Results tagged “theport”

Welcome back to the Port of Seattle Roast, already in progress. Yesterday the Port released its response to a hilariously detailed audit commissioned by State Auditor Brian Sonntag, which "agrees with 37 of the audit's 49 recommendations," reports the Seattle Times.

For instance, the Port will immediately cease informal ways of resolving disagreements with contractors, known as "tummy rubs."

Continue reading "New Port Of Seattle Rule: No More Tummy Rubs"

Last week federal subpoenas were flying around downtown, irking the hell out of anyone who did business with the Mic Dinsmore-era Port of Seattle and was told its practices were just "unconventional."

There are all sorts of things a Port could do. But what should its focus be? Back when Seattle was prouder to be known as a blue-collar shipping hub, cargo containers lining the horizon, the Port used its property tax dollars to encourage things like rail transportation.

We've always been in favor of the trail for airport deal between the Port and the County, but the concept of making the corridor into a bike path used to scare the shit out of us. We thought it should be used as a rail corridor, if not for full-scale rail as it's currently (barely) used by BNSF, than as a light rail people mover that could help get folks around the burbs without increasing pressure on roads over there. Once a bike path, always a bike path, though. There's no going back. However, now that the entire deal is being called into question we're finding ourselves more and more open to the bike trail thing. It would be easier, after all, to wrest the right-of-way back from the powerful bicycle lobby than it would be to reacquire all the land from private owners, which is what will end up happening to the corridor if Sims' deal doesn't happen.

Before we get to today's boat, there's a half-assed explanation of the Empress of the North's Alaskan accident online as of yesterday--apparently they were making a turn and hit a rock... Well, cruise passengers should certainly slumber easily in their berths now that that whole thing has been exposed. There's also (another?) entirely fictitious accounting of the accident at The Spoof.

They're actually doing it. The Port is getting King County Airport (AKA Boeing Field) in exchange for an Eastside rail corridor and a bag of baseballs. A bunch of Agreements were signed today making it so, with the other interested party being King County. When this deal was first floated to the public in October it was made clear that the rail corridor would be transformed into a recreational trail, something that we found to be kind of neat but also kind of wasteful, although we didn't really shed many tears for the Spirit of Washington dinner train that was going to be displaced in the process. In the press release this time around the recreational possibilities of the corridor are downplayed somewhat, but that's still the intended use. The County promises to do some research into making it a transit pathway, although they insist that such a transit line isn't currently needed.

Air France is announcing daily direct flights from Seattle to Paris today, beginning June 11. Wow, just in time for that early summer get-away we've been trying to plan. The Port's email release focuses more on Parisians coming to Seattle, of course:

KING 5's Investigators have their panties in a bunch about the racist and pornographic emails Port of Seattle police were sending on Port time, using Port computers. In their story, they can hardly bring themselves to present the liberally pixelized graphic evidence. Again and again. It turns out, "over a two-year period, 32 officers -- nearly a third of the entire force -- either received, saved, or passed on more than 175 inappropriate e-mails, including sexually explicit and pornographic images and racist videos and jokes."

If you've been hoping that itchy aneurysm of yours will pop a stroke on you and leave you blessedly free of worldly cares, we recommend the new P-I series On the Waterfront as a trigger event.

In non-holiday tree related Port news, all of the Seattle-Tacoma International Taxicab Association (STITA) taxis will run on compressed natural gas by this summer (the press release says "Aug. 31, 2006" but we're guessing they meant 2007). In fact all of the sedan-style STITA cabs already burn natural gas. The Port had to hunt around for sedans that use the alternative fuel, and purchased a bunch from California fleets that were retiring the cars. Ford stopped making CNG Crown Victorias in 2004 ("Who Killed The Compressed Natural Gas Car?"), but there are companies out there that convert standard petroleum cars to CNG.

Well, guess what? The tide has turned once again in the War On Christmas - The Port of Seattle has decided to replace the trees it removed from the main passageway of the airport over the weekend. Rabbi Bogomilsky withdrew his suit, but we're guessing the reversal had more to do with the national attention the Port got than any actions on the part of the rabbi.

Dammit, do we really have to open up a front of the "War on Christmas" in Seattle? The Port removed a bunch of holiday trees from the airport this weekend ("holiday trees" are evergreens that have been decorated with lights and garland and small hanging ornaments - They're similar to Christmas trees, except holiday trees don't go to heaven when they drop their needles). The holiday trees were removed because a local rabbi sued the Port to get his 8' holiday menorah put up alongside the trees.

What it is, see, is we have this Google news alert set for "Port of Seattle" and "confederacy of dunces." We're always surprised at how often we get sent something.

The Port of Seattle just knocked on Seattlest's inbox with news that six computer disks that contain information on over six thousand airport workers are missing. First of all, who the hell still stores information on "computer disks?" Hopefully, that means "DVDs," but still. When are we going to hear the first report of a thumb drive containing critical homeland security data being stolen?

The Port of Seattle has made the pages of both local dailies the last few days. Knowing the Port, they're feting the PR department.

The Port is on a mission to kill Fishermen's Terminal and thereby stamp out one of the last embers of working Seattle. By "kill" we mean "revitalize" or "update for today's urban needs" or something else that means a healthy and functioning area of the city will be wiped away to make room for yuppie entertainments. No more liveaboards, the Port says, ostensibly in response to the four bodies that have been found floating in Salmon Bay over the past few months, but we know that they've been waiting for any opportunity to march into the area with a scrub brush and a couple thousand gallons of bleach for years now. The drowinings are to the new restrictions what 911 is to Iraq; the one has nothing whatsoever to do with the other, but you've wanted to do this thing anyway so why not call it a reason.

Seattlest regrets there isn't a "Delete All" button when it comes to Port leadership.

You can usually get a good feel for an event by the media distributed to promote it. If you see a guy with a guitar on a flyer stapled to a tree you don't have to scrutinize the (no doubt questionably legible) text to have a pretty good idea whether the event is for you or not. You either rawk or you don't. Likewise if you drive past a Clear Channel monstrosity on the highway blaring an image of a scantily clad singer, you know it's going to be expensive and that there will be synchronized and choreographed dancing. That's either not your bag or it is, and Seattlest isn't going to judge you on that. (lame) Even event websites are distinctive. Some are flashy and arty and take a little effort to navigate and some are polished and clean and funnel you right to the ticket purchasing page. Either way their designs say a lot about the event they're promoting. In that light, check out www.kineticrace.info.

The short answer, according to the Port of Seattle: The cranes are orange...because they are orange.

The Port of Seattle today offered land for a new trolley barn to be built about a mile north of the current, endangered-by-the-sculpture-park trolley barn, on Port-owned land near the Grain Terminal. The Port has also offered to lay the trolley track, but they won't pay to build the barn. You can read the full press release here. And you can read a press release from Ron Sims, who likes the idea, here.

The Port of Seattle announced a 20% increase in container traffic for the year of 2004 over 2003, due chiefly to the port's good relationship with China. Harbor traffic is measured in container TEUs or "twenty-foot equivalent units," so the precise number is just under 1.8 million TEUs, a record for the port. The Port of Tacoma just edged us out with slightly more than 1.8 million TEUs. You'd think we could have picked up another couple of thousand TEUs from somewhere and led the Sound, at least. Congratulations to Tacoma on that one. Tacoma is ranked as the seventh largest cargo port in North America.