Podcasts about sea tac airport

What's Trending: A prolific car thief has been charged with 12 felony counts. Of those, majority of them deal with car thefts and break ins at SeaTac Airport. The suspect was released under his own recognizance. Former Seattle City Council member Tanya Woo had someone break into her car and fall asleep in the back seat. Dem. Rep. Jasmine Crockett went on The Breakfast Club to talk about how the members of this country that are less educated tend to vote Republican. She goes on to say that the Democrats are being too detailed and sophisticated with their arguments and presentation of facts // LongForm: GUEST: SPOG President Mike Solan // The Quick Hit:  There is a possible change to the self-checkout rules in grocery stores under a new Washington lawmakers plan. 

More snow is expected tonight and the roads could get a bit treacherous. President Trump is signing an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Democrats are freaking out over President Trump’s freeze on USAID funding. // Big Local: A South Whidbey Island student’s parent was taken into custody by ICE. Two planes collides on the runway at Sea-Tac Airport. Patti Jackson has been named the interim Tacoma Police Chief. // The Miami Marlins baseball team are being sued by a fan over dog urine.

We’re nearing the finish line of 2024, and wow what a year. Boeing’s year started with a bang, but not in a good way. In January, a door-sized panel blew off of a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet mid-flight. They also got a new CEO and endured a 53 day machinist strike. The Seattle Public Library, SeaTac Airport, and the Highline school district all got cyber attacked. Seattle Public Schools went from planning to close 20 schools to planning to close zero, University of Washington joined the big 10, and some zebras broke loose near North Bend. There’s a lot to reflect on, and thankfully our friends over at Week in Review took time to look back on the year for their Year in Review event. Here’s a portion of their conversation, hosted by KUOW’s Bill Radke. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week… Kroger and Albertsons will not be merging any time soon, and things are getting messy between the two companies. The last Sears in Washington is closing this weekend… Remember the Sears catalogue? And Washington State University picked a name for our state’s newest apple. Ticket Editor Chase Burns and Political Strategist Sandeep Kaushik are here to break down the week. Weigh in on Sea-Tac Airport expansion here. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LFTR Episode 82 - we're still here, thanks for being here too. This week we talk about The Next Right Thing.Highlights include:* How to do election night like tired millennial parents* Can't process catastrophe* Jamie's (actually) 39* Moving to Scandinavia?* The ongoing love affair with niche personal sports data tech* Backcountry skiing safety - get some friends!* The propane regulator might be the cause for the Airstream's tankless water heater not heating well* The hidden overheight parking at SeaTac* Airport lounges? y/n* More ruminations on towing with electric trucks* Econ 101 with Jamie* Why do people help a neighbor but vote against their rights?* Upcoming camping plans* A new writing project!* Practice how you'll respond to “casual hate” in the places you live. If you don't have a response it's easy to just laugh uneasily.Links:* Carv Ski coach* Airstream Adventures Portland* TSA PreCheck By Clear* F-150 Lightning* RAM Electric TrucksThanks for listening! As always you can find LFTR at http://lettersfromtheroadpod.com, and you can email us at lettersfromtheroadpod@gmail.com.Find LFTR Diaries on the LFTR YouTube channel.Find us on socials @lettersfromtheroadpod!If you feel like kicking us a few bucks because you like what we do you can Become a PenPal and chat with us and others in the PenPals Discord Get full access to Letters From the Road at lettersfromtheroad.substack.com/subscribe

What’s Trending: Seattle Times columnist blames Harris loss on racism and sexism, claims Kamala Harris had more experience. Democrats and the media are freaking out over Trump’s plans for deportations. // Big Local: A cat owner is filing a lawsuit against Tacoma animal shelter for giving away her cat before she had a chance to recover it. Skykomish residents residents are getting fed up with rampant power outages. A new shuttle service can take you to and from Bellevue hotels and SeaTac Airport. // Women are cutting their hair and withholding sex from men in protest of Donald Trump’s election victory.

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, it's a grab-bag of topics, including self-driving wheelchairs, Expedia Group Chairman Barry Diller's comments on the prospects for an acquisition by Uber, and an update on GeekWire's upcoming events and coverage. In the final segment, we discuss what the new Trump administration could mean for technology regulation, including the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon and oversight for tech M&A. Related coverage and links NYT: Tech Giants Face a Familiar Uncertainty With Trump Expedia chairman Barry Diller on potential deal with Uber and Washington Post's ‘blunder' Sea-Tac Airport's self-driving wheelchairs are getting stymied by unexpected obstacles Upcoming GeekWire Events GeekWire Gala, Dec. 12: Register here. Microsoft @ 50: Special series and March 20 event. With GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3pm: Donald Trump is elected 47TH U.S. President // Kamala Harris delivered her concession speech just after 1pm today // Why Americans need to stop crafting their emotional identities around politics // Matthew Patrick Thomas - Chairman of the King County GOP nailed his Election Night prediction // Sea-Tac Airport’s self-driving wheelchairs are getting stymied by unexpected obstacles 

6pm: Guest - Chase Oliver - Libertarian Third Party Canadidate for President // Matthew Patrick Thomas - Chairman of the King County GOP nailed his Election Night prediction // Sea-Tac Airport’s self-driving wheelchairs are getting stymied by unexpected obstacles 

What’s Trending: Dave Reichert delivered a surprisingly strong debate performance last night. Reichert repeatedly hit Ferguson on crime and public safety. Washington State closed its execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. // SeaTac Airport was ranked one of the worst ‘mega’ airports in customer satisfaction according to J.D. Power. Despite the federal government building only 8 EV charging stations with $7.5 billion, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had no shame. // Joe Biden addressed the Economic Club of Washington D.C. where he attempted to tout the strength of the American economy. A Utah mom suffered a heart attack while on a treadmill after ignoring several warning signs.  

This week on the GeekWire Podcast, we revisit the controversy over Starbucks' hybrid work policy for its new CEO, Brian Niccol; discuss the cyberattack that crippled computer systems at Sea-Tac Airport in the Seattle area this week; and provide an update on last week's episode about AI text-to-music generators. Articles and topics discussed on this episode: Hybrid policy for new Starbucks CEO sparks debate over remote work, corporate jet emissions Starbucks' New CEO Has a Big Carbon Footprint - WSJ Starbucks' New CEO Will Take Charge Without Training Wheels - Bloomberg Steve Ballmer Chases NBA Glory at Intuit Dome, the LA Clippers' Gleaming New Home Plane English: Sea-Tac Airport turns to pen and paper to replace digital displays after cyberattack Port of Seattle outage continues two days after suspected cyberattack by ‘nefarious characters' GeekWire's quest for an AI theme song opened our ears to the debate rattling the music industry GeekWire Podcast listener Fortunato Vega shares his AI-generated theme song on LinkedIn. With Todd Bishop and Taylor Soper. Edited by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Huge travel weekend ahead at Sea-Tac Airport, SPS delays announcement of school closure list, and we learn the surprising history behind PAX West. It's our daily roundup of top stories from the KUOW newsroom, with host Patricia Murphy. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW. We want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Telegram's CEO is arrested by French police, presumably over moderation failures. A cyberattack disrupted services at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and the Port of Seattle. SonicWall has warned customers of a critical vulnerability that could lead to unauthorized access or a firewall crash. Dutch and French regulators fined Uber €290 million for failing to protect the privacy of EU drivers. Microsoft will host a cybersecurity conference next month in response to the disastrous CrowdStrike software update. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty looks at Iran's active attempts to interfere in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Our guests are Danielle Ruderman, Senior Manager for Worldwide Security Specialists at AWS, and Adam Mikeal, CISO at Texas A&M. They spoke with N2K's Brandon Karpf about CISO Circles, security challenges faced in higher education, and fostering the culture of security. Pig Butchering devastates a small town bank.  Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Our guests are Danielle Ruderman, Senior Manager for Worldwide Security Specialists at AWS, and Adam Mikeal, CISO at Texas A&M. They spoke with N2K's Brandon Karpf about CISO Circles, security challenges faced in higher education, and fostering the culture of security. Brandon spoke with Danielle and Adam at AWS' re:Inforce 2024.  Selected Reading Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested at French airport (BBC) Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app? – A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering (Cryptography Engineering) The Port of Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport say they've been hit by ‘possible cyberattack' (TechCrunch) Nearly 32 Million Documents, Invoices, Contracts, and Agreements Exposed Online by Global Field Service Management Provider (Website Planet) SonicWall Patches Critical SonicOS Vulnerability (SecurityWeek) Uber fined €290 million for sending drivers' data outside Europe (Politico) Microsoft plans September cybersecurity event to discuss changes after CrowdStrike outage (CNBC) Iran Tries To 'Storm' U.S. Election With Russian-Style Disinformation Campaign (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) Audit finds notable security gaps in FBI's storage media management (Bleeping Computer) Cryptocurrency 'pig butchering' scam wrecks Kansas bank, sends ex-CEO to prison for 24 years (CNBC) Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sea-Tac Airport reeling from cyberattack, Home Depot fined $1.6 million for selling super pollutant, and WA 's Attorney General candidates face off in court over gun laws. It's our daily roundup of top stories from the KUOW newsroom, with host Patricia Murphy. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. You have the power! Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW. We want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram at SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amy King and Neil Saavedra join Bill for Handel on the News. Israel and Hezbollah in major missile exchange as escalation fears grow. Suspected cyberattack outage continues at Port of Seattle, causing chaos at SeaTac Airport. Police warn public of fake QR codes found on Redondo Beach parking meters. Albertsons and Kroger hope to merge but must face skeptical US government in court first. RFK Jr drops out of presidential race and endorses Trump. Trump suggests he might skip ABC debate with VP Harris. Actual facts fail to change minds once people are exposed to misinformation.

While its origins as an airfield date back to the early months of World War II, the Port of Seattle is marking 75 years of Sea-Tac Airport.

6pm: RECAPPING THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE // GUEST - CHRIS SULLIVAN - FOURTH OF JULY TRAVEL // Flying at Sea-Tac Airport for the Fourth of July? Here’s what to know // Trump’s Promise to Unseal the JFK Files if Re-Elected

3pm: RECAPPING THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE // GUEST - CHRIS SULLIVAN - FOURTH OF JULY TRAVEL // Flying at Sea-Tac Airport for the Fourth of July? Here’s what to know // Trump’s Promise to Unseal the JFK Files if Re-Elected

6pm - GUEST: Russell Johnson - The Senior Pastor at The Pursuit that organized the March to the UW campus on Sunday // Seattle church leads counterprotest in support of Israel on UW campus // No More Masks At Protests? Washington Lawmaker Aims To Make It Illegal // Many different reasons to wear masks at protests // Seattle church leads counterprotest in support of Israel on UW campus // Pro-Palestinian protestors appear in court for shutting down road to Sea-Tac airport // NYC-Dublin live video art installation already bringing out the worst in people with lewd displays

Recent protests have ignited debate over whether blocking traffic should be a federal crime. Activists recently targeted major highways and airport access roads nationwide, including a significant disruption at Seatac Airport, where 46 protesters were charged. The demonstrators, using a tactic known as a "sleeping dragon," effectively halted traffic, impacting thousands and delaying flights. The suggestion to elevate such obstructions to a federal offense underscores a growing frustration with protests that impede daily life and raise safety concerns. This incident highlights the balance between public demonstration rights and maintaining order, with calls for stricter penalties to deter such disruptive actions. #TrafficLaws #ProtestReform #PublicSafety --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darien-dunstan3/message

What’s Trending: Suspended Seattle teacher Ian Golash has decided to play offense by leaning into antisemitic talking points again. Washington Republicans are attempting to make it a felony to block a highway intentionally after the Palestinian protests at Sea-Tac Airport. A Palestinian activist wouldn’t condemn the chants of ‘Death to America’ when pressed by Piers Morgan. // LongForm: GUEST: Dr. Raul Garcia is calling out the big money donors supporting Sen. Maria Cantwell’s reelection bid // The Quick Hit: Senator Rand Paul grills Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at his Senate hearing.

3pm - Jesse Jones - Only ⅓ of Americans have a will.. Do you? // For Troops in Transition, the USO lounge at SeaTac Airport “is a godsend” // GUEST: KATE STONE - Legislative Wrap-Up: Natural Gas Bill in Limbo // Latest on the Heywood Bills: Tax Bills go to Ballot // Deep Dive on the Long Term Care Tax // Drew Barrymore and Christina Aguilera say “the mile high club” is something everyone should try

The Context of White Supremacy welcomes Dr. Vernice L. Haddix. A student of aeronautics and formed Manager of Land Sight Operations at Sea-Tac Airport in Washington state, we'll discuss Dr. Haddix's 2022 dissertation: The Motivation to Lead and Black Men's Lived Experiences in Airport Management. Dr. Haddix highlights that there is a substantial lack of research on what motivates black males to seek leadership positions in the workplace and even less data on the black male experience in the field of aviation. To make it explicit, in 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration reported that: “Of the 519 U.S. primary commercial service airports, fewer than 10 are led by African American men.” We'll explore the interviews that Dr. Haddix conducted with the rare black dude who manages a major airport. Gus noted that many of these well-educated aviators used a variety of exotic metaphors to convey their thoughts and experiences about the System of White Supremacy/Racism. One black male stated bluntly that “You have to be white.” Other black males seemed reluctant to acknowledge the existence of Racism at all. More than one black male openly acknowledged being ignorant about Racism - Gus is too. #AirRage #BlackMisadnry #TheCOWS15Years INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Cash App: https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 605.313.5164 CODE: 564943#

TODAY'S TOP STORIES // Holiday shopping in Seattle // WE NEED TO TALK about being picked up at the airport

Sanchita Shahi is the founder of Tea N Me, with an entrepreneurial journey that epitomizes the essence of struggle, resilience, and triumph. A first-generation immigrant and woman of color, she embarked on a life-changing pursuit of her dreams in the land of opportunities, leaving her vibrant family behind at SeaTac Airport in 1997. Excelling in the corporate world for over 15 years, she navigated the stress and pressures that came with it until the pandemic's uncertain times led her to the healing wisdom of Ayurveda and the comforting solace of a steaming cup of tea. Drawing from her own transformative experience, Sanchita now empowers, educates, and uplifts others on their path to better health and wellness through Ayurvedic-inspired teas, making Tea N Me a beacon of holistic living.

