Commercial Aviation Work Group (CAWG) December 9, 2025

Transcript

0:00
All right, good morning everyone. Uh, thank you for joining the commercial aviation workg groupoup meeting. Workg
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groupoup members and members of the public, please be sure to sign in at the appropriate signage sheets near the door. There is one sheet for members and
0:12
another for the public. For members of the public in person, please remain seated and silent throughout the meeting
0:18
and silence your phones. There will be an opportunity for public comment from 2:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. and I will
0:25
alternate between in person and online. Workg group members, please speak clearly and loudly throughout the
0:32
meeting so those in person and online can hear you. And hybrid meetings do come with unique challenges. So I do
0:38
appreciate everyone’s cooperation and patience if any technical difficulties arise. Workg group members online,
0:44
please keep your video on and microphone on mute unless you are speaking during the meeting. And if you have a comment
0:50
or question during the meeting, please speak freely during the meeting or use the hand raise button. And as a
0:55
reminder, members of the public will be muted online unless you are called on during public comment in which I will
1:01
unmute you. And uh for those in person, the emergency exit is located in the back of the room and the restrooms can
1:07
also be found in the back to the left. Now I will pass it on to John to do a quick intro before we get started.
1:14
Well, she’s uh already stole my thunder there and there. Uh welcome uh to
1:23
Boingfield. Uh we’re we’re so glad uh we can host you today and uh wish you the
1:30
best of luck in uh in your endeavors. And if there’s anything you need uh
1:36
while you’re here, uh give us a call. We got uh Allan here uh
1:42
in in the uh the technical booth and uh if you haven’t if you don’t have any
1:48
questions, uh I’ll let you get to work. Thank you, John. Thank you, John. Okay.
1:54
We’ll uh be back for Dave uh Dave’s tour
1:59
uh later in this this afternoon. Okay.
2:07
All right. Well, good morning and welcome everyone. Um I’m Evan Dorby,
2:13
chair of the group. Um and uh as we typically do, uh let’s go around and introduce everybody who’s in the room.
2:19
Um and then we’ll uh call on the members who are appearing online as well. I don’t have a list of them in front of me
2:26
who’s online, but Christina can call on call on them. So let’s uh start down
2:32
here to my right. Charlie Rearan, I work for American Aviation Professionals and I’m a representative of the airline
2:37
industry. This is dependent upon the air service. Forest Dunham. I’m a citizens
2:44
representative. Rich Mueller, airport director, Grant County International Airport and I
2:49
represent a port on the east side of the mountains with a very long runway. Good. I’m Ann Richard. I’m the wash
2:57
aviation director and I’m the non- voting member from WASH. Right. And I’m Dorby. I’m a citizen
3:03
representative. I represent a community organization, a
3:09
citizen representative. Gary Ward. I’m a representative from Eastern Washington. I live in Yakama
3:16
and Irish cow representative.
3:21
All right. And then Christina, what members do we have online? Which one?
3:26
Buck Taft and I did see Alan. Oh, Alan Adel. And
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you should be able to unmute yourselves. Both Buck and Alan.
3:40
Yep. I’m Buck Taft. I’m the director of the Tri Cities Airport in Pasco, Washington, and I represent um the
3:46
Washington Public Ports um association. I’m Alan Adolf. I’m the regional
3:52
transportation manager for Yakma Valley Conference of Governments. I’m a non- voting member representing
3:58
uh MOTPOS in Eastern Washington. And Ben Brookman, managing director of
4:04
real estate for Alaska Airlines, representing airlines.
4:10
What? Anyone else online?
4:16
Um, all right. Uh, turning to review the agenda. Um,
4:22
so, uh, at our last meeting, we had had our typical discussion at the end of the meeting about kind of ideas for the next
4:28
meeting. Uh but in between then and now um we had our consultant selection
4:33
process uh complete completed um and uh it made
4:41
sense to me in putting the agenda together um working with Ann and
4:46
Christina and then input from anyone um that uh really focusing this meeting on
4:52
introducing our consultant um and then talking about um with with consultant
4:59
present. Um how we saw a work plan for 2026 uh developing um in light of both
5:07
what the legislators directed us in the ESSB 5161 um and then
5:16
the prior bill and then the um you know other product the prior committees work and things um
5:22
the consultant RFQ largely repeats uh ESSB 5161. So, uh, I had
5:31
read them both and went, “Oh, there’s no reason to go over both each other.” So, um, that’s how I put the, uh, agenda
5:38
together. Um, I allowed the, uh, nice block of time here in the morning for the consultant to introduce themselves.
5:44
And I understand, uh, uh, you have a, a slide deck for us. Yep. Great. Have about 15 slides that maybe spur
5:51
some thinking and thought uh, for the afternoon. Great. And then um that they’ll take us to lunch. And then after lunch um we
5:59
have um a list of um topics, but I’ve taken notes on the
6:06
uh essentially what the legislators asked us to do in 5161. And we can kind of dive into that point by point. Um
6:15
so um and then we public comment and then uh
6:22
our tour. So that should take up the check of the day.
6:29
Okay. Um turning to the appointments and uh pending non- voting member
6:34
invitations. Um so last night when I went to the governor’s boards and commission’s page, there seemed to be a
6:40
glitch on their website and neither our group’s members nor any others were loading. Um so usually we can look at
6:46
the current status and see if anyone new was appointed recently. U kind of get an update on that. Um but uh that was not
6:54
available. So um un unless anyone knows anecdotally anyone new appointed or uh
7:02
anyone dropping off the group. I know of one um
7:07
uh who see I think is leaving but uh Gary uh you had sent me an email
7:15
about that. Yeah, Robert Hudgman is no longer Yakma airport director. So he by default is no
7:23
longer an onboarding member. Mr. Chairman, you know, I think we have
7:29
a spot on our board that is specifically set for the Spokane airport director and
7:35
the new one has been appointed just started a couple of weeks ago. So I
7:41
think we need to contact him and and uh explain to him that he’s required to be
7:46
on this. His name is Dave Herring. I’ve known Dave since he was an intern in college
7:53
and so I have reached out to him and um told him that he’s expected to do this and um sent him a link to the governor’s
8:00
office website where he can fill out the application. So that’s underway.
8:08
Um and then uh so Mr. Hajman then my
8:13
recollection is he not I don’t remember if we had a spot for the Yakma director or if he was
8:20
invited to fill the Eastern Washington airport the shorter runway
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he was a representative from Eastern Washington Regional Airport as a non-bullying member
8:31
as a non-bullying member so a replacement for him could be anyone but
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according to the newspaper in Yakima they have uh two finalists and they
8:43
intend to make a selection for Mr. Horizon’s replacement and
8:48
be ready to go by 1 of January. So, just something to think about unless
8:54
somebody has some other ideas for that position. Uh well, does anyone have any other
9:02
thoughts or should we we should wait and invite the new director? Surprise.
9:09
That works for an
9:14
Okay. Uh I might make one other comment,
9:19
Mr. Chair. Um uh the representative from
9:26
Washington State Aviation Alliance currently, aside from Rich, who is a
9:31
member, I believe, but uh is Neil Stre. Is that right? Neil or Rich, how do you
9:38
pronounce his name? I’m sorry. Say again. I don’t think he’s from the alliance. He was a business uh
9:45
even with the change in elections. Is he from courts? Uh but at any rate, I
9:51
don’t remember him being at any of our meetings since the very first meeting of July.
9:56
Was he like the very like the very first meeting July 24th? So, do we just leave that alone or
10:04
um I’m think Oh, he’s Washington State uh Aviation Alliance. That’s who he’s with,
10:10
I believe. No, no, he’s um What’s on here? It’s a It’s a
10:17
business. Yeah. Uh business, something like that. That’s
10:24
It’s a representative from a statewide business association. NBAA.
10:31
No, it’s non aviation. Oh, non aviation. Okay.
10:38
So, where does that leave us for vacancies?
10:45
Well, if I may, you did mention the Aviation Alliance and they are
10:52
interested in being represented on the group. Um but they’ve had a little bit of turnover
10:59
recently. So yeah, so they’ve they’ve been kind of hardressed to to uh kind of finger a
11:07
representative, but I think that they’re in a a good position to do that now. Warren Warren Hendrickson
11:14
Hendrickson is the is the new president of the WSA and uh with his duties at the
11:21
Port of Olympia. I don’t think that he’d necessarily be the person, but he would be the one to ask and I can certainly do
11:27
that since I’m and I think he would be a good choice if he has the time and is willing because of his prior experience
11:35
with the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. I think it’s nice to have that kind of flavor on our
11:41
board whether we agree with what they did or not. I I spoke to Warren uh uh after our last
11:47
meeting and I think I tried to tee up a meeting between Evan and see if they supposed to call you Evan or waiting for
11:52
a call from you uh just to chat but uh I believe he’s interested. Okay.
11:58
Um I will follow up
12:03
and I can give you his data. Yeah. Okay. That sounds good.
12:08
And then there’s one other vacancy that’s been out there for a while. Um the uh Washington State Department of
12:16
Commerce. Um there’s a a non- voting member representing commerce and we had
12:23
invited somebody and just as we invited her, she left her position. So, we’ve
12:28
been waiting to hear from Commerce uh who who the appropriate person will be
12:33
and have now heard from uh him, Stephen Pinsky, and he may be I invited him to
12:41
Yeah, I think he’s on the uh on the video joining us. So, um he’s eager and
12:47
ready for us to invite him right. What is the name? An Steven Palinski.
12:53
Good morning. Steven Palinsky. I’m senior energy policy specialist for clean transportation with the Washington
13:00
State Department of Commerce. I’m based in Spokane. Well, good morning, Mr. Balenci.
13:06
Stephen, you had some other interesting uh um experiences that recommended you
13:13
for this too. Do you want to share about that? Some some odd aviation odds and ends in
13:19
my background. I I published I’m an author on uh policy implications of vertaports. I volunteer with the Civil
13:25
Air Patrol. I’m a panelist for the airport cooperative research program of
13:30
the Transportation Research Board. I’m an FAA licensed drone pilot. And uh one
13:36
I hadn’t told you is my grandfather was a naval rigger, an aviation rigger on the Navy Curtis planes.
13:47
I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. Looking forward to today.
13:52
Well, um, so when we’ve invited non- voting members in the past, I think the actual task of putting a letter together
13:59
and sending it, Christina, you handled handled that, uh, as I recall, putting
14:05
letters together to invite non- voting members. Let me know who to invite in their emails.
14:11
Okay, great. Um, well, and then, um, Dr. Warren Henderson and
14:18
we’ll have Mr. ing and then uh TBD Yakima director and then there are
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probably some other openings. There have been some that are sort of longstanding um but not having the current lists from
14:33
the governor’s website. Unless anyone else remembers
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we still have this kind of ongoing situation where some of us who were appointed our appointments have expired
14:46
and I reapplied last July and still haven’t heard anything. So, I filed my
14:52
reapplication also. So, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing until someone shows up and tells
14:59
us to stop, I guess. Right. Mr. Chairman, how many people have gotten reappointed or how many you still
15:06
think might be even legal? Um, well, that’s so that’s what I went to check on the governor’s website last
15:12
night and it must be some glitch between the the web and the database that that website hits to get all that updated
15:19
info because it just loaded. I mean, every commission, not just ours, but others, we’re just loading as blank. So,
15:25
I’m appointed or I’ve been renewed and I’ve been renewed. Yeah. How many? There are currently seven
15:31
members who are expired. But um lest anyone gets uh concerned
15:39
about that, I just want to remind everyone that both the governor’s office and uh members of the legislature who
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were on the uh on the work group said don’t worry about that. There it’s
15:52
bureaucracy, but keep on going until somebody tells you otherwise. And is
15:57
Rich’s date a typo? Were you even six months? No, that was that was that was the
16:04
original. The idea was to offset everybody from each other. So, I drew the short straw on that one. I am still
16:10
on. I actually thought my renewal was in, but apparently not. So, I will at
16:15
least do my part and we’ll see what happens on the other end. But still happy to serve.
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I think since we’re not far enough along that we’ll cause anything for the attorneys to get involved, we’re
16:27
probably still okay. I don’t want to get sued. Yeah. I don’t Yeah.
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Um um so unless we want to talk any more
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about the uh vacancy membership situation. Um do we have any other
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updates before we move on to the uh consultant presentation?
16:53
No, sir. All right. Hearing none, um,
17:00
All right. Uh, I’d like to hand the floor over to our, uh, selected
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consultant um to, um, give the presentation. And folks should think of
17:13
questions. Um he said, you know, we should have time for questions um toward the end of this
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block um and maybe set up our conversation for the afternoon about uh 2026 work plan. So, Mr. Chairman, I’m
17:24
sorry to interrupt, but before we start, can we kind of do a recap of of uh how many companies bid, how many were
17:32
interviewed, and then because everybody doesn’t know about the application process, and then
17:37
then say hi to our community members. Since Ann managed the procurement process, um I
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that it be more accurate than I could come up with on the fly. Um I’m going to ask you to
17:50
Thank you, Charlie. I wasn’t exactly prepared for this. So, um I believe we
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had five or six proposals. Um and we had kind of two review committees that you
18:03
all selected. Uh there was a group to review proposals which paired it down to
18:09
um the the ones who would be interviewed. I think we interviewed
18:14
three teams. I I recall teams. Okay. All right. Um uh they were
18:21
pretty much all teams that proposed. Um uh but um I think it was pretty
18:28
unanimous that the winning proposer was the team led by CNS Engineers which uh
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has an office here in Seattle but they do work um all over the country. So um
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Mark Champany is the um the project manager for that team. And anything else
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any other questions that I missed Charlie? Oh no, not at all. Thank you.
18:54
Okay. All right. Uh, Mr. Champy, do you have
18:59
the ability to share? Yes, you guys sharing. Okay. Working on that.
19:07
I think we should be good. So, um, thank you very much. Uh,
19:13
appreciate uh the opportunity to work and support the the commercial aviation work group, our team. Um uh we have most
19:21
of our leadership well me and Vicki are here today. Cody’s also from CNS and then two other leaders Steve Van Beek
19:27
and Peter Kers should be online um and they’ll be chiming in uh um as we go
19:33
here too. But appreciate the selection. We’re really looking forward to kind of diving in uh to uh here to help you
19:40
support you uh on on a lot of the issues uh that you may want to look into a little bit deeper. So, what we did is
19:46
we’re we’re close to being under contract. Um, so we’re not quite there. So, um, we did put together, uh, some
19:54
slides here that were kind of based on some of the information we did for the interview. Uh but certainly we haven’t
19:59
we haven’t really dove into a lot of the issues and stuff but hopefully I set this up in a way um here that will uh
20:07
maybe encourage the conversation and discussion this afternoon on certain
20:14
things you want to talk about and keep in mind. So uh not not a lot of slides. It might look like it’s a little bit
20:19
more here, but just some uh a few uh introductions that we’ll go around and and talk to the team briefly mention
20:26
some of the experience with some other systems that uh this team has worked on that we think will uh benefit uh benefit
20:33
us. our approach to at least our initial approach to maybe how to manage this as
20:38
as we get maybe some um multiple task orders and different things going on uh to uh keep everything uh in order and
20:46
really not try to repeat some of the stuff that may have already been done in the region as well. Um Steve’s uh Van
20:52
Beink is going to share some transport and aviation trends uh that are that might be helpful uh at at a very high
20:58
level. Uh and then share you know our understanding of the role of the work group uh and then some questions uh that
21:04
maybe the work group can can use to uh um to consider and like I said in your
21:10
conversations this afternoon as well as kind of moving forward uh from here and
21:16
and feel free to interrupt me at any time. I do have some time at the end for discussion but I don’t mind.
21:24
So the four primary folks that we’ve identified myself I’m Mark Champany I know program director with CNS companies
21:32
and really kind of view my role uh on this team as kind of the orchestrator to help um pull the resources the expertise
21:39
uh that will be needed to get uh certain things uh accomplished for you. I’ve been in the industry for about 30 years.
21:46
Uh all the aviation um a little bit of uh DOT time uh back in New York State.
21:52
Uh but mostly on the advisory consulting side um uh throughout the throughout my
21:58
career. I’ll let Vicky uh Wson introduce herself. Yep. Hi all. I’m Vicki. Uh I think we
22:04
all met on the interview. Thank you. We’re excited to uh Mark and I and Cody are excited to be here today. uh I’ll be
22:11
leading engagement, communication, um you know, supporting uh some of the you
22:16
know, not doing the research, but supporting and facilitating some of the research and so great.
22:21
Yeah, excited to be here. Uh Steve, uh you should be able to unmute yourself if you want to introduce
22:27
yourself. Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. Great. Thank you. Uh I’m Steve Ambique.
22:34
I’m the North American aviation director for Steer. Uh today I sit just across
22:39
the river in Virginia from Washington DC and for that reason you might guess you’d be right that I do quite a bit of
22:46
policy and regulatory work uh in Washington. Um I also do a lot of work
22:52
with uh airport authority boards and leadership team setting strategic direction with them and also have uh
22:59
quite a bit of experience with air rail projects and working in both Seattle and
23:05
Spokane uh as a consultant. Thank you.
23:10
Peter, you should have uh the ability to unmute and introduce yourself. Good morning. This is Peter Kersh. I’m a
23:17
law firm. I’m a lawyer. I’m a law firm. I’m a lawyer with a law firm of Kaplan Kersh. I split my time between uh Denver
23:25
and the other Washington. Though, as some of you know, I spend most of my time on airplanes uh around the country
23:31
advising airports on development projects, uh governance issues, a whole range of of matters. And I’ve been doing
23:38
airport work for 35 almost 40 years now. Uh do do a lot of work in um in Western
23:45
Washington for a number of the airports there as well. So look looking forward to the opportunity to uh to zoom out and
23:52
look at the big picture of what’s going on in Western Washington. Thanks. Thank you Steve and Peter. And as I go
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along here too, if you uh either of you feel uh the need to chime in, feel free to just do that as we go.
24:07
So just covering four primary firms uh CNS companies as Ann uh stated uh we
24:13
work nationally um on airports across the country. uh in an advisory uh nature
24:19
more from the planning design and construction aspect of things. Uh Steer is a a global firm uh so they bring some
24:25
of that global experience in the aviation world but also in the in the rail and and some other modes that we
24:31
think will be beneficial for this. Kaplan Kur brings kind of that legal standpoint to help us out with the
24:38
regulatory environment things that um we might want to do but might not be able to do or might might try to change. Uh
24:44
and then Stepherson Associates is a is a local firm here uh to help us out with the communications and logistics. So
24:52
with that though just high level we we built the team intentionally uh with that depth. So we wanted to bring a lot
24:58
of resources to this group uh and and through that and through these firms uh we’re certainly open if there’s needs
25:04
that we can’t fulfill uh as a as a consultant team with the the four firms that we have. are more than willing to bring those on
25:11
to the team to help uh the work group uh get get the information that they need and get to the solution. But really that
25:17
public governance and engagement aspect of it, the the infrastructure and environmental side of the house. Um and
25:24
then the policy regulations and standards. So this is the ultimate org chart that
25:30
we have. As you can see, like I said, there are a lot of resources. I apologize that’s not the biggest. Uh
25:35
hope if some of you have it in front of you, you might be able to see a little bit more. Uh but the primary role um of
25:41
me, Steve, uh Peter, and Vicki kind of kind of being the primary uh expertise
25:47
uh to help support any of the initiatives. Uh we did bring on uh subject matter ex experts that address
25:53
each of the primary uh topics that were mentioned in the RFQ. So as you talk about those uh later this afternoon, we
26:01
do have additional staff uh that are identified um at various firms. And then
26:06
other topics and subject matter experts on the bottom as different things or various topics may arise that you may
26:12
need uh expertise and those range from environmental, climate, sustainability, uh
26:22
financial planning uh and advanced planning and then and then the legal uh piece of that as well. So
26:28
any questions? So I just wanted to briefly mention um
26:34
some of our experience with some other systems. Peter, Steve and myself uh you
26:40
know have been involved in very similar topics, but I would say there’s nothing similar about any of these and and and
26:47
how they relate to um even what you’re looking to do here uh as well. So, uh,
26:52
Steve Ambi through through, I think multiple years has been involved with the San Diego regional airport system.
