My God. The Port drama never ends.

Earlier this year, I received a press release informing me that the Seattle-Tacoma International Taxi Association (STITA), a non-profit cab company which has solely serviced the airport for twenty years, was suing the Port of Seattle. The dispute centered on the recent contract negotiation process which STITA lost to Yellow Cab, Seattle’s largest taxi association. STITA characterized the process as unfair and, they argued, illegal. (The judge did not issue an injunction against the Port as STITA requested, the decision will move to the Court of Appeals on Friday.)

At the time I was wrapped up in a different overly complex and confused aspect of Port politics, so I didn’t follow up. But now, a second cab company is suing the Port over the potential Yellow Cab contract. The new legal proceedings were initiated by Farwest, one of Seattle’s three largest taxi companies along with Orange Cab and Yellow Cab. Although Farwest’s end goals are different than STITA’s preferred outcome, both are gunning after the same goal: stopping the Port from signing a contract with Yellow Cab. And both argue that the negotiations were illegal.

Here is the nut graph from the press release, issued interestingly enough, by STITA’s lobbyist Lesley Rodgers or Strategies 360 (who does not represent Farwest, to my knowledge):

Farwest Taxi filed a lawsuit Friday in King County Superior Court against the Port of Seattle and Yellow Cab, its former partner in a joint bid for the airport contract. The lawsuit claims the Port’s proposal process was illegal. The lawsuit says lobbyist Chris Van Dyk drafted the bid for Yellow Cab, the winning bidder for the on-demand airport contract. Then he turned around and used that insider information to draft a less competitive proposal by the No. 2 bidder, a joint venture between Yellow, Farwest and Orange Cab….

According to the lawsuit, Van Dyk knew trade secrets of the two other bidders in the joint venture, and used that proprietary intellectual property to ensure Yellow Cab submitted the top bid. In addition, in its legal filing, Farwest says it explicitly told Yellow representatives that it did not want anyone who drafted the joint venture proposal to also draft a proposal for any of the three individual members.

I have a request in with the Port for their take on the controversy. Expect updates tomorrow.

9 replies on “Port-Taxi Drama, Ack!”

  1. Interesting stuff, but please, please, PLEASE do not ever use the journo-word “graph”, meaning “paragraph”. Shop talk is not for general readers. “Paragraph” is the word you want there. You are writing for the Slog, not starring in a remake of “All The President’s Men” or “The Front Page”.

  4. What @1 said. Also “nut”….?

    Random neologisms just look like forced hipsterism. As Holden C. would say, phony. Or should I say, “ny”?

    then we have this: “Although Farwest’s end goals are different than STITA’s preferred outcome, both are gunning after the same goal.”

    “End goals”? Ahem; Strunk.

    Then in the same sentence you refer another goal. Ahem. If your thought is unclear your writing is unclear; White.

    And you don’t gun for goals or other abstractions. You gun for a person. Seems like you’re just inserting breezy half completed metaphors just to create the aura of hipster journalism.

    And the coup de grace. You totally blast this guy Van Dyk, in the quote, and don’t call him before publishing the slam on him?

    Very sleazy and unfair. And you say you have a call into the Port, not even a call in to him. So, you don’t even plan on getting his side of it?

    Wow, gunning for the English language and the basic tenet of journalistic fairness.

    In one fell swoop.

    Or as you would say, “his swoop-gunning writing goalposted both fairness and redundancy….”

  5. Well, that’s a matter of opinion Fnarf. Mine is that I like a little flavor, even shop-talk, mixed in. Part of what I like about the SLOG is the learning about developing stories that might appear in the paper later. If the writers have to polish things too much, we might lose that aspect.

    Towards another point – I commend the interest The Stranger is showing in “The Port”. IMHO – a tangled and disingenuous collection of interests. I would like to have someone official explain why -our- port is the only one on the coast that has to be supported by tax dollars instead of being run profitably.

  7. Aargh x 2, John Galt! First, avoiding “nut graph” could never spoil a developing-story type of post. Avoiding “nut graph” is easy. You have to work to decide “nut graph” is wise.

    Second, you keep asking why only our port has levy taxes funding public services. Two minutes of internet time shows other ports aren’t expected to fund and perform the kind of non-revenue jobs we expect this Port to. In other places city and county governments have to do it, but here, we pay levy funds so the Port will do shoreline restoration, Fisherman’s Terminal and all its jobs, environmental cleanups, etc. Levy funds don’t go toward basic operations.

    There’s skulduggery at the Port, true, but that ain’t it.

  8. Argh – whatever. The SLOG is informal, the published paper / collection of web articles is not. I enjoy the fact that the SLOG has a different standard and tone than the paper. You don’t, and that’s fine. But you cannot justify what is simply your opinion with language usually reserved for discussion of natural law. It is just your opinion. Whatever.

    I appreciate that tracking down that information. I would like to know how you figured all of that out in “two minutes”. Is there a FAQ for the Port? I checked the homepage under economic impacts and didn’t see any discussion or explanation of this. It would be helpful next time if instead of making snarky “two minute” comments you instead included a link to your source of information – or did both, whatever. Knock yourself out.

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