URSULA'S TOP STORIES // GUEST: Chris Sullivan on Sea-Tac getting creative in finding room to grow for $4.5B expansion // WE NEED TO TALK about tipped workers recieving minimum wage

Democrat Senator Bob Menendez indicted on bribery charges - but WHO is Senator Bob Menendez?! // Bellevue light-rail line isn't open yet, but something's already broken and Sea-Tac Airport possibly best and worst airport in the country // Joe Biden repeats the same story twice almost 'word for word' within minutes, sparking concern online // Barstool Sports CEO Dave Portnoy cold-calls a Washington Post reporter to confront her about upcoming hit piece about his upcoming pizza festival // Washington mayor claims she's being harassed after calling 911 on 'far right' activists at Walmart // Gavin Newsom explains that California and New York outperformed Florida on Covid. All while keeping a straight face // Washington residents outraged over proposal to release sex offenders into community - Cathy Dahlquist joins Ari to discuss the details // Fake News Friday! // Seattle Community Police Commission urges unpaid leave for officer caught allegedly mocking woman's death // Lars Larson Unleashed!

6am hour -- Burien City Councilman describes a proposed homeless camping ban as "white supremacy", the claim underscores the tactic of playing the race card when you can't argue against a political issue you disagree with, Biden's DHS Sec. appoints two former Obama officials that pushed the 2016 Russia collusion hoax to a new "intelligence experts group", Sea Tac Airport ranked among the worst in North America by travelers, the grieving mom of a dead 2-year-old girl in Spanaway speaks out after the girl's father is charged with possessing the fentanyl that allegedly killed her, Las Vegas teens charged with running down a bicyclist in a car and they actually had the stupidity to record/stream it on their cell phone. 7am hour -- Yakima mayor calls 911 to report "right wing" signature gatherers, the curious excuse the mayor offers about the "nuance" of the law on signature gathering, a Snohomish Co. youth pastor (age 27) gets a terribly short 14 months in jail for sexually assaulting 14-year-old girl, an 18-year-old arrested for the shooting murder of a 19-yr-old in Puyallup was on probation for an armed crime as a 17-yr-old, the 18 yr old's arrest shows how dis-interested local and state lawmakers are in stopping gun crimes. 8am hour -- Burien City Councilman proclaims homeless camping ban for the city is "white supremacy", progressives are interested in intentions not results, Gov. Inslee cringe-inducing NYC climate week video, the five main WA governor's candidates are asked about their top two campaign priorities to help the state, only two candidates give answers that correspond with latest public opinion polling of WA residents.

SeaTac Airport slows for summer, the price to pollute increases, and Seattle celebrates its favorite bird (Sue).

5pm - GUEST: Andy Pittman, former Seattle Firefighter: Seattle Firefighters Now Drilled on Ibram Kendi Before Promotion to Top Jobs // Sea-Tac Airport parking rates going up more than 30% // LETTERSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4pm - IRS whistleblower speaks about tax probe linked to Hunter Biden // ‘Never a Reason to Take Off Your Socks': A Flight Attendant's 12 Etiquette Rules // Sea-Tac airport among 'least angry' airports in the country, analysis finds // Target becomes latest company to suffer backlash for LGBTQ+ support, pulls some Pride month clothing // Listener FeedbackSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Jody Hall has a new pop-up at SEATAC Airport, serving coffee with adaptogenic mushrooms in it. Her company, Wunderground Coffee and Mushrooms provides innovative wellness in the form of mushroom coffee. Wunderground offers products that are performance-enhancing, build focus, and boost brain power."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Biden wants to shut down hunting and fishing now. Does your school system use the OWL sex education program that prompts kids to talk about their sexual fantasies with their teacher? Started by a church in fact. The Seattle public library system will start a national band booksite that will allow 13 to 26 year olds to check out band books without anyone's knowledge. Illegals in Chicago get to stay in a $300 a night hotel in downtown while local homeless are ignored. A South Korean man was intercepted at Sea-Tac Airport with 50 vials marked E. Coli DNA in his luggage. The FBI hid a whistle blower document that shows Biden's corruption as vice president. The state of California has defaulted on a $20B federal loan. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has been fined $200k by the court for withholding documents. The United States electrical grid is in trouble. Washington Governor Jay Inslee has signed a bill allowing duplex's, 4 plexes and some 6 plexes anywhere in cities of 25,000 or more. Florida has passed a law for allowing the death sentence for convicted child rapists. #nnn #netnewsnetwork #headlines #headlinenews #trendingnews #breaking #breakingnews #newspodcast #conservativenews #nationalnews #worldnews #behindtheline #pnw #pnwnews #pacificnorthwest #washingtonnews #oregonnews #californianews #idahonews #prep #prepper #preppernews #shtf #shtfnews #survival #survivalnews #doomsday #doomsdayprepper #collapse #societalcollapse #blackpill #willyousurvive #areyouready #beprepared #nnn #netnewsnetwork #headlines #headlinenews #trendingnews #breaking #breakingnews #newspodcast #conservativenews #nationalnews #worldnews #behindtheline #pnw #pnwnews #pacificnorthwest #washingtonnews #oregonnews #californianews #idahonews #prep #prepper #preppernews #shtf #shtfnews #survival #survivalnews #doomsday #doomsdayprepper #collapse #societalcollapse #blackpill #willyousurvive #areyouready #beprepared --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/behindtheline/support

Plaintiffs say airplane emissions have caused harm to 300,000 residents who live in the flight paths.

6am hour -- Kirby Wilbur in for John Carlson today, inflation stories and anecdotes to start the show, SeaTac Airport's new $1 billion terminal will only fit 16 of the 20 planes it was designed to accommodate, the TN House of Reps expulsion controversy latest news, TX court convicts Uber driver who is a former Army sergeant of shooting and killing an armed BLM protester in 2020 in a case that revolved around self-defense. 7am hour-- Kirby Wilbur in for John Carlson -- Democrats in WA Legislature approve a bill to ban semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, why the gun ban vote won't deliver what Democrats are promising about mass shootings, Wilbur's suggestion on what can reduce mass shootings, Democrats lauding the WA Supreme Court ruling on capital gains income as subject to an excise tax are now irate at TX legal ruling about mifepristone, the first US President to ever be arrested by police (spoiler alert: it's before the advent of the car), the former Union Army soldier who was the DC police officer who made the arrest of the President, how Mark Twain convinced this President to write and sell his memoirs. 8am hour -- GUEST: ShiftWA.org's Randy Pepple, SB 5768 today would legalize (after the fact) Gov. Inslee's purchase of abortion drug mifepristone, HB 1628 would increase the state's real estate excise sales tax double talk about making housing more affordable by making it more expensive, how Gov. Inslee and other WA Democrats have failed to keep promises about mental health treatment in WA, Kirby Wilbur speaks candidly about knowing billionaire Harlan Crow, how the political left is trying to misrepresent Crow and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's friendship and relationship.

This week… Expanded SNAP benefits from COVID ended.Sea Tac Airport got a bunch of federal money to make improvements that will speed up security lines.And Seattle summers might get even hotter as the city loses its tree canopy, but at least we've got some cool music festivals to celebrate the summer season.We're breaking down the week with arts writer Jas Keimig and The Ticket's Chase Burns.We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/donate/seattlenow And we want to hear from you! Follow us on Instagram @SeattleNowPod, or leave us feedback online: https://www.kuow.org/feedbackGirl Scout Cookies: https://digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/troop40103-688

6pm - Sea-Tac Airport receives $16 million to shorten security lines // Stop eating airport food // Dr. Marty Makary drops the mic on Fauci's head // Her Cheer Squad Quit Days Before the State Championships. So She Went Alone // McDonald's Cardi B and Offset Promotion Draws Pushback From Some Restaurant OwnersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4pm - Sea-Tac Airport receives $16 million to shorten security lines // Stop eating airport food // Dr. Marty Makary drops the mic on Fauci's head // Walkers responds after mum-of-two eats £100k crisp // Johnny Carson Eats a Prized Potato Chip on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show // ‘Potato Chip Lady' passes away at 90 // Lawsuit Alleges NFL Films Catalogs Lewd Shots of Women at Games in DatabaseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beached sperm whale in Oregon. Seahawks lost to the 49ers in wild card weekend. Yeti Airlines plane crashes in Nepal. More rain on the way for weather-beaten California. // Multiple shootings in Seattle over the weekend. Apple Watches spur ‘dramatic' increase in 911 calls from ski resort. // More fallout from Biden and classified documents. Scarborough insinuates conservatives don't like the White House press secretary over her race. Homeless find shelter at Sea-Tac Airport. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many people experiencing homelessness are trying to stay invisible, often hiding in the jam of travel at the airport.

5pm - National media react to Russell Wilson's ‘disaster' season in Denver, and what it means for the Seahawks // Twitter Files: Platform Suppressed Valid Information from Medical Experts about Covid-19 // Stuck travelers at Sea-Tac Airport rebooking flights days in advance after cancellations // LETTERSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday, December 22 on Urban Forum Northwest:  *Seattle Port Commissioner Hamdi Mohamed is the only Port Commissioner living in South King County representing the neighborhoods around Sea Tac Airport. She comments on her work on the commission and reflects on some of her accomplishments and her priorities for the coming year.   *Former King County Councilman Larry Gossett Chaired the Seattle King County Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee for about 25 years. The organization changed its name in 2018 to the Seattle MLK Organizing Coalition. He comments on the 40th Anniversary of Seattle's MLK March.   *Reverend Dr. JJ Youngblood, Senior Pastor, House of Hope Fellowship talks about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the Pastor fighting for Equal Rights for Black Americans. He will comment on the January 15, 2023 MLK event at his Church.   *Luis Navarro, Director, Workforce Development for the Port of Seattle comments on the Port of Seattle's support for the Seattle MLK Organizing Coalition's Opportunity Fair that provides information and job opportunities at the January 16, 2023 Seattle Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration at Garfield High School. Information at www.seattlemlkcoalition.org.   *Holiday Concert with Seattle Recording Artist Josephine Howell December 22 6-8 pm at Wa Na Wari 911 24th Avenue, Seattle 98122 (CD).   Urban Forum Northwest airs live at www.1150kknw.com. Visit us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on facebook. Twitter@Eddie_Rye.

Thursday, December 22 on Urban Forum Northwest:  *Seattle Port Commissioner Hamdi Mohamed is the only Port Commissioner living in South King County representing the neighborhoods around Sea Tac Airport. She comments on her work on the commission and reflects on some of her accomplishments and her priorities for the coming year.   *Former King County Councilman Larry Gossett Chaired the Seattle King County Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee for about 25 years. The organization changed its name in 2018 to the Seattle MLK Organizing Coalition. He comments on the 40th Anniversary of Seattle's MLK March.   *Reverend Dr. JJ Youngblood, Senior Pastor, House of Hope Fellowship talks about Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the Pastor fighting for Equal Rights for Black Americans. He will comment on the January 15, 2023 MLK event at his Church.   *Luis Navarro, Director, Workforce Development for the Port of Seattle comments on the Port of Seattle's support for the Seattle MLK Organizing Coalition's Opportunity Fair that provides information and job opportunities at the January 16, 2023 Seattle Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration at Garfield High School. Information at www.seattlemlkcoalition.org.   *Holiday Concert with Seattle Recording Artist Josephine Howell December 22 6-8 pm at Wa Na Wari 911 24th Avenue, Seattle 98122 (CD).   Urban Forum Northwest airs live at www.1150kknw.com. Visit us at www.urbanforumnw.com for archived programs and relevant information. Like us on facebook. Twitter@Eddie_Rye.

According to FlightAware.com, nearly 200 flights have been grounded, and more delays may be in the forecast.

Congestion at Sea-Tac Airport has promoted the government to recommend that our region build a second commercial airport, but many local communities don't want it built in their back yards.

Congestion at Sea-Tac Airport has promoted the government to recommend that our region build a second commercial airport, but many local communities don't want it built in their back yards.

Congestion at Sea-Tac Airport has promoted the government to recommend that our region build a second commercial airport, but many local communities don't want it built in their back yards.

Congestion at Sea-Tac Airport has promoted the government to recommend that our region build a second commercial airport, but many local communities don't want it built in their back yards.

What's Trending: UW students take down free speech flyers. Kanye West storms out of interview. Big Local: Lacey couple wakes to intruders. Sea-Tac Airport needs more TSA agents. // Devin Nunes can sue over libel claims. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over 100 flights canceled at Sea-Tac Airport Tuesday // Feeling Superior Because the Heat is Still Off? You Might be a New Englander // Reuters reporter Andrea Shalal Asks White House How They Are Going to Screw Over Elon Musk for Supporting Free Speech on Twitter // Americans are choosing to be alone. Here's why we should reverse that. // John and Shari discuss how they came up for their Holiday Magic auction itemSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our second episode dealing with airport capacity and the possibility of a new commercial airport in Washington, host Austin Jenkins sits down with Sen. Karen Keiser and Rep. Tom Dent. Both serve on the state's Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission. Sen. Keiser has long represented the district that incudes SeaTac Airport, and Rep. Dent of Moses Lake, who is a pilot and owned an aviation company.