26:59
Uh, and I’ll I’ll let him chime in on that here shortly. And then, uh, Peter Kersh has had a big role with Southern
27:05
Nevada and the second major airport that, uh, Clark County is is working on
27:10
uh, in Ivanpaw. Uh, that’s been a start start and stop effort over the years. Okay. Uh and then uh my career I was a
27:17
project manager for the New England regional airport system plan. Uh when Boston was considering a second major
27:22
airport uh they ultimately did not select the site for a second major airport and did something you similar to what you’re trying to do here uh where
27:29
they looked at you know how how do they can get more capacity out of the system the airport and the system uh in New
27:35
England. Uh and that’s been a fairly successful effort to to really help look at um you know prior prioritizing
27:42
funding uh for different um different improvement projects that would help that capacity and the efficiency of
27:49
those airports. So um Peter if you want to go or yeah Peter if you want to go
27:54
first we’ll go back up the list and just briefly talk about the southern Nevada. Yeah. And and and I don’t want to go
28:00
into great detail here, but I think it is useful for the work group to appreciate that there are are other
28:08
examples around the country of efforts that look at regional air system with a
28:13
particular focus on trying to find alternative additional um airport
28:18
capacity. And southern Nevada, Las Vegas is a good example. Harry Reid International is absolutely penned in.
28:25
it the its its ability to grow is uh quite limited um not quite perhaps as
28:32
limited as CEC sorry RF but um but it has it has some real real challenges to
28:38
it and so beginning literally 25 years ago uh Las Vegas area started looking at
28:44
other ways to meet their commercial aviation needs. Um and very long story,
28:50
a very long and and uh convoluted story making it short is they are now building
28:56
a new second commercial airport um south of Las Vegas near the near the
29:01
California border. Um the the important piece here is that the process that led
29:07
up to the development of the new Iden Paw airport is really important. It’s important to understand how they got
29:13
where they got. Uh what those curves and bumps in the road were. Uh because
29:20
anytime a region looks to add new airport capacity, while everyone is
29:26
unique and every community is unique, there are certain similarities in terms of the kinds of issues they uh they
29:32
face. And so I look forward to having conversations later about about the battle scars we have from um from Ivan
29:39
Buff. Thank you, Peter. Uh, Steve.
29:45
Yes. Uh, thanks to Peter and I’ve been and you know, we should mention at the top here um I’ve supported Peter on the
29:52
Southern Nevada um airport initiative for some time and uh Mark and I and
29:58
Peter and Vicki um there’s a lot of bilateral connections where we’ve worked together on projects throughout the
30:04
country that require communications, law, policy, regulatory consulting, planning. So this team, one thing I
30:11
really like about it is it’s uh tried and true as a team and working together to solve problems for clients and um so
30:19
it’s a lot of fun for me to be back um sort of with the band again. Um San
30:25
Diego is a very interesting place. Um we think constraints and then we think San Diego. Uh San Diego International
30:31
Airport sits on 661 acres only. It sits three miles from
30:38
downtown San Diego and is penned in by water on two sides and uh by development
30:44
on the other side. Um as Peter noted, we looked uh at San Diego as well at
30:50
regional ways to meet future capac uh add future capacity to meet demand.
30:58
And we did so in a kind of unique way. We looked at all the secondary airports in San Diego County as well as adjacent
31:06
airports in other counties and believe it or not one across the border in Tijana uh Mexico where today there is a
31:14
crossber crossing from San Diego County into Tijana and you can actually access
31:20
a lot of flights from that city into uh central and Latin America and that’s a a
31:25
regularly used service by quite a few people who are going to those destin the nations and that was sort of signed off
31:31
on all those years ago in uh the system plan for San Diego. The other thing we
31:37
did look at uh which could have relevance here was California highspeed rail and the possibility that you could
31:44
divert up to uh 20% of California air traffic to rail uh serving both Los
31:52
Angeles and San Francisco. Now this was about 15 years ago. So some of the
31:58
aggressive plans to bring phase two of highspeed rail to San Diego have not materialized. But we did look at ways
32:05
that demand could be met by rail. And uh Steer, my firm has also looked um at um
32:13
and projected rail in Cascadia um some uh east west rail um in
32:20
Washington. And so we’ve been involved in pretty much every initiative there as well. So bringing that multimodal focus
32:26
to ways of addressing future demand, I think San Diego does offer some options.
32:32
Mark, that’s great. Thank you, Steve. So just wanted to highlight some certainly in
32:38
the in the future or other times we can we can dive into some of those in more detail if uh you know there’s some
32:43
things you want to learn more about what what was studied there.
32:49
Were you gonna talk about New England? Uh I I did a little bit. Um so really
32:55
what it came down to is um you know New England unique right there was 11 commercial service airports uh six state
33:01
aviation directors all working together uh kind of cooperatively cooperatively
33:07
to understand uh some of the the challenges and issues there. Um Boston
33:12
uh at the time uh was very regional jet heavy and was kind of busting at the
33:17
seams. uh you know, some of the some things have changed there. Uh but a lot of the work of the the regional system
33:24
plan ultimately uh supported a runway extension uh down in Providence to allow them to to do West Coast service that
33:30
you used to have to go to uh Boston prior to them having that capacity. Uh some improvements up in Manchester
33:37
Boston Regional Airport. Uh and then probably some that you know maybe didn’t work as well uh with regard to Worcester
33:44
uh Regional Airport. uh a lot of folks thought that was the the panacea for the system uh in Boston and you know that
33:52
the access to that airport just continues to be uh challenging. So I think Logan had tried to do some you
33:57
know air service incentives for airlines that were serving Logan uh to also serve Worcester. Uh some of those have met
34:03
with mediocre if not you know mediocre success or or really haven’t worked. Um
34:09
so you know those are things that were learned as we as we went through that system. Uh and then you know there’s
34:15
other examples out there too. The Port Authority has been trying to do a lot with Steuart airport to give the New York City uh system uh some relief uh
34:22
that has uh that has stumbled over the years. They just haven’t been able to figure that out as well. So, um, so
34:28
hopefully, you know, those are a lot of different things and experiences. Uh, and you know, there there’s more here,
34:34
but certainly just, you know, wanted to give you some highlights of of, you know, some things that maybe this team
34:39
can bring to you in in the conversation that you had. That helpful?
34:44
Thank you. Okay. I have a quick question. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but uh, is it Peter is
34:49
the legal the attorney? Sure. Peter, are you licensed in the state of Washington?
34:55
Yes, I am. Yeah. I began my practice in uh in Seattle in 1984.
35:01
Thank you. So, uh just continuing on uh the
35:09
management approach. Just wanted to give um an update on our contract status. So, we’re currently um finalizing the master
35:16
agreement uh with uh with DOT. Uh we hope to execute that here. I think we
35:22
got most if not everything in just going to be um close to finalizing that master
35:28
agreement. Uh it’s set up to be like an on call so we can do multiple task orders under that based on the direction
35:34
of uh of the work group. Uh and really you know part of us wanting to be here today even though we’re not under
35:40
contract is really start to listen even though I’ve been coming to the meetings right to understand uh the thought and
35:46
um the needs uh and ultimately the vision of the work group. Uh I think that’ll help get us going. Um we’re
35:52
we’re, you know, start developing those initial task orders. We imagine we we’re not going to be able to envision those all here between this and the next
35:59
meeting. Uh so there’ll be some that we start um and uh you know there’ll be
36:05
others uh in the future. Uh the legislative budget timing, you might be familiar with this if Ann hasn’t already
36:11
shared, but there’s some uh some things, right? There’s initial funding underway, but there’s some estimating that needs
36:17
to be done too, right? So, uh, this the chicken or the egg, right? Trying to figure out exactly what you want to look
36:23
at and study um will help us uh figure out the costs for some of that. Um, so
36:28
we might need to, you know, make some assumptions on on some of that with some of the initial
36:34
funding, but then also work with you to um get you what you need by the due
36:39
dates. So, I understand there’s something by the end of this year, but then it’s really mid mid year next year
36:44
uh to try to have some some updates on that.
36:51
So, you know, imagining that we we would have multiple task orders uh underway at
36:56
some point. Um we presented uh a management approach of how we would um
37:03
work with you and even categorize some of the work. Uh so this is just an initial thought at uh some of that.
37:09
Right? There’s going to be some program administration. Uh we were here yesterday with uh Christina and her team
37:14
to understand uh the setup of the meetings and how how some of that happens. Um as well as just the you know
37:21
overall administration of the task orders uh the education and past research right understanding the
37:27
baseline and getting everybody uh baseline. There’s there’ve been some other studies and other things going on.
37:32
Um but you know make sure the work group has um you know what they need to understand everything that’s been done
37:38
in the past um either by you know town regional council the the the CAC or the
37:44
airports themselves right we don’t want to repeat anything so I think understanding and baselining some of
37:49
that will be important um think there’ll be some new research and technical studies that you may want to look into
37:56
uh as well uh communications and engagement I think is going to be important uh what’s the story the work
38:02
group needs to tell uh and how how do we build that and message that out um is you know that may be part of just the
38:08
annual report that’s required uh but we want to make sure we think through that and that’s where Stepherson will also
38:14
help with their communications knowledge and messaging uh and then legal and implementation. So there might be some
38:20
things we want to do and uh come up with or ideas you have uh as a workg group um but you know what are the hurdles to get
38:27
those done? How can they be implemented? or are there some legal things that would need to change or is it just understanding uh the cost of those
38:34
things as well? So that’s kind of just some of the initial uh thought on you know how we would categorize as we get
38:40
multiple things going on uh to kind of keep track of things but we’re certainly open to ideas on uh on how how we can
38:47
move that forward as well
38:53
within that just uh you know there probably some protocol stuff that we need to work out and I can work with the
38:58
chair to uh figure out the you know exact methods um you know who do we take
39:04
direction from right and I know understanding that right the chair and vice chair role for officially
39:10
identifying uh that process for for the task orders uh our contract is with Washington DOT so uh as it as it comes
39:18
from that aspect in the approval process uh we just want to do that um tasks I
39:24
you know as I mentioned they can be specific uh some open-ended for flexibility um like you know go study
39:31
this right here’s the scope and feed it’s clear here’s just you know we don’t really know what but you know want you
39:37
to come to meetings have some open-ended conversation type stuff um but but in the end you know all of those will
39:44
ultimately have a scope fee a schedule and an expected deliverable so you you’ll know what you can get and then I
39:50
mentioned with the first one um kind of the review and approval process so we want to minimize that right try not to
39:56
uh have that take a lot of time certainly be able to jump in and act quickly uh as you identify things you
40:03
you need support with. So now maybe for more of the the that
40:11
was kind of just the high level uh inputs wanted to um so Steve from steer
40:17
uh had put together some transport and aviation trends six trends that he he’s seeing and and our team sees that that
40:24
you know as we move through these studies as we move through supporting you takes takes a while right there can
40:32
be months and years and sometimes and there’s things and trends that change um you know just you you know, in the next
40:38
six months, things could could be different or there could be different policy that may may impact some things that we uh are looking at for you. So, I
40:46
thought we’d start by this and then we have some uh questions and things that we’ll talk through. So, Steve, if you’re
40:53
uh back on board, I’ll uh flip here for you.
40:58
Great. Great. Thank you, Mark. Um, you know, it’s it’s interesting anytime
41:03
you start a big and particularly a project that could be multi-year, it’s
41:08
important to think about what the trends are that you have in your industry, your challenges and especially in this last
41:16
year, the policy and regulatory environment that’s been changing. And
41:22
that environment offers, you know, benefits and constraints uh for this
41:27
project and every other one around the country. And so thinking about how um we
41:32
look at these changes and opportunities and constraints, I think is pretty
41:38
important. So there’s a lot of them, but I’ve really tried to boil them down into six. Uh one you’re very familiar with,
41:44
and that is the airport funding. uh traditional sources like the airport improvement program, passenger facility
41:51
charges and what we’ve had the last uh three four years which in ending in
41:57
fiscal year 2026 and that’s COVID relief. Um airports still face uh
42:03
limited financial capacity uh pressures obviously for airlines to be good partners and keep their uh user charges
42:11
low. So thinking about that and what the future of federal grants and support for
42:16
projects in Washington that could be applicable to this effort is important. A second is we have seen finally um
42:24
public private partnerships with transportation infrastructure unlocked uh the last decade in the United States.
42:32
We at steer we’re the number one global technical advisor on P3s. So we do quite
42:38
a bit on traffic and revenue forecasting and work on these. Uh we’ve worked uh at
42:44
uh John F. Kennedy airport and new terminal 1, which believe it or not is a $9.5 billion terminal project. Uh Peter
42:53
uh Kersh has worked at uh Paynefield uh which is another uh example of
42:59
alternative project delivery. So that could be part of the answer on this and other projects. Where you see some real
43:07
changes is in the next four of these uh climate and sustainability. You know, we
43:12
were in the Paris Accords, we were out of the Paris Accords, we got back in the Paris Accords, and we recently now are
43:19
out of the international framework to address um climate challenges. And what
43:25
we’ve actually seen in the United States is that many states, cities, regions, uh, they’ve continued or doubled down in
43:32
some cases on their efforts to support the International Civil Aviation Organization, which continues to have a
43:39
2050 net zero emissions goals for aviation. Um and we see this locally
43:47
even in Seattle where uh the mayor has been you know aggressive on climate and sustainability.
43:53
Multimodal intercity system planning is another one where this administration has pulled back a little bit and you
44:00
know there’s never been great connection between air rail projects in the United States as there are in airports in Paris
44:07
and Amsterdam and um Munich. Um, and it’s funny, I was thinking about this
44:13
before our call, but uh, I talked about this issue so many years ago with Sid Morrison, uh, the representative from
44:19
Washington, who later was the state DOT secretary, and we finally made several
44:24
years after he had passed some changes to the law that allow a better treatment of rail connecting into airports. So um
44:33
that is something we’ll look at for this not just inner city rail connectivity but also transit connectivity which can
44:40
also extend catchment areas and be part of the answer potentially in western Washington Cascadia.
44:47
Um equity and engagement. This is where there’s definitely been a pullback of federal programs and in fact some
44:53
outwite prohibitions on um equity and engagement programs. Um, the city of
45:00
Atlanta, for example, has declined to take AIP grants because they did not like the new grant conditions that were
45:07
imposed on them. So, it’s a it’s a bit of a different world with that. And, uh,
45:13
we see airport authorities and other transportation providers uh, making changes in that throughout the country.
45:20
And then lastly, I would just say international uncertainties. US tariffs and trade tensions as well as
45:28
uh some discussions about our Canadian friends north of the border have put a
45:33
lot of pressure on aviation particularly on inbound Canadian and European travel
45:39
which in some cases is down 20 to 25%. Um and it’s also caused issues with
45:45
supply chains for uh air cargo and actually for materials that go in to
45:51
build uh new terminals in the states and raising the costs on those. So keeping
45:56
an eye on those tariffs and trade, that’s both a demand question, how many
46:01
people are going to come here, but it also is a cost question. How much of the materials that we put in the
46:08
infrastructure to respond to that demand, how are those being affected? And so just keeping our hands on uh the
46:15
pulse of all these developments I think is important and it’s something that we can share uh throughout the project with
46:21
you Mark. Thank you Steve.
46:26
on a point that you made uh reminded me of our 2025 annual report which you
46:32
probably seen maybe saw but one concrete recommendation we made based on a presentation earlier this year to the
46:38
Washington state legislature was that the legislature uh
46:44
do what it can to influence sound transit with respect to the sighting of this Everett link extension terminal
46:51
near uh the Pfield passenger terminal. They’ve got three locations under consideration and only one of the three
46:59
is even remotely within walking distance of terminal. Um and we took the position
47:04
that we need to prioritize that multimodal link that is currently in the planning stages um to make sure that
47:11
that is uh as seamless as possible. Everybody knows that the further the terminal is from rail, the fewer people
47:19
will take rail, drives traffic, hurts climate. Um, doesn’t maximize the
47:25
multi-billion dollar investment in rail that we’re building anyway. Uh, so no,
47:30
point taken. And yeah, we I had I had seen that, but yeah, no, it’s important. And that’s the kind of stuff this group,
47:36
I think, can do, right, is is help say that that is a priority and should be a priority. So
47:42
similar to Evan’s point, uh we know that highspeed rail in Cascadia is in a very
47:48
early planning stages and one of my concerns is that uh Seaac
47:55
be included uh like they are in Europe, you know, as as Steve mentioned. I mean,
48:01
you can go to Frankfurt and Amsterdam and these uh cities and and go down the
48:07
escalator and catch a high-speed Braille train to anywhere in Europe. Why can’t we do that here? So, that’s
48:14
that’s my message. Sounds good. Can I just echo on that a little bit? Um, CATAC absolutely has to be on the
48:22
Cascadia line and PDX and YVR.
48:30
Yeah. Uh, yep. No, that sounds good. Thank you. And, uh, thank you, C, for for that. And
48:37
like I said, you know, it’s just some some trends, right? If some of you are probably aware of them, but certainly
48:42
just wanted to put that in, uh, in there for your thoughts this afternoon.
48:47
uh as you know when we were thinking as a team um our understanding of the workg
48:52
groupoup role obviously defined by legislation uh is important uh you know certainly
48:59
considering all the different modes uh that are going to come and and things that are happening as I mentioned earlier you know even the ad advanced
49:06
air mobility right there’s there’s not a certified aircraft yet but by the time we get done with this effort um
49:12
supporting this work group there might be right so uh there’s things that are evolving there uh that we want to be uh
49:18
cognizant of as well. Uh understand both there’s there’s short and long range considerations. So as we support you,
49:25
there might be some immediate things to kind of dive into that might help inform uh something like the the the rail
49:31
connection at Payfield. Uh but then there’s also long-term aspects of that. Uh some other things on the economic and
49:39
private market side, right? We we don’t drive all those decisions. a lot of uh the uh travel decisions and in the
49:45
companies uh and and uh at least on the air are and the air side airlines are
49:50
are privately held and make a lot of their own business decisions um based on agreements they have with airports and
49:56
other facilities. Uh transit and rail is a little different. It’s probably more quasi quasi private quasi government
50:02
type stuff as well. Uh but that that influences things in the marketplace and um and decisions uh that are that are
50:10
being made. uh and then ultimately kind of the where we fit in right that research to support um infrastructure
50:16
decisions or things that can help um your messages back to the legislature as well. So kind of see it as a kind of
50:23
that full full circle aspect um as we uh as we you know support you. So really
50:30
this is my last slide I think before kind of the open discussion and you know as we thought through uh some of the few
50:37
of these were in our interview and then I added a couple in the bottom. But you know as we ask some questions back to
50:44
you I would encourage you to think about uh about these questions and perhaps what your answers might be to them as
50:50
you talk through um this afternoon. But then also think about where where you
50:55
know the work group goes ultimately. Um so you know right just jumping in you
51:01
know both individual right you have representation uh your seat on the working group um brings you representing
51:08
a certain interest uh but then collectively as a work group uh as well.
