ongoing existing air quality Programming is one of the successes I think we can talk about. I skipped over this earlier during the START presentation, but lots of detail in your memo about ongoing air quality programming, especially in conjunction with investments in schools, improving air quality and overburdened communities out of ecology $22 million or $21.4 million reappropriation. So those are direct benefits to impacted homes, residences, et cetera. Especially in South King. We secured an additional $400,000 or sorry I should say we stopped $400,000 from being wiped for the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to continue ultra fine particle monitoring. We were also able to retain an investment that was made last year to increase access to community health health worker asthma interventions for children who specifically are located within 10 miles of sea. And then we were also able to retain funding to address air quality and overburdened communities kind of writ large. 2.5 million moving on to noise repair and replace and works in progress ongoing. We’ve talked a lot about Senate Bill 5652 over the past couple years which created various new processes and procedures related to capital construction at SEA that if it did not pass we’d be not support that effort. That was something that obviously a lot of the stark communities and especially Senator Orwell wanted to push for, however, not something that we supported. And I can talk more about what came out of that later. Regardless of the fact that as a reminder two years ago we enacted a million dollars for noise repair in place, that money was wiped. Commerce still has money to implement the noise program that we created two years ago, regardless of the availability of resources for it. So there’s that if and when we’re able to secure ongoing funding.
Moving back to saf, this is the tough part on the incentives. The omnibus staff incentive package that we put together last year was not considered for action this year. We just had the last or we just had the first meeting of the Alternative Jet Fuels Work Group for the year. We will move forward with a new set of recommendations with all the partners that are gathered at that table along with the legislature and the folks out of WSU for a new omnibus bill that should move forward this coming session. There’s also a bit of a struggle with the way that one of The In State Producers 12 is unable to access some of the incentives that currently exist. According to the folks at 12, they had some trouble with the way the state’s CFS or sorry Clean Fuel Standard is disqualifying them from accessing benefits. So I can’t talk too intelligently about that I know that they’re working with ecology right now and will continue to be part of those conversations as well. There’s also a difficulty with the SAF account. In the past we had all of the incentives for SAF coming out of the cca, the enacted budget moves, all the implementation costs associated there over two to this SAF account that we created two years ago. Pretty quickly that account is not going to have enough resources in it to continue to pay for the incentives and the other ongoing operations that we have at the state level, including the work at WSU and uw. So that’ll be a problem that we have to fix in the future. Airport siting continues to be an issue that has not seen a ton of progress. The Commercial Aviation Work Group was funded to the necessary amount. I’ll say around 1.7 million. However, they’re just having hasn’t been a ton of leadership at the state level around airport siting. We’ve continued to struggle to get the Governor’s office more involved. I don’t know what else to say there. However, that said, there was some money that was put forward for expansion of services at Paine field, so 500k going towards helping Painefield figure out what their full expansion can look like. Last thing here and I skipped over this in the last presentation. Aviation fuel tax revenue. So as I’ve mentioned in previous presentations before the commission, there’s currently $30 million per annum that is being collected on the sales of aviation fuel in the state. That money is currently being placed into the Matka operating budget. That is not where it is supposed to go per FAA guidelines. The FAA has told the state numerous times over the last 10 years that it needs to come into compliance that that money should be going towards aviation purposes. That is not happening.
The FAA signaled more recently that if the state does not show good faith effort towards compliance, the FAA has authority to withhold up to $1.2 billion in federal highway revenues from the state. So they’re taking it seriously. This kind of legal action is something they could really invest time in given the fact that we are one of four states that is not in compliance at this point. I think the others being California, New York and can’t remember the fourth, but they are on their way to complaint compliance overall. I say all of this to point out the fact that we actually ended up working with especially Senator Orwell and some of the near airport communities on a potential fix for this aviation fuel tax thing that would have included ongoing funding for mitigation, noise, environmental cleanups, et cetera, as well as putting the money back towards infrastructure and other aviation purposes that the other smaller airports are looking for. All of this would bring the state theoretically into compliance with the FAA and also fix, I will just say a lot of our problems on the aviation side of things. So we will continue to work on that throughout the interim and headed into next year as well. Next slide please.