Ari is LIVE from the Federation for American Immigration Reform Hold Their Feet to the Fire Radio Row! Washington monument vandalized and 50 more illegal immigrants arrive at 'Border Czar' Kamala Harris' home Seattle Way - Ari breaks down how similar Washington DC is to Seattle as he discusses the latest on that homeless Megaplex The Swamp - GUEST: Jim Jordan, United States Representative from Ohio Woke Report - Nikki Haley fires back after Sunny Hostin accused her of hiding her ethnicity: 'I embrace my Indian heritage' Travelers continue to see extended security wait times at Sea-Tac Airport and Ari talks about his experience flying to Washington DC last night Left Coast - Human composting: California legalizes alternative green burial option - but why? Ari talks to an Angel Mom whose son was killed by an illegal alien drunk driver GUEST: Ira Mehlman, Media Director for our hosts at Federation for American Immigration Reform Ranchers talk about a piece of the border wall running through their property, but since it's unfinished nobody is watching the cameras GUEST: Brian Babin, United States Representative from Texas Good News Wrap Up!

“It was just crazy," she said. "We showed up two hours early for a flight and just immediately were taken to the garage."

Season 3 of Beyond the Venue Podcast kicks off with Liz Einhorn, Founder of Experience Threee, a hospitality growth consulting firm. Liz was a guest on Season 2 of Beyond the Venue Podcast, and I was excited to have her back on the show, but this time with an all new format. Incorporating clips from the “podcast project”, Liz and I listen to the clips and carry on the conversation started by my former students Caroline & Sara who also both work in hospitality.If you're looking to gain insight into how to work efficiently in a team as well as fun things to do in New Orleans, you're in the right place!Topics Include:Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe (Ted Talk)Service Industry Practices, especially with CovidLessons Learned Working in TeamsDo Schools Kill Creativity? (Ted Talk)Boundary Setting & Process ManagementMindfulness and Attempting to Avoid BurnoutThanks for listening, and enjoy the following episode, Leadership in Hospitality 301 with Liz Einhorn.About Liz:Liz Einhorn (she/her) A native of Philadelphia, Liz cut her teeth in the beverage industry at The Boston Beer Company, playing a pivotal role in launching innovative brands like Truly Hard Seltzer and Angry Orchard Cider throughout her 10-year career at BBC. In 2017, Liz founded Experience Threee, a growth consulting firm, to bring her expertise to a portfolio of emerging and established hospitality brands.   Liz developed the Brewtop Social Beer Garden concept slated to open in Seatac Airport this fall and has contributed and conceptualized beverage menus for concepts nationwide. She is also a Level One Cicerone and a certified Whisky Ambassador.  Connect with Liz on Instagram and Linked In. Follow Experience Threee on Instagram.Student Info:Caroline Nicholson (she/her) is a current student, majoring in Adult and Organizational Development at Temple University. Connect with Caroline on Instagram and LinkedIn. Sara Lenney is a recent graduate of the Adult and Organizational Development program at Temple University. Connect with Sara on Instagram and LinkedIn. ***Connect with MG on Instagram and Facebook, too!Follow BTV on Instagram and Facebook for all updates and releases.A ByVesta Production.

3PM - Supreme Court sides with Bremerton's praying coach // Gov. Inslee pushing for state constitutional amendment supporting abortion rights // Rantz: Violating policy, SeaTac Airport censored pro-life, conservative customers // Hotels Are Taking Wellness to Extremes, From IV Drips to MRIs // You're more likely to become friends with someone who smells like you  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2pm - The Big Lead @ 2 // 29 year old bio male beats 13 year old girl in skateboarding // SCOTUS and people shouting their abortions // SeaTac airport twitter gets involved in the abortion debate // Awesome Audio See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Airlines made that decision after a Florida judge struck down the national mask mandate for airplanes.

A prisoner escaped at SeaTac Airport and a possum was clinging to a buoy while looking adorable!

A cargo jet packed full of bandages, clean syringes, and other medical supplies is set to leave for Ukraine this week from Sea-Tac Airport. A group of nonprofit organizations, including Nova Ukraine and the Ukrainian Association of Washington State, donated $3.5 million in supplies to help Ukrainians fleeing violence.

Officials at Sea-Tac Airport are hoping a new pilot program will help curb the homeless crisis that's been growing inside. The Port of Seattle Police Department (POSPD) says before the pandemic, homeless people tended to seek shelter near baggage claim and mostly at night. Now they're moving to other nonsecure areas like ticketing and in public restrooms causing public safety concerns for police.LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for new videos everyday. https://bit.ly/3fs6dBU

