Burien Airport Committee

BURIEN AIRPORT COMMITTEE — REGULAR MEETING
February 17, 2026
Transcript (reformatted from auto-generated VTT)

Speaker key:
Chair Brian Davis — primary speaker (labeled “Burien Airport Committee” throughout recording)
Mayor Sarah Moore — identified from context (moves minutes, comments on legislation)
Alejandra Cordoba Perez — identified by Zoom display name
Karen Veloria — identified by Zoom display name
Louis Troisi — identified from context (confirmed present at roll call as “Lewis”)
Nathan [staff] — identified by role (clerk/staff conducting roll call)
Dave Kaplan, Port of Seattle — identified by Zoom display name

Note: The recording system assigned most speech to a single “Burien Airport Committee” label. Speaker changes within that label are inferred from context (e.g., “Mayor?” / “Karen?” / “Lewis?”) and are marked [probable: NAME]. Unresolved speaker changes are left as [Burien Airport Committee].

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[00:00:02] Chair Brian Davis: It’s 6 o’clock, and we might as well begin. This is the Burien Airport Committee regular meeting for February 17th of 2026. Nathan, would you please call the roll? Certainly. Mayor Moore? Present. Vice Chair Davis? Present.

[00:00:19] Chair Brian Davis [as Nathan/staff]: Alejandro Cordoba-Perez?

[00:00:21] Karen Veloria: Is that good?

[00:00:23] Chair Brian Davis [as Nathan/staff]: Mr. Harbaugh is on vacation.

Lewis? Present. And Karen.

[00:00:30] Karen Veloria: Here… Present.

[00:00:33] Chair Brian Davis: And city manager’s also on vacation, and perhaps the city attorney will join late. Not sure. Okay, thank you.

Well, we have a quorum, let’s get going, starting with the minutes of last meeting of January 20th, 26th. I do have one adjustment to make, and that is literally under 7 Adjournment, the very last item, and it’s just a correction of the date, which we have here is December 16th. Oh, good catch. So, other than that, I have nothing. Is anybody… well, I’ll entertain a motion to approve, or any other corrections?

I move to approve the minutes as corrected.

[00:01:20] Karen Veloria: Second, with the amendments.

[00:01:22] Chair Brian Davis: Moved by the Mayor, seconded by Committee Member Veloria. All in favor, please signify by saying aye or raising your hands, and we have a—

[00:01:32] Karen Veloria: Aye.

[00:01:33] Chair Brian Davis: We have a 5-0 vote, so on we go. Legislative updates. Scheduled for 5 minutes, might be a little bit longer.

We are apparently done, for this session in Olympia. I had a conversation yesterday morning with Senator Orwell. And, I’m just gonna back up a little bit. You know, we all know the background. Senator Orwell had introduced — well, there were two bills. 5652 was the program bill, that had to do with monitoring of noise and air quality. That was one major section. The other major section had to do with replacement of port packages.

And then there was a companion bill, 6240, Senate Bill 6240, that would have appropriated a portion of future increases in the aviation fuel tax to fund these programs, particularly the port package program.

And, it was interesting. We were down a few weeks ago. 5652 was heard by the Senate Energy Environment Technology Committee, and there was a great turnout of people speaking in favor. I know the mayor submitted written comments. Karen and I were down with Chad Raines, who’s a resident of Boulevard Park, as a panel, and there were all of the airport-adjacent cities well represented and all in favor. The Port of Seattle testified in opposition, but it’s kind of cutting through the narrative to kind of the bottom line.

I think between what we were able to take to the committee this time, but also going back last year, when that bill was first introduced, I think we had the attention of the Energy, Environment, and Technology Committee. The chair had signaled that she was inclined to marshal a favorable vote on this bill. And, in fact, that’s what happened.

And what was notable to me was that when they got together in executive session, the majority members kind of caucus and say, yeah, we recommend approval of this, do pass. The minority on the committee, last year, the committee minority recommended do not pass. This time they took the position, no recommendation. Oh. Which, yeah, which I thought was a significant development. Yeah, that’s a huge difference. And so, and I can tell you that I had a couple of interactions with Senator Matt Behnke, who is the ranking minority member on that committee, and…

He was very grateful — between some stuff that I had given him and then the testimony that was offered on that day, a few weeks ago. He was very grateful to be given the chance to get a better understanding of what it’s like, the challenges that we face living here in the airport-adjacent cities.