Maritime SMF Collaborative the Work continues we had a reappropriation of 250k to continue the work that Maritime Blue is doing to look at sustainable maritime fields in the state. We were successful at defense defending the various port electrification grants. That includes about 27 million that was for various port projects across the state. It also includes 25 million for the seaport Alliance Ashore Power Demonstration Project. As far as works in progress, we continue to try to work with ecology to seek parity for sustainable maritime fuels in the existing Clean Fuels program. We will continue to push for capital budget dollars I believe, and I’ll seek to spend your input on that as we move forward to do some sort of a clean maritime demonstration project likely in South Seattle or sorry, in the Soto area and near Harbor Island. We’ll continue to work on the Scrubber ban bill which I know that some of you have asked about specifically as a reminder, that would have required ocean going vessels operating in Washington waters to use low sulfur content fuel and would have also created various administrative procedures to affect that new requirement. This is the Scrubber ban. We’ll continue to work with the sponsors on that throughout this interim. There’s also the Shore Power Mandate Bill which would have adopted California at berth emission regulations and essentially would have created a shore power mandate by adopting those regulations. We’ve already had at least one stakeholder meeting with Rep. Reid who wants to push that forward headed into next year. We continue to work on the state’s vessel construction strategy. Recently we are working with the Governor’s Office to establish some of those maritime prosperity Zones or at least have an understanding of what the state states capacity is for maritime prosperity Zones early and to hope to work with federal partners to assess best possible locations and overall readiness. Last but not least, we’ve heard from industry that there’s a need for an additional commercial service pump out in the Central Puget Sounds. So we’re working to assess an overall potential Ask for the capital budget. Next slide please.
Transportation New Revenue Again so fun. We passed a large transportation revenue package last year. We came back and fixed it this year. I don’t need to get into the details there, but I will just say the Governor made due on a promise he made prior to session $300 million invested in highway system preservation. Stated intent in the budget for another 500 million in 2729 regardless of the budgetary issues that we’re facing. He also set aside $40 million for essential maintenance activity. We have a huge backlog of preservation and maintenance on state highways. The Governor’s office in WSDOT are making it a huge priority. Moving forward on regional projects I’ll just say quickly. Gateway is fully funded. There will be no delays. Revive i5 mitigation work is fully funded at $12 million. There’s also 5.5 million in there for i5 planning and on high speed rail we still have 37.15 million set aside to support WSDOT’s work on a service development plan for new ultra high speed ground transportation the entire corridor. I should say with the next report reduced. Sorry, the next report due in December of 2026. Sound Transit was also successful in passing a bill this past year that gave them some additional flexibility in permitting and development. It allows Regional Transportation Authority development standards to vary from other local regulations. Created a new permitting process and it allows Sound Transit to begin work before acquiring land. So a lot of those projects will be streamlined and move forward more quickly regardless of the same revenue challenges that they’re facing On EV Direct sales really quick we finally passed a bill allowing direct consumer sales of electric vehicles under certain conditions. Really exciting. Should help out with our Scope 3 emissions on the consumer side of things and could also help us out as we move forward with electrifying our fleets on EV infrastructure. I won’t get into the details because there’s a bunch in the Memo, but committed EV charging 36 million of new funding and a reappropriation of 105 million for community EV charging from 23 and 25 on the Clean trucking side of things, mainly just playing defense on some of these funds. So ZEV and alternative fuel charging and refueling infrastructure to the tune of 27 million point of sale vouchers are retained at 125 million. Our zero emission drayage demonstration project with the Seaport alliance is retained at 6.3 million and so some additional investments in hydrogen refueling infrastructure as well. Moving on to things moving forward there will be another discussion next year about stabilizing revenue in the transportation budget. There will be another discussion about the highway user fee which is the new branding on the road usage charge that you’ve heard about in the past couple years. Hopefully the new branding works out and we will continue to work on wasca. As I mentioned in the past, there is language in the enacted transportation budget requiring W to consult with the Legislature before making any changes that are constituting more than temporary use and before entering into any negotiations or signing any contracts regarding wsca. So all of that remains kind of in the air until we hit next session. And then Options for SEA workers we were we applied for a Regional Mobility grant earlier this year. I do not yet know the results of our application, but Regional Mobility grants statewide were funded to to the tune of 133 million and there was intent provided in the transportation budget for the Legislature to continue funding for new plan grants and for regional mobility projects in 2729 and 2931. So we are on the front end of that process. All of this to say if we are successful in receiving those grant dollars, then it may solve a lot of our problems with implementing the order that this commission passed several years ago. Next slide please.
