A Letter To Port Commission President Stephanie Bowman

Madam President, First off, let me congratulate you on your new office. I’ll just say something you already know: your office carries the ability to make the single greatest impact on the lives of people in our region of any elected. You sit down on a Tuesday, get two of your peers to agree to

It’s not about the policy.

…It’s about getting the work done. —Joe Scorcio. As tortured as those two sentences sounded (at least to my ear), I think I knew  what the former City Manager of SeaTac meant at today’s Port Of Seattle Commission Meeting. There are many, many flaws in the StART process, but I have to agree with the

A Letter To Mayor Jimmy Matta

Dear Mayor, I listened with dismay to council member Krakowiak’s objections to each of your Airport Committee’s resolutions. Her objection to the first resolution was that the BAC should be reduced to a Citizens Advisory Committee. The fact that it has had the participation of your council is exactly what has given it its unique

Letter To Michael Matthias

Dear Michael, I am sure your Aviation Committee will apprise you of the Burien resolution, but just in case here ya go (Item 13): https://burienwa.civicweb.net/document/20823?fbclid=IwAR1UI5WEN8X88xy9w7B2eF6vEz2w7RLtLOY7ZvGUHzT8Qj_K1qx-Hz6Bo9w I think of the airport as a factory. And I think of our houses as being like homes with those small oil wells on the back lot which are so

Continuity (StART Meeting 12/19/18)

Often the most important, but under-appreciated form of knowledge for any government is known as “institutional knowledge”. It is the knowledge that carries forward seamlessly from one government to the next. It is typically carried in the heads of a few key long-time employees. If it is not intentionally valued it is usually lost and

A Letter To Nancy Tosta

Ms. Tosta is a Council Member for the City Of Burien and chairs their Aviation Committee. This letter was hastily started after their meeting tonight. I asked her to consider placing the following item on the agenda for the Committee’s next meeting: “How do we turn our resolutions into legislation?” Council Member, I wanted to

A Letter To The Port Of Seattle Commissioners (Part II)

As I wrote in the first part of this letter, you got two doses of my fantastic eloquence at the last general meeting. I said there were two points I wanted to make to flesh out what I said and this is the second. My first point concerned a less expensive and more efficient way

A Letter To The Port Of Seattle Commissioners

At today’s general meeting you got not one, but two doses of my fantastic eloquence. Lucky you. There were two points I wanted to make to flesh out what I said. It’s always hard (at least for me) to be that brief and actually make sense on such complex issues. Hopefully I’ll better make the