Commissioners.
Regarding Item #10b on the February 13, 2024 meeting agenda.
Please read the attached.
A little more than a year ago, we asked the State Auditor’s Office to review the Port of Seattle’s noise remedy ‘programs after receiving numerous complaints from constituents.
—Sen. Julia Patterson, Rep. Karen Keiser: June 10, 1998
Spoiler alert. It gets better.
Since I visited my first home with a Port Package problem in 2017, there has been a complete failure of the Port of Seattle to acknowledge your long standing responsibilities. Updates and repairs have been presented as some form of potential ‘good will’ effort. You’ve been told (and promulgated the notion) that all these systems reached some natural ‘end of life’. As this letter shows, that was never true.
Complaints began coming in as soon as the program began and at every phase thereafter. We have not wanted to go down the road of ‘blame’, which can only lead to conflict, especially when your staff has learned from so many past mistakes. In fact, that’s the reason for the Port to take the lead; you now have an expertise to hold up your end of the bargain that no one else does.
But so do we. After almost seven years and hundreds of site visits we know what the problems are, how they came about, and what people living with them want in a Port Package update program.
Recognise that the lack of community trust is well-earned.
- Stop questioning the need for the program.
- Stop using language which makes the update program sound conditional.
- Stop using ‘assessments’ as an excuse to slow walk the process.
- Stop finding reasons to push it down the priority list.
Instead:
- Put money on the table. It doesn’t have to be a lot. But it has to be an actual budget line item.
- Commit to doing a certain number of systems in 2024. Then 2025. Then 2026. And so on.
That was the whole point of HB2103–to get you to stop making excuses and get on with it. After all, HB2315 was almost five years ago. You’ve had five years to create a voluntary program. If you were going to do it, you woulda done it. QED.
By all means develop an assessment program. But in the mean time, start fixing people’s homes. This year.
This is what needs to happen to solve the problem.
—JC Harris
on behalf of Sea-Tac Noise.Info