Energy the headline here is passage of Senate Bill 6355 which creates a statewide transmission authority, sets duties of the authority, appoints a controlling board amongst other duties. The authority establishes and maintains high priority transmission corridors, streamlines permitting, ensures adequate capacity throughout the state. Hopefully this new body will be successful in fixing the state’s transmission problem. As you all know, most of our problems when it comes to siting, especially renewables and moving forward with really good clean manufacturing projects is access to adequate electricity signing and financing. I will skip over most of the details here. There is a ton of detail in your memo about different funds that we secured or were helpful in securing for setting and financing of clean, sorry clean energy projects on clean buildings. Two things really quick. The State Green bank has had a rebrand as well. It’s now called Washington Builds. We were successful in helping to get $25 million in the budget. 5.8 million goes towards residential credit enhancements, but 17.4 goes for commercial energy efficiency which could potentially help us out as we work on our clean buildings compliance. The other piece here being 650k for commerce to convene a committee to make decisions about prioritization of capital decarbonization projects for state campus district energy systems. We are the only. Sorry, we are one of two state campus district energy systems that are not state agencies so we will likely benefit from the process that they are currently making decisions about. The list of priority projects will come forward for funding in 2028. Real quick. SEA Utility and CETA a bill was passed this past year. Senate Bill 5982. It expands the entities that are covered by CETA to include consumer owned utilities controlled and operated by port districts. Give you one guess as to which port in the state has a cou. It’s us. So the utility at the airport will now be subject to ceta. From what I understand from our folks at the utility, we’re not concerned about most of the decarbonization timelines actually. In fact the timelines adopted by this commission are more aggressive than the state standards under almost every condition. It’s really about the work that’s happening right now. Some of the rule making at Commerce to ensure that our reporting obligations don’t match what other utilities do under C Diff. Just things that don’t make sense, for example like a low income plan or a residential plan, things like that. Next slide please.
Environment Not a ton to report here. That is not just numbers from your memo. Essentially. Number of investments in conservation that are very exciting around ocean acidification, marine environment, debris and maintenance, zooplankton eelgrass monitoring, UW studies on marine organisms and ocean acidification. All that Jazz Quiet Sound program is refunded to the tune of 350k and headed into this coming year. The main thing here we’ll be continuing to work on House Bill 1303 which creates new EGA requirements as part of the SEPA process. Rep. Mena is leading that bill. We continue to work with her on what that looks like. I already mentioned some of the difficulties with MATCA, but I will say again here. There was 60 million in sweeps from the MATCA capital account. There was 10 million in sweeps from the MACA Operation Operating account just in this budget to the tune of 120 million total across the biennium. So despite the fact that we are trying to pull money theoretically out of MATCA to help with this aviation fuel tax diversion issue, they pulled 120 million just back to the general account. So we still have ongoing MATKA issues on contaminants. There’s a bill this past year that we supported, House Bill 2421 and Senate Bill 6119 which would have banned CP or sorry 6 PPD and hires by 2035, would have created penalties for violations and would have dedicated fee revenues. There will be an updated version of that that runs in 2027 that we hope to work on with the sponsor Mitigation Banking. I’ll just say that I will come before you at some point and talk to you about a bill we’d like to run on MITIGATION banking. Next slide please.
We were able to pass a bill this year, tax increment financing. We’ve already talked that to death in prior commission meetings, but this was a consensus reform bill negotiated with the between the cities, counties, special purpose districts at all. All that said, I don’t think I will need to say tax increment financing to this body the rest of the time. I work here hopefully. Fingers crossed. We were successful in working on some bills on AI regulations. None of them passed in the end the ones that would have affected us, but we do. We will see bills next year that will continue to work on how the port and other local governments are able to utilize AI or not as part of our normal book of business. And just a heads up on a couple things, things that are coming in the future. Public records House Bill 2026 61, which we supported, would have examined frivolous, retaliatory and harassing public records requests on state and local agencies. We hope to pass that next session. We will also have a small fix that we’ll propose on the stock property. There’s a double taxation issue right now for some of the tenants there that are paying both let and property tax. And last but not least, there was a bill passed that this past year, automated license plate reader use, which restricts our ability to use the automated readers that we have in the parking structure at the airport. We already have the House sponsor of the companion bill that passed this past year ready to run a trailer bill. We just have to identify some of the issues that we are running into an implementation with him. Next slide please.