So, so the bill passed out of… the Energy and Environment Technology Committee, passed on to Ways and Means, where… In the end, it wound up dying. This is a short session. It was a heavy lift in a number of ways. The bill was probably too complex. There were too many moving parts. So, so 5652 was not gonna get out.

And 6240, there was some controversy around that, because there were two other bills having to do with expenditures from the aviation fuel tax. Competing bills, let’s just put it that way to simplify.

But what happened was, even though 5652 was not going to be brought to the floor for a hearing in Ways and Means, Senator Behnke went to Senator Orwell and said, I would like to find a way to preserve your funding for the port package programs. And he had his own bill — 5958, I think it was — and he offered to amend his bill so that the port package funding would be included in that.

In the end, the biggest problem, as it was explained to me, is that the Port of Seattle was involved with Senator Orwell in negotiations around that. We hadn’t come to any kind of clear resolution. But apparently, a couple of other large port districts, including Spokane and Payne Field in Everett, did not feel like the bill provided them enough.

And so there was going to be some opposition around that in the end. Again, with a highly pressurized, short calendar, the chair of Senate Ways and Means, Senator Robinson — I think she just decided, let’s fight this battle another day. So they set it aside.

So that’s where we are. I’d hoped to have the chance to go back to Olympia again and testify, either before Ways and Means or to the House committee that was going to hear it if it had gone over to the other chamber, but that was not to be. But I will say this. This was not a failure. I think we’ve been seen, I think we’ve been heard. When Senator Orwell and I had a conversation yesterday about starting, as soon as this session is over, starting on a new bill that kind of takes what we got out of this session and moves it forward in the next session — I really like our chances. I really do. And the great thing about it is, that bill would have provided perhaps as much as $4 million a year for the port package replacement program. I, every chance I got in meetings with the port, I said, well, that would be a juggernaut if we got this money, and then if you were to spend some of your King County property tax money, and whatever you get from the federal government on the port packages that you can use federal funds for — that could be a tremendous program with a lot of money behind it, right from the giddy-up.

So that’s where we stand right now. One of the great things about being in Olympia — and I learned a real lesson here, guys — boots on the ground. There is nothing like boots on the ground. I went down one Monday afternoon and basically stalked the Ways and Means Committee, and flagged down senators as they came out of the room, and got quality time with 5 of them, with 5 senators. Yeah, we did a lot of awareness raising. I think there’s a lot of sympathy toward what we’re trying to accomplish.

And I think in terms of a foundation — we would all love to have seen this go through this year, especially given the fact that we’re still in the middle of the approval process for the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. But that’s politics. And I’m very satisfied with where we are and look forward to moving forward next. Any questions?

[probable: Louis Troisi]: I have two. One is — what alternative funding were they looking to use the airport fuel tax for? Because you indicated there’s some other appropriations.

[00:10:02] Chair Brian Davis: It’s really complicated, really complicated, but one of the issues — and I don’t know if this is going to exactly answer your question — but one of the concerns about the aviation fuel tax is that it has… it’s supposed to be used for aviation-related purposes, like airport maintenance, renovation, improvements for airports around the state of Washington, or mitigation. Which is where we had the window, for port packages.

Apparently, the state of Washington — and the FAA has got some say — the Federal Aviation Administration looks at how states are using their aviation fuel taxes. And the FAA has been leaning on the state of Washington for quite some time, saying, you’re out of compliance, because one of the things that has happened here in the state of Washington is they’ve been using aviation fuel tax funds for other purposes. Like ancillary… the Department of Ecology. Apparently, one of the complications this time around is ecology came in and said, if you divert all this money to strictly aviation-related purposes, we’re gonna have to lay off a lot of people.

My view about that is, if that money shouldn’t have been spent on ecology to begin with, then let’s go back and hit the reset button. They can help find funding from appropriate channels. But apparently ecology raised quite an objection as well, because — I’m paraphrasing — basically they said, you’re gonna gut us.

