Gogerty Stark Marriott representative George Griffin has been furiously lobbying city council members to forsake the old industrial economy base for the shiny new tech economy. He's bent the ear of almost everyone at city hall, winning support, and even causing the two council members most likely to side against Gogerty Stark Marriott's commercial interests, Judy Nicastro and Nick Licata, to pause.
The firm is weighing in on a 95-page document, the Greater Duwamish Manufacturing and Industrial Center Plan. What's objectionable to the lobbyists is a proposal made by locals to restrict non-industrial development (cubicle-breeding office parks) in parts of the 4,138 acres of land stretching from south of the Kingdome through the Georgetown and South Park neighborhoods. The plan is a desperate cry for help. It aims to fend off yuppie bait that jacks up property values, drives out local businesses, kills blue-collar jobs, and relies on our imaginary "dot-com" economy.
No surprise, council members seem to be buying the lobbyists' line. Gogerty Stark Marriott is a major campaign contributor. They donated more than $4,000 to current city officials' campaigns, including hefty checks to Council Member Jim Compton and Mayor Paul Schell.
Interestingly, last year the council was adamant on the issue of saving industry. They even refused to let the school district move its headquarters to the Duwamish area because the move would encroach on industrial property. But council members have done an about-face.
Even class-conscious Licata and Nicastro are mum on this blue-collar issue. Licata didn't return phone calls. (An aide says he hasn't made up his mind on the plan yet.) Nicastro, while outspoken against the lobbying tactics of Gogerty Stark Marriott, is also unsure of how she'll vote.
The plan is in Richard Conlin's neighborhoods committee. On February 16, Conlin chaired a crowded public hearing on the plan, the last chance for public comment. His committee is scheduled to vote on Friday, February 25, and he is leaning away from the local proposal to limit space for non- industrial businesses. "The proposal to reduce the amount of commercial space will probably lose," he predicts. He takes the wishy-washy non-position that "we should be able to accommodate both" industrial and high-tech companies.
Duwamish business owners like Terry Seaman, who runs a steel fabrication shop with his wife, support the plan's proposal to restrict commercial use in order to save industrial turf. "The high-tech companies don't just exist in cyberspace," he says. "They need companies like ours." He points out that his company provides jobs for people without a college education, which commercial businesses like Amazon.com and Microsoft do not. But he suspects that the city isn't behind the "family-wage" cause, and says, "The plan will probably go down in flames."
The proposal is doomed thanks to a misconception about our economy: the idea that heavy industry is dying. According to information Nicastro received from the Seattle Office of Economic Development, which uses the Puget Sound Regional Council's findings, from 1995 to 1998 the number of jobs in the Duwamish increased by 8,620 (2,800 of which were manufacturing jobs). The city also reports that the number of existing manufacturing jobs comprise two-thirds of the 60,700 employees who work in the Duwamish. Industry in the area accounts for $65.5 million, or a quarter of the city's property- and sales-tax base.
Gogerty Stark Marriott dismisses this data as unscientific. The firm claims that the shift in the local economy to a high-tech base is inevitable, and that industrial plants aren't holding their own against global competition, nor are they creating jobs fast enough. At the public hearing last week, Gogerty Stark Marriott client Doug Rosen -- Vice President of Corporate Development at Alaskan Copper Companies Inc. -- spoke against reserving space for industry. He said manufacturing jobs are becoming a thing of the past in the Duwamish. Gogerty Stark Marriott clients want the city to bring in consultants to study where the jobs are coming from, and ultimately, prove that Seattle should give its resources to high-tech and commercial companies.
"We're in the information age," says Gogerty Stark Marriott partner Don Stark. "We're not in the industrial age." Stark says companies like Boeing don't need to buy parts from local manufacturers when they can get a cheaper deal from countries like China.
The plan is scheduled for a full council vote in April.