All right, lastly here we will get a revenue forecast update in June. We’ll get another one in August. You will have reports on what those things say. They will be carbon copies of whatever he said here, which is that state revenues are down, that we need to pass more revenue and that we probably need to pass significant cuts in the coming budget as well. Throughout June and July, I will continue to seek feedback internally and from all of you obviously and what our 2027 agenda looks like. I will come back before you in sometime probably October, November for the first briefing and then we’ll move forward into 2027. Next slide please. Questions?
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right, Commissioners, that was, I think the average word count per minute was the highest of any presentation today.
**John Flanagan:** I’m within time, which is the first time that’s ever happened in the time that I’ve been here. So I’m pretty happy about it.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Any questions or comments? Commissioner Felleman?
**Commissioner Felleman:** Well, to maintain that B rate. I’ll shoot you a couple of quick questions and you’ll give me some quick answers. You got. Has the airport committee membership been completed?
**John Flanagan:** Airport comm. Oh, the, the cog. No, they have not filled all the vacancies. I think there are still four or five vacancies. That is how deprioritized it has been, I would say.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Uh huh. So I’m just of the belief that there was a period of time when the port wouldn’t even talk about another airport because we thought it was going to compete with samp.
**John Flanagan:** Do you mean a Greenfield or do you mean.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Yeah, I just. We didn’t want to have anything competing with our agenda. We are actually stripping that concern from the century agenda. At least that’s the proposal. So we can actually talk about another airport. At this point we are saying, well, we’ll serve as a expert advisor sort of thing. I would like to have considered us writing a letter to the Governor about the need to have an airport committee and to, you know, move forward on progress on that as a way, I think to support SAMP because we know at the end of SAMP we will be at capacity and we don’t have to serve on the committee. We can still retain our arm’s length expertise. But I think we need to be on record saying we acknowledge the fact that our goal is to meet airport demand. We’re going to do our darnedest, but we got to get busy and we should say and it’s jblm but I’ll spare them that. All right. The next thing. Is there any. So I’d like to have that as a point of conversation with our. The value of that. Has there been any concern about the potential conflict of the seeking SAF study or promotion between Maritime Blue and the Cascadia Collective? Is there not seen as some overlap with that?
**John Flanagan:** I guess I heard two questions. There’s no conflict there necessarily. For the most part. The Sustainable Maritime Fuels Work Group hopes to steal from the successes of Cascadia. And there is no overlap in terms of how both of those operations are currently happening. If that’s.
**Commissioner Felleman:** But they’re both seeking state legislative funding.
**John Flanagan:** Not yet. The Cascadia, yes, obviously is. They’re far, far further ahead as far as SAF is concerned. Maritime Blue, we are currently in the process. We’ve had one meeting of the Policy subcommittee there and we are going to generate recommendations for the report that will be published, I believe in either December or November of this year that may end up having some recommendations for state funding. To go into sustainable maritime. So we’re not there. Yeah, we’re not quite there.
**Commissioner Felleman:** Thank you. I would like to see if we could have some legal basis for this whole question about ports being able to require clean fuels of ships. I mean, the very foundational question about, you know, it’s not whether we should do it, but is it even legally possible? People point to California. I believe California is, has an exception to the rule. They had Clean Air act before the feds did. I’d just like to be able to put that to bed. And if we can get a good legal opinion on that, would be very helpful. I also wanted to know whether the ecology grant program for pump outs still exists and the port has the properties that potentially could be it. And so if we knew there were monies to do it, we should be actually looking for properties. This has been. We were going to use it on the apron at 69 right here years ago. I mean, we just need to be part of this solution. And I just want to know if there’s funding to help it.