[00:12:13] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Yeah, well, in that case, like, why does that responsibility lie on the port, then? Because then, who’s missing out? Because the port is funneling all those funds to Department of Ecology, then.

[00:12:25] Chair Brian Davis: Well, it wasn’t the port, it was the state of Washington. The aviation fuel funds go into a fund—

[00:12:32] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: That is then dispersed.

[00:12:34] Chair Brian Davis: By the state, and somehow over the years, ecology has just gotten their mitts on a lot of this, and they probably shouldn’t have. It’s probably an inappropriate use of those funds, but that’s where we’ve been for a while. So now we’ve got to fix that. Karen? You have a hand up.

[00:12:58] Karen Veloria: Oh, I just wanted to thank you, Brian, for doing all your boots-on-the-ground work this session, because I know it really made an impact. It’s nice to know that there is maybe a future for this bill. You have to craft it a certain way for it to pass, and sometimes it takes time, so thank you for all the boots on the ground.

[00:13:24] Chair Brian Davis: Well, thank you for—

[00:13:25] Karen Veloria: They’re calling us all over the place, this, this—

[00:13:27] Chair Brian Davis: Well, I’ll tell you what — you, Karen, and Chad Raines were two people that actually lived beneath the flight path, and who testified live, and I think that was really high impact, so thank you for taking the effort.

Mayor?

[probable: Mayor Sarah Moore]: Yeah, I had a couple of comments. One was — moving someone from opposition to neutral is a huge accomplishment, and if it comes up for a vote, you basically don’t have someone that doesn’t want it. So, that’s a big win, and I would just also say, I think the groundwork started before the session — by meeting the legislators and telling the stories, and having them, when they see people show up, that it’s people they recognize, whose stories they’ve already heard, they already know. So, I think a bunch of pieces got lined up this year, that hopefully, if they could stay lined, it’ll be a head start for the next telling of that story. I think it would be a really valuable thing for this committee, after session ends, to turn its attention to some of that strategy about how that happens. And we can leave all that for another day.

I will say this. I have come to believe, not only from the legislative process, but other things that have been going on around it — one of the things that is really important is to directly engage the port commissioners in this dialogue. They have operated at a remove. Their names are the ones on the masthead. I kind of took after the Port Commission in my testimony to the Energy Environment Tech Committee in saying, you know, these guys said that there was going to be no significant impact — and even though that’s the staff that takes that position and writes that report, the commission approves it. And I think we need to directly engage the Commission and put some pressure on them. There was one meeting at which we were supposed to have two port commissioners in the room, and they did not show up. I was very disappointed by that, because they need to be in the room. They need to be hearing this. That’s a piece that I’m not so sure they want to engage in, but I think this piece is absolutely necessary. So, going forward there.

[probable: Louis Troisi]: Did you have one on it? The other question was just — thinking about if one of the blockers was places like Spokane or Walla Walla, places where they’re doing commercial traffic, didn’t see a lot of incentives to their communities — do we understand what those kind of…

[00:16:50] Chair Brian Davis: We don’t, but as I said, Spokane and Payne Field were apparently two of them, so we need to find out what it is they want. And Senator Orwell seems to think that we can accommodate them. That’s the thing — this was just coming together so fast, there wasn’t time to nail down all the details.

[probable: Louis Troisi]: No, I mean, that sounds very fruitful if the issue is not, we don’t want this, it’s that we want to be more comprehensive — opens the negotiation.

[00:17:20] Chair Brian Davis: Yes, yes, absolutely. So, thank you. Anything else on this particular item? Good. Thank you. Thank you for all your support on this, guys.

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[00:17:35] AGENDA ITEM: START Day in Olympia

[00:17:41] Chair Brian Davis: Karen? Well, we all know, at our last meeting, we recommended that our community representatives, Karen and Jeff Harbaugh, sit out, because participation basically would have amounted to promoting a false narrative about collaboration that doesn’t currently exist. Karen, have you got any feedback on that at all?

