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.