51:13
um you know what what can we learn right some of you have been uh in in this region for a while have been even maybe
51:20
part of some of the past studies or other things going on what are the lessons learned there that we want to
51:26
extract and and kind of keep in front of us as we as we move forward um
51:32
uh like a lot of things the role of aviation in the future sound uh economy I think is a an important piece to
51:40
consider jobs and economic impact that come from uh travel uh whether that’s
51:45
air any any really transportation travel but I think that’s important to keep in mind as we move through and then really
51:53
looking to um get to a common strategic vision for the work group um but and I I
51:58
mentioned it when I started what’s that story uh the work group needs to tell uh the community and the the legislature
52:05
about um about how we can help improve the capacity of of aviation and transportation um in this region
52:15
That’s what we have. I can leave those questions up for now, but certainly open for discussion or
52:22
anything um that you want to talk about. Might not have answers, but I’ll certainly take some good notes and uh uh
52:28
we can go from there. All right. Well, thank you. And yes, please leave those uh questions up. Uh
52:36
so, I think that’s a good starting point. Does anyone want to uh
52:44
ask any questions or address the questions here? One of the things two two items number
52:49
one I think in what we want to tell the the people about what we’re doing we
52:56
have to make sure that they don’t think what we’re doing is looking for another site specifically
53:03
as you found out in the last goound. uh that didn’t go over really quite as
53:08
well as they had planned. Uh and so I people that’s the one question people
53:14
ask, you know, uh well, what site are you looking at? We’re not looking at a site right now. We’re looking at how to
53:20
better relieve some of the traffic at CTAC. And as the legislator who wrote
53:26
the bill talked on our last meeting, he he’s looking specifically he said this
53:32
and I think I can almost quote him that he’s looking for something that can help
53:39
relieve the problems at CEKC that we can do within the next five years. Uh he he
53:46
said rail is fine. He said rail will take longer probably to do than a new
53:51
airport. But also that uh they have he said the legislature has another group
53:58
looking at rail. Now we need to have our input to that but I don’t think that
54:03
should be our driving force especially since the person that wrote the bill
54:09
said it shouldn’t be. So those are my comments on it
54:16
and that’s great. Thank you. Because it’s nice to know, you know, what what hasn’t worked. And we certainly want to
54:21
make sure that we message and, you know, what we share and how we talk about the work that, you know, your group is doing
54:28
is that we uh, you know, kind of tee it off that its capacity and looking at the
54:34
overarching wrapping our arms around it rather than, you know, new site. So, I I
54:40
think that’s a really good point. So, thanks for bringing that up. Something that I just wanted to mention
54:45
is you know we talk about we’re trying to figure out how to meet the growth
54:50
right the demand which is coming right based on historical data right continues
54:56
to grow but I think rather than looking at it in terms of hey we got growth coming how do we accommodate it why we
55:02
can’t accommodate it and I think we have to remember that so that our region can stay competitive
55:07
we can have mobility and we can have connectivity otherwise what’s going to happen is that this region is going
55:13
fall behind very quickly. So, it’s all about the economic engine and creating
55:19
good good jobs for the region.
55:26
Yeah, I think so much of that just plays into, you know, the messaging and how we
55:32
approach the work because it isn’t just, you know, we’re not looking for a specific site, right? We’re looking at
55:37
how do we meet the growth? uh you know how do we look at capacity and utilize
55:44
all of the resources?
55:49
One of the things we need to do quite soon I think is have CEC tell us what
55:55
they think is going to what what their problems are where we might be able to do something to assist. uh if you read
56:02
the paper the other day, you uh you see that they made some good headlines uh or
56:08
have uh explained that the fact that the people are coming, we can’t tell them
56:13
not to come. And uh that’s that’s something that I don’t think a lot of people understand. People say uh you
56:20
have to limit how many can come. You can’t do that. uh in in San Diego that
56:27
uh Steve was talking about. One of the suggestions in that study that was done,
56:34
I’ll never forget, is they just wanted us if we would ban 737s.
56:39
Uh then they’d fly bigger airplanes and that would give us more capacities and to try to explain. So I think people the
56:46
public needs to understand what we can and can’t do and I don’t sometimes we don’t explain
56:52
that well enough. jump in. Okay, thank you. Um I I want to make a
56:59
couple of comments. One is I am so delighted to have this team working with us. Um uh these are recognized industry
57:10
professionals. Um the the kind of background that they gave us on the projects that they’ve worked on isn’t
57:17
just them bragging. Um they they uh all of these uh companies do have um
57:26
nationwide recognition as experts in the airport industry. So I’m excited to have
57:32
them working with us. Um, kind of echoing on what um, Ourus was just
57:38
saying, it’s important to me that engagement is a critical part of this
57:43
because um, no matter what recommendations this group ends up making, um, I feel like if I was, you
57:52
know, a member of a local city council or whatever and I got communication from
57:58
the governor’s office or from the legislature saying you will do this, I would be a little bit offended. So at
58:05
some point I want to make sure and reach out to the local communities and give them an opportunity to kind of do some
58:12
problem solving at the local level and uh say hey we want to be a part of this
58:17
economic vitality uh or not you know so I I want this to
58:22
be a bottom up approach not just top down. Yeah that’s great and I’m really happy
58:27
that you know you are pointing that out and that you’re all on board and in favor of that. I think, you know, that’s
58:34
uh can often be something that’s overlooked. You know, it’s just uh we get a lot of smart people in the room
58:40
and we just start talking down to people and saying this is what you’re doing. And I think you know the local region,
58:48
they want to um you know, the local businesses and communities and orgs and councils, they
58:56
want to be involved. They don’t know how to get involved and they don’t know what really, you know, their options are. Not
59:03
just to be involved, but do they actually get a say in, you know, what this is going to look like or um, you
59:11
know, what what we can what they can provide to us. And so I think you know part of what we’ll do is you know we’ll
59:17
have some we’ll work through what can they do what what can this group do and
59:22
how do we move you know this strategy forward and then who do we need to feed
59:28
into that strategy you know I think it gives really much more um credence and
59:36
oomph really to the final product when we can say that we have you know talked
59:41
to all of these groups and here are the problems here’s what they would like to see out of it and now how do we take that info
59:48
and move that forward into you know actual projects. Ben has his hand raised. Go ahead, Ben.
59:55
I just like to echo what Ann said. Uh I’m really excited about the experience
1:00:01
that we have uh of this group. Um, and I think it can really help the committee u
1:00:06
make a an informed clear uh recommendation or not a recommendation
1:00:12
at least uh shed light on some of the big questions that we have. I I I do want to follow up on something Eric said
1:00:19
because I think the why behind what we do is super relevant. I I would just add that one of the big questions that we
1:00:26
should help eliminate is what happens if capacity is not met and your experience
1:00:33
at best practices and implications around the country. uh would be really good particularly with regards to uh
1:00:41
airfares and the impact that might have on the community at large if we are not able to solve for the growth of demand
1:00:49
uh with the current infrastructure that we have today at SeaTac and Payfield.
1:00:58
That’s great. Thanks, Ben. Well, I would just say based on what Ann
1:01:03
has said and uh Orus that we ought to include Federal Way and Verian and the
1:01:12
others forgotten the third one that appeared in the Seattle Times yesterday that we already have a lawsuit going
1:01:18
about this. So I think and responded nicely to that. I think what he didn’t
1:01:25
say is he’s probably going to lead to slot control among other controls if we don’t meet
1:01:31
the capacity. Uh like Ben just mentioned.
1:01:37
Yeah, that uh don’t I wanted to let everybody else if anyone else had
1:01:43
comments. I have a specific fact question raised by comments here and then also some of your presentation. But
1:01:49
uh Mr. Ren, I’ll I’ll jump in. Well, welcome aboard. Glad to have you on the team. I think it’s important. I think
1:01:55
that a lot of us around here on on the committee. We’ve been meeting for a year kind of getting a feel of how we work
1:02:02
together. Kind of getting, you know, our legs, our sea legs under us and uh welcome aboard. We need, you know, your
1:02:09
team. We need you. I think that we have some vacancies and I think once we start spooling up the work that we’re doing
1:02:15
with you, those vacancies will generate some interest and be filled. Um I I am
1:02:22
too like what Ben said what happens what when when will capacity I mean I go
1:02:28
through that airport all the time and that terminal is full you walk up and
1:02:33
down that aisle you have to like you know manage your way around around people’s terminals full we are we at are
1:02:40
we reaching capacity from a terminal perspective we reaching a capacity from approach and departure capacity I kind
1:02:47
of would like to know uh I’d like a nice feel of when that capacity is going to
1:02:53
be met. I also, you know, that’s that’s operational stuff. I I’ I’d like some
1:02:58
assistance or I think we need some assistance as a team here or as a committee. You know, what is our goal? I
1:03:05
mean, what is our what’s our flight plan? I mean, I know where we are right now. I don’t know what our destination
1:03:11
is. I mean, I know we want to solve the capacity issue and I know we want to have these issues, but as committee,
1:03:17
you know, what what’s our process to get from here to there. Um, and I think
1:03:23
we’re all kind of looking for a little bit, at least I’m looking for a little bit more of that. And I think probably
1:03:28
you are too. You know, you were selected, but you know, where where we know where we are, where are we going? I
1:03:34
mean, this project is uh it’s, you know, it’s kind of like a wildfire like like a
1:03:39
um from a political perspective. There’s going to be issues. People are going to know have have a problem with that. If
1:03:45
you’re somebody that thinks there’s going to be a airport built in your backyard, it’s another wildfire. You
1:03:51
know, uh all the elected officials, I mean, you know, most normal people, you
1:03:56
know, kind of would, you know, run from wildfire. slow Henry Ford, you know, if he captured the fire, if he put it in in
1:04:02
an engine, put in a horse that carried and taught us how to drive, right? So, we hope that you and this team can kind
1:04:09
of focus on where we where we where we’re going to go, how we’re going to get there. That’s
1:04:14
that’s all I have. Thank you. I know that’s great. I appreciate that. And yeah, I think it’s that collective, right? There’s a lot of smart people and
1:04:20
minds from the region and representatives and then, you know, combining that with, you know, the things that we know, right? and and try
1:04:27
to try to merge those two to to get on a on a good path for the group.
1:04:32
So my my observation leading to question. So one of my I guess common
1:04:41
strategic vision or uh is that um while this is we recognize
1:04:47
this a long-term project um there’s also I think a popular perception that uh the
1:04:53
government at large can’t do anything timely or or um effective um and we need
1:04:59
to fight that. we need to look, you know, we need to do our outreach because
1:05:04
there’s some tension between the public demand for outreach and process and the public demand for the government to do things quickly and they’re always almost
1:05:11
in direct tension. Um, and so we need to balance those two those twin impulses.
1:05:19
Um, there’ll be some people saying we need more process. Sometimes that’s a cover for we don’t want anything to
1:05:25
happen at all. um and other people saying, you know, well, we need to make sure everybody’s, you know, opinions and
1:05:32
are taken account, which is true to a point. Um
1:05:38
the uh my specific question though, it’s been
1:05:43
brought up um that there’s there’s capacity out there. There’s a limited uh
1:05:49
ability to to demand that people take advantage of that capacity. So when you
1:05:55
looked at San Diego and Boston and the regional planning and the sort of alternate airports like Providence and
1:06:01
Manchester and the Tijuana crossber connection and Alamar you know San Diego
1:06:07
um what was what’s the role of marketing outreach and public outreach to kind of
1:06:14
driving demand shift to those alternate airports because you’re talking about a solution in the next five years.
1:06:20
Payfield has a plan and CATAC is underway, but if we’re talking about driving demand elsewhere to see out of
1:06:26
SeaTac um Panefield and to a much lesser
1:06:31
degree, Bellingham um have commercial service now um and need people to take
1:06:37
it. So, how how did that work in San Diego, Boston? Yeah, I’ll speak to New England if Steve
1:06:44
should still be on and when I’m done he can chime in on San Diego. Um New England was interesting. uh we had a
1:06:50
term during the project called competitive cooperation, right? Because none of those um those 11 commercial
1:06:56
server airports, I think there was 11 different entities that operated them or agencies that operated them. So um so
1:07:03
they were all different, right? But they were all realizing and understanding the need um to support each other in a way
1:07:08
that didn’t really um change their business model
1:07:14
significantly. Right? So um but part part of that by doing that by highlighting some of the things that
1:07:21
were were needed or some of the constraints at Logan at the time uh was mainly on the air side. So uh that
1:07:28
actually I think helped um there were some congressional briefings um but there were also briefings to airlines uh
1:07:34
that were part of that as well and I think that helped make some decisions about where they were going to put some service into. Right. not a direct uh
1:07:42
control uh but certainly said hey there is capacity uh in Providence there is capacity in Manchester and by the way
1:07:49
that that capacity is going to change once the runway extension uh gets done so so it’s that messaging about the even
1:07:56
just getting back to the why of some of that right so they’re not quick um but
1:08:01
there are things that um can happen throughout the course of that though
1:08:06
there’s things that changed as well right there was a heavy regional jet use at Logan airport at the time. Uh, and as
1:08:12
airlines started upging some aircraft, uh, that changed some things, right? You can drop more passengers into Logan with
1:08:18
this the same operation, uh, with a little bit of a bigger aircraft. That doesn’t always work based on the markets
1:08:24
that are being served. Um, and you know, that that’s that private market and airlines making decisions based on what
1:08:30
works and what they’re seeing for the demand on their model. But there there are other ways that that can u change
1:08:36
some things and dynamics of capacity, right? there’s capacity of airspace, capacity of the airfield, um capacity of
1:08:44
a terminal building, capacity of your landside. They’re not always connected. Uh it, you know, they’re they’re kind of
1:08:50
their own entities and own things at at the same time. So, understanding that can be very complex because you can move
1:08:56
move one piece of the chess um puzzle, right? And then it changes one thing, but then might might cause you a
1:09:02
challenge on on something else. So there’s a lot of dynamics there, but a lot of it was in under just
1:09:08
understanding the the capacity and um uh that those airports were experiencing at
1:09:14
the time and then what some of the other options were that could help do that. So I don’t if that gets uh completely
1:09:20
answering your question um but that was the essence of it and then uh that provided a lot of the funding uh and
1:09:26
prioritization of the funding. Um, I think that was when we were still we’re doing some ear marks back then, but even
1:09:33
congressional earmarks to help get these projects funded quicker uh and and fully funded quicker versus just relying on uh
1:09:39
that and now we’re even seeing, you know, potential uh triple P type opportunities as well. So, Steve, uh I
1:09:47
think you might still be on, but do you have any more further insight in San Diego? Well, I think the question’s a
1:09:53
great one because as well as a couple of the comments about engagement because I think the principal thing we have to do
1:09:59
is tell the story and you have to tell the story from the beginning, not the the middle chapter. So, for example, if
1:10:06
somebody brings up slots, um slots can only be understood by the public if we
1:10:11
baseline what future demand is against available capacity at all the airports
1:10:17
uh in Washington and obviously with a particular focus on western Washington
1:10:22
and what what is to come in terms of capacity to meet that demand. What is the cost of not meeting um capacity? Uh,
1:10:32
and we did that very well, I think, in San Diego and the public was brought along a bit because we looked at all the
1:10:39
county’s airports. Um, we looked at the alternatives to adding capacity. Um,
1:10:45
Mark, just like Boston, um, the thing that saved Seattle, the the, uh, San
1:10:50
Diego the most was today there’s about 155 passengers per operation um, in San
1:10:57
Diego, which is well up from what it was. So what’s happened all across the West Coast including Seattle, the
1:11:04
runways have become a lot more efficient, delivering more passengers per operation. And in effect, what
1:11:09
that’s done is bought some time. At the same time, as you’ve done that, that’s required that terminal hold rooms,
1:11:16
checkpoints, concessions, bathrooms, everything be expanded, recognizing that
1:11:21
everybody’s coming at the same time now through the same checkpoint, sitting in the same holdroom, and that’s required
1:11:27
changes there as well. Um I think uh certainly in San Diego the airlines were
1:11:34
an absolutely critical component. Um they understood this. They shifted their
1:11:39
operations to larger domestic narrow body jets for the most part and that was
1:11:44
very helpful in terms of meeting that future demand. So the lesson learned to
1:11:49
me for this initiative is to start with that baseline right demand capacity
1:11:55
where it’s available what’s projected how it can be met what are the costs of
1:12:00
meeting of not meeting unmet capacity from an economic standpoint and that
1:12:06
really helps with the story board for the public.
1:12:13
Thanks Steve. I I’ll just add one thing too back on New England. Uh part of the one of the themes besides competitive
1:12:18
cooperation was uh helping New England be New England. So part of what the study did is uh looked at um the
1:12:24
industries in New England that had a propensity for travel uh like healthcare, like education, uh and some
1:12:31
of the the kind of the the businesses if you will uh that were using that. We
1:12:37
actually split uh travel into four categories. It was business travel. um
1:12:42
you’re you live in Boston, you’re going somewhere else for business or or you live somewhere else and you’re coming to
1:12:48
Boston for travel. Um in the leisure market, it was I live in Boston, I’m going somewhere else uh for recreation
1:12:55
or I live somewhere else and I want to come to Boston. And really, you can break down most travel, if not all
1:13:01
travel, into one of those four categories. and then understanding why
1:13:06
uh they were traveling um and the importance of having Boston available to them was a key aspect of a lot of what
1:13:13
that that study did and helped to inform a lot of the why uh it’s important.