[00:18:05] Karen Veloria: I have not gotten any feedback from it. What I was surprised by is that the whole START Legislative Day was canceled. I mean, only two cities of the 7 airport cities decided not to send — and it was just the community members that decided not to attend. But yet the whole day was canceled, so that struck me as odd, because there’s 5 other cities, and I was wondering if they were going to go.

[00:18:42] Chair Brian Davis: I know, after we passed along to the City Council our recommendation, Council did — and the city attorney, and Jeff particularly, drafted a letter that the council approved unanimously and signed, and sent to legislators in Olympia, saying, this is why we are not coming — and I haven’t gotten any feedback at all.

You’re muted, Karen.

[00:19:18] Karen Veloria: Yeah, I did see that letter, now that I think of it. I haven’t gotten any feedback from that at all.

[00:19:26] Chair Brian Davis: From anybody.

[00:19:28] Karen Veloria: So… It’s… it’s just… yeah.

[00:19:31] Chair Brian Davis: Yeah, I… Go ahead.

[00:19:32] Karen Veloria: Updates.

[00:19:34] Chair Brian Davis: Yeah, I do think — for two of the fence line communities, Burien and Des Moines, not to participate, I think is significant. And I do think that the port, and this goes to their administration to start, I do think they’re very worried about optics. So it was probably just better to withdraw from the whole thing. And there will probably be another conversation about START Day on the Hill, you know, when they go to promote their federal agenda.

[00:20:12] Karen Veloria: Well, we have a START meeting in a couple of weeks, or next week, so… Yeah, to see if we could bring that up.

[00:20:21] Chair Brian Davis: Yeah, so.

[00:20:25] Karen Veloria: No updates other than that.

[00:20:28] Chair Brian Davis: Okay, anything else, any other questions on that?

Again, this is all part of that thing about being seen and heard. And what’s nice is, Des Moines followed suit with us. And I know that the City of SeaTac was very interested in what we were doing. I’m not privy to any conversations that may have occurred, city manager to city manager or anything like that, but that’s three of your fence line cities right there. And we just keep chipping at this, and eventually the rock will break, I’d like to think.

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[00:21:18] AGENDA ITEM: SAMP Appeal Update

[00:21:18] Chair Brian Davis: City Attorney’s not here. I have not heard anything on the SAMP appeal, the status of that. Mayor, have you heard anything that you could share on that?

[probable: Mayor Sarah Moore]: So, right. Since the City Attorney couldn’t make it tonight, I just took a quick look at the docket, and it looks like they’re still haggling over briefing schedules and administrative stuff that tends to happen early in cases. The briefing schedule’s pushed out till about mid-April, so probably won’t really see anything meaningful until after that point.

[00:21:53] Chair Brian Davis: Great, thank you. But thank you for keeping it on the agenda. And maybe it just stays on the agenda. I agree, 100%.

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[00:22:10] AGENDA ITEM: South King County Community Impact Fund

[00:22:10] Chair Brian Davis: Okay, on to the South King County Community Impact Fund. It has been renamed, but Alejandra has been doing a little bit of research on that, and the floor is yours.

[00:22:29] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Yeah, so… sorry, I’m a little under the weather, so my voice might be going in and out a bit.

I looked into getting the request from Port of Seattle about where the money was going and the amounts. It took a while to get that information, and in the meantime I was in contact with SeaTac Noise Info. They have a website where they’re basically tracking air quality, monitoring information, flights, noise — anything related to airport happenings and how it impacts SeaTac and the surrounding neighborhoods. They had an extensive list, and that was the link I shared from last meeting, of grants that have been passed out in previous years. The document I was able to get from the Port of Seattle is for the recent cycle from 2020 to 2024. Those were the ones that I had Nathan share with y’all.

It looks like a very basic list of the communities or organizations that receive the grants. The amounts differed — some were as low as around $90,000, and some went up to about $250,000.

[00:24:17] Chair Brian Davis: That was for the Economic Recovery Grant.

[00:24:18] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: That was for the economic recovery grants, exactly. And then there was the other one — the EGP ones — and those were a lot smaller chunks of funds.

[00:24:43] Chair Brian Davis: Did you… were you able to kind of draw any conclusions from this?