On this Hacks & Wonks week in review, Crystal talks with activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, Mike McGinn about labor news, the downsides of car-centric planning, and alternative 911 responders. They discuss the first worker victory at a Seattle Starbucks, the tulip farm workers strike, King County elected officials getting involved in the concrete worker lockout, and an initiative to raise the minimum wage in Tukwila. Then they dive into the surprise highway in Seattle Waterfront plans and why adding lanes doesn't reduce traffic. Finally, Crystal and Mike discuss pushback on alternate responses to policing and what moving those jobs out of SPD looks like. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Mike McGinn, at @mayormcginn. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Seattle Starbucks employees approve union, the first on the West Coast” by Paige Browning from KOUW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-starbucks-wins-union-vote-the-first-on-the-west-coast    “Tulip farm workers go on strike one week before popular Mount Vernon festival” by Angeli Kakade from King5: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/farm-worker-strike-skagit-valley-tulip-festival/281-86d05687-6ab7-4d9d-9f94-8c9eb9c924b4    “County Proposes Concrete Co-Op as Private Companies Continue to Throttle Supply and Lock Out Workers” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/03/23/county-proposes-concrete-co-op-as-private-companies-continue-to-throttle-supply-and-lock-out-workers/    “Initiative aimed at Southcenter could raise minimum wage in Tukwila to match SeaTac, Seattle” by Daniel Beekman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/initiative-aimed-at-southcenter-could-raise-minimum-wage-in-tukwila-to-match-seatac-seattle   “Surface Highway Undermines Seattle's Waterfront Park” by Doug Trumm from The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/03/20/surface-highway-undermines-seattles-waterfront-park/   “Alternate Response in Seattle Meets Another Hurdle” by Amy Sundberg from Notes from the Emerald City: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/amysundberg/issues/alternate-response-in-seattle-meets-another-hurdle-1090894?utm_campaign=Issue&utm_content=view_in_browser&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Notes+from+the+Emerald+City    “UW Can Keep Civilians Who Replaced Campus Cops, Choe Show Canceled, Dembowski Bows Out” by Paul Kiefer and Erica C. Barnett from Publicola: https://publicola.com/2022/03/21/uw-can-keep-civilians-who-replaced-campus-cops-choe-show-canceled-dembowski-bows-out/    “Third and Pine bus stop to temporarily close amid downtown Seattle safety concerns” by David Kroman from The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/third-and-pine-bus-stop-to-temporarily-close-amid-downtown-seattle-safety-concerns/    Downtown Seattle Association: https://downtownseattle.org   The State of Downtown from the Downtown Seattle Association: https://downtownseattle.org/events/state-of-downtown/    Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks - and someone with a mean jump shot - the excellent Mike McGinn. Welcome back. [00:00:58] Mike McGinn: Thank you - although I don't think I have jumped on my shot for quite a long time. In fact, even - I played JV in college and they called me "Sunday Papers McGinn" - and the reason they called me that was they said that I didn't even jump as high as the Sunday papers. Now mind you - back then the Sunday papers were thicker than they are today, but even then it was still an insult about my jumping ability. [00:01:23] Crystal Fincher: All right - "Sunday Papers McGinn" - "Mayor McSchwinn" and "Sunday Papers McGinn" - there we are. [00:01:29] Mike McGinn: They also called me "Flash" because I lost every sprint, so it really is amazing that I could even hang at all on the court. I had to make it up with savvy and moxie - so there you go. [00:01:44] Crystal Fincher: But it worked. I wanted to start out just talking about some - one, seriously cool thing that happened this week - the Starbucks employees approved the first union on the West Coast here in Seattle, Starbucks's hometown, with the unanimous vote by the employees at the Broadway and Denny store on Capitol Hill to unionize. There is now a unionized Starbucks store on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and this is a really big deal. [00:02:14] Mike McGinn: I think that - I don't know how to put this in the great arc of the union story in America, but it does feel like we're starting to see - as we know, there was a real - unions saw a tremendous decline in post-World War II America. Immediately after the war, unionization was much stronger, there was a lot of shared wealth, the middle class grew stronger, broader, wealthier over that time and it really went together. Then we saw - you got to go back to the Reagan era - breaking the air traffic controller union was a highly visible sign, but there was a lot of other work that was done to weaken unions. And public opinions of unions declined as well. Unions were - oftentimes it was employee unions and public employee unions, excuse me - was really the strength of the union movement. And there were still, of course, craft unions and manufacturing unions and other service worker unions - but they really felt under siege. In the City of Seattle, for example, and it still goes on today - will a new hotel be a union hotel or a non-union hotel? And that's existential for the union workers because they don't want a non-union hotel to drive down wages so that they can't compete for wages, or their hotel that they work for can't compete. Same thing for grocery stores, so something like unionization in a Starbucks - coffee shops and more retail workers unionizing - that's a big deal, considering how many Starbucks there are across the country. It's also behind the push for the $15 an hour minimum wage - or really should be starting to get higher now - behind the push for paid sick leave, behind the push for childcare. Unions helped provide a floor for wages and working conditions, and we've now turned to the government to provide some of that floor - but with all the rising inequality across the country, we're seeing more people turn to unions, and it just feels like a change. So we'll have to see what happens moving forward, but it certainly feels like a change. [00:04:47] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, an absolute change and the link between the weakening of unions and income inequality is substantial. Certainly the pushback is happening - more than 150 other Starbucks locations are working to join the same union, including 6 in the Seattle area. So we're going to continue to see this with Starbucks, certainly with Amazon, another locally-based company that we're seeing a variety of unionization pushes across the country with that. And interesting because - trying to lead within the tech sector and the issue of unionization being important there - lots of times we're used to thinking about not just the lower wage jobs, but even the higher wage jobs is, "Oh, they make a good wage. They have no reason for a union," but my goodness, when you talk about all of the toxic workplace cultures that we've seen there, and actually even though someone may be making six figures and in not the lowest income bracket, the share of profit that is being absorbed by the company and kept from the workers, even in those higher paid jobs, is substantial. So it's just going to be really interesting to continue to follow these movements, and also looking at other local strike actions and labor actions. Another one this week, with the tulip farmers going on strike - tulip farm workers going on strike just before the Mount Vernon Tulip festival, which is really popular, but they have issues with worker conditions. They've been expected to work with lesions on their hands, their employers are not paying for PPE, and in very low wage jobs. The word there is that they continue to have a dialogue and they're working through it and both sides say that they're confident they can, but it is taking this collective action by workers to make this an issue that is pressing enough for employers to deal with. [00:06:53] Mike McGinn: Yeah, and we see an economy in which there's generally higher employment right now, so that's giving a little more bargaining power to workers, because the employment numbers are higher or the unemployment numbers are lower overall. It's a consequence of the inequality we've seen and grown - and in a period of growth - the pendulum swinging back a little bit. Will it be sustained? Probably will be determined by how government behaves ultimately in response to this. Do they support these movements? Or do we kind of go back to a time when the rules and procedures are set up to suppress it, and give more power to the companies in this discussion? [00:07:47] Crystal Fincher: Well, that's an excellent point regarding the response by government leaders and how that impacts the situation for workers. Because we see that with the concrete workers' strike action, which really has turned into a lockout by the concrete companies. The workers offered to go back to work, but the concrete companies have largely declined the workers' ability to do so. And not just that - the few workers who they have allowed to come back to work, they have not allowed them to drive trucks that are part of the company's fleets. They have actually acquired some old beat-down raggedy trucks that they've literally Sharpied the required information on the doors, and it just seems like a petty retaliatory action. And in response, we have seen throughout this process - some local leaders seem to put pressure on the workers by not forcing the companies to come back to the table or to respond in good faith. But Dow Constantine has basically said - hey, "Clearly the local concrete industry is failing the people of King County, and I won't let our region's infrastructure hang in the balance." And in response, he and members of the King County Council have proposed a local co-op, a publicly owned concrete co-op - to prevent situations like this from happening, to provide reliable, low-cost, on-time concrete to ensure that affordable housing projects, critical infrastructure gets completed on time. How do you see the leaders' responses in helping or hindering this whole process? Just how would you negotiate through this? [00:09:39] Mike McGinn: I just want to say I find this really fascinating - and I am an outsider - I have no particular insights on what's going on. But first of all, just the historical analogy - we have a public Port because the people that owned the docks on the Seattle waterfront could control how things worked. That affected - anybody who shipped through the public waterfront docks had to deal with the people who owned the docks - that was the reason we now have a public Port, because we didn't want to allow a few companies to control the flow of goods in and out of the state. And that was during the progressive era, same era in which we ended up with a publicly-owned electric utility and things like that - so to me, just the historical parallel is fascinating. I think the other piece of the parallel here is that - clearly, it's the issue of whether the workers are getting paid well, but this is also the rest of the business community saying we're hurting by the way you companies are acting. So what we see here is a split in the business community - so you have both Girmay Zahilay, a pretty progressive guy on the Council, and Dow Constantine - who's he's a progressive, but he's a more reliable partner to the business interest - let's remember, he came forward and he helped the Convention Center out with some short-term loans so they could keep going. And it's places like the Convention Center and the people who build massive infrastructure who really want to keep that concrete flowing. So it's just the politics of this here are fascinating, in which we're now seeing concrete production as a public good - or as a private good that must be handled by the public to ensure the smooth function of the economy. Now, if you look back at the Port - although it was hired to protect the small merchants using the Port - like any entity owned, run by the government, it can start leaning in on behalf of the big companies. So the Port itself is known for how it treats independent truckers, the Port itself is known for how it treats workers at its facilities. So I don't know - I'm just really struck by this - that we've come to this, where you have labor interests and other business interests saying the concrete companies need to get their act together, or we're going to take the business away from you. That's quite a moment here in Seattle. Let's see if it starts extending to other public goods as well - like maybe municipal broadband - maybe that's another place where only a few providers are managing to treat the rest of the community not so well, and we should look at public ownership. [00:12:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, another thing this week that was announced is an exciting initiative to raise the minimum wage in Tukwila, which includes Southcenter Mall - actually a really big employment hub for that city and that entire area, with a ton of retail and service workers - to raise the minimum wage there to $15 an hour. And it's next to SeaTac, it's next to other cities that have increased minimum wages - and so it's sitting there as an outlier and the Transit Riders Union is leading an initiative, a municipal initiative, to make that change. So this is a really interesting and exciting development - a test of worker-focused policy at the local level. And it's going to be really interesting to see how this unfolds. How do you see it? [00:13:35] Mike McGinn: The cities in this area - SeaTac, Tukwila, Burien, Kent, Auburn - are all places which have become much more diverse racially than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. And it's due in large part towards communities of color and immigrant refugee communities being pushed out by costs in Seattle. These are workers who - we're talking a lot of low wage service workers - who have to commute distances into the City or find local work. I view this as very positive that they're pushing for this. We know that the SeaTac fight was over $15, which occurred before anywhere - led to that SeaTac City Council being in the crosshairs from both sides as to who would get elected, who would hold the majority - of one that was more supportive of these communities, one that was more diverse than in the past, or one that was more business friendly. And I don't know, I'll just say that the trend continues here where we're seeing more and more public demand from the communities in those places to get more respect as to how they're paid and how difficult it is to make a go of it in expensive Pugetopolis. [00:15:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely - and so this initiative would set Tukwila's minimum wage to approximately match SeaTac's, which started at $15 an hour with cost-of-living increases. Right now, it is about $17.50 an hour, just around there - and so it's going to be really exciting to see how workers organize, how the community responds to this. There's going to need to be some signature collection and a campaign put forward for this, but it - being led by the Transit Riders Union who has experience and the resources necessary to do this - I am eager to see how it unfolds. Well - [00:15:57] Mike McGinn: This is just fascinating - if you look at the demographics of Tukwila, which I'm doing on the Census - it's 20% Black, it is 26% Asian - that's Black alone or Asian alone, not looking at mixed. 6.6% mixed and 30% white - so it's really extremely diverse place, and a place where - we'll all be better off if the folks who have been pushed to the bottom of the economic ladder have a better wage. We really will all be better off if we can do this. [00:16:37] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely, and another notable thing about this is - in some of the other pieces of legislation that have raised minimum wages, it was limited to certain types of jobs, or sometimes accepted - there were allowances or exceptions made for certain classifications of jobs to not be included. And this is an across-the-board minimum wage - saying that we're setting a floor for workers, period, that needs to be competitive with the region. And Tukwila's sitting in between Seattle and SeaTac and other areas, and neighboring cities can have as much of a $3 an hour difference in what the minimum wages are. So hopefully this also helps to speak to the competitiveness of the region, and just helping the people who are working and serving us to be able to participate in our economy and enjoy the fruits of it just like everyone else. Also want to talk about - this week, a story that came out that I know you commented on - the Seattle Times Editorial Board was pushing back against people's surprised reactions to see just how car-centric the new Seattle Waterfront Park is. When this was sold - again, lots of conversations and history and context from the period leading up to when you became mayor and while you were, but - lots of talk about opening up the Waterfront, and this can be just a jewel of the City, and this is going to be a wonderful place for families to come and pedestrians and bicyclists, and like other waterfronts and their areas that are great pavilions for people to just enjoy and have fun, and a world-class park basically is how it was sold. And then you see it, and there's a highway that replaced the viaduct. How did a highway become part of this, and why are they trying to say that that is what they set people up to expect? [00:18:50] Mike McGinn: I think there's a few different factors in here. And one of the factors, there's a bunch of different things going on here. Maybe you want to edit this piece out - I have a little bit of background noise, so I'll start my answer again here. When you look at this, that was the debate initially - and the call from people was if we don't build the tunnel, if you try to just have a surface highway, you're going to end up with a big highway on the Waterfront. So that was a big part of the argument that was made by the tunnel advocates. And of course there were still some people that just wanted to rebuild the elevated - but if you had to rebuild it to modern standards, it would've been twice as wide, because wider lanes, full shoulder, et cetera, et cetera. So that was a big part of the argument. And for just - I would say the single largest reason why we ended up with the road we have there - is just a belief system that you actually can't remove roadway capacity. You just can't remove it. So that's why we ended up with the tunnel. People would say - well, if we don't have a tunnel, then all those cars will flood the City streets, or all of those cars will flood I-5, and the economy will ground to a halt. In fact, that wasn't just the public statement - I was lectured privately by Governor Gregoire, at the time, asking me if I wanted to destroy the City economy by snarling I-5. They just can't let go of this idea that we must have highway capacity to accommodate the cars. And that attitude then found its way to the surface, even after the tunnel was built. The fact is that - at its base, there's a four-lane road, two lanes each way, which is a big road - let's be really clear about it. A four-lane road, two lanes each way. Those are roads that we find very uncomfortable in lots of parts of Seattle, whether that's Lake City Way, whether that's Rainier Ave, whether it's MLK - throughout the City, they tend to produce very high speeds on them because you have the two lanes side-by-side. They don't have the attributes of a good downtown City street, which will be more narrow, and just naturally slows down vehicles when you do that. So you start there, then you add the ferry holding areas and then they say, "We need to put in a bus line," and this also was a controversial - actually, it wasn't really a controversial decision - it should have been more controversial, honestly. That was that the buses from West Seattle could have been sent through Pioneer Square - and if you took the streets on either side of the park down there, Occidental, you could have had one street dedicated to buses going in, another street dedicated to buses going out - and you wouldn't need a dedicated bus lane on the Waterfront. In fact, you could have kicked the cars off those streets and made those bus-only corridors at the time. And it would've functioned a lot like Pike and Pine function on the way up to Capitol Hill - would've been about the same amount of traffic, bus traffic, there. And it would've been delivering people to a place where there's a lot of businesses, a lot of residents, but it was rejected because the Pike/Pine neighborhood advocates and business advocates said, "We don't want the bus lines. Bus lines are bad, they'll hurt us." They said, "It'll be like Third Avenue through us." That's not true - it would've been more like Pike/Pine in terms of the number of vehicles, number of bus trips. So that was part of it too. So by the time you say we have to have room for all the cars, and we have to have room for all the ferries, and we need a dedicated bus lane - next thing you know, you got something that's eight to six lanes wide through big chunks of it, and that's a really big road. [00:22:57] Crystal Fincher: It's a huge road. [00:22:59] Mike McGinn: It's a huge road. [00:23:00] Crystal Fincher: The Urbanist did a great article about this. So just to - again, they tore down the viaduct and put just as many lanes on the ground as they did - and actually more south of Columbia street, where it turns into that queuing area for the ferries - plus the tunnel underneath, and bypass lanes, and the new Elliot Way also adds four more lanes - funneling more cars and trucks into Belltown and the Waterfront, directly adjacent to the new aquarium - that's supposed to be a centerpiece of this Waterfront Park. So there are very few parks that people think of, when you think of a park, that actually include a literal highway going in the middle of it. This is an area where I learned from you, where I was actually wrong. We talk a lot about, "Hey, Mike McGinn turned out to be right. A lot of people were wrong." The kind of roads and transit - surface roads and transit - option where - no, we actually don't need to replace the viaduct. We don't need the big stuff. If we actually add transit capacity and focus on just reasonable roads through here, we can actually do this without spending billions of dollars that are likely to create cost overruns in addition to this. We ended up just building a tunnel and a highway on top of it without sufficiently increasing transit capacity at all. My goodness. [00:24:32] Mike McGinn: It's one of the hardest things for people to really accept - is this idea that the amount of traffic we have is not a fixed amount that's driven by some set of external factors. There are clearly external factors driving the amount of traffic, but there's so much latent demand for driving, and so much of driving that could be replaced by other modes - that actually the amount of traffic you have in successful cities - if you're a city that's fading, the traffic