As the port reviewed its communications plan, Courtney Gregoire noted that commissioners were receiving 10-20 emails a minute asking them to reconsider the lease.
As the port reviewed its communications plan, Courtney Gregoire noted that commissioners were receiving "10-20 emails a minute" asking them to reconsider the lease. Don Wilson/Port of Seattle

Back in January, when the Port of Seattle was figuring out how to communicate the fact that they were about to sign a lease that would allow Shell to park its Arctic drilling rigs in Seattle, they suggested pursuing a Seattle Times Editorial Board piece. A note from the draft of the plan read:

• Port pursues Editorial Board to present facts and benefits of project.
Con note: Times editorial re-enforces [sic] enviro view of the publication as "too business friendly."

It's not surprising that the Port of Seattle might want to reach out to the Seattle Times Editorial Board in anticipation of a PR flare-up. It's also not surprising that they'd draft an outreach plan to muster business and labor interests to counter some of the points about Seattle's role in facilitating Arctic drilling that were later made here, here, here, and here.

But in the absence of full-time media reporters in Seattle's tiny journalism ecosystem, the port's own commentary about the benefit and cost of strategies like seeking a Seattle Times Editorial Board piece—which the Board ended up publishing, and which we covered here—is illuminating. (The Stranger obtained the draft in a set of e-mails from a public records request.)

It also speaks to the nature of the port's backroom strategizing about Terminal 5 that they drafted a version of a plan dated as early as January 26, after just one public meeting on the subject, and more than two weeks before CEO Ted Fick even signed the lease that would allow Shell's rigs to stay in Seattle.

Here's an excerpt from the draft of the port's outreach plan:

Screen_Shot_2015-04-08_at_10.44.24_AM.png

Port commissioners Tom Albro and Courtney Gregoire disagreed with the port's communications approach—namely the absence of any kind of dissenting opinion about the lease. In a follow-up e-mail dated Tuesday, February 10, Albro wrote that the plan was "at best, incomplete and does not include my reasons for not supporting this lease nor acknowledge them."

That same Tuesday, a day after Fick had signed the lease, Gregoire responded to the e-mail chain that she agreed with Albro but had a hard time keeping track of port e-mails because commissioners' inboxes had been flooded with requests to reconsider the lease. "Literally, 10-20 emails a minute for the past day (approaching 500+ total)," she wrote. "Executive staff should be aware of this."

So who were these e-mails coming from? Gregoire said they appeared to be a form e-mail triggered by Greenpeace and 350 Seattle—though there may have been another group—but were all signed with individual names and addresses.

Read the full draft outreach plan here.