[00:24:44] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: I think, in terms of the work we’re trying to go after — and especially from all of our conversations about asking for port packages in legislation — it seems like there’s nothing that directly mitigates the issues we’re talking about in terms of helping communities with noise pollution or air pollution. It looks to me like it’s more community-based organizations, like helping restore green spaces, parks, and also helping certain communities with training for jobs that can be beneficial for the community to work in the port and things like that.

[00:25:40] Chair Brian Davis: I did a little quick addition. The amount for the economic recovery grants was just shy of $6.7 million, and the environmental grants totaled not quite $1.5 million. Total expenditure over that 4-year cycle was $8 million. You could average that, though I’m not sure averaging would be a worthwhile endeavor — $2 million a year.

I think, as I looked over the list — Alejandra, thank you for this, because I think this is helpful. A couple of things popped into my mind. One was, I would like to know, particularly on the economic recovery grants, more about the deliverables as they’re defined by those grants, and how those are measured. What are they trying to achieve, and how do they measure whether those marks are being hit?

The other thing was that these are significant funds, to be sure. And Mayor, you have made the point in the past that to these organizations, these are huge grants — this is big money for organizations that I’m certain need it. And on faith, I’m going to say that this money is being put to good use.

The problem that I have is that it’s kind of like buckshot — you fire a shotgun and the buckshot goes everywhere. These funds are scattered over a wide area from Beacon Hill to Federal Way, and I think Kent and Auburn are included in that, with no apparent particular focus on the airport-adjacent cities. And there should be.

This is a good stepping-off point for other conversation we can have in the future, but those are just a couple of quick thoughts based on the material you’ve provided. And again, Alejandra, thank you very much.

[00:27:57] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Yes, of course. And I also wonder — how much money do they have to funnel for all of this? Are they using it all up, or is it unlimited? Like, what’s their budget to be able to hand out these grants?

[00:28:16] Chair Brian Davis: I don’t know what it was in the cycle you examined. I know that in the current cycle that has just begun — or it started last year — it’s $14 million. So if it was a similar amount in the previous cycle, and they did not distribute all of it, there are matching requirements that can be pretty onerous. It’s hard to match $250,000.

Or whatever percent, yeah. So I know at the Candidates Forum here last October, Commissioner Hasegawa did indicate that she’s not comfortable with the matching rules, but I don’t know legally how they could free themselves from that. But there are matching requirements, and it’s at least 50% — maybe one-for-one, I’m not sure, but anyways.

[00:29:35] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: And I don’t know if it’s worth our time, Brian, to maybe collaborate more with the — the SeaTac Noise Info group? Because it sounds like they’re doing a lot of collecting of information around the happenings in the community around the airport, in terms of pollution—

[00:29:58] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Getting the community involved to rally against the Port of Seattle and asking for needs that they feel are lacking.

[00:30:09] Chair Brian Davis: They are a tremendous storehouse of data. And the phrase they’ve used is — going back to everything from the original administration of port package installations — they vacuum up everything. Every public document that’s related to the airport and the airport-adjacent communities. They are literally like the archive.

[00:30:41] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Yeah, yeah, it looks like it.

[00:30:44] Chair Brian Davis: So, thank you for that. And we can…

I’ll just throw this question out — I don’t know if anybody’s got an answer right now, but where do we go with this? My thing about the buckshot is that I do feel like a program like this ought to put particular emphasis on Burien, Des Moines, SeaTac, Tukwila, Normandy Park to the extent they would be willing to participate. The phrase that I actually learned from SeaTac was fence line communities.

[00:31:21] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Hmm, fencing.

[00:31:22] Chair Brian Davis: Since we are bearing the brunt of those airport operations, there ought to be some particular allowance made to our cities. Louis?

[probable: Louis Troisi]: Just take a look at the last cycle. I think they had $9 million — so about $1.8 to $1.9 million per year. Right. Which is about what they’re spending. So I think they’re effectively distributing what they have. It’s more… looking at those grants, the most effective users are groups that have a 5-year project and ask for $250,000 every year. So if we were to say, how could we be more effective, it would be — what is a 5-year initiative? Because there are probably some requirements around appropriating and using that money within a fiscal calendar. What we’d want is long-run projects. Otherwise, you’ve got a good amount of money, but it’s hard to spend.

