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Friday, August 3, 2007

This Doesn’t Make Sense to Me

posted by on August 3 at 12:59 PM

Today, the PI endorsed Port Commission incumbent Bob Edwards in the primary. (We endorsed Gael Tarleton.)

The PI broke the story earlier this year about Port CEO Mic Dinsmore’s controversial retirement deal—a deal that resulted in an ethics investigation.

As a key ally of Dinsmore and Port Commissioner Pat Davis (the main scandalistas), Edwards was at the center of that scandal. He’s also at the center of a status quo Port Commission that is about as popular in Seattle these days as trans fats.

PI reporter Kristen Millares Bolt, who broke the Dinsmore scandal, reportedly sat in on the PI’s ed board meetings with the Port candidates.

I don’t know if the PI ed board also included her in their endorsement discussions, but if I were her, I’d be bummed about the decision.

Is the PI going out of its way to prove that there’s a separation between editorial opinion and straight-up news—and so, pshaw on Millares Bolt’s great reporting?

It’d be one thing if Edwards was an incredibly impressive Commissioner. But he’s not. He’s part of a status quo group that has excelled at secrecy, financial inadequacy, sweetheart deals, and embarrassing gaffes.

It’s one thing to stand by the split between the news page and the editorial page, but when your news page does a bang up job proving that a Commission is incompetent, you’d think the editors would recognize there’s also a valuable connection between the news page and the editorial page. That is: Editorial opinions oughta be supported by the facts. Well, news reporter Millares Bolt was armed with those.

Dumb endorsement guys.

RSS icon Comments

1

Yeah, and they also picked that shoe guy over Gael Tarleton.

I like much of what Thom has to say, and might even put him at or near second place in my own evaluations, but still...

I'm still hoping to see two challengers (Tarleton and either Block or McCann) finish ahead of Edwards in that race, though I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by N in Seattle | August 3, 2007 1:08 PM
2

Yeah, I feel like the P-I Ed Board is slipping this election. Weird.

Posted by totally | August 3, 2007 2:14 PM
3

I think the PI must have dipped into the brownie box. The green ones.

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 3, 2007 2:50 PM
4

Follow the cookie crumbs south to Lora Lake.

Apparently, a grandstanding campaign stunt to save low income housing units in the flight path of the third runway can expunge all the past sins of Republican Bob.

Getting pictured hugging Ron Sims also helps.

Posted by Burien Brye | August 3, 2007 3:33 PM
5


www.munileague.org/cec/ 2007/report/PortComm.htm

www.alecfisken.com/

As few of you know, I got involved in the 2006 Port of Seattle Commission Election. During this for once delightful adventure, I made acquaintance with near everyone at the Port.

www.portseattle.org/

One of the most pleasant surprises was getting to know Alec. He has been the sole stalwart, knowledgeable voice asking for transparency in a public agency that conducts its typically Seattleish, nepotistic business practices not only in obscurity, but incompetently, at great waste of resources, with endless boondoggles. E.g.: The Port has managed to loose money on the passengers that come straight from the airport to embark on the cruise ships! Now the cruise terminals are going to be converted back to freight with new passenger terminals to be built further north, at the cost of yet another $ 120 Million, a foolishness that, to be fair to Mic the Great, even he opposed, not just Alec!

His opponent Bryant, a lobbyist for the food exporting industry, a die-hard Republican until now, makes me uneasy for his backing from the same forces - the Alki Club [that combine of the original thieves that came ashore there about 150 years ago, one way of regarding them!] that supports the nepotistic, insider dealing and trading status quo. The fixes are in, not of course as in New York City, but still. And it might take a Cy Hersh to unravel it, none of the local papers, but none, are doing sufficient investigative work. So no wonder at some deals then being floated so openly.

With the coming this year of, so I hear, ultra-sharp Port C.E.O . Tay Yoshitani, a new day may have dawned, no longer "biz as usual." E.g.: The Boeing Field, trail deal negotiated by his predecessor Mic Dinsmore - whom the novelist in me appreciates to the extent of his career and color, in this city of mallards - has been shelved. A more regional, less parochial approach may be in the offing. To support those objectives , a second term for Alec is essential. Alec a non Lute Fisk, cured in the original brine!

One vote on a person commission can make a huge difference. What if Jack Jolley had replaced Pat Davis, the foxy lady, the last election, who came in at 50.5 % in the primary and staid there at the general election. Maybe the electorate was beginning to smell something.

And what a pleasant surprise current Port Commission John Creighton is!

www.washblog.com/story/2007/7/29/205212/093
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/325761_fisken31.html

www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19322&s=4 a7139b36b42524d050cafd1ea54ede1&


and here a link to the 800 pound gorilla
at the port
/www.ssamarine.com/
============================== ==============

Regarding the 2nd race for Port Commissioner where Bob Edwards is running for re-election, I tend to favor Gael Tarelton
www.voteforgael.org/
despite the overlap of interest in security issues.
Edwards strikes me as a perfectly personable fellow, but then who isn't hereabouts except for meself! He used to be a rubber stump for Mic the Great and, so I have gathered, he now channels County Executive Ron Sims - no doubt an interesting experience if you look at that photo of the two of them seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2003747131.h tml
embracing on some railway track, playing chicken no doubt with an oncoming BSNF train! Of course, as to channeling he could do a lot worse. But wouldn't it be better if he had a self of his own to chunnel? Jack Block, JR looks interesting too, as does Thom McAnn if only for his position that the ports of Tacoma and Seattle ought to combine and so swing a lot more weight, also when it comes to moving stuff, that no original native ever needed, to those insatiable consumers further east.

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