will be driven by your economic activity, right? But in a successful city, the amount of traffic you have is driven by the amount of lanes you have coming in and out. If you reduce the lanes, the traffic reduces, and this is a very hard thing for people to understand. And the opposite is also true - when you expand the lanes, the traffic increases to fill the lanes. And it is because there are tons of alternatives - we do have buses running in and out of town, and some people take the bus because it's a pain in the butt to drive. And people are going to take light rail because it's better than driving, but it probably won't reduce traffic on I-5 that much. That line to Northgate will bring more people into downtown, and it'll bring them in a more pleasant way than if they had to be in stop-and-go traffic on I-5 all the way downtown. But we're still going to have about the same amount of traffic on I-5, because traffic is kind of like a gas - you remember your physics - it expands to fill the room available to it. It's one of the reasons - I'll get this in - it's one of the reason people love bollards. If you don't actually put up a bollard to protect a street or a place from cars going, or a curb stop to protect a place, the cars just expand to fill it. And it's a very hard thing for people to sometimes grasp. And that the opposite is true - that when you reduce the amount of lanes, when you reduce the amount of space available for cars, people will make different choices. And it might be a different choice about when they drive, it might be a choice about where they drive - maybe if you're in West Seattle, Green Lake Park doesn't look so good anymore. I don't know why it ever looked so good, if you're in West Seattle, to go to Green Lake - but there are enough discretionary trips in the system that we can conserve some trips without hurting our quality of life. In fact, there's an argument to be made it might improve your quality of life if people were looking to take shorter trips closer to their home and supporting local businesses and local efforts. Not everyone can do it, I'm not saying everyone can, but enough people can that you don't need that bigger highway on the Waterfront, and you don't need as many lanes coming into town. By the way, I'm going to toss one more thing into this mix - something that nobody talks about, it's been bugging me for a couple of decades now - is the 509 extension as part of the Puget Sound Gateway Program. Now, it's bad enough that we're building a highway that will cut through communities, add more pollution, et cetera, et cetera - but you know how everybody takes the back way to the airport from Seattle? Well, imagine if that road is extended to I-5 - people coming north on I-5 will have a back way into downtown. If you think the backups at the First Avenue South Bridge are bad now, wait 'til you see what it's like when you basically are mainlining cars from I-5 to the west of SeaTac Airport, straight to that First Avenue South Bridge. And who's going to breathe all the pollution of those idling cars? Residents of South Park and Georgetown and the Duwamish Valley. And then they'll cross that and then they'll hit that stretch of road heading into downtown - and where are they going to get off, if they're trying to go downtown? They're going to get off at that interchange just south of downtown. So that'll mean yet more cars in the industrial area, yet more cars in Pioneer Square. So this 509 extension, and it's incredibly against the interests of the Port as well. Port's one of the biggest proponents - they have this vision we'll build this and our trucks will just get on the road - and they'll just fly out to I-5 south by going down the 509 extension. But they're not thinking it through - because what is it going to mean to them to have 30,000-50,000 more cars a day clogging the industrial area because they've got a shortcut to downtown that enables them to skip the I-5 main line into Seattle. To me, this is a known impact of the 509 extension. I guess I'm telling this story, not just because I don't think we should build 509, but because it illustrates the absolute inability of the Port and business and engineering interests to tell the public the real impact of adding lanes. They believe it will reduce congestion - instead, it's going to send many more cars and much more pollution into the exact places where we say people should have cleaner air and should have fewer cars. [00:29:48] Crystal Fincher: Where it's currently creating shorter lifespans - it is literally taking years off of people's lives. [00:29:53] Mike McGinn: Literally killing people. Yes. [00:29:57] Crystal Fincher: And creating chronic illnesses - all of the cost and impacts associated with that. It's really counterintuitive, admittedly. [00:30:07] Mike McGinn: Yes. [00:30:07] Crystal Fincher: Because of our society, it's counterintuitive and people make the assumption - and feel confident in making the assumption - that if you add lanes then, "Hey, it's clear traffic." People think about when they're in a backup and they see a lane open up next to them and they can pull into it and speed up. And that's what they apply - they apply that logic to adding that lane is going to allow everybody to get in that lane and speed up. But that's actually the problem. And this is uncontroversial in planning circles. It's not like there is conflicting data and we don't know if adding lanes actually increases traffic. No, we've known conclusively for decades that adding lanes on highways increases traffic. The demand will always catch up - that's how it works. So there is no traffic congestion and especially on a route like that - people talk about the need to prioritize freight movement and that is absolutely a concern - you're actually making that tougher. You're putting more cars on the roads that right now are being heavily used by companies moving goods throughout our region. It just is so frustrating to continue to watch elected leaders, at all levels, continue to say things that are absolutely false. This is absolute misinformation that adding lanes reduces traffic and - [00:31:41] Mike McGinn: They know it's false. It's an iron law of congestion, it's an iron law of highway expansion. And again, it works in both directions and they know - but there is such a set of industries, and it kind of relates back to this concrete strike. There's a set of industries that - they need their multi-billion dollar cash infusion every few years to keep feeding them - and it's not just the construction companies, it's the companies that do the planning, it's the companies that provide the lawyers, it's the companies that help float the financial bonds to finance it all. Then you add in the trade unions that really want the union jobs associated with major infrastructure projects. And now you've got both sides of the aisle with support for this. So this last Transportation Bill was vastly better than prior ones in terms of the mix of spending, but it's got another multi-billion dollar fix for the companies addicted to the regular supply of money from the Feds and from the state for the work they do - same thing happened at the national level. They all have an interest in just not accepting something all the studies, all the professionals know to be true - because if they accepted it, they would turn off the money supply to people who really just - their entire businesses and their reason for being exists around that. So you can argue correctly that if you built - projects to build more sidewalks, build more transit, build more bike lanes - produce more jobs per dollar - but they wouldn't produce more jobs for the people that are currently getting the dollars. So they're not terribly interested in that - in changing the dollar flows - so that's what really drives this. Then they mislead the public that the new lanes will solve congestion, or they're just building out the system, or they're fixing bottlenecks, or they'll even tell you - this is one of my favorites - it'll reduce the number of cars stuck in traffic, so they won't be idling, contributing to global warming. They'll actually argue it'll reduce pollution, because it'll be more free flowing. And these are just all not truthful statements. And they're all too often made by professionals who know better, but they are in a system where the political leadership demands that they keep delivering the dollars to these companies. And that's just how it is. So we all got to keep doing our work to let people know that the costs of that are actually way too high to just keep some people in business. We need to take a look at a different approach. [00:34:38] Crystal Fincher: Well, this week there was also some very concerning events at the Seattle Police Department's presentation to the Public Safety and Human Services Committee of the Seattle City Council - a number of challenging things - and again, I highly encourage you to read, to subscribe, to Amy Sundberg's Notes from the Emerald City newsletter. She covers this frequently, comprehensively. But one thing I wanted to pull out was just - Brian Maxey, when making an SPD presentation regarding - I don't know if folks recall - the analysis that the City had done regarding SPD officers and how they were spending their time. So an independent analysis determined that 49% of the 911 calls that are currently handled by SPD were not emergencies, crimes - they could be handled by organizations other than SPD. This traditionally has been an uncontroversial thing where - before we saw that the 2020 protests - there are lots of departments around the country, several local ones and SPD also had chiefs who talked about this. They were saying, "Hey, we actually feel ill equipped to respond to calls where no law's being broken, but someone is unhappy that an unhoused person is around there," or "Someone's having a mental health crisis," or "There's just activity that doesn't quite rise to the level of criminal activity," or "Maybe just a car is parked in the wrong spot." And that could be handled just as sufficiently with a civil response and does not require an armed police response. And so the analysis was just about half of all of the calls, that could happen with - this presented an exciting opportunity, because my goodness, SPD has been complaining that they need resources to respond to these 911 calls, and we need to get police on the streets to be able to do this. And wow, you actually just got news that half of those calls are not sufficient enough or at the level where it needs an officer response. So it looks like the staffing crisis you've talked about actually has its own built-in solution - let's intelligently target what we respond to and what we don't, and where we use very expensive police resources that carry a high risk of escalation, and completely reduce that and reformat that. Unfortunately, SPD, instead of recognizing that opportunity immediately pushed back, and said, "Hey, we only identify 12% of the calls that we're confident that can be answered with an alternate response." I also want to note that 12% is not an insignificant number, so that should also be moved around. They basically said, "Well, we need more time to do more assessment and we need to do a study and create different protocols." And mire this in process to try and run out the clock and hope people lose the political will to do anything about this. They were reporting this week saying that - we actually did some revising and we actually don't think anything needs to be moved outside of the department. Anything that needs to be handled - we feel that we can do it within the police department, and maybe it'll look different and we'll try and make it seem like an alternate response, but it's still coming out of the police budget and using police resources - and just a challenge there. So this was one of the first times this issue has been revisited since they said they needed to do additional analysis - and they were light on details, but certainly indicated that they are not willing to offload anything further. And that anything that needs to happen within the City, they plan to use a police budget and armed or officer resources to respond to. What did you think of this? [00:38:56] Mike McGinn: Well, it is a great question, obviously. What do you really need police officers, and what do you not need police officers for? The police department may have a little bias there because they think they're pretty good. It's natural, it's human - I don't want to pick on the police department for doing that. We just need to recognize it - that things that they have historically done, they think it's appropriate for them to have done and for them to be involved in - that's just natural. So my first reaction to this would be that this is something that the police department needs to be having input into the decision, but you shouldn't be asking them to drive the process. It just may be too hard for them to do - to be able to separate those things. And when you add into that - there's an internal dynamic within the police department too, which is chiefs don't want to get sideways with the force, or leadership doesn't want to get sideways with the rank and file. And the rank and file - they're unionized under the Police Officer's Guild - and it's just really instinctive for public employee unions, period, to believe that only the union member can do this job, so if you're taking a scope of work away from us, that's just bad. That's just reducing - it's the other side of whether it's a union hotel or a non-union hotel. If you're a union hotel worker, it's like I don't want to - let's keep these jobs here - and again, it happens across all the unions. What makes this conversation harder is that police are still respected as having a word on safety - well, the police say we'll be unsafe if a police officer doesn't do this - they have a little more pull with the public. I believe I recall the firefighters were insisting that 911 calls for fire be handled by firefighters, because only firefighters themselves had the requisite expertise. And it's a good argument, but it is one that has to be tested and thought through. I think that's the type of thing that really has to be examined closely - is a good argument as to why this one requires a police officer as opposed to that one - but I don't think you can ask the police department to make that call. A mayor would have to set up a system where somebody else is doing the hard analysis and making the ultimate recommendations on how to do this, and it should have more stakeholders at the table as to how to do that. You can't ask an agency or department of government to reorganize itself into a reduced role or out of existence. It's like asking a cat not to be a cat - they just can't say I'm not going to be a cat anymore - they're cats. And it's awfully hard to tell a police department to redefine itself in a way that it isn't what it thinks it is. So that's my takeaway - is that this is a completely natural reaction, and somebody else better be in there digging and actually making the decisions - and ultimately will take hard choices from the mayor who will then face a loss of confidence from the union representing those folks, because you just reduced the potential future number of union jobs. And then there's the leadership, right? What's the potential size of my constituency - you just reduce the potential size of my constituency and the number of jobs I can hand out - therefore, you reduce my bargaining power for wages, and you reduce the promotion opportunities for people in the ranks, and all sorts of things. This is just - you got to separate the institutional imperatives of a union and a department from the actual facts of what does or does not take a police officer to handle - and that's a process that you can't put the police department in charge of. [00:43:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely and even in - and collective bargaining is bargaining with all sides at the table and one side not dictating what's going to happen. I also think it's important to highlight through this - the issue of having job security and protections is absolutely fair and legitimate and should be discussed. Moving these positions out of the police department does not mean that we have to move them to non-union positions. It may not be SPOG - it could be a different union, but that respond to the needs that the City actually has, that appropriately manage the resources that the City has, that enable the City to be as safe as it deserves to be. And so allowing responses to be laser focused on improving safety. If we have data that shows that something does increase safety, great. If we have data that shows the opposite, then that should be the signal to reallocate those resources to things that are more effective at doing that. I hope that we see that from the mayor, that there is direction saying it looks like we could more effectively use the people who are there in a role that better serves the public. And that seems like it would be crucial to building the trust that everyone acknowledges is lacking, or certainly not where people would like it to be. So I just hope that the mayor does lead this in the right direction, and doesn't just hand this off to the police department to drive this process. [00:45:09] Mike McGinn: I would add something else too - and a PubliCola article recently about the UW Campus police talked about this issue. There's also protections under labor law that you can't take a union job and give it somewhere else - potentially non-union job - it's called skimming. And so the argument that the police union can make, and it was an argument that was made by the UW Police Department rank and file, was that certain unarmed campus responders being hired by the University were skimming the union jobs of the SPD cops. And there was a ruling in the state - that no, that's not skimming - but that's a legal backdrop that also provides some power to the union, and you understand why that rule is there. If, let's say, a union has managed to unionize a portion of the workforce, you can't just reclassify them, give them a new title to do the same job and say but you're not union now. The skimming rule is there for a real reason, but that can also become an obstacle here towards changing things. I dealt with that some as mayor as well - when we were looking at how to reallocate responsibilities within City government, from one department to another, or from one set of workers to another - the skimming issue would come up. [00:46:47] Crystal Fincher: Just kudos to UW for having the will to set an example in placing safety of the people on the campus first and doing what all of the data showed would increase how safe people are and making that change. To your point, that was actually a really important ruling by Washington's Public Employee Relations Commission - to say, "Actually, this was done okay. Let's continue to prioritize worker safety, worker protections, making sure that we don't just hurt unions by doing this and make it harder for people to unionize - but balance the needs of the population there, the actual core focus of the organization, and aligning how those organizations are structured with protected workers within them." [00:47:45] Mike McGinn: And kudos to UW for taking the case all the way through and not simply saying, "Well, we can't do it because we might have to have a lawsuit, or we don't want to upset that union because of their role in the system." That can be harder for elected officials to do. Honestly, it keeps bringing up for me - the issue of public safety and the treatment of members of the public - the degree to which police officers have union protections, I think really is something that needs to be reevaluated. The idea, and I faced this as mayor - and every mayor faces it, every chief faces it - when they ask to do discipline, it's like, what is more important? The right of that police officer to keep their job, or the right of the public to be free of the conduct of a police officer that doesn't meet the standards that we believe the community's entitled to. And too often, the gist of it is - well, the right of the police officer to hold the job is higher under the law than the right of the people to be protected. Or - now, I shouldn't say under the law - but in practice, that's what happens. I don't think people appreciate - I was often asked, "Well, why don't you just fire the bad cops?" And it's like - we're trying, but it's a lot harder than you think. And quite often, the defense about why you can't fire a cop, and we've seen this since I was mayor too, was, "Well, nobody ever got fired for that before." And that itself is a defense for why you can't let go of someone. And as the force gets smaller, as it is right now, they're still not filling the empty spots. It's a lot harder to hide somebody in some department where they're not going to have to interact with the public in some way or another. This is a challenge. I think that that's a fundamental issue we have to start facing as a society as well - certainly, public employees should have the protections that any public employee has whether unionized or not, but have we gone too far - and for this particular set of workers - on the balance between the protection of someone to hold a job - a job that entails carrying a weapon, having the ability to arrest somebody, having the ability to stop someone for questioning and detain someone - all of these things just go to the fundamental rights, individual rights of members of the community. And on balance, whose rights are more important here? I think that calls for some reexamination of the union, of how we handle this. [00:50:42] Crystal Fincher: I will leave it there because that was well said - completely agree. [00:50:47] Mike McGinn: We'll call it good - thanks for having me, Crystal. [00:50:49] Crystal Fincher: And with that, I thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, March 25th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler and assistant producer is Dr. Shannon Cheng, with assistance from Emma Mudd. And our insightful co-host today was activist, community leader, former mayor of Seattle, and Executive Director of America Walks, Mike McGinn. You can find Mike on Twitter @mayormcginn, you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksAndWonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Ed Beeson is back for a second episode. In this episode we talk about his company Gigs4U which is the agency that books musical acts at SeaTac Airport. Ed was our guest on Episode 130 and we talked about his earlier career as the owner of The Backstage in Ballard and as a promoter of concerts throughout Seattle and the Puget Sound.Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Exploring Washington State Podcast! If the information in our conversations and interviews are enjoyable and valuable to you, please head over to iTunes, subscribe to the show, and leave us an honest review.Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help us reach even more amazing listeners just like you!If you want to read about some of the many amazing places to explore in Washington State, you should just pack your bags and go! Explore Washington State is the perfect place for inspiration.    Check it out today.  Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ExploringWash)