Jeff raised — if I could tag on — for 2026, they have $2 million in funding available, so pretty close to what you said. And they’re doing it in funding durations for a single year ranging from $65,000 to $115,000, and multi-year up to 3 years from $100,000 to $275,000. That’s on the port’s website. I don’t see the matching requirement on there.

Jeff raised a question in his note that he asked Nate to distribute to the group last week — whether any individual cities are beneficiaries. The answer to that is no, because of the Port’s position on gifting public funds. So in the port’s view, this is the only way they can distribute these funds, the only way they can provide this sort of relief.

There’s another school of thought. Somebody — and I can’t remember who it was — said, the cities know what they need. The cities know best what their people need. And rather than take this buckshot approach, maybe a better path would be to provide certain sums to the airport communities so that they can then provide services — whether that’s law enforcement, social services, whatever it may be. That’s just a thought, and it’s not a bad one. It probably ought to go on the table, but you first have to solve the public funds dilemma, where I believe the port is mistaken in its position — but at some point, you’re going to have to test-case that to see where you are.

Mayor?

[probable: Mayor Sarah Moore]: I think somewhere in between those two, and I feel like I’m speculating right now, which I’m not always comfortable doing. But I know that cities can receive other types of grants. It may be that instead of making a direct gift, there is a process whereby cities could also be grant recipients. That creates a higher level of accountability — so it’s not just, we know how we’re going to use it, we’ll go use it — but that accountability could be something that removes the onus of having to give to public funds. Thank you.

[00:35:10] Chair Brian Davis: Any other discussion on this?

Again, Alejandra, thank you. This gets us a little further down the road on something I personally have wanted to attack for quite some time, so really appreciate your work on this.

[00:35:27] Karen Veloria: Thank you.

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[00:35:29] AGENDA ITEM: New Business — NERA Rezone Presentation

[00:35:29] Chair Brian Davis: Okay, new business. Nate.

[probable: Nathan/staff]: So for the committee’s consideration for next month’s meeting, Chaney Skadzen, our senior planner, asked if the committee would be interested in hearing a presentation about the north of NERA rezone — NERA is the Northeast Redevelopment Area. It’s just north of 518, along Memorial Drive, where you see more of the warehouse, industrial-looking buildings. They’re planning some rezones for, I think, 2 or 3 square blocks in the area north of that. So she’s offered to come in, present to the committee, and solicit feedback from members and anyone else who attends that meeting.

[00:36:30] Chair Brian Davis: And that is the area right across the street from North SeaTac Park, is that correct? Yes. From 128 to 136. Yeah. That’s your neighborhood. Yes, it’s where I live.

[Making sure I’m sharing the correct screen here.]

[00:36:52] Karen Veloria: I would love to hear that presentation.

[00:36:56] Chair Brian Davis: [Sharing map view] So, the area is here. North SeaTac Park is about here. Yeah, it goes from 128th all the way down to that lake at the bottom, which is tough. Well, technically, it splits into King County Park on 136th. So it’s owned by SeaTac to the north. I saw you on a walk there one day. I didn’t figure it out until, like, a block later. The park is right here. I think the baseball fields are over here and the BMX park, so you’re kind of looking at the west side of Des Moines Memorial Drive.

Currently I think most of this area was residentially zoned, and now the land use designation from the comp plan is more industrial or similar. I thought it was still RS7200, but the land use designation has changed, so now they’re looking to rezone from RS7200 into something that better fits being that close to the airport and the flight path, and incorporating more job density in that area, where they’ve rezoned other portions of the city to do residential density. That’s the broad overview, but Chaney can certainly dive in on that next month.

[00:38:35] Karen Veloria: No, I’d love to hear that presentation next time. But there are still a lot of homes right there in that area, so I would just love to hear what they have to say.

[00:38:45] Chair Brian Davis: Thumbs up on that? Thumbs and a comment. Please.

