Language of order still leaves ultimate ownership uncertain
At the Tuesday, October 8 noon meeting of the Port of Seattle Commission, the Commission voted to approve an amended version of Order 2012:
The amended version, created by Felleman and Mohamed, does not make any firm decision. Instead, it directs Port staff to come back with that proposal in Q1 2025, with a final vote by end of Q3 2025.
The agreement will be arrived at with the cooperation of the City of SeaTac, but does not specify which leases might be included or who will obtain final ownership. It also allocated $150,000 for park improvements. Full 2024_10_08_RM Meeting Agenda/Packet
All Commissioners pointed to the Joint Advisory Committee (an ongoing group consisting of electeds from both the Port Commission and the City of SeaTac) as key to progress on the issue. They also heaped praise on community members with Defenders of North SeaTac Park (now Defenders of Highline Forest).
Our Take
We congratulate all stakholders. However, we’d be remiss in not pointing out that the lease area most likely to be guaranteed preservation was removed from 1primary consideration in the SAMP back in 2017. In short: the Port decided before activists began engaging on the issue that it did not need the property in order to achieve its growth targets. That is not to minimize the community benefit. We mention it only to point out that North Sea-Tac Park is the easy button in any discussion concerning the SAMP.
1The SAMP has gone through dozens of iterations with three main options. Individual project designs usually come with a ‘primary’ and ‘alternate’ status.