1:13:19
So I think just you know um something you brought up is you know how do we
1:13:25
look at you know how do we get the public involved right there market drivers for the public to get involved and you know kind of upcoming bottoms up
1:13:32
start steering where we things we can look at you know whether it’s cost um
1:13:37
you know whether it’s availability of flights you know you mentioned uh you know paying fields as you know taking
1:13:44
some of the capacity so what are some of the things you know and this will this group will still help sus those out. You
1:13:51
know, what are some of the things? Is it, you know, a bunch of flights to Hawaii? I have two
1:13:58
people are going to Hawaii in the next month. So, is it, you know, additional capacity and operational needs that are
1:14:04
being met? You know, what are the drivers? What would make people want to go to Payfield? Is it free parking? Is
1:14:10
it, you know, a cylinder pass? Whatever it is, is it something that, you know,
1:14:15
we can start driving? And then this group can start looking at operationally of like oh well this is you know this
1:14:22
makes this even better and it starts to alleviate. So there’s a lot of research, but I think a lot of it comes from
1:14:27
really understanding, you know, we say stakeholders or people at the table, but it really comes from understanding, you
1:14:33
know, what the market drivers are for the public to be willing to, you know,
1:14:39
at this point they’re so used to going to SeaTac to go out of their way to go to Everett,
1:14:44
you know, I mean, what’s what’s in it for me to go to Everett? Yeah. I I think it’s important to also point out that you know although it was
1:14:51
from this area that there’s a huge catchment area for embry but a lot of people won’t necessarily be getting out
1:14:56
of the way. It’s just that they don’t have the frequency they don’t have the routes right now etc. There is a
1:15:02
significant anything north of like BT for example will be a potential great
1:15:08
area to go to avoid traffic to SNA right so there is a significant population
1:15:13
that would use it if if they have access to I mean if it drops or that Y
1:15:19
I appreciate what you said it’s either I mean right now we we either have the the carrot method the stick method or I
1:15:26
guess what I call the grease method where we make it easier to get where you want to go and that’s I mean, I think
1:15:32
having you folks on board here, we can we can talk about those and maybe there’s another another method that I
1:15:37
haven’t even thought of yet. But I I I feel like part of the reason we’re on this board is, you know, we are being
1:15:43
somebody who’s a port employee. I think probably this comes to us naturally is that we’re we have a state full of
1:15:51
they’re not our constituents, but they’re somebody’s constituents and they they they want it to work. I mean, we
1:15:56
want it to work. Uh, and I think we need to, you know, out of respect for them, I think that’s what that’s what the, you
1:16:02
know, we’re talking about the main where we’re trying to get to. I appreciate the way you said that, Charlie, is that how
1:16:08
do we how do we get there for their sake, you know? I’m
1:16:14
I mean, I’m most of us here sit at these tables, we’ll find a way to get there, and that’s not a problem. But for uh
1:16:21
everybody in the state to be able to to get there, you know, I think is a has
1:16:27
got to be one of the corees to why we do this or this is going to be another I hate to say this, but another throwaway
1:16:33
committee. I don’t want to be that guy. So, appreciate your help on that.
1:16:38
We’re going to try our best. Right. Um nice to meet you all. Thank you for
1:16:44
being here and I look forward to working with you all. Um I did have a question on the equity piece sort of pulling back
1:16:51
on some of it. Washington state and this committee in particular has worked some on the heel act. Um I know the
1:16:56
environmental justice uh committee has worked a lot at the wash out as a part of. So I really want to make sure that
1:17:03
not only CATAC but that we’re looking at the full state. So that’s our regional airports that are in a lot of times in
1:17:10
overburdened communities or smaller rural communities that we’re looking at that as a full spectrum. Workforce
1:17:17
development is something as well. So when we’re doing engagement, it’s not just the cities, it’s also the people
1:17:22
that live within those cities because a lot of the times uh that’s majority of the people that work at your airports.
1:17:29
I’d appreciate that. Great. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. that’s been, you know, as a public
1:17:35
outreach uh person, it’s uh it’s been it’s been a new some new rules have been
1:17:41
thrown out and so you know, navigating those um I’m glad that you know that that’s a a focus of this group and that
1:17:49
you know it’s elemental to success and it really is I mean right we all know that that’s you know once you get
1:17:55
everybody at least you know understanding the same uh reality and
1:18:01
you know that this is benefiting everybody. It’s an economic engine. All of these good things that this group is
1:18:07
going to be uh you know, proposing and looking at um you know, we can’t leave
1:18:12
people behind. So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
1:18:18
Another You can’t shut me up. No, I want you to go. You being so
1:18:24
polite raising your hand over there. It’s I’m like go.
1:18:29
important element to me and it’s in the legislation but I think it’s also a part
1:18:34
of trying to solve this problem is uh taking a multimodal approach and that’s
1:18:42
going to be a little bit of a challenge because DOS from US DOT all the way on
1:18:48
down aren’t accustomed to doing true multimodal planning that multimodal
1:18:54
planning usually means uh transit and rail and highways. Um but
1:19:01
including aviation, I think that’s going to be an important part. And um just now
1:19:06
there was a little bit of a discussion about um people using Payfield and uh
1:19:11
the demand at Payfield, but um there’s a lot of people in the South Sound area
1:19:19
that drive to PDX and that’s not because of SeaTac. It’s because of I5. And so
1:19:27
that’s part of I think the whole universe of what we need to understand and figure out you know maybe maybe we
1:19:34
can um deal with the aviation demand and deal with highway congestion at the same
1:19:40
time. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Yeah, that’s a great that’s a great point for sure.
1:19:51
one of the uh one of the tensions in the idea of you know we should solve our
1:19:56
problems by building a you know Greenfield airport in the middle of nowhere. Um back to your point that uh
1:20:05
the people who work it tends to drive car dependent suburban sprawl and
1:20:10
uh is creates long commutes for relatively low wage workers who work at
1:20:17
airports and that’s just two of the many
1:20:22
drawbacks of that solution. I similarly I I keep it pops up online. I saw it pop
1:20:28
up again yesterday. bridge. Uh why don’t we have a big new international airport
1:20:34
in Moses Lake? Um and you know a lot of reasons a lot of reasons why that’s not the you
1:20:41
know that solution keeps getting brought up and then keeps not moving forward because um you know
1:20:47
yeah we definitely have our part to play but that but that’s that’s just not our Yeah. Um the uh
1:20:59
I forgot I was gonna say about can I can I jump in on that just for a second? It’s like you know it’s one of the gentlemen said about telling the
1:21:05
story that’s part of it. I mean you know all right yeah Moses Moses Lakes got the
1:21:11
got the infrastructure from a a concrete and runway and taxiway system but we
1:21:18
don’t have population and oh to get there I have to drive over the mountains. Okay, that’s okay in the summer, but in the winter, I don’t want
1:21:25
to do it. I mean, you know, if I’m old, I don’t want to do that, but uh uh and then, you know, we talk about I5. Well,
1:21:33
will I go to Portland or will I go to CEK? Well, if I can save $20 on a ticket out of Portland, you know, I’m going to
1:21:40
take my my my wife and my three kids to Portland and we’re going to go out of Portland. So, there’s, you know, the economic aspect of that as well. Um
1:21:46
there’s there’s a lot of lot of issues to bring up, but just to focus on your story, you know, a very it’s a very hard
1:21:54
cell for me to turn a a high desert airport in in the state
1:22:01
of Washington into, you know, something to take over. I mean, it’s on the it’s
1:22:08
on this side of the Cascades in my in my opinion. I I remember what I was going to say
1:22:13
about uh rail in the shorter term than the Cascadia Ultra highspeed rail that’s out there, which is the states already
1:22:21
could Amtrak Cascades is primarily washed up funded. Um they’re adding
1:22:27
trips between Seattle and Portland. That obviously picks up uh a certain amount of direct Seattle Portland travel. Um
1:22:35
but one thing I that I think is really under um
1:22:41
I mean almost completely um unadressed ability of Amtrak Cascades is to take a
1:22:46
passenger who’s in Olympia and get them to uh Portland airport. Um now transit
1:22:53
nerds like myself might on their own take Amtrak to Portland Max and out to
1:22:59
the airport do that kind of thing. Um but actually making that easier, seamless,
1:23:05
um marketing it to people as a reasonable option. Yes. Or similarly, Cascades North to the
1:23:12
Tuckila station, which right now you would have to get an Uber or Lift on your own to get from Tuckila to SeaTac, which is only about four miles.
1:23:19
Um but it’s one more step. It’s one more step or hurdle, but it is something that could be implemented soon at a
1:23:26
relatively low cost as opposed to the multi-billion dollar decadesl long project to build a
1:23:32
highspeed rail line from Vancouver to Portland. Great first step as part of a bigger plan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and you’re seeing some
1:23:38
creativity. I know American Airlines out on the east coast out of Philadelphia is doing some things with the bus. Um I’m
1:23:44
not sure I don’t I don’t have a lot of detail. I’m not really involved in it. Um but it’s actually part of their
1:23:50
ticketing system and you’re uh and the whole security process of of buying through air travel, right? Uh so so you
1:23:57
know depending on where you are, right? There are some creative solutions that are happening uh that you know it might
1:24:02
look different um obviously would look different here but but those are things that might be able to happen right as as
1:24:08
we further the conversations and look into some things a little bit different. For those not familiar with that, you’re talking about where passengers can
1:24:16
purchase a ticket, but they go through security from a a regional airport somewhere and then a bus takes a secure
1:24:22
bus takes them straight to the aircraft. Correct. Yeah. Like Allentown, you can get on a bus, Atlantic City, and then they take
1:24:29
you to the secure side of Philadelphia airport and can continue the journey. can’t speak to the efficacy of the
1:24:36
customer experience when it comes to that kind of stuff and and that process, but um but it is, you know, um some some
1:24:44
things and solutions that are taking those operations off the off the airfield.
1:24:49
Los Angeles for years has had their own bus system that the airport runs from out in the valley to bring people to the
1:24:56
to the terminal and it is funded and run by the airport and and it’s it has
1:25:01
worked well. I mean, it’s been there for 354 years. They do make a couple of
1:25:07
mistakes kind of dealing with they want a new airport in the high desert uh international airport. They bought
1:25:13
25,000 acres at Palmdale and now they grow Wy and pistachios on that. Uh
1:25:21
and on and Ontario is going and Ontario’s going great. the minute they took it away from LA, which LA was
1:25:29
just using that as a dumping ground for people that they didn’t want to have work in LA. And it it was a real problem
1:25:38
uh as it progressed. It’s it’s probably the fastest growing airport on the on
1:25:43
the West Coast right now. You talk about Ontario International. Yeah.
1:25:48
And not the Kistachio Farm. Yeah. Um yeah though the bus and actually
1:25:55
might be an excellent question for Ben who’s online who’s our Alaska Airlines representative is that um you know
1:26:03
whether they’ve considered the remote bus terminal in a place like Olympia um
1:26:09
and then you know where they could take the get on a bus clear security drive up
1:26:14
I5 go through the gate and be inside security at CATAC u
1:26:20
yeah and I’m not saying the bus is the the exact uh solution, but you know, if that’s something with rail, right? Maybe
1:26:26
the getting the rail to have a connected ticket. Um there there’s things that can
1:26:31
be uh explored there um as well. Steve, did you were you going to chime in? I
1:26:37
saw you come on the camera. Thank you. Yeah, I don’t disagree with anything that’s been said so far. I
1:26:42
would hope that in addition to these things like equity and multimodality uh we would also consider energy uh
1:26:49
generation remote on-site transmission implications of various types of energy
1:26:55
uh it’s a current topic also travel demand management the wash oversees a a
1:27:02
similar committee that Carrie Willard chairs that is involved with with uh addressing the demand side of of the
1:27:09
equation and then also possibly any lessons that we can learn in the
1:27:14
preparations that are being made for the World Cup.
1:27:20
Great. Thank you. I would just add I I uh the multimodal
1:27:25
option especially when it comes to uh busing is something I would I would ask
1:27:31
um the consulting group to consider. Uh it’s something that I’m very familiar with. It’s it’s an interesting concept,
1:27:37
something that we have looked at. We have not uh gone down that path yet at Alaska. Um that but that product uh
1:27:44
which is available to folks in the Northeast uh and in the uh the Dallas
1:27:49
area if I recall correctly through landline uh is a really interesting one that would relieve um some capacity when
1:27:57
it comes to security checkpoints, lobby uh parking at places like SeaTac or even
1:28:03
Panefield. saw uh Maria Badola’s got her hand up.
1:28:09
Um sort of our uh I guess must have joined. Uh Maria, you can you unmute yourself?
1:28:17
Um yes, thank you chair. Um I uh really appreciate listening to and catching up
1:28:23
on this conversation. It would be fantastic too if the consultant will uh
1:28:28
in addition to equity and multimodality and management and so forth really
1:28:33
include um health, environment and climate impacts um as uh just for an
1:28:40
information point. Um, the 2025 King County Strategic Climate Action
1:28:46
Plan has um identified aviation greenhouse gas emissions as at 16% of
1:28:54
all greenhouse gas emissions in King County. Um, CATAC uh is part of that
1:29:00
data set. They’re at 13% of all greenhouse gases. So we need our
1:29:06
consultant to to also have this larger view so it aligns with other initiatives at the state level for health.
1:29:13
Thank you sir. And in the block after lunch, um this
1:29:20
the uh legisl the legislative text that we’ve been given specifically calls out like supply of sustainable aviation
1:29:27
fuels to any you know airport that uh is considered was kind of part of this
1:29:32
project for expansion or for construction. U and and we’ve already talked about advanced air mobility which
1:29:39
is you know electric planes. uh bill. Chair, I also wanted to chime in the
1:29:45
with regards to the uh sustainable aviation fuel. The King County 2025
1:29:52
strategic climate action plan in the accounting section identified that the
1:29:58
the accounting for greenhouse gas for SAF would be for full cycle. So just
1:30:04
wanted to you know put that on the table so we’re aligning with local jurisdictions also.
1:30:10
Thank you. What you mean by that full cycle meaning including production of the fuel and then burning of
1:30:15
transportation distribution the full life cycle because it’s all contributes to the greenhouse gases.
1:30:22
Yeah. If it’s far farther away from where it’s produced, you’re kind of depleting the
1:30:28
benefits of of that by just transporting it to where it needs to go. Right. So those aspects of it understand your
1:30:36
point. Thank you, sir.
1:30:46
Anyone else have um I I have another specific question I can
1:30:52
ask. I talk a lot. Um my wife tells me too. Um
1:31:00
so in San Diego um were you able like how successful has it been to drive
1:31:07
with with marketing demand management to the cross border? How many how many people who would otherwise have flown
1:31:14
out of San Diego airport or now taking crossber connection or flying out of Palomar or somewhere else Ontario?
1:31:20
I I can answer that. I just had the meeting down there two weeks ago and that was part of the presentation. I
1:31:26
can’t remember exactly but there’s like thousands of people are now doing it. I mean it really has been a very b Steve
1:31:34
may know the actual number but it has been very beneficial and as I said it
1:31:39
was one of the things that Steve was mentioning that we looked at to to support that and certainly the airport
1:31:46
we just had our advisory committee meeting and it’s still very high on the list of being supported by the airport.
1:31:53
The the other one that came out at that meeting was some service north of uh San
1:31:58
Diego by uh Palomar airport. It it’s had jumps and starts of some commercial
1:32:05
service, but very little that’s worked. I mean, there’s some there now, but compared with what’s going into Mexico,
1:32:11
uh I would say there’s thousands of people uh going through the Mexico walk because you can go drive, park in a
1:32:18
parking lot in the US, walk across the bridge uh and you’re on the airplane.
1:32:26
Yeah. I mean, the beautiful thing in San Die with San Diego and the Tijana connection was it was really additive.
1:32:33
Um, Aaris, who’s the Mexican carrier that then flies to lots of destinations in Central and Latin America, really
1:32:40
didn’t need the airport itself to market, but they could market to their customers that they had a new convenient
1:32:46
alternative. And that’s the thing when you design seamless integrated infrastructure,
1:32:52
um, you build it and they will come. If you build uh connections that don’t
1:32:58
seamlessly connect, that are a pain, that requires a transportation nerd to put together two or three different
1:33:04
schedules in order to take it, you’re going to have less than 1% of people who take that service. So, um I think the
1:33:12
key thing is uh understanding what you’re trying to do. I I think the the points earlier made about Everett and um
1:33:20
uh the Everett line and transit are uh well taken and uh if you’ve ever taken
1:33:25
the um uh try to Portland airport and how close it goes uh to the terminal you
1:33:32
understand the value of convenience and seamlessness. So Orus, I will uh I’ll track down the
1:33:39
exact numbers, but uh uh in a way it’s more about how many people from San
1:33:44
Diego get on Aaris than it would be about how many people from San Diego were diverted because they don’t even
1:33:50
offer uh air services of the type that they do from Tijana. So uh it’s a good
1:33:56
question and and they’re very happy that they don’t have to offer that. Yes. because they they just the only
1:34:03
international service that they have out of there right now is basically Alaska Airlines to the resort places in Mexico.
1:34:10
And if they would have to add Polaris, it would be have to increase the size of
1:34:15
their international facilities. They’d have to have more capacity as far as gates. Now they have the new terminal,
1:34:21
but they pretty much all taken up by Southwest the new terminal. So, is
1:34:26
Alaska the only carrier operating out of Tijana? US carrier operating out of Tijana?
1:34:32
No, Alaska doesn’t operate out of Tijana. Okay. Are there any US carriers operating? I don’t I don’t believe so.
1:34:39
So, I couldn’t fly from Tijana to Seattle, for example. No. But you could fly to San Diego to
1:34:44
Seattle and the and the Tijana is only about 10
1:34:50
miles difference. So it’s basically there’s very very limited San Diego Mexico service um
1:34:58
except the major hub airports and the and the resorts. Resorts. Yeah. And Tijuana for all the uh
1:35:06
Lars flies to cities throughout Mexico from Tijana. Uh hard to hard to
1:35:13
analogize that to our situation here. But
1:35:19
yeah, but I I think what they’re they’re kind of showing you is that if you know you can you can park somewhere and easily
1:35:26
get to alternate airport besides the the the San Diego. Actually, that’s the question I wanted to ask is like I’m not
1:35:33
familiar with that. So I heard you say I could park on the US side. Yes. I get on walk across the bridge and then
1:35:40
what happens? You buy your ticket. You You’re a checkpoint on the US side. Buy your ticket. You walk across. You’re in
1:35:47
the terminal. You get on an airplane. So Oh, the airport’s right across the American bridge. Across the bridge.
1:35:52
Okay. All right. Then you’re in the airport terminal. You’re in the You’re in the terminal. Okay. But but if I understand correctly, none
1:35:57
of those flights go to the US. No, they just go to Mex Mexico and Central America.
1:36:03
But I think what Ris is saying, it saves the San Diego area to invest in international facilities. You go into
1:36:10
Mexico and it is domestic. So it was in Mexico and then international to other parts of South America. But the US side
1:36:17
says having to invest in international side. Yeah. Because you can walk across the bridge. It would be like if Seattle didn’t have
1:36:22
flights to Canada because uh Vancouver airport was on the border and you could drive and then like walk and then fly
1:36:29
from Vancouver. So it’s I was saying it wasn’t it wasn’t a neat analogy. It’s because of the geography of it. fact
1:36:35
that Tij airport has always been physically on the border that allowed
1:36:41
the crossber project to work well and meet that demand. Um
1:36:49
yeah, and these won’t always be perfect fits, right? But they’re just examples of solutions and and others that might
1:36:55
spur a way to kind of do something here that that might fit, right? or a combination of a couple different
1:37:02
obviously it’s it’s been I think that opened 10 or 15 years ago and you’ve been you’ve had all that time to build up
1:37:07
you know knowledge in both Mexico and San Diego that hey if you’re going to the San Diego area this is how you do it
1:37:13
there’s marketing in it for sure right yeah it’s not just infrastructure
1:37:18
it it is a lesson though I would just say too that San Diego was foresightful enough to realize as Orus indicated that
1:37:26
they could maximize that they would rather have capacity for other purposes
1:37:31
than serving all that traffic potentially to on Aaris. Um a lot of
1:37:37
airports would have viewed each other as a competitor and said San Diego County don’t play ball on this. Don’t put in
1:37:42
the crossber connection. We want to have the monopoly on flights there. And so I
1:37:47
think it’s an important lesson because in the future thinking about capacity in
1:37:53
the state of Washington, it might be that the airports decide as capacity is limited what type of capacity they want
1:38:00
to serve. Do you want to serve uh 12 frequencies a day to a relatively short
1:38:06
hall market that could potentially be served by rail or do you want to ser reserve your capacity for longhaul and
1:38:13
international and um markets that uh you really want access to? So thinking about
1:38:20
it strategically like that I think is pretty important.