KIRO's own Hannah Scott is in to share how The Washington House votes to delay mandatory long-term care tax to July 2023. // KIRO Traffic God Chris Sullivan stops by to debunk the Chaos at Sea-Tac Airport regarding their new 5G wireless deal. // Washington Rep. Kilmer says voting rules must pass the ‘grandma' test. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5PM - Man attacked toddler, pushed 2 women into Lake Washington, Seattle police say // LAPD Says Random, Violent Attacks By Unhoused Residents Are On The Rise // Father of slain UCLA grad student blames politicians for crime spike // Chaos at Sea-Tac Airport still a risk despite 5G wireless deal // LETTERS See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inside Sea-Tac airport, it's still long lines, delays, and tired travelers like Ethan Ford, stranded after another flight cancellation.Data from flightaware.com shows Sea-Tac Airport has seen the world's highest number of incoming and outgoing flights canceled in the world.Amid staffing shortages and these weather conditions, travelers are hoping for some relief“Our bags we're waiting for our bags," Ford said. "They said they're going to bring them to this carousel."But he's still waiting. And some passengers said their luggage is still missing.“I'm really hoping that's not the case,” Ford said.Kate Hudson with Sea-Tac Airport said they have had close to 1,500 canceled flights for the month of December, and more than 85-percent of those coming just in the past four days.https://kimatv.com/news/local/sea-tac-airport-canceled-most-incoming-outgoing-flights-in-world-website-saysSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/seattlerealestatepodcast)

Our maritime and aviation ports are critical to the commerce of the United States. Recently the importance of marine ports has been highlighted as challenges in the supply chain have been evident. In this podcast Ryan Calkins, Port Commissioner for the Port of Seattle shares information on the role of port commissioners, but also the scale of the operation in running both a maritime port and the major airport in the Pacific Northwest, SeaTac Airport. These facilities are critical infrastructure and key to future economic development!Dynamis, a leading provider of information management software and security solutions, is a sponsor of this podcast.

Washington is welcoming 1,700 refugees over several months' time.