[probable: Louis Troisi]: I think this would be an opportunity to invite community and maybe do a little more promotion of this meeting than we usually do. I want to push this a little, as someone who lives in this area. They had a planning meeting last week that was not promoted to the people who live in this area. They’ve done a very ambiguous mailer to people in this area — it doesn’t actually speak to what is changing, just says, jobs. If we’re going to do that, I think — also, judging by the public comments from the planning meetings, we will get a lot more mixed feedback. So, are you saying you don’t recommend it, or…

I would say — we might want to give the planning committee a heads up that we’re going to do this, because this is something that commissioners actively vote and plan on, and this could become very contentious.

[00:40:07] Chair Brian Davis: We’re just here to learn. Yes, we have to make sure we’re clear about what the objective is. If it is to provide input, then you might get a lot of input, especially if you advertise. And if this is not a meeting in which input is going to be sent to anyone who can make a decision, then you could end up with a lot of people.

[probable: Louis Troisi]: It could turn into a city council meeting. So it won’t operate like a public hearing. That’ll come later in the process, but people could still come to our meetings and do public comment. It’s just that the committee has no formal recourse. There is some value, though — this becomes another place where that dialogue can occur. And I think there are some important questions. We’re seeing the challenge of the SAMP is that it doesn’t consider, for instance, increased traffic to 509 with the changes. Well, we’re gonna rezone it to industrial — does that actually help our argument, by increasing the amount of potentially trucking and industry in an area? Are these the right considerations for what the Burien Airport Committee wants?

[00:42:25] Chair Brian Davis: Actually, it’s an excellent point. Meaningful.

Anything else on this? So, thumbs up — yes, to inviting Chaney. Should this be a motion?

[probable: Nathan/staff]: Or I don’t think it needs to be. The committee has agreed that you guys want to hear it.

[00:42:43] Chair Brian Davis: So — yes.

[00:42:44] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Yeah.

[00:42:45] Chair Brian Davis: Okay. Great. Thank you, Bruce.

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[00:42:51] AGENDA ITEM: HEAL Act / Climate Commitment Act — Ecology Equity Guidance

[00:42:51] Chair Brian Davis: There is one other thing, and that is — Mayor Moore and I have heard from Linda Wong, who is with the SeaTac Airport Coalition for Justice. She has brought to our attention a seminar being sponsored by the Department of Ecology, asking for feedback on their draft guidance for identifying overburdened communities and vulnerable populations for budget equity reporting under the HEAL Act and the Climate Commitment Act.

Basically — and I’m quoting from her email — this will be how agencies define and report on equity in climate and budget decisions that are meant to help communities like ours. She said, if we’re not in the decision room now, ecology may — and this hearing is being held by the Department of Ecology — may default to safer, more generic approaches. These definitions will shape who is counted, where the money flows, and how airport-impacted communities show up in budget equity reports for years.

Let’s make sure, she says — and I agree with her — that they include our communities that are living with constant airport noise and air pollution, higher asthma and other health disparities, heat islands, and displacement pressures due to the growth of warehousing and heavy traffic.

Ecology is asking for input from community-based organizations and community members. There will be one session on March 11th in the evening, from 6 to 7. There will be another session the next day, March 12th, from 10 to 11. I will not be in town for either one of those, but I think it would make sense for somebody from the Burien Airport Committee to attend and offer input.

[00:44:57] Karen Veloria: We choose either or, or both?

[00:45:06] Chair Brian Davis: I think it’s an either-or.

[probable: Mayor Sarah Moore]: I can do the 11th. Can you do the 11th?

[00:45:13] Chair Brian Davis: Karen, you want to do the 12th?

[00:45:13] Karen Veloria: Sure, sure.

[00:45:15] Karen Veloria: Put me down.

[00:45:17] Chair Brian Davis: I feel very good about the two of you representing. 100%. Thank you.

You know, one of the very first projects I was involved with as a member of this committee was working with former Mayor Aragon — and Karen was involved in this — where we applied to have Burien designated as a health equity zone. What that is was kind of amorphous, and it was a very slow-boat kind of process, but I suspect this is related to that. We were not designated as a health equity zone, but South King County was. And so, this is important.

