Voter participation in King County is shaping up to be absolutely dismal this year. A lousy 15.2 percent. Now, take a minute to imagine our collective voter attention span for individual races within that lousy 15.2 percent as a pie chart. Port commission races probably make up a slice so small it’s invisible.
The lack of attention to the port races works out well for the fossil fuel-supporting industries and maritime executives praying business at the port continues as usual. The port is one of the biggest economic forces shaping the City of Seattle today, and it has almost no oversight—unless you count the five feckless port commissioners, people whose campaigns are funded by the very same organizations hoping the port doesn’t invite more transparency and public values into its decision-making.
But this year’s port races actually matter, mostly because they come at a time when West Coast ports are staring down a future that could see an explosion of oil, gas, and coal activity. Just last week, a US Senate panel passed a bill that would lift the country’s crude oil export ban—a move that could turn the Port of Seattle (slogan: “Where a sustainable world is headed”) to the Port of Petroleum Products R Us.
There’s already some evidence the port may start leaning more toward projects offered up by the fossil fuel industry—and will try to do so without meaningfully engaging the public. The most obvious example is the idiotic decision-making that went into giving the public just six days to participate in the choice to host an Arctic drilling fleet in Seattle for two years. But the second big indicator that the port is eyeing more energy projects has to do with its new alliance plan with the Port of Tacoma. The Seaport Alliance’s business plan points to liquid bulk (liquid natural gas, methanol, propane, and other fuels) as the fastest growing, non-container commodity.
All the more reason to elect just one person on the port commission who isn’t snuggled up in the fossil fuel industry’s butthole. (Is there anyone on there keeping an eye out for green tech projects at the port?) Courtney Gregoire is an incumbent with no viable challengers in Position No. 2, but the candidate who has raised the most money for Position No. 5’s empty seat is Darrell Bryan—and he's the only candidate who told us he would also have supported Shell’s presence at Terminal 5. Bryan’s raised $102,756.79, with some of the biggest individual contributions coming from Jeffrey Wright, chairman of the Space Needle Corporation; Foss Maritime, the lessee hosting Shell’s Arctic fleet at Terminal 5; Frank Foti, the CEO of Vigor Industrial, the shipyards servicing Shell’s Arctic fleet; and Alaska Airlines.
Bryan has raised almost twice as much as his next competitor, Ken Rogers, who sat on Delta’s board of directors for eight years until this summer. Next in line is Fred Felleman, an environmental consultant who’s raised $38,548.74, then Herb Krohn ($24,595), a labor leader who has supported the idea of coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest.
Money talks. But so do votes. So if you planned on voting for a port commissioner by taping your ballot to your fridge and throwing half-cooked pieces of spaghetti at it until a noodle sticks by a candidate’s name, maybe think about what it would be like to live in a petro-city on Puget Sound. (We thought about it, and aimed our spaghetti at—duh—Felleman.)