In light of Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, Drewby and Yergy discuss the case of Richard "Beebo" Russell - known posthumously as "The Sky King," and the legacy he left on the SeaTac Airport and meme culture today.  GoFundMe for Hannah Russell: https://www.gofundme.com/f/provide-for-mrs-russell A very special thank you to Levi for supporting our show as our highest tier patron! Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Buy Us A Coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/miserymachine Join Our Street Team! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HfRUPQhB6LOqVupZm92OdV5rLDQcIMpHudmUZwt0C24/edit?usp=sharing Levi's Adoption Fundraising Page: https://gofund.me/d658a3a7 Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast Discord: https://discord.gg/kCCzjZM #themiserymachine #podcast #truecrime Source Material: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Horizon_Air_Q400_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrambling_(military) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aerospace_Defense_Command https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/beebo-russell-seattle-plane-theft-true-story-1187023/ https://twitter.com/KierraElfalanTV/status/1028462177747783680/photo/1 https://www.facebook.com/richardrussellskyking https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/orca-mourning-calf-killer-whale-northwest-news https://heavy.com/news/2018/08/richard-russell-rich-seatac-beebo/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/he-was-a-jokester-who-complained-about-his-job-but-friends-still-baffled-by-richard-russells-airplane-heist/ https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-XII/subchapter-C/part-1542  

On this episode of The Resident Historian with Feliks Banel: a new book explores the 1935 kidnapping of nine-year old George Weyerhaeuser. Then, on “All Over The Map,” when Sea-Tac Airport disappeared for six months. And, From The Archives: listening back to KIRO Radio on 9/11. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on the show Crystal is joined by Toshiko Hasegawa, candidate for Port of Seattle Commissioner, to discuss how the Port of Seattle can modernize and prepare our region for a greener future. They cover the misconception that economics and equity are at odds, the importance of the Port of Seattle in improving air quality and health of South King County residents, and how the Port can actively work to encourage fair and equitable treatment for workers. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Toshiko Hasegawa, at @HasegawaForPort. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “A woman of color has never been elected to Seattle Port Commission. That could change this year” by David Hyde: https://www.kuow.org/stories/generational-battle-over-the-port-of-seattle-s-is-also-about-its-future-a-generation-from-now “Activists push back against rising air pollution from Sea-Tac Airport” by John Ryan: https://www.kuow.org/stories/activists-push-back-against-air-pollution-from-sea-tac-airport “Seattle's port is greener than ever. That may not be enough.” by Joshua McNichols: https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-s-port-is-greener-than-ever-that-may-not-be-enough “Duwamish Valley Cumulative Health Impacts Analysis” from the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition: http://justhealthaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Duwamish-Valley-Cumulative-Health-Impacts-Analysis-Seattle-WA.pdf “Competition, not just COVID-19, eroding business at Tacoma and Seattle ports” by Bill Virgin: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/article245469505.html “Seattle and Tacoma are a rarity among U.S. ports right now, with room for more ships” by Brendan Murray: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/international-trade/seattle-and-tacoma-are-a-rarity-among-u-s-ports-right-now-with-room-for-more-ships/ “Cruise ships returning to Seattle as pandemic restrictions ease” by Gregory Scuggs” https://crosscut.com/news/2021/05/cruise-ships-returning-seattle-pandemic-restrictions-ease “King County Council bans use of facial recognition technology by Sheriff's Office, other agencies” by David Gutman: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-county-council-bans-use-of-facial-recognition-technology-by-sheriffs-office-other-agencies/ “Federal agencies need stricter limits on facial recognition to protect privacy, government watchdog says” by Gerrit De Vynck: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/federal-agencies-need-stricter-limits-on-facial-recognition-to-protect-privacy-government-watchdog-says/ “How airport scanners discriminate against passengers of color” by Gaby Del Valle: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/4/17/18412450/tsa-airport-full-body-scanners-racist “The high cost of child care and lack of paid leave are holding back many working parents” by Michelle Fox: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/child-care-costs-and-lack-of-paid-leave-hold-many-working-parents-back.html Toshiko Hasegawa campaign website: https://www.hasegawaforport.com/   Transcript Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind the scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhackandwonks.com, and in our episode notes. Today, we are so excited to be welcoming Toshiko Hasegawa candidate for port commission. Thank you so much for joining us.Toshiko Hasegawa: Thank you so much for having me, Crystal. I'm so honored to be here. Crystal Fincher: I'm really excited. I'm excited about your candidacy and I am just first off wondering what made you decide to run and especially, what made you decide to run for port? Toshiko Hasegawa: People ask why the port, and it just is a testament for people really not having a comprehensive view of everything that it does. Not only is it the economic driver of our state, the point of entry for people from around the world to our country, but it's also, for example, one of the top polluters of carbon emissions in the state. It has, by my count, at least eight law enforcement agencies operating there. It touches civil rights issues and can set precedents in the court cases for other jurisdictions across the land. It is one of the most diverse counties in the entire nation with more languages spoken. And the port commission itself has some really important and unique powers. For example, to be able to levy a property tax, which we all also recognize as a regressive tax. And so, bringing community voice, bringing an equity lens, bringing perspective of people who are going to be impacted by these policies is going to be so important. Toshiko Hasegawa: But it's also noteworthy the context in which I'm running. Currently, I head a state agency. It's called the Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs. We advise the governor and the legislature and other agencies on issues impacting historically marginalized communities. And in this moment, as we recover from COVID-19, we've taken to account mass unemployment like we've never seen before, businesses on the brink of bankruptcy, entire industries at a standstill. And we will recover, but it's not just what we do, it's going to be how we do it that's so important. And right, now we're seeing a port that has not necessarily centered the perspective or the values of the community at large. Indeed, it's been operated as a business at an expense to the people at large. And so, I'm so honored to give people a choice. Crystal Fincher: You know what, and that's such an excellent point. And I think you've hit the nail precisely on the head in that a lot of people just don't know how consequential the port is. It's the second largest jurisdiction in the state really, tied for the second largest. You are in charge and in control of so much and touching so many areas of life. It's not necessarily top of mind and apparent to people, but my goodness, once you learn everything that's involved with the port, it becomes easier to see how you can make such a difference if you have someone pushing for the right things. Crystal Fincher: So, I guess, in terms of the issues that you just mentioned, we're coming out of a recession, we have an employment crisis, particularly among women, particularly among low wage workers and people of color. We have a wage crisis in terms of just the wages that people are receiving, minimum wage needing to be adjusted, people needing paid leave, healthcare. The way that we're keeping our residents safe in our communities and that entire conversation around public safety. So, what can you do? What are your plans and how can you impact all of those issues that people are feeling right now? Toshiko Hasegawa: Well, in fact, the port has a tremendous role to play in responding to the compounding crises of our time. Not only is it economic devastation or climate change, but there's also public health issues. There's the pervasive issue of misogyny and racism that permeate both our society and our institutions. And if you look at the port, we really think of it as having three strengths and that's aviation, that's maritime and it's also real estate taking into account the different things that we can do. But all three of these industries are historically white and they're also historically male. And so, the port is really uniquely positioned, I think, in this critical moment with such dire need, to be a leader in bringing together folks in industry, in business, in labor and in community to rebuild a model and be stronger and more inclusive, more lucrative than we were before. Toshiko Hasegawa: And really what that looks like is having a continuum of care that's going to make sure that all people have access to the prosperity yielded by the port. On the front end, that could look like ensuring that there are folks, in particular, from historically marginalized geographies in south King County, who are also predominantly people of color or immigrants or limited English language speakers to be able to contend for and have access to opportunities either in joining the workforce or accessing contracts that are offered by the port. Toshiko Hasegawa: And once folks are there, having a supportive environment with expanded benefits, incentivizing using mass transit for the workforce, a zero tolerance policy for racism or sexism or discrimination in any form. I think about women who are off at sea as we try to have a more inclusive and diverse maritime economy, for example, those things matter and making sure that people are institutionally and structurally supported that there's accountability behind that. But really, it's not just about at the entry level or in management, we also need people at the decision-making table writing these policies and centering that lens, creating access for that voice. And I think it's noteworthy that if elected, I will be hopefully alongside Hamdi as well, one of the first women of color ever to serve in this capacity. And there are a lot of things on a policy level or on a programmatic level that we can do to support people. Crystal Fincher: You raise a lot of great points. In particular, as a woman of color, looking at being one of the first women of color on the port commission, if you're elected and being able to take an equity lens, especially based on your life experience and lived experience, just what you're able to make sure is carried through in policy. Now, a lot of people, there was a bad article written and a lot of people still have the mindset that there is economic policy and then completely separate there's equity and justice. And those are different things and we actually need to prioritize the economy, and the economy as an actual thing, somehow separated from that. How do you address those kinds of criticisms or analyses of just how to approach equity work? Do you think that they're necessarily separate? How do you evaluate that as you're considering all of these issues? Toshiko Hasegawa: The answer to that, Crystal is “yes and.” Equity is more than a one-time investment. It's more than a program. It's even more than an office. Equity work is a lens that you are going to apply to every single thing that you do. And so, that's why perspective and actually knowing how to meaningfully gain public input so that you are authentically accountable and representative of the people that you serve, but also equipped to be able to effectively push information out so that things aren't getting clogged up and that the opportunities are actually being distributed fairly through society. Toshiko Hasegawa: It's about both outcome and procedural fairness. And I think that's really important, and we have to put our money where our mouth is and we have to make sure that the office of equity that does exist at the port of Seattle has the resources that they need in order to do systemic reviews, in order to create robust recommendations that we can take and apply in order to create more fairness within our workforce and the way that we're hiring and promoting and giving raises to women and people of color and LGBTQ+, the way we're becoming more accessible as an industry to people living with disabilities. Toshiko Hasegawa: We have to make sure that we are actually equipping the Office of Minority and Women Owned Businesses to be able to adequately evaluate the bids, and that we're empowering them with new policies that could actually create a better playing field for the folks who want to be able to engage and do business at the port. So, we're not pitting ourselves and wanting justice, social justice against growth or advancement. In fact, if you do it right, it's only going to have positive returns for the big picture. Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. I happen to agree with that. I'm also wondering, you mentioned earlier just how critical the port is in terms of pollution and that it is a major contributor. Aviation is a major contributor to pollution in our area, and particularly in south King County, where there currently are not any port commissioners that are from South King County. Communities are seeing the impacts of pollution from aviation, and there have been increasing studies coming out about how air pollution is contributing to asthma, to lower life expectancies, to heart disease and lung issues. And so, these south sound, particularly communities are absorbing this in addition to noise pollution and other issues. So, what are your plans to address and deal with this and really stop this from killing people in South King County? Toshiko Hasegawa: And this is where we have the really important, but also really inspiring opportunity to dream big for what our future is going to look like. And we know that we're getting support from the state and from the, what our allocation will look like in the transportation package from the federal government. We have contracts on the horizon. But currently, our infrastructure is supporting a fossil fuel paradigm, when what we can be doing is taking meaningful steps into one that embraces renewable and sustainable energy sources. And I mean modernizing the port so that it goes fully electric, so that not only are we advancing our sustainability goals or creating jobs through their construction, but we're actually becoming better contenders in the global marketplace. Currently, folks are circumnavigating around the Pacific Northwest because to the south, LA and Long Beach have already gone fully electric or up north, BC or Prince Rupert are already fully electric. Toshiko Hasegawa: We're not there yet. We're getting left behind and we physically need a place for some of these emerging norms, the emerging cargo ships to be able to hook up. And so, modernizing is going to be able to really effectively bring together folks, not just in their environmental advocacy, not just on the community representation front, but also in labor and also in industry. We've got to think big about what it means to meaningfully connect our region through long-term goals like, for example, high speed rail, which would be from the north south position, would be able to not only reduce the number of short flights that are coming in and out of Sea-Tac airport that lead to the sound pollution and the air pollution that you're talking about, but also issues of congestion and mobility. Those five miles in, and those five miles out coming from either airport or Seaport, it's horrific. It impacts the quality of life in so many different ways. And airlines don't even really turn that much revenue from those short trips. So folks, I think there is space to be able to bring them together to think about what our solutions can be. And thinking about infrastructure is a long-term goal. In the short term, we can also offer incentives, right? We can incentivize some businesses to be able to make this transition, and we can subsidize the cost to make that transition for independent contractors or smaller businesses so that it's not going to be a situation where conglomerates are eating up smaller businesses that can't afford to make this transition that we're now asking of folks. The port currently offers a clean trucks program. I would love to see a clean boats program, so that both recreational and commercial fishers, small businesses, independent contractors can convert away from diesel engines towards electric ones. Toshiko Hasegawa: There's a case to be made for using Cares Act dollars for some of this stuff, given the precarious position that we find so many small and micro businesses in. And so, we don't lack opportunity. And I think that's what we really need to take into account is we have a plethora of opportunities to be able to make good decisions, but we do need people with the right values and the right priorities to call the shots. Crystal Fincher: Right. And a point that you made, I don't know that a lot of people know, is that ports do compete with each other. They're not just these ubiquitous entities and ships just happen to come there and planes just happen to come there, especially for shipping, ports are in competition with each other up and down the west coast. And you talk about, "Hey, other ports have modernized a lot of their facilities. A lot of them have moved to electric and different types of more green energy that they're using." And they've gotten a competitive edge. And so, a lot of these investments need to be made. Crystal Fincher: I don't think there's a lot of people arguing that, "Hey, we don't need to do something to make sure that we keep our port modern and competitive." It really is about prioritizing how we spend those dollars and how forward-looking we are. The other thing is, you're running against an incumbent who has been there and who is making his own case for reelection. I think my biggest question is helping the people out who are listening and trying to make a decision and understand what the differences between you two are. How would your term and the actions that you take look different than what he has done? Toshiko Hasegawa: You know, Crystal, I have nothing but respect for anybody who chooses to make a life in public service. And the incumbent himself has a long history of giving his time, his efforts, his energy to the members of the public. What I'm offering people is a choice. And there are some, I think, some pretty significant ways, if you would want to point to policy differences that speaks of differences also in our value sets. Look at the way we're campaigning, for example, I'm not taking any corporate PAC money. I've signed the no fossil fuel pledge. And that's important to me because I know that when I'm a port commissioner, we're going to have to disentangle the interests of big money corporations from the important policy decisions that we have to make as a commission, because they're going to impact the lives of the people who elected us to be there. Toshiko Hasegawa: I just fundamentally do not believe that cruise is the future of our region's economy. I would love to see us in import and export and expanding our shipping operations, becoming globally competitive and having a presence and really leading on what it looks like to have a sustainable and inclusive blue economy. I would love us to be a model in mass transit going well in America. I would love to be a place where rich and poor people alike take public transportation, right? I would love to be able to be a proactive thought leader with partners in labor about what it means to holistically support people, particularly in a time where they're struggling to strike a work-life balance. Toshiko Hasegawa: And so, what folks really need is somebody who's going to bring the sense of urgency to this position and a sense of urgency for their perspectives to be valued at the port. And it's important to note that communities are not absent from the conversation. They have ideas, they have priorities and they have demands. But currently, they've been screaming into the wind with very little accountability. They want transparency and they want access. And so, it's just not too much to ask to have a seat at the table. Crystal Fincher: It doesn't seem like it should be too much to ask. Now, you're also running this campaign while you have a newborn. You have a baby. You're a new mom, and you're in the position that many people are in everyday in working and trying to juggle a child, their family and making this work. How do you one, how do you even navigate that? And how's that going? And how do you think that informs how your view on how to treat workers on issues like family and medical leave? And worker conditions have been a huge issue everywhere, including the port. How does that inform your perspective and how do you think that helps you take care of workers at the port? Toshiko Hasegawa: As a candidate, I have to tell you that it's not easy. But you wouldn't believe the wild comments I've gotten about, in specific, one conversation I had with a certain elected somebody who not be named was, "I'm surprised you're running because you just had a baby. Don't you see that as a challenge?" And I responded, "Well, I'll let you know what some people might see as my challenge, I see as my reason." And indeed, becoming a mom during a pandemic was one of the most challenging experiences I've had. And really, she is my guiding light and my compass as to what it means to build the urgency of building a better tomorrow. And as a policy platform, I will tell you as a working mom, the only reason why this is possible is because I have paid medical leave, is because I have benefits, is because I have a supportive family, is because I have the privilege and access to be able to hire help. Toshiko Hasegawa: And that working from home has actually really worked for me as a mom. And the pandemic has changed things of what those norms look like. At the port, one thing that I can tell you, ground zero, we need onsite childcare available. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. This has been done at King County. There's a program being piloted at the state. I would love to adapt that for the port of Seattle. Paid family medical leave, people need to be able to strike that work-life balance. And it's not just people who are unionized who deserve access to this sort of balance, we need it for all workers at the port. We need to be able to have space for this sort of grace and this accommodation, because by God, it has been women who have largely been impacted, the data shows, in having to decide between working and staying at home with their kids as they're at home all the time. Toshiko Hasegawa: And if we're already looking at an equity gap in opportunities in the workforce at the port, well, that equity gap has deepened. And so, we really need to take prudent steps to be able to holistically support families, working parents at the port. And so, it looks like addressing the pay gap. And we really need to start actually just collecting demographic data at the port about who our workforce is and how they're being promoted and how they're being rewarded and how they're being retained and really use that as a starting point in order to have some meaningful outcomes in the short and the long run. Crystal Fincher: Those are great points. The port also has so much property, so many contractors, so many organizations who are relying on the port who have contracts with the port. Do you also support making some minimum quality of life and workforce standards, a requirement for port contracts? Toshiko Hasegawa: Yeah. We really have to be careful, particularly during times of economic crisis to make sure that businesses are not going to be trying to make their bottom line or stay afloat off the backs of workers. This is exactly where economic exploitation could happen. And so, that that means supporting things like prevailing wage on the job. That means things like priority hire so that companies are actually giving these opportunities to our community members, our workforce, our neighbors and they're their families who deserve a sense of economic stability right now. It should be said that we're in a position here at the Port of Seattle to think globally and act locally for meaningful outcomes. We need to take into account our supply chains long before you're ever plucking your product off the shelf at the grocery store, we can make sure that the folks that we're doing business with have been able to demonstrate at least three years compliance with international labor laws. Toshiko Hasegawa: So, you can have the confidence that what you're consuming is from a clean supply chain. So, there's really a lot to be said about workers' rights. There's also a lot to be said about civil rights for people who are passengers or otherwise seem to be clients of the port. And we're talking about the use of facial recognition technology. We're talking about the operations of immigration enforcement. The port has its own police force, which had a task force that issued recommendations. How will those be implemented? How are we ensuring that the use of facial recognition technology isn't stepping the line on what people's civil rights are, but actually we're going to be pushing back and making sure that we're protecting them to the fullest extent possible. So, there's a lot to be done. Crystal Fincher: Yeah, that's a huge issue. And especially, just the issue of facial recognition, which the King County government, King County Council just outlawed its use for the county, but especially federal entities are using those and federal entities are onsite at the airport and at other port locations. I know that the port is currently working on trying to make sure that there are some guardrails put around that. But in that conversation, in the use of biometrics, even one of the issues is, "Okay, you can help drop someone off at the airport. You're not even ticketed or needing to go through that type of security. Does the fact that you step outside your car or drive your car on port property anyway, mean that you should wind up in an ICE database or an FBI database with all of your information?" Do you think the port is doing enough with that, and how would you address public safety and policing there? Toshiko Hasegawa: If you have already, in the last year, taken an international flight, they have already scanned your face in lieu of checking your passport. And that is actually not done by law enforcement, that's actually done by the airlines. They are a private entity collecting that information with no protective clauses on how that data is going to be shared or retained. How's the port commission pushing pack on that? And this is where people don't understand the port. It has tremendous repercussions for people everywhere. If they're going to take it to a lawsuit, can we win? And it sets precedence for the way airlines are going to be able to use facial recognition technology in other jurisdictions. So, we have to be really careful, and really what it boils down to is public interest. Toshiko Hasegawa: And so, no, the port is not doing enough. And so, it's not just for incoming flights, but also for outgoing flights internationally. And it's a slippery slope, as you know when we're talking about people's civil rights. So, public safety at the port, what comes to mind for me is the repercussions of racism and xenophobia and the discriminatory Muslim ban, where we physically showed up down there and shut it down at Sea-Tac airport. We were standing arm in arm singing, chanting, whereas the port commissioners were in the back having a conversation. Of course, not enough is happening. Toshiko Hasegawa: Law enforcement is required by a will of the voters to be in compliance with a minimum set of training and crisis intervention and deescalation, and also in implicit bias. And so, it's more than just the Port of Seattle police were there. How are we making sure that the other law enforcement entities are also going to have that same training when we know that there are issues of discrimination happening by private security like TSA, when we know that there's disproportionate stop and frisk of people wearing religious indicators, or that African-American men with common names get held up because there's 20 other people, maybe with a warrant out for their arrest? This is exactly how institutional racism plays out, and we have got to do more. Crystal Fincher: Well, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today. I guess in closing, I would just ask you, for people helping to make a decision, why should they choose you? And what difference can they expect to see in their lives as a result of the action that you take? Toshiko Hasegawa: The port has such an important role to play in answering to the dire needs of our time, but it is going to require doing something different. And doing something different from the status quo means we need new leadership with a bold vision for the future. And if elected, I will bring a perspective that has never before been represented at the port of Seattle. And it's not just what you do, it's how you do it. And that's why I'm so proud to have the bid of confidence from every single democratic organization that has endorsed so far in this race, including the King County Dems and the Young Dems and the Stonewall Dems, happy pride, y'all. Including from partners in labor, like the Teamsters and SCIU local six and the machinists and people from local elected government all the way up to Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck all of whom who know that the urgency of now requires doing something dynamic. And it really boils down to whether you want more of the same, or whether you want to do something different. I'd be honored to have folks vote. Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us. We'll certainly be keeping an eye on this race. And where can people find out more information about your campaign? Toshiko Hasegawa: Hasegawaforport.com. Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you so much, and we look forward to speaking with you next time. Thanks for listening. Toshiko Hasegawa: Such a pleasure. Thank you. Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks and Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter at @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. And now, you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in Hacks & Wonks into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.  

