The Polar Pioneer, the Arctic drilling rig en route to Seattle.
The Polar Pioneer, the Arctic drilling rig en route to Seattle. Kelly O

Yesterday, Mayor Ed Murray delivered a huge blow to the Port of Seattle when he announced that the city's Department of Planning and Development found that hosting Shell's Arctic drilling fleet was not in compliance with its 20-year-old land use permit for the space at Terminal 5. In other words, the port would have to reapply for the permit, which could put a major kink in Shell's timeline for drilling. Not long after Murray's announcement, a new item popped up on the port's agenda: a special 4 p.m. meeting today to convene an executive session discussing "matters relating to agency legal risk and litigation or potential litigation."

Executive sessions are private, but they have to be held after a public meeting, Peter Goldman, an activist and local environmental attorney, said. Does that mean that the port is going to debate their options in public today? Or are they going to try and keep all of this as quiet as possible?

Seeing the agenda notice, Goldman fired off an e-mail to Traci Goodwin, senior port counsel. Goldman expressed concern that the notice didn't specifically mention any kind of public discussion about Monday's development, and that the port's decision-making would be done in secret instead—in potential violation of state law.

Here's an excerpt from the e-mail (which Goldman sent to The Stranger), which includes a legal warning about the Open Public Meetings Act:


Applied to the Terminal 5 issue, it appears to me that, while the Commissioners may be briefed by their counsel tomorrow as to their potential legal options and liabilities, the Commissioners cannot deliberate in Executive Session over which path they should take relative to the T-5 lease, the City's today-announced permit decision, or other considerations relative to the T-5 lease.  Nor can the Commissioners take any votes on this issue in Executive Session.  Any discussion or votes on next steps need to be made in the light of day.  Transparency and good government compel the same result.

In addition, I'm sure that numerous citizens would like to comment on what, in their view, the Port should do relative to T-5 and the City's decision today that the Foss lease constitutes a change of use.  I am confident that the Commissioners and Port staff would benefit greatly from hearing public input on this issue.  I urge the Commissioners to both hold a public comment period and deliberate over their next steps in public.

This morning, Goldman received this response from Goodwin:

Dear Mr. Goldman – Thank you for sharing your concerns about the pending executive session.  Please rest assured that the Port Commissioners understand their legal responsibilities under the Open Public Meetings Act.  Since you have copied the Commissioners on this message, they have received your request for the opportunity to provide additional public comments concerning the Terminal 5 lease.
 

To be fair, the notice doesn't specify whether the executive session will concern Terminal 5 and Shell. Goldman is making an assumption. Still, Goodwin's response is not at all reassuring. "Since you have copied... they have received your request for the opportunity..." What?

Goldman said he was concerned the port might blur the line between simply hearing advice—pros, cons, options—from lawyers in an executive session and debating those merits in the back room. "The port has a really big decision on their plate right now," Goldman said. "They either appeal the city's decision, or they try to get the permit, or they just do nothing and rack up the fines."

The question that remains is whether the commissioners will come out and have a real debate today, schedule one for later, or otherwise try to avoid too much public input. "At one point they have to come out in public and have a debate about what they're going to do," Goldman added.

Shall we hold them to that? There's no avoiding Seattleites who give a fuck anymore.

Here are the port commissioners' e-mail addresses: albro.t@portseattle.org, gregoire.c@portseattle.org, creighton.j@portseattle.org, bryant.b@portseattle.org, bowman.s@portseattle.org.

This post has been updated.