**John Flanagan:** There are two programs. There’s the RCO program which mainly serves, sorry, sports, fishing and other non commercial uses, and then there’s the ecology program that serves commercial uses. From the conversations that we’ve had internally, I wish that either Delmas or Stephanie were here to speak to it. But we identified pretty early on that due to the potential dual use of this future facility, we would probably want to seek local capital budget project funding instead. We could still look at accessing either of those programs as well, but I think that there are certain strings attached to end users for those two programs that we don’t necessarily want to wade into.
**Commissioner Felleman:** All right, so independent of that, it would just be good to see what, whether or not we have properties that can help solve that problem. Real quick, I just want to give you a heads up. The Puget Sound Research Institute just published a paper on what the entire industry is doing to find alternatives to 6ppDE. And so as that conversation keeps on going, it looks like it’s a long time before we’re going to have that alternative. And finally, I’d like to definitely work with you on the language of the next WASCA report legislation. With LIAs last term in office, I think it’s foundational that we seek a proper solution for our interest in that property. Thank you.
**John Flanagan:** Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Any other questions? Commissioner Hasegawa.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** At the beginning of this presentation, you mentioned that the state government depleted its rainy day fund and maxed out its bonding capacity.
**John Flanagan:** I don’t. I Can’t say confidently that we’ve maxed out our bonding capacity. We might still have bonding capacity left, but we’re bonded out pretty far in most places.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Okay, so we made it through this legislative session, but in the future, I know that they paired that with passing House Bill 2442, which would give local governments additional, more progressive funding revenue options. But the ports are exempt from that.
**John Flanagan:** Correct. Because we are a special purpose government. I want to double check that to make sure that’s true, but I think it is.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** And so what does that, what are the. They also passed the millionaires tax, you know, which is a form of an income tax. We have cap and invest. So, like, what does, what does this mean for next legislative session and the next biennium for us?
**John Flanagan:** The only things that we are hearing from both of them in the governor’s office right now are cuts. We haven’t heard anything about additional revenue to backfill holes. We’re talking about essential programs that the port relies on potentially being cut.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Thank you, John. My only contribution is to highlight again all the work that we’re doing at the state and federal level to investigate opportunities for reinvention, expanding the maritime industrial base in Washington State. And we think that’s an area where there is real potential for growth and that will both leverage historical strengths and also draw in new partners, potential foreign direct investment, federal funds, and also just ultimately about creating good jobs for our region. So thanks for all the support you’ve given us at the state on that too. Thank you.
**John Flanagan:** Thank you.
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## Closing comments and adjournment
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right, Commissioners, with that, our business meeting agenda for the day is concluded. Are there any closing comments at this time or motions relating to committee referrals from commissioners? All right. And I’m looking forward to seeing everybody. Oh, sorry, Commissioner Mohamed, just quickly.
**Commissioner Mohamed:** I wanted to say I’m happy to be back at the dais with you all. For those of you who don’t know, I do have a four month old baby at home and have gotten to spend real quality time with my little ones. But yeah, really happy to be back in person and engaging with you all and looking forward to more in person meetings and being here. Thank you.
**Commissioner Calkins:** You an indispensable voice and we missed having you in person. It’s really lovely to have you back at the dais. Commissioner Hasegawa.
**Commissioner Hasegawa:** Nope.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right with that. Oh, yes, so sorry. I’m being shadowed today by two young people who are with us in the room. And so Waleed Afsali, and then I have Gabe Shen here in the room thank you so much for spending the day with us sticking through to the bitter end. Welcome to the port. We may have successfully turned them off to ever being a commissioner. Deputy Executive Director Goon, any closing comments?
**Deputy Executive Director Goon:** No. Thank you. Thank you for your time and attention today.
**Commissioner Calkins:** All right. And with that and as we all, I just want to say how grateful I am to all port staff for all of the work and progress preparing for FIFA World Cup 26. We’re about to launch that this week and we are going to make absolutely sure that everybody who arrives has an incredible first impression at SEA and has a sense of just welcoming embrace from our region as we go. So thank you to everyone.
**Commissioner (unidentified):** Commissioner Calkins raising the flag on top of the Space Needle.
**Commissioner Calkins:** Soon I will be doing that for sure and I can’t wait for tomorrow to go to the airport and see the new SEA concourse. I’m really excited for that too. So hearing no further comments and having no further business, if there is no objection, we are adjourned at 3:39.