Elected or Appointed?

By Jordan Royer, Vice President of External Affairs

Washington State just wrapped up its 2019 General Election. There were statewide ballot measures that reduced car registration fees and transportation funding that passed and an effort to restore affirmative action in the state which was narrowly defeated. There were also many local campaigns for city councils, mayors, school boards, and yes, port commissions.

While a high-profile election for control of the City Council in Seattle set spending records and attracted national attention, there were also races for port commission seats in Seattle and Tacoma. Port commission elections are usually quiet affairs to which only insiders pay much attention. And while most people on the street could not name a single member on these commissions, they make decisions that impact us all.

Washington State is one of the few states in the US that elect port commissioners. In California, commissioners are appointed by a city’s mayor. It is not uncommon for a new mayor to come into office and replace all five commissioners with his or her supporters. Of course, the hope is that they will be highly qualified and beyond politics.

For elected commissioners in Washington State, they must run county-wide campaigns with less campaign cash than a single district Seattle City Council attracts. It is almost impossible to develop and execute a campaign that reaches even a fraction of registered voters. And while many political appointees to commissions in California may be chosen much like an Ambassador to Lichtenstein, some may be chosen because of needed expertise or experience as well. For a countywide vote in Pierce and King County however, the voter will have little to no idea about either. They may vote on the way a name sounds, gender or ethnicity, party affiliation, or maybe they think they’ve heard that person’s name before.

The only way issues generally play in these races is around a controversy at the port that gets wide coverage. One example is the provisioning of the Shell Offshore Drilling Rig docked at the vacant Seattle container terminal 5 in 2015. This gave birth to the “kayaktivists” and created raucous commission hearings. It also gave environmental activist Fred Felleman a clear path to the commission as he opposed the Shell lease with Foss Maritime at Terminal 5. Felleman was easily elected this year with only token opposition.

A current example is the liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Tacoma that is being built so ocean going vessels can convert from conventional fuels to cleaner LNG. Only a few years ago a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Legislature passed an incentive package to build the facility. Now, they have turned against it and activists in Tacoma have as well. This has propelled attorney and activist, Kristin Ang to a seat on the Tacoma Commission.

The question is whether Ang will follow the path taken by well-regarded Felleman and work collaboratively with her colleagues at the port – even experiencing some blowback from former allies, or whether she will be driven by the single issue she is most passionate about and see compromise as surrender? It is a challenging position to be in to be sure.

The other commissioner elected in Tacoma this year, Deanna Keller, supports the move of ships to using cleaner LNG. Keller is also a retired Marine, Elementary School Principal, and business owner. Given her background, I would expect her to be a strong leader on the commission.

The other newcomer to the Port of Seattle is Sam Cho. Mr. Cho has campaigned on some pretty far flung issues like legalizing prostitution. While this is a compelling topic, and worth a public dialogue it is hard to see that the port has any authority to implement this plan. The other idea he propounded on the campaign trail is to have Seattle commissioners become full-time employees elected by districts, each with their own staff members. There have been other commissioners in the past who have pushed this agenda, but there have always been commissioners who oppose due to their desire to serve as boardmembers and continue to work in their chosen careers.

It should also be noted that Seattle commissioners are already the highest paid, most highly staffed commissioners on the West Coast. But Mr. Cho may have an ally for this agenda in Fred Felleman who recently penned an Op Ed in an alternative weekly arguing that commissioners should receive full time pay. These discussions would never occur in California because of the nature of the appointment process.

This background is provided only to highlight the pluses and minuses of each system. It is hard to know which governance structure is superior. On the one hand, a commissioner elected countywide may have a broader perspective than one appointed by a mayor. Also, a mayor of a city may decide to subsidize city services from port revenues instead of investing in infrastructure at the port to be more competitive. A failure of commissioners to accommodate this could get them replaced.

For elected commissioners, though, there is always a desire to be a player in the biggest issues locally and nationally. In Seattle, commissioners are often pulled into issues like homelessness, income inequality, and public safety. Since few people know who they are (and they must be re-elected) there is pressure to “be seen” as these high-profile issues are debated in the public square. But the downside is it’s easy to lose focus on the core mission of ports.

The late port director and state transportation chair, Dick Ford, would often describe the mission of the port this way: “The job of the port is to build s##t, lease it out and create jobs.” He was often frustrated by commissioners losing focus.

So which is better: To hand over the makeup of a port commission to a mayor who may want to use it to his or her own political or personal ends, or to a public that is either driven by a single issue, or even worse, has no idea who or what they’re voting for? The answer may be both. As Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”