1:38:26
And Steve, thanks for bringing that up. And I, you know, I mentioned before that I want to make sure and give communities
1:38:33
the choice of what kind of service they want. So that um but we’ve got to include airlines in the
1:38:41
in that conversation, too. Um Ben, Alaska has recently said that CEC is
1:38:48
their international hub now and they’re doing a lot of growth out of that. So if that’s the choice, if that’s the way
1:38:54
CTAC’s going to be used, then uh maybe it makes sense to look at other airports for the domestic service.
1:39:02
Yeah. And and Steve, I think, you know, we the approach we’ve taken here in Western Washington is a system approach,
1:39:08
right? So yeah, we’re having great discussions with our peers at other airports and we we we’re taking the
1:39:14
approach and and and I think the the FIFA World Cup was a great example of that in terms of how do we work together
1:39:20
as a system to address a a challenge, right? So hosting a big event, the World
1:39:27
Cup in a city can be challenging and then we’re working on the system to try and accommodate the flights and so on.
1:39:33
So and and that doesn’t need to stop at that, right? It can be in terms of addressing the capacity issue for the region multimodal. We got to look at
1:39:40
that too. It’s not just all aviation, but the airports themselves are committed to working together as opposed
1:39:45
to being competitive individual assets. I would I would I would agree with that
1:39:50
and I think uh Western Washington has has been somewhat unique in that way with the airports all working together
1:39:57
towards the common good. Steve, I do think though, just to your point, um there’s probably an education process
1:40:02
that’s going to uh be required here that, you know, ultimately the airlines
1:40:09
are the ones that determine which cities and the number of flights they choose to serve. We can’t create uh domestic and
1:40:16
international segmentation. It it it just doesn’t it doesn’t work that way. I think um how we create a
1:40:26
complete and operationally efficient system that might allow that is is really the fundamental question, not how
1:40:32
we uh force things in that frankly just can’t be forced for lots of reasons.
1:40:41
No, agree Benjamin. I I think the only point I would make is if um you had one more flight available with Alaska um and
1:40:49
you had a new international market that was uh a potential connection for you all. Uh you would want that to some
1:40:56
extent to be made based on um you know criteria that would return the most
1:41:02
value to your shareholders but also you know serve the community well. So um the
1:41:08
main thing is trying not to allow the airports to be capacity constrained
1:41:15
uh in the future because otherwise then you’re put a system could be put on you
1:41:20
where the Washington DC is deciding um if flights can come in and what type of
1:41:25
flights can come in and I don’t think Seattle want that. I don’t think Alaskan Airlines wants that.
1:41:32
Uh we we agree uh I think the important consideration here these these international flights which um are
1:41:39
obviously the largest from a a capacity perspective are part of a greater system. You know our international
1:41:44
routes and actually and Delta’s international routes as well you know are somewhere around at sometimes at
1:41:49
best 50% local traffic. So they do rely on robust domestic connectivity uh to be
1:41:56
able to facilitate those. And so it really works as part of a system. And then the other thing that I would add is, you know, as we think about, because
1:42:02
I agree with you, the trend over time is going to be upgraing to larger aircraft from, you know, Embry Air175s to 737s uh
1:42:08
and beyond. Um, but there is a net positive impact to the community when
1:42:14
you have some of these smaller markets that are served at relatively low frequencies. We just announced, for
1:42:19
example, Tulsa, Oklahoma, which will be served daily on E175. That’s a market that has no non-stop service today. And
1:42:25
so those types of things in addition to the Londons and Tokyo of the world do add a tremendous amount of value to the
1:42:33
community and the the the businesses and the traveling public at large. So we just we don’t want to lose sight of of
1:42:38
the importance of that. Uh Maria, you’ve got your hand raised.
1:42:45
Yes, please. Um, in listening to the conversation, the question that comes up for me is, is this um,
1:42:53
for lack of a better term, needs, uh, demand assessment with the airlines going to be part of the consultants work
1:43:01
because it’s a process in itself other than us sharing uh, individual knowledge and systems knowledge.
1:43:08
Yeah, it can be right. That’s something the work group needs to define.
1:43:13
Yeah, it seems really important. I support it. Thank you. I
1:43:19
think Ann’s been trying to say something for a little bit. This is just really nerdy aviation. Um,
1:43:25
but it kind of fits into what we’ve just been talking about. Um, I Googled uh, US
1:43:31
Air Carrier Service out of Tijuana and there is one route and it’s American
1:43:36
Eagle direct from Tijuana to Phoenix. So, obviously there’s a market. uh that
1:43:42
was you know worth it for American Eagle which is a regional carrier to operate. So um you know there there could be
1:43:49
those you know oneoffs
1:43:55
people who need to go to Tijana for some reason and don’t want to connect through Guahara on
1:44:01
Yeah. You’ll have to figure out our field of
1:44:07
dreams and where we build it and all of those things.
1:44:12
Well, it um well, it’s 10 minutes to noon. I’m gonna look at Christina for
1:44:20
uh lunch. Lunch is yours. Okay. Well, does anyone
1:44:28
else have anything we want to add now? We’ve got a whole another hour of discussion uh for after
1:44:35
looking at panel. Okay.
1:44:40
All right. Well, I think it makes sense to um recess for now. Um and then uh
1:44:46
we’ll pick back up at 1:00 with um it’s more or less continuing its discussion,
1:44:51
but I I kind of went through point by point through the um statutory language
1:44:57
and the elements that the legislators expressly asked us to look at and then then talk about with you all and and
1:45:04
then start thinking about the timing of some of this over the course of the next year staging and um in light of our kind
1:45:12
of typical meeting schedule and things like that. Yeah. And I would I would encourage you just um before launch, you know, as we
1:45:17
think through launch and that conversation, right? Maybe think about how we how we prepare a plan for the year um so that you know because there’s
1:45:24
a lot of conversation, a lot of things you want to do, right? We got to figure out the buckets and priorities of of that that will maybe build on itself
1:45:32
ultimately get some results by the end. Yeah.
1:45:39
All right. Well, let’s take our break. Recording stopped. All right. Good afternoon everybody.
1:45:46
We’re calling everything back to order here couple minutes after one. Um
1:45:52
so we had that uh good discussion I think leading into our lunch break. Um
1:45:58
and I I promised that we’d start off at one o’clock. I I broke down the um
1:46:04
statutory language from BSSB 5161 into kind of uh pieces that the
1:46:10
legislature has asked us to look at. Um, and there are a lot of them. Um, so,
1:46:18
uh, I thought I might try to kind of chunk these up and then we can have a
1:46:24
discussion about a chunk and then a discussion about the next chunk and then
1:46:31
um, uh, kind of try to then where I think our goal is to
1:46:38
um, uh, give some guidance to our
1:46:44
on um our work plan for the next year um what
1:46:51
we need to prioritize, what we think we should prioritize and what we have been asked to prioritize
1:46:58
um by the legislature and then how to go
1:47:04
about that. So I I we have on the agenda as published we had a list um that and
1:47:13
compiled and and I we as well um of kind
1:47:18
of new broken down basically new research needs that are um uh out there
1:47:26
um and then then the statuto language gives us u
1:47:33
quite a bit else that I did not repeat in the uh in the agenda. So, so here’s
1:47:39
what the legislaturator has asked for. They want us to look at the long-term commercial aviation needs, the specific
1:47:45
needs of Western Washington, taking into account capacity in adjacent states and provinces,
1:47:51
um aviation facility needs while considering alternatives to additional
1:47:56
airport capacity. Um
1:48:02
investing and this actually figure a bit to Orus’s point from uh uh
1:48:08
earlier, it does expressly say investigating the expansion of existing aviation facilities and possible
1:48:13
sighting locations for new green field aviation facilities with the expected outcome to be a report that compares uh
1:48:19
the strengths and weaknesses of each site considered. shall consider both new sites and those previously identified.
1:48:27
Uh and then ask us to consider impacts uh and a very very long list of impacts.
1:48:34
Um perform outreach. It was a a specific list of uh groups to be at a minimum
1:48:41
reached out to. Um and then um I’m going to stop there
1:48:49
because there’s actually quite a bit more. So, um,
1:48:55
so I I mean I gave this some thought and and it
1:49:01
it seems to me that the the idea of a literature review and the
1:49:08
is kind of the first step we need to tackle because, you know, kind of recalling that the commission, the prior
1:49:14
commission looked at everywhere, you go back far enough in their work, they looked at a map of Western Washington
1:49:21
and drew six mile circles on the map essentially everywhere that was flat
1:49:26
enough that could potentially be a location for an airport purely as a matter of geography and then started
1:49:33
crossing those off. Um the land hasn’t changed.
1:49:38
Um that work was done already. Um and it struck me that from from that
1:49:46
perspective we could start where the CAC left off and essentially
1:49:52
um bring everybody as or this group up to the same uh level of understanding of
1:49:58
what what was done there. Um and then we start factoring in then we
1:50:04
start building in the other factors. um airspace weaknesses. They identified sites such as community sentiment um
1:50:12
ideas of highspeed rail connections to um air effort in Vancouver and Portland.
1:50:21
We start building in these other these other factors but but really beginning with a review of the work that already
1:50:27
out there. Um, so
1:50:33
that was a lot. Just a comment. I had some information
1:50:39
that I didn’t have this morning. You asked about Tijana. 12.5 million people fly out of that
1:50:47
airport every year. 4 million of them use the cross border. Wow. So that’s
1:50:54
that’s four four million a year. So that’s four times current passengers
1:50:59
through Everett taking cross border to Tijana. So if you think about that as
1:51:04
essentially a second major airport for US travelers out of uh through San Diego
1:51:10
San Diego and and just think about that if they
1:51:15
had Valera there how many airplanes it would take to have that four million. And remember that’s a one runway airport
1:51:22
that’s got a curfew. So the everything they can move out of there is is
1:51:28
worthwhile anyway. Yeah. That’s straight from San Diego Ops. Wow.
1:51:44
Well, if you all are thinking about that, I could go through the rest of the things the legislaturator’s asked us to look at. Looks like Maria has her hand up. Oh,
1:51:52
okay. Maria. Hi um chair uh please include in this
1:51:59
discussion representative vise um legislation that ask us to identify
1:52:05
geographic areas that are I can’t remember the word if it’s environmental impacted
1:52:11
um and um because we need to consider that uh with as much weight as uh the
1:52:19
instructions we’re receiving. Thank you sir. Yes, that um you’re right
1:52:24
and that’s actually the second block the second list of factors or the rest of
1:52:30
the very long list of factors includes that other section in this in the statute u meaningful community
1:52:36
engagement with overburdened and vulnerable populations with a focus on environmental justice and impact of aviation.
1:52:42
um and working to understand what studies currently exist on state transportation needs and capacities,
1:52:49
identifying many gaps of information. Um
1:52:55
Right. So, you’re right. I just
1:53:01
uh I’ll just start off here with my burning
1:53:07
concern. um as the the washd liaison is um Mark
1:53:14
talked about this a little bit when he was doing their introduction that uh
1:53:20
we have budget to kind of get them started. Um, but uh we’re going to have
1:53:26
to add to the budget and that requires a request uh from the legislature for budget and
1:53:35
uh that and they’re expecting they they keep asking me how much more money do you need? And my answer right now is I
1:53:42
don’t know. Um but the time to ask is going to be next summer. So about six
1:53:49
months from here. So I it’s important to me that we’re focused on
1:53:55
uh coming up with a work plan so that we can develop a budget
1:54:01
by June in within six months. So rather than focusing on trying to answer
1:54:07
questions, um I really need us to focus on what is it we need to do and let’s
1:54:14
not do that yet. let’s just figure out what we need to do so we can know how much that’s going to cost us and ask and
1:54:21
then um this might be a surprise to everybody but we won’t necessarily get
1:54:26
what we ask for in the legislature. So based on however that comes out then we might have to change our kind of scope
1:54:33
of work. Right. Right. I mean the the annual reports are
1:54:40
due December 1st of each year. Um, we have a couple of uh there were a couple
1:54:45
of asks made in the uh in this bill that
1:54:50
were we were asked to try to get in our 2025 report. They’re not in our 2025 report because we didn’t get to them. Uh
1:54:58
but identifying unsuitable geographies due to either environmental impacts or impacts to overburden communities is one
1:55:04
of those and also areas with no further review due to military conflicts. We have kind of a standing
1:55:12
Well, I have an email thread with a uh representative from um I think he’s
1:55:18
actually a Navy uh officer, but um uh they very much want to come talk with us
1:55:24
about the military airspace and other um
1:55:30
uh military aviation uses that would affect
1:55:36
uh civilian aviation in Western Washington. Um and so um that may be a
1:55:42
contact um mark that I may need to pass to you as far as um getting information
1:55:48
from them and perhaps bringing it to a meet with us sooner rather than later so that we can include that piece in our
1:55:56
next annual report that will be the 26th annual report that’s due December 1st but actually needs to be washed out no
1:56:03
later than is around mid October for um for review through channels and
1:56:10
transmission to the legislature on or before 730. Um,
1:56:16
so was that Navy? Did you say I I I recall in you remember there was
1:56:24
an Air Force officer meeting last meeting or the one before who says, you know,
1:56:33
there’s a way to do this and we need to tell the the Department of Defense exactly what it is we want to do and
1:56:41
then they’ll be prepared to answer. I mean, we want to build a second runway down the court or something like that. I
1:56:47
mean, that’s the kind of stuff I think they’re looking for to say no to. Yeah,
1:56:53
they maybe already said no to this, which is maybe something that we need to figure out because I wasn’t on the prior
1:57:00
commission. So, I don’t know exactly what we’ve been told by DoD or what for
1:57:06
that matter what we ask. So, I don’t know. Is that on our list of
1:57:12
stuff to review? Because Yeah, that doesn’t help Ann’s problem at all.
1:57:18
Absolutely. And I’d like to add some clarity to that. It was a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force coming from
1:57:23
uh DC and basically what she stated in preview of this process um from its
1:57:29
initial iteration through now, but there was no formalized request made hence no activity on their end. Uh but she did
1:57:36
want to point out that there is a formalized process that would have to take place for this conversation to go
1:57:42
any further. Okay. With the OB from the her perspective, Lieutenant Colonel Air Force.
1:57:48
Okay. So that’s a different person than the uh community and planning and liaison officer for the Northwest
1:57:53
Training Range Complex who’s a Navy person who’s been emailing and it was a call in. Okay. So the lieutenant colonel from the
1:57:59
Air Force it was a call in from DC. Okay. Or I say call in, she was on the meeting.
1:58:06
But then that sounds like an agenda topic to have that conversation with the
1:58:11
DoD. Yeah. And because if that results in us saying, “Okay, we’re not going to talk about JBL at all. That’s off the table.”
1:58:19
Yeah. Then that’s a piece of work done. We can move forward, right? And it can go in the annual report. And yeah,
1:58:25
I I’d also like to bring up that uh we’re talking about a specific item
1:58:31
within the broad context of the work that we’re going to do. We haven’t even
1:58:37
said whether we want to look at any of that. We haven’t even identified we want to look at that. We haven’t even got to the point that we need to go talk to
1:58:42
them whether we want to do that. So, I want to leave all that on the table. Even somebody that said take joint Lewis
1:58:49
report off the table. I mean, I’m a firm believer that politicians trump the
1:58:54
bureaucrats. So, if we find out that Lewis McCord is something we seriously
1:58:59
want to look at, our representatives and our our uh senators from Washington DC
1:59:05
may suddenly be on our side and they trump the bureaucrats. So, I think as a
1:59:10
big picture for the state of Washington, the citizens of Seattle, we need to look
1:59:15
at everything with an open eye. not not say we want to do it, but let’s have a look and weigh it once we understand
1:59:23
what it is. Right. And but but the point is that this is a conversation to have sooner rather than later because the
1:59:29
legislature asked us to have it sooner rather than later. But when does the sooner later fit into
1:59:34
scope work? Yeah, if I can just add I mean I think
1:59:40
lucky to have consultants coming on board soon contracts signed up. We we need to figure out what is it that we’re
1:59:46
trying to work on first, right? Rather than jump into let’s go and ask so and so if they give you our solution, etc.
1:59:51
What is it that we trying to address? How much will it cost to get us those answers so that we can look at those
1:59:57
answers and see okay there’s the need whatever and then how do we apply it to get to a solution. Right? I think right
2:00:02
now we jump into yeah this is maybe we should go directly to so and so I know there’s a request because it was raised
2:00:09
by this group I think it got to a point where they kind of said okay well it formally submit a process to talk to the
2:00:15
DoD etc but it’s almost like I think putting the before the we need to
2:00:21
identify what is it that what what is the need for us in the region like what is it that we’re trying to solve right
2:00:28
and then try and look at the specifics how to get I think before we can make any of these decision conditions. Number one, we need
2:00:33
to find out since we’re talking about Seattle and the and the the west side
2:00:38
right now and just say let’s talk about that. What is the capacity of Seattle as CAC? We don’t know what are the other
2:00:45
possibilities. I think that’s what we need to start somewhere. We have to find out what it is the numbers we’re looking
2:00:51
at. Here’s Seattle. This is what they can do, how long it will do. Now, what
2:00:57
are the other opportunities that we could look for other things, whether it’s bus service or another airport and
2:01:04
and that ought to be our starting point? Cuz if we don’t start somewhere, if we
2:01:09
keep talking about this and this and this and this, we’ll never get to get anything done.
2:01:14
So, what do we need first? First, we need to know what we’re working with. What are the what are the possibilities?
2:01:21
What is the restrictions on CAC? We need to hear from CATAC what their plan is, why they have a $6 billion plan that
2:01:28
they don’t have money for and will they ever build it. You know, those are things that have got to be immediate on
2:01:34
us making decisions on what what we look at before we start looking at all the
2:01:39
other kind of things that are listed in in the resolution that they pass. So, so that’s the that’s the literature
2:01:46
review piece of this. So um a lot of those particular questions be answered
2:01:52
through what we’ve submitted as a sustainable master plan that gives you what a capacity what we believe is right
2:02:00
and then at that point we need to find additional capacity somewhere else to meet the demand and that was already
2:02:06
taken into account as part of the master plan in terms of current airspace and
2:02:13
the analysis that was done by other entities that said We need I can’t
2:02:20
remember I’m just I’m going to be careful exactly but 40 million extra capacity somewhere by 2040 that before
2:02:26
co that was after the SCA is fully grown out through the
2:02:32
we haven’t seen any of that this committee has not seen that right that’s why I say you need to review the literature on that which is
2:02:37
all out there so and I I think yeah talking with Steve too right that’s our Steve on the team
2:02:43
right that’s one of the first things let’s do that baseline literature review get that all in front of you in a
2:02:49
digestible manner, right? We’re not gonna we gota not throw a thousand pages at you, right? It’s got to be succinct
2:02:55
and that’s the work that uh I think we depending on the timing of when we can ultimately get working. Uh I think we
2:03:02
can get that done maybe before the February meeting. Yeah. At least uh from the from the main components, it might not be everything
2:03:08
and anything that’s out there, but from the priority uh pieces of information that you this group could identify, we
2:03:15
could serve you do that. Maria, raise your hand online. Maria.