I’m more familiar with the Climate Commitment Act than I am with the HEAL Act, because if y’all remember 2 years ago, when then-Senator Kaiser — with then-Representative Orwell as the House sponsor — secured funding for port packages that was then stripped out of the bill over a period of a couple of years, in part because of our budget problems here in the state. But if there is any way that we can stick a wedge in and stake a claim to funding that would help alleviate the negative externalities that we experience from the operations at the airport, I’m all for it. And I think being part of this process would help with that.

Should I connect with Linda Wong after this?

[probable: Mayor Sarah Moore]: Or can you pass along what you have?

[00:47:17] Chair Brian Davis: Yeah, I’ll do that. And what I’ll also do is connect you with Linda Wong. Great, perfect. So, and Karen, I’ll do the same with you.

[00:47:19] Alejandra Cordoba Perez: Awesome.

[00:47:22] Karen Veloria: Thank you.

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[00:47:23] AGENDA ITEM: Public Comment

[00:47:23] Chair Brian Davis: We’ve got that handled. Public comment.

I see two members of the public online, if they have anything, if they want to raise their hand.

Go ahead, Dave. Dave Kaplan.

Good evening.

[00:47:44] Dave Kaplan, Port of Seattle: Good evening. Thank you. Thank you for also bringing up the South King and Port Communities Fund. It’s evolved over a long period of time. It started off as environmental grants — first was the Airport Communities Ecology Fund, which provided grants to community organizations based in Burien, SeaTac, and Des Moines. It eventually became part of the South King County Community Impact Fund, which provided grants to all six cities. The additional cities were added, actually, at my request. And up until this past year, the environmental grants were only provided to the six area cities, and in fact are still prioritized. If you look at the Port’s public website, South King and Port Communities Fund page, you’ll see that under the bullet changes for the 2025–29 funding cycle, it states: continuing to prioritize our commitment to the six near-airport cities, and identifying how applications for projects in those cities will receive priority status.

In the case of the environmental grants, the challenge is that the only reason the grant program exists is because of a loophole — essentially, a small hole in state law — which at the time provided a 3-for-1 match in terms of volunteer hours and or funding from the local organization. To receive one dollar, essentially, of port grant assistance. We actually advocated to try and get it down to one-to-one, but because of labor’s opposition, because of concerns it might be abused, got it down to 2-to-1. The small organizations that have been receiving the grants in all of the six cities have actually been benefiting from it since 2020, if not 2019.

In terms of the economic recovery grants, started off as a response to COVID. The emphasis there has been on workforce development, and in terms of what we’ve heard mostly from the community regarding equity, the biggest focus is on jobs and job training. Workforce development opportunities — most of that, of course, having to fall within the context of what the port can fund, which is maritime, aviation, green jobs, and construction.

Even the organizations that received that funding outside of the six airport cities had to spend the money within the six cities, to the benefit of the people who live within the six cities. In terms of some of the money, it goes to Highline College for Start Zone and for the Small Business Development Center, which provides free consulting services to small businesses in the six surrounding cities — well, 5 cities; Federal Way doesn’t participate in Start Zone.

So there’s a lot of investment that’s there. In addition, the cities receive economic development partnership grants, as do the other cities, which is a very small match from the standpoint of the cities. Burien has taken advantage of it to help promote small businesses in town.

In addition, the city has received spotlight advertising space at the airport. The only cost to the city is if they change the artwork for the ads. The free space is provided to them. And if you go look — it’s either Concourse C or D, in the hallway on D there, I believe — I saw Burien’s just the other day.

In addition, there are tourism grants that have gone to a number of different organizations, including in Burien. Wish Promote, I think the Highline Historical Museum has been one of the recipients in the past.

So there’s a great deal of investment that goes into the communities. Again, I encourage you to take a look at the South King and Port Communities Fund page at the public website. It’ll help provide some information in terms of the investments that we make.

[00:52:24] Chair Brian Davis: Excellent. Thank you, Dave.

Nothing else.

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[00:52:29] ADJOURNMENT

[00:52:29] Chair Brian Davis: So, if there is no other business to come before the committee, our next meeting will be on St. Patrick’s Day, March the 17th. And, until then… Thank you all. We stand adjourned.

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