2:03:20
Yeah. Um, I think where my brain goes to is in understanding, and I brought this
2:03:26
up before, what the arc of the schedule is going to be. And I’m supporting an in
2:03:32
terms of us being able to say starting from the end with a report to the legislature, how many months do we have
2:03:38
to put together that report? How many months of um consideration and community
2:03:44
engagement do we have in developing our recommendations, backing it up? How many months for analysis? How many months for
2:03:50
data gathering? And I think that frame will help us um really be focused on
2:03:56
what are the critical questions that we’re asking to be reviewed through data gathering and analysis and
2:04:02
recommendation. So if if I can just hear what that frame is then I think uh and
2:04:08
again this is also for my own protection. I I tend to fall into data rabbit holes myself that might give us a
2:04:16
sense of what’s all the preparatory work that needs to be done so that it times with our meetings and that we’re um
2:04:24
we’re using our time to be really focused on what the intent of that within the larger process. So I don’t
2:04:32
know if it’s you chair or if it’s an who could give us that big picture but that would really help us all out.
2:04:38
Well that so that’s that’s what I let off our our discussion here. You know
2:04:45
the the legislature asked is a text of it’s section 213 and ESSB 5161
2:04:55
is a very long set of criteria for us to look at. um
2:05:01
that’s going to take more than a year. Um and um but two elements that they
2:05:09
called out for us to look at and try to come to some conclusions on first were
2:05:15
areas with no further review due to military conflicts and unsuitable geographies due to either environmental
2:05:20
impacts or impact to overburdened communities. So out of that very long
2:05:26
list, those two subjects were called out for priority. Um, and so
2:05:33
when we’re talking about setting up a timeline of of where to gather data first and then address those two topics,
2:05:40
I mean, at least as I think about it here, the literature review of what’s
2:05:46
been done to this point, I mean, from the 1992 study
2:05:52
forward, um, at least, um, to then get
2:05:57
that in place so that then we can address these two priority topics. first
2:06:04
uh understanding that some of this is going to kind of have to happen in a bit in parallel. So, we know we’re going to be talking about those priority topics
2:06:10
in the report that’s got to have at least a draft by October of 26, then if
2:06:16
there needs to be a discussion with the DoD, um, then that probably has to be
2:06:23
initiated sooner rather than later so that then we can even they can have that discussion
2:06:29
with us middle of 26 to be able to put that in our 26 report. So,
2:06:35
I’m forcing the question. So that exactly what you’re saying, we can just
2:06:40
have a very clear chunking of the work. It’s I’m making this up. By March, I
2:06:46
hear you. We may need to do those two things and get that done and then what’s the next set of by when
2:06:53
part of what I want to be able to hear is to say, okay, then when where are the the
2:07:00
right junctures to engage community? Mr. Chairman
2:07:06
um truck I think what AR said earlier we got a cart and we got a horse. Okay,
2:07:15
we need to tell this team what we want to have done, right?
2:07:20
They need to come up with dollar value and then they got to tell us can they do it within the time frame that she would
2:07:26
like an answer to. Okay. So, right now, as far as I can tell, we haven’t ex exactly said what we want to do. and
2:07:33
they don’t exactly know what we want to do. And until we ask them, they’re not going to tell us it’s going to cost X,
2:07:39
Y, or Z. And then after after that’s agreed to, then they can begin.
2:07:44
So, we can’t really answer her question until we tell them where we want them to go.
2:07:50
And agree. Yeah. And I just want to interject that um I’ve been in the situations where
2:07:55
I’ve hired um consultants and we need to cue them. this is by when
2:08:01
we’re going to need this and then it’s up to them to be able to say yeah I can make it or I can’t and then we can do
2:08:06
adjustments but the the burden is on us to be able to say this is how we want this whole thing
2:08:13
to function and this is these are the phases we want to move through so um I
2:08:19
think we can make this decision it’s not perfect but it’s a good start and then
2:08:24
that dialogue can easily can be a little bit easier with a consultant
2:08:30
So, let me try and winnow this down a little bit because what I’ve got is if we continue to meet every other month.
2:08:37
So, uh we’ve got to have a budget request by June. So, that’s three more
2:08:43
meetings, February, April, and June. So, I just heard Mark say, which is
2:08:50
generous, so I hope he doesn’t back down on it, but um Mark says he thinks he c
2:08:55
his team can be ready to brief us all at the February meeting on literature
2:09:02
review. So, everything that’s already out there that we know. So at the February meeting, we’ll have all of that
2:09:09
and then when we know everything that’s already out there, then we can say,
2:09:14
“Okay, here’s gaps.” So here’s then Mark and your team a list of more research
2:09:20
that we want done. And that might include uh talking to DoD and talking to uh
2:09:28
airlines and who knows whatever our uh information gaps are.
2:09:35
So then maybe we start to hear those at the April meeting
2:09:40
or maybe not. Maybe we just know, okay, that’s the research. We’ve got a budget for that, but there’s another step we
2:09:46
have to get to to also put together the budget. So now we’ve got two more meetings to
2:09:52
plan out. Hey,
2:10:00
this is Steve. Um Steve
2:10:05
uh Steve Bambique sorry what I would suggest is um that in thinking about the
2:10:11
literature of review we think about the strategic baseline for this assignment and we don’t think of everything in the
2:10:19
all the statutory charges that the legislature gave us on the literature
2:10:24
review because that will soak up a lot of time and budget immediately. So what
2:10:30
I think we mentioned a little bit before lunch was what is the demand profile
2:10:35
going forward? How much capacity is out there to meet it? What projects then are
2:10:41
going to deliver capacity within the time frame of this project? And then
2:10:47
after that probably in April there’s a sort of where are the sort of the limitations right and the limitations on
2:10:54
that include regional airspace concerns they concern they include sites that
2:11:01
have been sort of ruled out uh for being inappropriate for future demand. Right?
2:11:07
And we might actually find other sites that say we can accommodate more demand,
2:11:14
even demand that we don’t already have uh planned and on the books. That would
2:11:19
give us a sense of the big uh picture and begin to tell the story. I think
2:11:25
some of these other issues are important, but they can follow on like a am a um small community air service.
2:11:32
That’s kind of a public obligation kind of thought. you know what do you how does Friday Harbor have service and we
2:11:38
want to make sure that that works going forward um and then there’s some things that are solutions right multimmodal and
2:11:46
everything but we we should by February be begin to have a baseline by April
2:11:52
have the limitations for future capacity and capacity that could be available and
2:12:00
then we can get into those individual topics many of which are either to advantage when you don’t have enough
2:12:07
capacity or to find smaller solutions that can bleed off a little capacity and
2:12:13
contribute to the solution. Um, and that would give us then sort of a February and April and a June. Um, almost like a
2:12:22
first round of all the issues but with the story about why this is important,
2:12:27
you know, statewide, the economic benefits it has, etc.
2:12:32
Steve, that’s awesome. Thank you. Um, and I I I want to say this to you from my heart, but I want the rest of the COG
2:12:39
to hear it, too. Um, this team is doing work for us right
2:12:46
now, and they’re not getting paid yet. So, this is awesome. Um, so, um, Steve,
2:12:52
keep doing the free work for us. I love that. But here’s my question. Um, so then
2:12:59
going following through the path that you just gave us, then in June we’ll
2:13:04
have a budget request to ask for and will that be fleshed out enough so that
2:13:09
we will uh adequately be requesting
2:13:14
the funds that we’ll need for the next two years because that’s how the state budgets. So you’re not going to ask
2:13:22
from the consultant standpoint, I would say yes. for the entire January.
2:13:27
Oh, sorry. I’m just clarifying in June, we’ve got to know how much we’re going to ask for
2:13:35
that the legislature will consider in January of 27 and then that however much
2:13:40
money they give us will have to last through January of 29. interrupt.
2:13:51
So, so Ann once we have the baseline and we know what the gaps are, I think the
2:13:56
consultant team would be in a position to identify the resources we need to fill those gaps and to test certain
2:14:03
scenarios, let’s call them, uh to get where we need to be. Um what I would
2:14:08
just suggest though, obviously, as we produce information for all of you, your
2:14:13
views may change. you may see new things that you want analyzed. Um when we engage the community, they might be the
2:14:20
same way. So those types of budget needs um I think we’ll have to make sure like
2:14:26
after the April meeting that we have those fully accommodated and as you all
2:14:31
proceed through February and April thinking about what you want what you believe is important and then KAG as a
2:14:38
group deciding um what it thinks is important can add to that budget
2:14:43
request. I just want to Is reply or
2:14:49
Senator Leah on anyone? Are there any legislators? No. No. Okay.
2:14:54
Get more insight there. I have one more question. Sorry to be late. Um I just want to step back for a minute. So the
2:15:01
RFQP RFQ that uh they’re on and the
2:15:07
listing there is that our scope of work or are we scoping the work now or the We are scoping it now.
2:15:14
We’re scoping the work now. Okay. So that’s what we’re doing at this point forward. What was in the RFQ is what we will use
2:15:19
to hire them. We’ve done that. Okay. So now we have to So what we’re doing right now is their
2:15:26
scope of work. Yes. For us. Okay. And it’s meant to be on call. So there will be multiple task orders. So doesn’t
2:15:34
all have to be defined. It’s not all identified ahead of time on court. Correct. And if there’s a change to that task
2:15:40
order, then it goes Yeah. And this if you don’t mind, Mr. This is kind of a funny interplay that
2:15:47
we’re going to have to figure out, but Ally, you just like walked right into it. Um, Evan’s the chair of the cog.
2:15:56
Um, this is the group that’s deciding what to do. Evan’s the guy in charge of that. Um, but we have this funny disconnect
2:16:03
just because of the way things work that I’m the manager of the contract with the
2:16:08
consultants. So there shouldn’t be any issues, but I just want to clarify that
2:16:14
just in case, you know, because there’s there’s contract rules and stuff that I’m going to have to follow. So yeah,
2:16:20
there’ll be like communication between the cog to me to the consultants.
2:16:25
Hopefully that’ll be smooth and nobody will even realize. And the way that I anticipate that working is that in our
2:16:31
open public meetings, we will agree on come to a consensus vote and then you
2:16:38
know then in between meeting after and in between meetings you know I my job will interface with and and with you all
2:16:46
to carry out what the group has decided. So um you know
2:16:53
that’s that’s it’s it’s matter is a matter of setting the priorities and what we’re going to do. We need to do
2:16:58
that as a group is not the me project. We’ll just keep you sitting next to each
2:17:03
other. It’s fine. So I think we were talking about this
2:17:09
literature review. That’s one of the things we’re going to do. Right. I think one of the things that you guys
2:17:17
might want to include is this business about the Evergreen State College,
2:17:23
Washington State Institute for Public Policy is developing a report that was
2:17:30
directed by the legislature to it’s in section 804 of
2:17:37
the ESB u uh 5161. and they gave us a
2:17:42
briefing on this a meeting or two ago, but their report is due December 31st.
2:17:48
So, whatever report you offer in February would be nice to have that information included.
2:17:56
And I just got an email from them this morning. They think we’ll have a draft next week.
2:18:10
So what? Sorry. So what is on here is the the proposed scope. So now, so the
2:18:16
the agenda as we kind of wrote it up was that um these were some uh these were
2:18:22
thoughts that that Anna and I and I compiled on what what the what we
2:18:30
thought was likely um what were that were likely areas for
2:18:38
emerging research um that probably weren’t already covered by
2:18:44
somewhere that was going to exist in the existing literature. That’s a complicated way of saying new work that needs to get done. Um, and but I didn’t
2:18:53
repeat in the agenda the entire text of 5161 which actually says what the
2:19:00
legislature wants us to do. Um, and because it would have made the agenda,
2:19:06
you know, like five pages long. So, um, but that was just, you know, topics that
2:19:13
either are emerging or developing so rapidly that they’re going to need fresh research. Um, or just issues that
2:19:20
weren’t addressed at all by the CAC or any other prior group. Um, obviously,
2:19:25
you know, the CATAC capacity issue is emerging. we can, you know, we can just buy a for the next three hours and you
2:19:31
can tell us all about that or, you know, incorporate it into the the project of the consultant. Um,
2:19:39
but yeah, so it’s it’s just thoughts about where that where where we’re likely to go um once we
2:19:47
review the literature. Do I understand that we have somewhat
2:19:53
instructed them now that by the next meeting that they will do this review for us of existing documents and get
2:20:01
back to us with a brief rather than 10,000 pages for us to read overnight uh
2:20:08
summary and a suggestion of to get to some of these other places between that
2:20:15
between February and then April. here are the things that we need to they
2:20:21
suggest that we need to start looking at. I mean, are we there yet or are we
2:20:26
still talking about what we want them to do? Well, I think that there’s more that we
2:20:31
can talk about as far as what we want them to do. Yes is the short answer and the long answer is like yes and um
2:20:38
because I I think that um
2:20:44
before we we have a long list in the statute of uh groups to which we are asked to perform outreach and I think
2:20:51
that maybe one of the lessons of the TAC is that outreach needs to be ongoing and
2:20:59
and iterative and and a conversation um that brings the brings the public
2:21:07
along. Um and uh explaining where we
2:21:12
are, where we’re going. Um and so that’s, you know, where your expertise
2:21:19
comes in. the the 5161 text. There’s a half a dozen specific
2:21:26
uh groups to reach out groups of varying levels of specificity communities things to reach out to. Um
2:21:33
and we should start doing that in parallel with all of this. I agree. I think once we have a little
2:21:40
bit more, you know, maybe maybe the next step when we, you know, you as a group
2:21:45
kind of know, uh, exactly where you’re going, the steps to get there, you know, we’ve kind of just mapped it out. Steve
2:21:50
has mapped out and and mapped out, you know, over the next few months, how do we get to, you know, from
2:21:58
all of these great ideas, you know, how do we start narrowing down and what that’s going to look like? So I think
2:22:03
once we have um you know a little bit clearer vision I think everybody has
2:22:09
such great ideas and all this how do we get here you know it’s great when we get there but the steps to get there you
2:22:15
know and I I want to make sure that we include all of the stakeholders and the communities and we bring them in but I
2:22:22
don’t want to bring them in you know prematurely and we don’t have the right
2:22:27
messaging for them or it just opens a bunch of can of worms that we’re not
2:22:34
ready to address yet. And so I think the timing is going to be really critical
2:22:39
on, you know, when do we bring the people in um the people, you know,
2:22:44
everybody that’s interested in it and what’s the messaging and then what is, you know, what are we going to do with
2:22:50
their questions? And until we have a few more concrete answers and we’ll get some
2:22:55
of those from the baseline, you know, it’s not just we don’t we don’t want a free-for-all where everybody gets to come in. we really need to have kind of,
2:23:02
you know, keep our arms and some guardrails around what it is that we want from them. You know, how they’re
2:23:08
going to be able to participate. U you know, you’re going to have a lot of not
2:23:13
in my backyard. But so I think we don’t want to, you know, kind of wrap our arms
2:23:18
a little a bit around the scope and the scale and know what we’re asking. You
2:23:26
know, if we’re just going to tell people that this is what we’re looking at, that’s one thing. But, you know, what does that two-way dialogue look like?
2:23:32
And when do they get to participate? And then you all need to decide at some point what information do they get to
2:23:38
weigh in on? You know, you want to hear their ideas, but are you going to use them? And how are you going to use them?
2:23:44
And how is that? So, that’s, you know, that’s a few steps down the road, but we’re we’ll get there. And I definitely
2:23:50
want to bring them along. I just want to be cognizant of, you know, doing and not
2:23:56
just um where, you know, people hear snippets of things. That’s just going to
2:24:03
really bog down your work that you’re all doing.
2:24:09
Yes. And I want to make sure and bring them in early enough, of course,
2:24:14
so that we get public guidance to where we go. Like one of the the jobs that the
2:24:22
legislature gave us was to look at ways of reducing the demand. So to me that
2:24:28
means shifting the demand for transportation to a different mode. So,
2:24:33
I want to hear from people like, would you be willing to take a train or,
2:24:38
you know, an EV toll or, you know, like I don’t want the first time that people
2:24:45
hear from this group to be we’re looking at building an airport in your backyard.
2:24:50
I would much rather have the first thing be how do you travel and how how could
2:24:57
it be better for you? Yeah. No, I I completely agree and I think um you know I want to make sure
2:25:03
that we do I know there’s a big long list of specific stakeholders, but you
2:25:08
know that we kind of map all of those stakeholders and really you know what what is their communication path with us
2:25:16
going to look like you know it’s going to be very different. You all have your own individual, you know, relationships
2:25:21
that you have, but the general uh community, you know, the difference of,
2:25:27
you know, Beacon Hill is going to be a little bit different than Bashon and, you know, so what does that communication overarching strategy look
2:25:34
like and then specific to each of the
2:25:40
major players, if you will, and then what does that funnel down to and where can they feed in and give us specific
2:25:46
input? you know, where do we want their input? We want to hear, you know, we want it to guide us, but we want to um
2:25:54
make sure that we’re smart in what we’re asking and that we can take that
2:26:00
information because it’s really frustrating. You know, we’ve all been there where like, hey, we want to hear
2:26:05
you and so we share information and then it just goes, oh great, thanks. You
2:26:10
know, it goes nowhere. So I think we want to make sure that we set up a feedback loop and that we can follow
2:26:16
along and circle through that actually I had a thought response
2:26:22
to that which is it it’s a survey that may they may already exist but we may
2:26:29
have to do if it doesn’t for already exist is
2:26:34
that what would it take for you to consider what do you think about when
2:26:39
you travel? Why do you travel? What if if uh an airport was this
2:26:47
uh if it’s this f much further away from where you live? Would you take a train to get there? Would you drive? Would you
2:26:54
what would factor in? Is it only cost? Is it cost plus some other factors? It’s the kind of thing that gets done as
2:27:00
marketing research by by airlines. Um, I don’t know if CATAC has done that kind of marketing research for its own
2:27:08
traveling populace. Um, you know, because you’re
2:27:13
much more likely to hear from uh people who were, you know, I don’t
2:27:19
want a new airport built where I live. Um, than the much more diverse and
2:27:25
open-ended kind of views that might be out there for, um, I travel. I don’t travel that much. I don’t care that much
2:27:32
how close I am to an airport versus I travel a ton. I care very much about how
2:27:37
close I am um where I travel to all these sorts of factors. U but before we
2:27:43
start talking about can we drive four million passengers a year to walk across a bridge to Tijana kind of solutions. We
2:27:49
have to think about what what does that look like here? Um you know
2:27:54
and what are those options? Yeah. Right. you know, it it would be um you know, I’m not about cutting getting a little
2:28:01
further down the road is I mean, what are those options? To Ann’s point, yes, you know, I this is how I travel and
2:28:07
this is, you know, how I want to engage and this is how I do this is where I’m
2:28:12
willing to travel. You know, to your point, it’s what are their options? You know, they may not know their
2:28:18
options. Well, as a matter of fact, I can tell you that the general populace because I’m much more of the general populace than anyone here on this group
2:28:25
and I’m not even sure of all of my options of like, oh well, I guess there’s, you know, travel velocity just
2:28:31
happens to have a flight out of painfield, then maybe I would consider it. No one’s ever asked me my opinion on
2:28:37
how I’m going to even get there, let alone that it is an option. So I think we have to do and I think Trump I think
2:28:43
you said it you know some education of you know not just for this group but overarching you know education on just
2:28:51
what the future of travel can look like. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for that.
2:28:56
So we don’t have to do that by my big red flag June deadline.
2:29:01
No but by my big red flag June deadline. uh we need to have your ideas of how and
2:29:10
when we’re going to do that. So yeah, I was gonna I was going to suggest that in in addition to the um you know
2:29:17
the literature view based on work this community engagement aspect there could be an initial piece to run in parallel
2:29:24
to identify the plan and the path to get there and even start to look at some of the tools like a survey that could be
2:29:31
used to gain some additional information. And then I see that input along with the lit literature review and
2:29:38
emerging to kind of define some of the maybe some of the next the next steps. Yeah. Because if if the money that we
2:29:45
asked for in 26 ultimately is going to have to carry that project through
2:29:52
uh into 29. And at the same time at our last meeting in Yakima, Representative
2:29:58
Fi said we we need the zero fiveyear view as well as the 25-year view. It’s
2:30:03
2025, that’s 2029, that’s about four years. And if the five-year solution is get more people to fly out of Everett,
2:30:10
um then I mean that’s kind of marching or one there. Sure.
2:30:16
Yeah. Yeah. I think it definitely ties together with you know the baseline, but what you know and I’ll put together a
2:30:22
plan of you know what the engagement looks like with the stakeholders you know who they are. We’ll I’ll need some
2:30:28
input from all of you because you you know all the you know players. Um but I
2:30:34
think that’s kind of the strategy that would make sense to sign off on and really how that ties in with the
2:30:39
baseline.
2:30:49
Uh going back to the question of the scope if I could and how are we then we’ve
2:30:56
talked about a lot of things but then narrowing it down how are we getting back to what the scope is. Is that
2:31:02
something that you’re drafting or we’re drafting or that we’re doing it right now as far as drafting that? Because it
2:31:08
sounds like we’re need needing to progress pretty quickly here. And so whatever we’re doing now, we need
2:31:15
to have a general outline of what that scope looks like. It’s like and what does wash need? What
2:31:23
level of specificity does wash need from us to then be able to put it on paper to
2:31:29
then uh actually effective that
2:31:34
um it’s not so much washed off it’s the legislature so um
2:31:41
even before the budget request be like for the next for the February meeting for the April meeting what
2:31:46
oh yeah t scope yeah we just need a scope and like Mark’s been talking about a task order
2:31:52
which like a mini contract. So, we want you to do this. They’ll tell me how much
2:31:57
it costs. We’ll say, “Yeah, good. These are the deadlines. This is the deliverables.” And
2:32:05
and then we’ll know from there how much money we’ve got left. I think
2:32:10
we’ve got enough money to get us through until the next budget. Um even if we
2:32:16
have an aggressive, you know, scope for you. So I I’m not too worried about the near term.
2:32:25
So yeah, that will be um ouran effort.
2:32:31
Yeah, just to develop Yeah. further develop that, you know, what’s with some of the guidelines that we’re hearing,
2:32:36
right? The the literature review and some of the the comments, right? And then there’ll be drafts back and forth to make sure that we’re uh we’re hitting
2:32:43
the hitting the mark on that scope and then we’ll put a fee in a schedule and
2:32:48
deliverable against and then does that come back to the to
2:32:56
then give final approval or is that something that you give approval for or you give approval for? I I mean I think
2:33:04
we’ll need to decide obviously February meeting is our next meeting. So we’re
2:33:09
leave here with here’s the scope of work for February and here’s probably the scope of work for April. Um and then
2:33:17
June can be what the gaps can be a little fuzzy but trying to plan
2:33:23
at least two meetings ahead. Um, and that can include too, I mean in my
2:33:29
mind that can include still bringing in other people to speak to us. So like the DoD people or like the Cascadia
2:33:37
Highspeed Rail people or whoever you think you want to feed in. Yeah. And that can go on in parallel,
2:33:42
right? It doesn’t have to be directly related to something we’re doing, right? But it it should help help it, right?
2:33:49
Yeah. But I’m seeing it a little bit different than what I just heard you say, Evan, because we’ll be negotiating
2:33:57
basically this mini contract and that’ll probably go on beyond June. So that
2:34:04
doesn’t mean we have to have a set agenda for every meeting. Um, but we’ll
2:34:09
definitely be putting together a task order for
2:34:16
a lot of work beyond just the next two months. Okay. So, you’re not going to break it down meeting by meeting. It’s
2:34:21
going to be bigger and then Yes. Okay. It like for example, I’m thinking that there’ll be a task
2:34:28
order for public engagement. There’ll be a separate task order for uh literature
2:34:34
review. Then there’ll be a separate task order for new research, you know. So, it’ll be
2:34:40
broken down by topic. Yeah. rather than my timeline
2:34:47
and and I think we would identify target meetings where you’re going to get an either an update or or the result of of
2:34:53
that effort, right? So, and that’s how the agendas would be built. But I guess and what I was saying is
2:34:59
not every agenda has to the full agenda doesn’t have to necessarily be our work.
2:35:06
It could be another speaker or something that’s been identified along the way that would help to inform the process.
2:35:12
not not something that is necessarily under um our direct plan as get
2:35:19
identified. I think that would help the of the process right and moving things
2:35:24
forward. I was just going to bring up my understanding
2:35:30
high level of the scope now is it’s based on task. So right now we’re going
2:35:35
to we’re talking about a task order that’ll include public involvement and and literature research.
2:35:43
Somewhere between now and next few months, you’re going to look at someone’s going to look at the bill that
2:35:50
gave us an assignment of what we need to cover. And within that bill, all those
2:35:56
all those items that the legislature wants us to look at will fall within a given task order somehow.
2:36:03
And you have to come up with what that’s going to cost within each pass order.
2:36:09
And then by June, we’re going to go talk to legislator legislation and, you know,
2:36:15
put put in a request. That could be a lot of unf unfunded
2:36:21
requests in there. So at that point, we come back and we look at that again, right? To say, okay, so what’s this low
2:36:27
hanging fruit in the field that we’re really going to work on? Yeah. Is it am I am I am I thinking
2:36:33
correctly? Yeah. Except that I think that there’s so much in in 5161 that that’s necessarily going to be
2:36:40
a multi-year. This is going to this is going to be these are going to be questions that aren’t answered until that 2729.
2:36:45
Well, yeah, but we’re talking 29. We’re already talking 29. Yes.
2:36:51
When June by June, we’re asking for money if we’re through 2728, right? To to answer all these those
2:36:57
questions. But the shortterm answers are this the the two that I agreed product.
2:37:02
Agreed. Agreed. That’s where we start. That’s where we start. But when you ask for money, isn’t it good to say legislature, these are the
2:37:10
things you wanted us to cover and we’ve cost it out for us to look at this and here are the numbers. Wow, they’re big,
2:37:18
but these are we’re answering your questions, legislature. Yeah. Yes. You know, rather than just say, “Yeah,
2:37:23
we’ll get to those other things the next time.” put it all out front and ask them up front. If they if they say you can’t
2:37:30
you can only have this much. Okay. Well, then these are the ones we’ll cut out. You know that that’s that’s how you have
2:37:37
to treat them. Pardon the legislature. Well, they’re not here.
2:37:42
Well, sometimes I get online, but
2:37:48
All right. So, I have a question. I I’ve had my hand for a while.
2:37:54
Yeah. Oh, I’m calling you. Sorry, you’re on a screen that’s to my right here, so I’m I’m pointing at you, but please go
2:37:59
ahead. Okay, thank you, sir. Um, G, great discussion. I’m feeling more solid with
2:38:06
what I’m hearing. Um, my question then is where do we and within that timeline,
2:38:14
when do we bring in the customer tolerance survey that you folks were talking about?
2:38:20
Oh, the what I was saying like the idea of of trying to find out from the public what what they think more in a more
2:38:27
formal way than just general outreach. Um the I was hearing uh you say earlier
2:38:32
that it was going to be more of a customer service or what are you willing to do? Are you willing to travel? Go
2:38:38
blah blah blah that kinds of stuff that because there’s there’s two parallel tracks, right? One is the technical that
2:38:44
we’re doing the review we’re doing. Where are the spaces that are excluded? Where are now the spaces that are
2:38:50
included? And within this uh integrated system of long-term and short-term
2:38:55
travel, what’s the logical thing to do? And what other connectors do we need?
2:39:00
And so within that, the question I would imagine that the tolerances of the
2:39:07
traveling public would influence what recommendations we make. So just in the
2:39:14
planning stage it sounded like it would not be in the early part but much later
2:39:21
on possibly next year after we get a really strong sense of what are the real
2:39:27
probable um sites or combination of multimodal we’re going to be looking at as a plate
2:39:34
of recommendations and then refine that further with
2:39:39
for lack of a better term the the traveling customers the the communities that will be out there.
2:39:46
Yeah, that’s where I guess my thought was it’s possible this is already been done in the context of sea tac capacity
2:39:54
discussion. Um, but if it hasn’t or if it’s too old to be useful, then maybe
2:40:01
that is a very specific ask we can make of the legislature to fund for the 2729
2:40:06
cycle of as part of public outreach for the keg for
2:40:13
projection and planning. We actually want to find out what people in Western Washington think about about their
2:40:19
travel needs broadly and not just rely on
2:40:25
uh public comment inbound um and and then design that survey with
2:40:32
some guard rails. We’re not going to give people the option in a survey to say, you know, we want to build up we
2:40:37
want to build a floating airport in the middle of put sound. Uh because that’s not going to happen from a very
2:40:44
I I get it, chair. I get the what I’m just asking. Yeah. Well, so we narrow down the guard
2:40:50
rails and then we give we give guardrails for that to then design a survey that’s then meaningful and useful
2:40:56
that helps us uh get to the the the end the end point and and I think I’ll just
2:41:03
add that you know that would be part of that engagement strategy. So an initial task order would be to get the
2:41:08
engagement and understanding of that right and put together that plan for doing that as
2:41:14
getting started is there’s a lot of pentup things right that we want to just dive into not just from the legislation
2:41:20
but from these conversation we get us started right like get us
2:41:25
started to start feeding you some information the literature review the baseline we can put some costs at some
2:41:31
of these other items so that you have that at your uh at your um at your ready
2:41:36
and then that that’s going to inform you and to make other decisions and give us additional guidance that we can add on
2:41:43
to a task order. We can change a task order develop a new task order, right? Like let’s just get sometimes it’s got
2:41:49
to get started, right? And then and then we’ll we’ll get there. Not try to, you know, the the endgame is still
2:41:54
important, right? Why we’re doing this, but we’re getting there. I’m hearing we’re getting there in this conversation. Yeah. And as we get some
2:42:00
of these initial pieces going, that’ll help uh help build the momentum. It also occurs to me that it’s possible that a
2:42:06
survey like we’re talking about has been done in San Diego or New England.
2:42:12
We did one in New England. We have city of travel, right? So that’ll inform Yeah.
2:42:17
If you assume the populations are comparable and that, you know, attitudes are comparable then you can say h you
2:42:23
know here’s what people are generally willing to do. Here’s generally willing aren’t willing to do. Yeah. And then from there, you know, if
2:42:29
we can take some of this that, you know, we’ve done in the past, then we can kind of refine it down. You know, we
2:42:34
mentioned paying, you know, we had a discussion earlier on, you know, what’s what’s it going to take to get people to go to playing field? Then we know that,
2:42:41
you know, these are the groups that are more likely and willing to travel. You know, here’s
2:42:47
the drivers that will encourage them to go. you know, uh, and we mentioned the, you know, carrot stick or the grease and
2:42:54
it may be a combination of all of those to, you know, get to the right position.
2:43:01
So, I think we can just keep refining it down, you know, and I know it feels, you know, a little like we’re nailing jello
2:43:06
to a wall right now, but I think it’s just going to, you know, we’ll just get tighter and tighter and tighter until
2:43:12
you know exactly what you need from, you know, the public and from communities in
2:43:18
order to come back with a solid recommendation. And you’ll be able to offer them enough
2:43:23
information that they are making informed decisions. Yeah. Yeah. We don’t we don’t want to
2:43:29
get there and be like, “Oh, we should have asked them that in that survey.” Yeah. Yeah.
2:43:34
It’s time. Yeah. It is uh it is 2 o’clock. Um
2:43:41
do But we had this I had this on here I think till 2:15. Yeah.
2:43:46
Yeah. Yeah. Public comment. Um
2:43:52
we get a recap. That wasn’t that was an accident. Yeah, it says this part is till 2 p.m. and then 2:15 the public comment starts. So,
2:43:59
yes, did you put this in as a windown? Yeah. Well, actually, I just saw so that there’s some hands and then there’s also
2:44:05
uh there were a couple of comments in the chat that I think Ben just typed a comment in the chat that popped up and
2:44:11
then went away before I had a chance to read completely. Yeah. Eddie, can you show the the everyone chat?
2:44:21
My my comment was just in response to uh to Steve’s um suggestion that the
2:44:27
guardrails that we would want to include would uh not cross the NEPA threshold. And and I would just say I think the
2:44:34
timeline of this group and the uh level of recommendations in terms of their
2:44:40
their scope is probably such that that we would we would not want to do that. We want to consider options that may
2:44:47
require some type of environmental approval and just note that as a uh as a
2:44:53
dependency in whatever we’re ultimately looking Yeah,
2:44:59
that that achieves my goal of explicit consideration. Thank you.
2:45:19
I did in my own thinking ahead of the meeting come up with a short list of
2:45:24
what I think are very likely gaps in the literature. um we know what the gaps are once we
2:45:30
write literature, but um you know the the ones that I things I thought that we’re going to need to know about but
2:45:36
that are very likely not covered um or not covered in the work with the CAC or any real local or pre-existing work
2:45:44
would be the emerging tech um things like the sustainable fuels and and electric um emerging information about
2:45:53
demand. So um how much has travel recovered postcoid
2:45:59
uh business travel? I know that I travel a lot less than I used to. um you know with things like video conferencing um
2:46:08
the the newest and latest capacity um uh projections from places like Everett and
2:46:14
Yakima Bellingham um whether because the TAC did not study
2:46:21
them um we don’t formally know what the capacity expansion plans are in
2:46:27
Vancouver and Portland but the legislators asked us to look at them Um,
2:46:33
and yeah, th those were the quick list I made for myself on that information
2:46:39
that’s not in the record. So, Mr. Chair, um, kind of as a response
2:46:47
to Alli’s question because we’ve got what now 10 minutes um, to wrap this up.
2:46:54
Um, I think that I have enough for between now and February to
2:47:04
negotiate a task order enough to get these guys started like probably within a week of putting together this
2:47:12
information and having a robust agenda for February and then we can go on from
2:47:19
there. You guys are nodding so that sounds hopeful.
2:47:24
Yep. Late February, right? Well, we’ll set up the meeting. Yeah, that is that is the after public
2:47:31
comment is the set X meetings per block of time. Is there work being done in January? Is
2:47:38
this So, this is like scope one would be January, February, right? Okay. Yes. Scope two is then
2:47:45
February or March and April. Well, I think which brings us to it’ll even be beyond that,
2:47:51
but we have to have something like June and yes. Okay. So, if you do scope one, January,
2:47:57
February, scope two, March, April, then that gives us to May, June, because
2:48:02
we have to have a draft before the final in June. Correct. I’m not envisioning it as discrete
2:48:09
scopes like that. It’ll more likely be as individual scopes based on topic
2:48:15
rather than timing. that will probably go for many many months like uh you know
2:48:22
um meeting planning and prep you know that can go on until Yeah. Exactly. Right. And I think those
2:48:28
are going to be there’s going to be some that transcend meetings. There’s going to be some that maybe be for a specific meeting.
2:48:33
Right. You know we don’t want to have 20 different scopes going on. Um but on the same hand I think there’s going to be
2:48:38
things that are going on in parallel and we’ll either be completing a scope at a meeting or we’ll be giving you an update
2:48:44
on the status of it. um that would help keep you informed of how it’s progress. But the goal is is for this report in
2:48:51
June is what you’re helping us with, right? We’re not doing it. That’s part of their Yeah. And that So the June
2:48:59
deadline, that’s not the report. Okay. That’s the budget or the budget.
2:49:06
Yeah. But I do want you guys like um at the June meeting, I want that to be one
2:49:13
of the agenda items is for the workg group to
2:49:18
uh to see and buy off on the budget request because
2:49:24
um here’s a little bit of insight how it works. I’m not really allowed to talk to
2:49:30
the legislature. So when it comes time to present this before the legislature and maybe attend budget hearings and
2:49:36
answer questions, I’m expecting you all to be doing that. Yeah. So I hope that you understand it and
2:49:44
support it when we get to that point.
2:49:54
The hand up there. No, that’s public. That’s yeah, it’s a public comment and I think just as a I know this is
2:50:02
ridiculous, but I know some people get worked up with this uh the word scope
2:50:08
and task, which I’m already like worked up with it. So, we’re really going to have task. Some people like to
2:50:16
so each one of these going to be tasks. They’re not going to be scope. We have one huge scope that is broken down into
2:50:22
task and we’re gonna like I suspect we need some form of motion to have them
2:50:29
begin have you negotiate task one. Is that correct or or we already pass that
2:50:35
point? You just tell you to go on task negotiate task one. Let’s begin work on that. Or do I make a motion to say if I
2:50:41
do have approval to work on task one? Um well, you know, we uh if you want to
2:50:47
make make a motion so it’s on the record that essentially the past hour of discussion is they’ve been taking notes is essentially our instruction to them
2:50:54
to proceed with that word. Yeah. Second. Second. Okay. Uh second any discussion
2:51:02
on the motion as presented. All right. Hearing none. Uh all all in
2:51:09
favor I post. There you go. Okay. Great.
2:51:16
Good to work. You understand what task one is?
2:51:21
Started. Yeah. I move to adjourn.
2:51:26
Ah well we got public comment in eight minutes. So we can certainly take a break between now and then. Um so if you
2:51:34
want to amend your motion to adjurnn. So amended. Okay. Um All right. Let’s um we’ll take
2:51:40
a break till 2:15. We’ll come back on with public comment. All right.
2:51:47
Call everybody back to order and is going to log on the uh public.
2:51:55
Okay. See, so um we will now start the public comment portion of this meeting.
2:52:02
Uh we’ll have 30 minutes for public comment and each person has two minutes to speak and we do have a timer you’ll
2:52:07
see on the screen. Uh I don’t think there’s anyone from the public in person
2:52:13
so we’ll do all the line right now. If you’d like to comment uh please raise
2:52:19
your hand using the hand raise tool in the reaction section and I will unmute you after I call your
2:52:26
name. So it looks like the first person is Dylan.
2:52:33
You should be able to unmute yourself, Dylan.
2:52:41
Hello. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I got a lot going on here at the house today. Um, so I live in
2:52:49
Thirstston County outside of Lacy, technically Olympia. Um, and I’ve been a
2:52:56
participant in this process um, since close to the beginning going back to 2021. Um, when our area was selected as
2:53:04
a so-called green field site by the um, your predecessor, the CAC um, which was
2:53:10
disbanded in infamy at the end of their process. Um,
2:53:16
and so yeah, I’ve been trying to track what’s been happening with this new iteration of the effort to, um, improve
2:53:22
our transportation, um, including by adding an airport. And I I’m a little concerned about a couple
2:53:29
of things. Um, and I actually have not so much comments as questions, um, that
2:53:34
I think would be nice to have responses to. I’ll send these to the website as well so that they can be followed up on.
2:53:41
But first I would like to ask that um no more of these meetings be conducted until the entire CIWG has been convened.
2:53:50
And so I guess my question would be why are meetings happening if the entire group hasn’t been convened? Um the
2:53:57
second question I would like to ask is that every member of the CAWG sign a conflict of interest statement that
2:54:02
assures the public they will not personally benefit from the activities of the CAWG? I work for the state and
2:54:08
every year I have to sign a lengthy statement that assures
2:54:14
uh the public that I don’t personally benefit from my work that I do for the state. Um every one of you needs to do
2:54:19
that as well. I would also like to ask that the CWG refrain from producing or
2:54:24
publishing a list of proposed sites until they until the group complete group is convened and you guys have
2:54:31
ensured the public that a fair and um inclusive process will be used to select
2:54:38
such sites. Um as you saw with the CAC, selection of greenfield type sites or
2:54:44
any physical real site as a place for a new airport upsets the public greatly.
2:54:54
Thank you, Dylan. Next up is Jane, and you should be able
2:55:01
to unmute yourself.
2:55:06
All right, try and turn my camera on as well. Hello. Uh so I’ve attended every
2:55:12
one of these meetings as well as I think Dylan had and usually in person and um I
2:55:18
thank all of you for for actually volunteering your time to be here and work on this important uh topic. I think
2:55:25
there’s two things that you might do to make this meeting a little more um you
2:55:31
know just show to demonstrate some progress. Um add two Yeah. Thank you. I
2:55:38
think you should I think you should add two um segments
2:55:43
to the the regular agenda. Uh segment number one would be uh a public comments
2:55:50
response. We never hear any of your responses to any of our questions or comments. Although you mentioned a
2:55:57
couple times today, hey, we’re going to reach out to the public. Well, the public’s here. There’s at least 20 of us
2:56:02
here at every one of your meetings um on Zoom at least, right? Um, so respond to
2:56:10
us in a segment in the agenda like uh spend a couple minutes to say,
2:56:15
“Hey, you know, in the last meeting we heard these things and here’s some comments, here’s some input.” The other
2:56:20
thing you could do is add another segment to the agenda that uh summarizes
2:56:27
what we’ve learned so far. You’ve had a lot of great technical speakers come to the meeting and some of them gave some
2:56:34
great ideas and you talked about a few things and okay what happened to that?
2:56:40
Uh it would be awesome if you could say hey in the last meeting uh we in the
2:56:46
last several meetings we heard these 10 things and we’re going to make some actions on one and two maybe u and
2:56:54
here’s where we stand on those things. So again, add two segments to the
2:56:59
meeting. One that is about public comments and and your response to them
2:57:04
for the last meeting and then a summary of what we’ve learned so far. Thank you.
2:57:12
Thank you, James. All right, looks like uh Ursula is next
2:57:20
and you should be able to unmute yourself.
2:57:28
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Ursula Yula. I live in Thirstston County and I want to ask because county
2:57:36
internet is often unstable. I would like to ask if you can hear me. All right.
2:57:43
Yes. Thank you. I’ve been a long observer for many years
2:57:51
just as the previous two speakers and have two main points to make this
2:57:57
afternoon despite my great disappointment in the work and the
2:58:02
contributions and the discussion of this group so far. My first point is you keep
2:58:08
talking about demands and demand capacity forecasted capacity shortfalls.
2:58:17
I again will question those. They are not natural demand or natural capacity
2:58:24
shortfalls. They are produced. That’s a produced demand and induced
2:58:30
demand. Please explain in future meetings how the airline industry has
2:58:36
done that over the last 20, 30 and 40 years. I do not see any reason to
2:58:44
continue that under climate goals. And that brings me to my next point.
2:58:50
A customer survey of which you’re speaking should not just ask questions
2:58:56
about aviation and flying. It should bring those into context with public
2:59:03
health information at airport communities and also climate information
2:59:09
and true climate information, not propaganda that you are supporting through sustainable aviation fuels, for
2:59:16
example. But as Miss Batayula already pointed out several minutes ago,
2:59:22
Seattle’s greenhouse gas inventory is close to 25%
2:59:28
from their airports, for example. Disclose that in your surveys, please.
2:59:33
Thank you, Ura. Um, let’s see. I did see James
2:59:43
raised his hand again. Uh, chair, would you like me to unmute him or
2:59:48
Well, is there anyone Is there anyone else? No.
2:59:54
Um, uh, I’ll put that actually to to the
3:00:00
group, we typically only allowed one public comment per speaker. Um, but we also the reason why we couldn’t twice.
3:00:08
Be magnanimous. All right. All right. Yeah, we can. Let’s let Mr. Pearson add some more.
3:00:14
Okay. Um, James, you should be able to unmute yourself if you’d like to make another comment.
3:00:20
Uh, thanks for taking my second uh, uh, statement. Uh, one of the, uh, links in
3:00:26
the chat pointed to an airport statistics page. Um, there it goes to
3:00:32
2023 and I think as most you know, SeaTac and some of the other airports
3:00:38
uh, stopped publishing their statistics publicly. Anyways, um I think it would
3:00:44
be great if you guys could actually sh, you know, use some of your influence to
3:00:50
get those statistics back turned back online. Um so that we can all see it. Uh they only go out to 2023. Uh yeah, if
3:00:58
there’s something there that goes to 2024 or up to the current date, that would be awesome. Thank you.
3:01:06
Thanks, James. All right. I don’t see any more hands raised.
3:01:13
So, I think this concludes the public comment. Okay.
3:01:18
All right. Thank you all. Could could we ask the the the man, do you publish it?
3:01:24
I think you do. I I don’t know what information has been
3:01:30
addressed. What what statistics? We have a lot of information on the website. It’s a huge amount of information we’ve
3:01:35
put on the website. So I’m not sure what information is being referred to. The FAA publishes the the transport the
3:01:42
passenger traffic every single day for every airport in the United States. At least what crosses TSA lines.
3:01:49
Yeah. So it’s out there. I’m not sure what information about what information what statistics.
3:01:57
I’ve put the FAA link in the chat. chair. Uh, CATC airport does publish
3:02:04
their flight operations because I looked it up. 2024 was 430,000. So, I’m just
3:02:11
looking for the link and I’ll put it on the chat. Okay. Thank you,
3:02:20
Mr. Chair. I’m just going to I mean one of the public commenters was is
3:02:26
is there a method for us to respond to some of these public comments? Uh I have
3:02:32
to say I’ve responded personally to a couple but I don’t know that we have a group policy or do we uh about should we
3:02:42
do we I mean we get incidentally we do get copies of all the public comments in
3:02:48
writing from wash and thanks from doing for doing that Christina uh but we don’t
3:02:55
to my knowledge have a established policy about responding to those as a
3:03:01
group, right? And I mean, should we? Yeah. And I do think we
3:03:10
while we don’t have a Here is us responding to the specific comments,
3:03:16
we it does shape the development of the agenda and the discussions that we have
3:03:23
amongst us at the meetings. Um because I would you know like earlier when I was
3:03:31
talking when I was introducing our 1:00 session about suggesting that the part
3:03:37
you know picking up where the CAC left off and factoring in uh weaknesses of
3:03:43
the identified sites i.e. the community sentiment about them that’s very clearly a response to public comment. Um
3:03:52
so um you know also we publish we published two annual reports. They’re
3:03:57
brief um but certainly we um you know we made an express recommendation the state
3:04:03
legislature about transit and we also included in there a summary of what telling the legislature but also telling
3:04:09
the public what we’ve been doing with the last year or so. um and you know a summary of what we’ve we’ve learned um
3:04:17
you know boiled down to one page and then if I could just interject I do get some questions to the commercial
3:04:24
aviation work group email and sometimes I do respond but sometimes they are asking members specific members for
3:04:30
answers and I will I do forward those members at times or I ask the members
3:04:36
and then they they tell me I can relate that there have been times where I’ve done that just as an FYI
3:04:44
Can I ask process? Yeah. How is this going to work with the consultants as well? Is it the same process that we’re doing now?
3:04:51
Sorry. As far as for comments relating to us,
3:04:58
emails, things like that. Is it the same process coming through? Oh, wash and Christina.
3:05:04
You mean if there’s public comments that are like questions for the consultants?
3:05:09
Yeah. Yeah. Same process. Okay. Looks like Maria has her hand up.
3:05:15
Okay. Uh Maria. Yeah. Um I just want to recommend a process we use in in other um
3:05:22
uh citizen-led groups. One is that we’re able to track it and just reflect very
3:05:30
quickly on the website if it’s a comment as opposed to a question. So for
3:05:35
example, the question regarding conflict of interest. I think that is something very important for transparency to any
3:05:41
and every person who wants to engage with this work that we we go ahead and
3:05:46
be able to respond to that because that is a real key as far as uh continuing to
3:05:52
convene uh without a full quorum. I think again we need to be transparent and just say what the messages we’ve
3:05:59
received as to continuing the work um so that everybody gets on the same page or at least they can find a place at our
3:06:06
website to to look for the responses to those important questions.
3:06:15
Um, so I think we should um we can move on to the unless anyone else
3:06:22
has anything else to discuss right now, we can move on to the set next meetings uh portion.
3:06:29
Um, chair, I I would appreciate it if a small group comes up with some uh
3:06:35
thinking on this and recommendation to the full group for next time because these are critical practices. uh if we
3:06:42
don’t start sharing with the public how we operate um the expectations could be
3:06:48
all over the place and I think we just need to be again transparent and accountable to them also. So I’d
3:06:55
appreciate a small group that can work on this.
3:07:01
Um, we have So, we hired somebody.
3:07:06
We hired Right. So, we have um Maria, do you want to work with um uh
3:07:13
Vicki and then anyone else who wants to work with that on kind of um
3:07:20
developing our public outreach program? As I was
3:07:26
saying, this is something that kind of has to start and kind of be iterative.
3:07:31
Yeah, I I would be willing to I think the scope might be narrower from my end which is the public response. Um so
3:07:38
expectations are clear. I appreciate it. Love to work with
3:07:45
Mr. Chair. I just just just like to follow on on that is like I I believe as far as a you know no conflict of
3:07:52
interest we all signed that work to join this committee and took a test to pass
3:08:00
the test to say that we wouldn’t do that. So that part all of us should be aware of that we did it. Okay. Yeah.
3:08:05
Um I forgot the second thing I was going to say. However, the public may not be aware of that.
3:08:12
Exactly. Yeah,
3:08:17
is going to be part of that group, too. Okay. Oh, yeah. She’s the master of the website. I I can help or I’ll assist if needed.
3:08:25
Yeah, I’ll be working with that. So, okay. You have like a frequently asked questions thing on there.
3:08:31
I’ll show you the list. We do it. The frequently asked questions tends to grow too. Build up more frequently asked questions.
3:08:39
Yeah. And I think some of that we could cover, you know, uh the housekeeping of
3:08:45
how you’re all on here, you know, what what does that look like? And then that kind of checks some of, you know,
3:08:51
that covers some of the questions. And I think there are some opportunities for, you know, Maria brought up, you know,
3:08:57
kind of what the two-way feedback looks like because this we’re stuck here now
3:09:02
all day and I can tell you this group is very committed to outreach and making sure the community is heard and the
3:09:09
community is here. We have 20 people that have spent the majority of their day to see what you’re all doing. So, I
3:09:16
think that I mean there’s a lot of uh obviously a lot of opportunity, but
3:09:21
everybody’s so willing to do it. I think now it’s just, you know, what is that? What does the structure look like?
3:09:29
Um, all right. So, we should set our February meeting. This is the part where
3:09:35
gets their calendars out. Can I make a request right up front, but it’s not on the week of the the 8th of
3:09:42
February. Just to get it out front.
3:09:49
Request anything. There’s a large aviation conference that’s going to be Yeah.
3:09:55
And and the week of the 16th is President’s Week, which is a Seattle school’s uh week off. So, um so this
3:10:01
puts us either the first week of February or the last week of February. Um and I know that you all were asking
3:10:08
for more time uh benefit us given that, you know, we’re still we still don’t have the contract yet as well, right?
3:10:14
So, we’re willing to continue to develop some stuff and move forward, but I think
3:10:19
that week of the 23rd might be ideal. Yeah. Can we do Tuesday the 24th then?
3:10:26
Maybe back end of February is good for those of us who come over the past. So,
3:10:32
every week helps going closer to spring. There’s any snow that um I mean February 24th um is a day.
3:10:41
It is a day. It is a day. pretty uh is it an okay day?
3:10:47
Works for me. Yep. I assume that would be west of the Cascades somewhere.
3:10:53
How about Moses Lake then be one of the late west of the Cascades?
3:10:58
I was say but then you guys would late as possible for coming my way too. I uh
3:11:04
summer is a good time to visit you. Summer is a good time to visit us. There there there was a I hate to say this
3:11:10
because somebody just is not in the room at the moment, but we we’ve had several several people ask about uh about
3:11:18
Seattle terminal capacity. Yeah. And so uh
3:11:26
if the meeting is at SeaTac then um then
3:11:31
there’s air service and we can drive there and maybe we can prevail upon them
3:11:37
to uh maybe I know today that some of the board’s going to get to do a tour of
3:11:42
Boeing Field which I’d highly recommend doing but uh since there were questions specifically about terminal capacity
3:11:48
then perhaps a meeting at CTAC and then uh and then if if they would be so kind
3:11:53
to do a discussion of their terminal expansion plans.
3:11:59
I think it’d be good to do that somewhere other than around CEC because of the congestion, but
3:12:05
the the place we met in Olympia is fine. I thought that was a nice facility. We have I’ve been to meetings at CATC
3:12:12
before. Uh if if there I don’t want to speak out of turn, but they have hosted for like the Washington airport
3:12:17
management association. Um they have great facilities. They absolutely have great facilities and
3:12:23
they give you free parking. Yes, they have free parking and they will validate your park for you. Yes. And they have one time.
3:12:29
Yeah. And they have multiple modes to get there. You can get there by driving
3:12:34
or by plane or by train. So our put our money where our mouth.
3:12:40
So we we waited for RF to leave before inviting the host. Yes. Yes. Well,
3:12:45
I did not mean to do that, but for for me it’s easy. I prefer SeaTac over Olympia because it’s just a lot
3:12:51
easier to get into. Um, for me, that was Buck, by the way.
3:12:58
I will be happy to uh put the squeeze on them. I have uh
3:13:03
you know you know you know some people I I I do know some Oh, there he is.
3:13:08
Oh. Oh, come back. We just volunteered you for something. You want a meeting at the airport?
3:13:15
Yeah. You can send me some date. I would have to check because you know we’re 24th of February.
3:13:21
Yeah. It would have to be in a conference center and I would have to check to see if anyone else has booked the conference center etc. So I can’t
3:13:26
give you an answer right now. Sure. I’m happy to look at it and get back to you if you wouldn’t mind just emailing me the dates and time.
3:13:32
Cool. Yeah, I told you I knew somebody.
3:13:38
Okay. Thank you. Tentatively. Yes. Tentatively tech on the 24th. 24th if there is availability. there’s
3:13:44
availability and if we had a backup date the 25th or the 26th that’s fine thank you to rush
3:13:51
okay we still yeah work at all meeting there or having them
3:13:58
meeting there at JBL
3:14:03
you don’t want to do JBL no you don’t just to get on just to get on the basis
3:14:10
yeah there’s no reason to be on that complication whatever Yeah, I mean I think it’s still
3:14:15
well well and and they did specifically tell us that is the way it has to happen that we need to make a formal request from and then and then and then they
3:14:24
will uh res respond to that request. I mean, affirmatively, but uh but we’ve
3:14:30
never officially invited them yet. But uh trust me, as someone who goes on and off that that base probably two or three
3:14:35
times a year. It’s it’s complicated. I show
3:14:41
you don’t want to have Well, yeah. You’ve got by myself reason to be on the base. They can come
3:14:47
to our place where it is. Yeah. All right. So, we have dates. We have a
3:14:52
tenative location um for February. Do we want to set a
3:14:59
tenative April date just for planning purposes? Not a bad idea, sir.
3:15:12
Seattle school spring break to the 17th. What are spring breaks? When is Easter
3:15:18
what are the dates around? Easter is the 5th of May.
3:15:23
Uh, April of April. It is early. It is early. Okay.
3:15:32
School school. Seattle school spring break is the 13th 17. Okay. So, we’re looking like third week
3:15:39
of April. Probably that fourth week of April. 27th.
3:15:44
That would kind of mirror what we’re doing with February. Yeah. It’s not on Monday. How about the 28th?
3:15:49
So, 28th. Yeah. Yes, sir. Okay. And we won’t worry about location
3:15:56
yet. Just April 28th. We’re done. We will pencil. Yeah,
3:16:03
it’ll be sunny somewhere. Somewhere like Moses like Yeah,
3:16:10
I’m happy to do that. It’s good time of year for us. Not too hot.
3:16:16
House will be fine. Yeah. Okay. I will I will tenatively uh book it for the day. Can you say that date
3:16:23
again, please? Uh, April 28th. Got it.
3:16:29
Would that be at the Moses Lake airport? Affirmative. Okay. At the terminal.
3:16:34
Okay. Yep. Happy to host.
3:16:40
Same time, right? 10. Okay. You should be able to get Representative
3:16:47
Denver back. I think I think Yeah. What was the February date again?
3:16:55
24th. Thank you, Until
3:17:00
RF can check on on availability at the conference center. Chair, I also say to hold February 25
3:17:07
and 26. Is that still true? as a backup in case the CTA conflict center is
3:17:13
unavailable on the 24th.
3:17:22
All right. Anything else? Or do is there a motion to adjurnn?
3:17:28
Sorry, last item real quick. Sure. hat on this. So, you’re going to
3:17:33
then have a draft of their scope and you’re going to notify us, one of you,
3:17:38
as far as when they’re officially on. Yes. So, we know. Okay.
3:17:44
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. And and uh we have identified the
3:17:49
problem with my keg email address so that when you all reply to me, it’s going to be fixed. Uh it should be fixed
3:17:56
today. So, have identified the problem. Right.
3:18:01
I really thought it was me. No, it is. It is. It was a It was a typo in how the account was set up.
3:18:11
All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? I move. Second. All in favor? I
3:18:18
recording stopped.