On today's show Crystal is joined by Port of Seattle Commissioner candidate Hamdi Mohamed. Hamdi gets into her path to running for Port Commissioner, prioritizing worker's rights issues at the Port, and the importance of the Port of Seattle in creating a just economy in our region. Additionally, she underscores the importance of reducing the air and noise pollution experienced by communities around SeaTac.  As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Hamdi Mohamed, at @hamdiforport. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Why the Port Commissioner Races Actually Matter: https://southseattleemerald.com/2017/06/13/why-the-port-commissioner-races-actually-matter/  Carrying coffins, Sea-Tac airline catering employees demand better wages on eve of busy travel day: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/carrying-coffins-sea-tac-airline-catering-employees-demand-better-wages-on-eve-of-busiest-travel-day/  Port of Seattle Human Trafficking Awareness Campaign Results in Higher Call Volumes to National Human Trafficking Hotline: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/01/23/port-of-seattle-human-trafficking-awareness-campaign-results-in-higher-call-volumes-to-national-human-trafficking-hotline/  Links between air pollution and cancer risk: https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2017/08/air-pollution-boosts-cancer-risk.html  Little understood, unregulated particles pollute neighborhoods under Sea-Tac flight paths, UW study finds: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/little-understood-unregulated-particles-pollute-neighborhoods-under-sea-tac-flight-paths-uw-study-finds/  Federal study confirms racial bias of many facial-recognition systems, casts doubt on their expanding use: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/19/federal-study-confirms-racial-bias-many-facial-recognition-systems-casts-doubt-their-expanding-use/  King County Code 2.15 Immigrant, Refugees and Language Access Ordinance: https://kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/equity-social-justice/Immigrant-and-Refugee/LanguageAccessOrdinance.aspx  New Public Maritime High School to Open in September, Applications Are Open for Prospective Students: https://southseattleemerald.com/2021/01/14/new-public-maritime-high-school-to-open-in-september-applications-are-open-for-prospective-students/    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.  I want to welcome to today's show - very excited to have Hamdi Mohamed with us, who is a candidate for the Port of Seattle Commission. Thank you for joining us. Hamdi Mohamed: [00:01:01] Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:04] Happy that you're here, excited about your candidacy. I guess I just wanted to start off asking you - what brought you to want to run for the Port? What motivated your decision to say, This is where I want to make a difference? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:01:21] Yeah, Crystal, that's a great question. I honestly never thought I would be running for elected office. That wasn't the thing that I would say as a child, right - What do you want to be? It wasn't, I want to be a politician. I came to the US when I was three years old, as a refugee from Somalia, and one of our first ports of entries into the United States was at Sea-Tac Airport. My family came without a dollar in their pocket, and was just entering the country to find refuge, just to survive.  My mother actually started working at Sea-Tac Airport, it was one of her first jobs. And I watched her growing up, juggle her job at Sea-Tac Airport. I started working when I was 15 years old to help my family make ends meet. And I was always close to seeing - I was always seeing my family struggle and my community struggle. I was always that person that was always trying to figure out how to resolve some sort of issue and ended up going to the University of Washington, studying Law, Societies, and Justice there. Then I went on to work for a number of our local nonprofits, I went on to work for US Congresswoman Jayapal. Now I work for our County Executive Office of Equity and Social Justice as a policy advisor.  And when this pandemic hit, I just saw a lack of leadership. I think now more than ever, we need strong leadership at all levels of government. There is really no going back to the way things were. For me, this is a moment to re-imagine and rebuild a new economy that works for all of us, that works for all of our communities. And I believe that the Port can do that, it is our largest economic engine in the region. It creates jobs and opportunities for our community. And I decided to run for this position because I feel like I can make a big impact there.  I also ran for this position because of the lack of regional representation. The Port of Seattle's operations significantly impact cities in South King County. The Port's largest asset is Sea-Tac Airport. Over 70% of the ports' revenue comes from Sea-Tac Airport. And currently none of our port commissioners live in South King County. So for me, it's time that we have regional representation, that our voices are at the table, a community that's significantly impacted.  Also I want to be able to bring my expertise in equitable economic development, in job creation to the Port of Seattle,and I have some exciting ideas around how we can help our communities build back better, how to help them re-enter the workforce. So many people have lost their jobs and have been hurting during this pandemic, I've seen it very up close. I have been serving on King County's COVID-19 response team since the pandemic hit. And so I've seen the devastating impacts that this pandemic has had on our whole region. And I've seen the data when you look closely, there are certain communities and neighborhoods that are heavily impacted. And so now more than ever, we need strong leadership, we need leadership that are going to have their boots on the ground doing the work. And that is what I'm known for, and that's what I do - when I see a problem, I think of a way to resolve it and I do it with community, I do it in collaboration. And so I want to be able to bring my expertise, and skills, and lived experience to the Port of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:05:23] Well, and I appreciate that, and that's really important. And you talked about how important the Port is economically to our region. And there has been long-time conversation about the need to make sure that the entities that the Port supports and interacts with remain competitive, how important trade and tourism are and how the Port interacts with that. But also how critical it is to treat employees fairly, to make sure we are not leaving anyone behind as we seek a better economy, more stable economy, more prosperity for everyone. And so often the conversation around that pits those in conflict with one another. Do you think they have to be in conflict with one another, or can we make sure that we grow our economy, support tourism, travel companies, trade organizations, and provide a livable wage for folks and a secure living? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:06:32] Yeah. No, I agree with you. Those things should not be in competition, those things should complement each other, right? In order to have good businesses that are functioning, in order for us to have tourism and trade, we have to be able to have workers - employees keep these things functioning and keep the airport moving. The Port in itself, the seaport and the airport, are able to function and bring - add to the economy because of employees. Everyone must be paid a living wage. Businesses should be invested in ensuring that their workers are protected. And elected officials who are elected by the people, that should be their number one top priority. They get put in those positions by the people to ensure that, to keep our government transparent and accessible. For me, those things - they don't compete with each other, they complement each other. We have to make sure that we have strong recovery plans for small businesses, that we are ensuring that we have a seaport that its operations are moving, that we have a smooth operations happening at our seaport, and investments are being made there to ensure that folks do want their containers to come through the Port of Seattle, and that we're being competitive nationally and on a global scale. To me, these things are things that go together, but I think for a long time, we've seen leadership that do not step up for workers who've helped elect them. And I really do think that needs to change, we need to stand with working families and support them, and I think it is in the best interest of businesses to do that. What I hope to do is bring that sort of lens, that sense of partnership to the Port of Seattle. To ensure that our businesses and communities and workers are working well together. This is a time where we need to come together. If we are going to truly build back better, we've got to get on the same page, and we need to align our systems, align our workforce systems, and to ensure that resources are getting out to our communities, and that we're addressing issues and looking at where the needs are greatest. So that's the spirit and the sort of lens I will be bringing to the Port of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:15] You've talked a lot about running because you felt like current leadership hasn't stepped up and there does need to be a change of direction. You chose to run against an incumbent, so I'm wondering why did you choose to run for the position you're running for and against the incumbent that you're running against? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:09:37] Yeah, that's a great question. The decision that I made was based off of ensuring that we have strong leadership in place, that brings a strong equity lens, that can address the needs of this moment. Crystal, I don't know if you've looked at some of the data, but just recently in March 1st, 2021, there were over a 100,000 folks who received unemployment benefits in King County. And if you look closer at those numbers, the top zip codes in King County with the highest unemployment UI insurance claims, are cities that surround the Port's largest operating site, SEA Airport. A lot of the people who live within those communities also go to work for the Port or the airport. Nearly 60% of those claims come from folks who were working in our food service industry. These are folks who are my neighbors - I live five minutes away from Sea-Tac Airport.  And I have worked closely with individuals who've been impacted by COVID-19, in my position at the County as a policy advisor. And I've led initiatives that invested $1.5 million in small businesses that have been impacted by displacement, and fundings to our community-based organizations that were on the frontlines of this pandemic. Really, these numbers and the issues are devastating. And they're devastating our communities and disproportionately BIPOC folks, immigrants, refugees, women, poor white folks with lower educational attainment. The data is showing us that, and to me, we have to have a sense of urgency to address these issues and that's what I bring. I bring that vision to the Port of Seattle, so when I was deciding to run, it wasn't necessarily me deciding to run against one particular candidate, it was running because I have a vision for the Port of Seattle. But the question about the incumbent, when you look at the incumbent that I'm running against also, we differ on a number of things. On votes that she's taken - the incumbent voted to use taxpayer's money to file a legal challenge against SeaTac's $15 minimum wage. And that is a position that I would never have taken. I stand with working families. When I look at the workforce that that $15 minimum wage was going to help, it's a workforce that looks very similar to me, that our histories are the same, my mom was once part of that workforce. So $15 minimum wage we know is not even a living wage. So taking positions like that, I think, really goes against my beliefs. Most recently, the incumbent voted against the leasing of the Duwamish Valley Community Resource Center. That resource center was going to go to creating green job programs, internship recruitment, supporting small businesses and workforce development. I just think we would have taken different votes and we bring a different vision for the Port of Seattle.  Right now, I've been talking to rideshare drivers and truck drivers, who've been sharing stories with me about how they don't have access to restrooms on the job. To me, everyone should have access to a restroom at their workplace. Truck drivers who've shared not having adequate access to testing and vaccination sites. And so these are all really issues that I would lead and ensure that we were addressing, whether that is standing up vaccination sites for truck drivers at truck stops, ensuring that they have PPE and adequate equipments to keep themselves protected. Also today, there are a number of workers at Sea-Tac who actually do not get paid $15 minimum wage, catering workers at Sea-Tac who do not get paid $15 minimum wage. I think it's these type of issues where right now, now more than ever, we need strong leadership around it, we need folks who are going to protect those workers, who are going to stand with them, and to ensure that they have the sort of support that they need to continue to help build our economy. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:39] Right. And so Stephanie Bowman is the incumbent that you are running against. Certainly you just talked about your issue with that $15 an hour vote of hers. So are you saying that you will ensure that all workers that are directly employed by the Port of Seattle, you would want to vote to ensure that they make $15 an hour at minimum? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:15:04] Absolutely. As a Port of Seattle Commissioner elected by the people, one of my top priorities would be to advocate for living wages and to support workers by showing up intentionally for them, and also co-creating with them to bring solutions. So absolutely I would definitely advocate for living wages and truly support working families. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:30] Excellent. Now there is a lot of conversation, and justifiably so, about the Port's contribution to, and ability to help fix, the amount of pollution in our region and overall. Is that a priority for you and how do you address that? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:15:53] That's a great question. I am committed to addressing that, right, as someone who lives in the airport community - working to reduce things like noise pollution from planes, and investing in quieter jets, and ensuring that we transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy - is a top priority for me. Right now there's research that has been done by the University of Washington that found a specific type of pollution in the air called ultrafine particle pollution, which is basically a pollution that has been connected to multiple types of cancers. It is a pollution that comes from aircraft that has huge health impacts for people. I know so many people in our community that live around the airport community who struggle with all types of health situations, who have high blood pressure, asthma, and we know that the aviation contributes to that.  So we have to think responsibly, move aviation to being more sustainable. There are projects that's happening right now to invest in alternative jet fuels, I'm in support of that. We need to be doing that - we need to reach the Port's Century Agenda goals to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy a lot faster. I'm in support of accelerating the implementation of sound installation programs for airport communities and advocating for federal investments in noise and emission mitigation. That's an FAA issue as well, and so I've been talking to our Congressional delegation about that. I've been endorsed by US Congresswoman Jayapal, I've been endorsed by US Congressman Adam Smith, and talked to the both of them about that.  And really, I think we need a strong regional leader in this position that's going to bring our elected officials and communities together to help address some of the most pressing issues that are impacting our community and thinking creatively about it. We shouldn't just wait on the FAA to help mitigate some of these situation, but what can we do as a Port? How can we bring our business community together and think of different pots to help address these issues. And also thinking about the communities that we are impacting, and how do we support them. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:38] You also talked about, just going back a little bit, supporting workers and certainly supporting families, supporting the region. You are very strongly in support of making sure workers for the Port of Seattle will be making $15 an hour. You also referenced a lot of the gig workers who are not directly employed by the Port of Seattle, but rely on the Port of Seattle, who are servicing and working in conjunction with rideshare drivers and other vendors. What can actually concretely be done? What could you enact to help increase their standard of living and their working conditions? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:19:27] Yeah, that's a great question. Well, one, the access to restrooms, I think is - it's one that we need to address and address that quickly. The fact that our rideshare drivers and truck drivers, both, don't have adequate access to restrooms is a big problem. It's one that I'm currently even talking to some of our port commissioners about, to help them address that. But it's also making sure that we are making the Port's operations accessible to them and transparent, that we are supporting them, providing opportunities - whether that is job training opportunities, whether that is standing up COVID testing sites or vaccination sites, providing them with the appropriate PPE so that they are protected and can keep showing up to work and doing the work, giving them the sort of tools that they need to be able to be successful on the job.  And so really, showing up for our gig workers is so so important. And being a port commissioner that listens, that brings their voices into the decision-making process. Standing up advisory groups that are made up of our gig workers, to help us make those decisions at the Port that also benefits them and benefits the businesses that are at the Port. So I would be hosting regular listening sessions and town hall meetings to have those conversations with them, in addition to attending the monthly commission meeting or study sessions. But really being able to engage with them and being intentional about it - most folks already know what their needs are and the solutions to the problem. We just have to bring folks to the table and give them the opportunity to engage with us so we can resolve some of the most pressing issues that they're facing. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:43] That makes sense. Looking at a lot of what the Port is responsible for, and the Port is a very large entity - what the Port is responsible for and just the size of the jurisdiction is quite vast. And the Port has its own police department and also interacts with Homeland Security, ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, in a variety of ways. And so how, when you consider, I guess starting off with just the issue of policing and sharing data with immigration authorities, Customs and Border Patrol. Obviously that has been something that a lot of local cities within the Port's jurisdiction have prevented. What do you think needs to be put in place? Do you think what's currently in place is adequate, and what is your stance on making sure that data isn't inappropriately shared with ICE and Homeland Security? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:22:49] Yeah. That is a great question, I think it's one that sometimes people forget that the Port - how large the Port's operations are. They manage billions of dollars, there's the partnership between the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma as well. And so, there's the marine terminals and they have a fire department, in addition to a police force. It's a good point that you bring that up, because I think sometimes a lot of people don't even realize that the Port is a government entity in a lot of ways. So that's a good point that you bring up. As far as - how does the Port engage with the community around police reform, or just thinking about the Port's police department, we have to ensure that they are accountable, that they're also listening to recommendations on the national level and locally. Also for me, as a port commissioner, it's really important to partner with that police department to ensure that we are addressing really urgent matters that face our region like human trafficking. Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world today. And we are, as a state, Washington state is a hotspot for human trafficking because of the abundance of ports, the vast rural areas that we have, there's the international border with Canada. So really ensuring that we are protecting people is so so important. I've been talking to Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who've endorsed our campaign, around combating human trafficking at the Port of Seattle and to build on existing work. Right now, if you look at the Port's Century Agenda, it doesn't include language access. If we are truly wanting to combat human trafficking, we need to make sure that the Century Agenda includes language access, we have to be able to address language barriers. A lot of the times, folks end up getting trafficked or not able to report being trafficked because of language barriers, or lack of awareness to services, or the fear and suspicion of law enforcement that folks have.  So addressing that is important and I bring strong skills around that. When I was working for US Congresswoman Jayapal as her Deputy District Director, I oversaw her Constituent Services team and carried the immigration and international relations portfolio for her. Often I worked very closely with US Customs and Border Protection and our US consulates to address issues like child abduction. We worked on bringing political prisoners home and we successfully helped reunite so many families. Also I had to work with ICE when someone was detained at the Tacoma Detention Center. Constituents would call our office and want to get in contact with their relatives, figure out what sort of legal support that they can provide to them. And often I was picking up the phone and calling those agents, officers, to ensure that folks' rights were not being infringed on. So I will continue to do that, I will continue to work very closely with our immigrant advocacy organizations to ensure that our family and communities are protected and continue to address some of the most pressing issues that are facing our immigrant refugee populations. Crystal Fincher: [00:26:42] In that vein, also the use of biometrics is a big concern. Basically going and using eye scans or face scans to identify people within the airport, and that data also being fed to or shared with federal authorities. We had a conversation with another port commissioner recently, who talked about the work being done on this. And a huge concern, certainly overall and specifically impacting communities of color, is that biometrics are less accurate for people with darker skin. People are misidentified more, there are more errors. And with that information being shared with law enforcement authorities - more misidentification, and people experiencing harm and impacts and adverse effects from being misidentified. So as they consider whether or how to use that, certainly that should be a huge consideration. Do you feel like the work group, or the work that they're doing to address that right now is adequate? And what, I guess, work and protections do you feel should be put into place to make sure people are feeling secure that their data isn't being collected without their knowledge or consent, and also shared with authorities that they may also not consent to? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:28:22] That is a great question and it's one that I think we really need to ensure that we are protecting folks' information, that we are upholding privacy laws, and also working with our Congressional delegations. It is a federal issue and so as a port commissioner, it will be really important to work with those federal agencies and to work with our Congressional delegation, to ensure that information is not being breached, that folks' - whoever gets a hold of these information are not misusing it and are not profiling our communities. So that will be a priority of mine. I have experience working with our federal agencies, as well as our Congressional delegation.  And also around immigration. King County has an ordinance in place right now, King County Code 2.15, which is the immigration and language access code, which basically says that the County will not share information with federal agents, unless it's accompanied by a judicial warrant. What we know is, often when there are those sorts of protections put in place, people are - especially immigrants and refugees, are more likely to access County services, government services, healthcare services, and they're likely to report things like crimes against themselves or their community. And so for me, it will be a priority to be able to ensure that we have policies in place that are protecting the privacies of all of our residents that contribute to our economy and our whole society here. That is something that needs to be addressed and it is a federal matter, and it's one that requires partnership, and I'm prepared to do that. Crystal Fincher: [00:30:31] Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We are at our time, but I'm so happy to be able to hear from you. I guess just as a very last closing, and in evaluating this vote between you and your opponent, what do you think voters should weigh the most in making that decision? Hamdi Mohamed: [00:30:51] Yeah, no - that's a good closing sort of statement. I think what - if folks understand that we are in the middle of a pandemic, and this is a moment where we have to re-imagine and rebuild a new economy that works for all of us. And recognizing that we can't do business as usual. We truly need new leadership. We need a regional leader that will make the Port's numerous operations accessible and transparent, a leader that will be a strong voice for working families and businesses impacted by COVID-19. I will be that leader. We didn't talk about this, but I'm proud to serve on the Maritime High School Advisory Board, and will be a strong advocate for expanding educational opportunities for our youth to ensure that they are also prepared to enter the workforce. After this pandemic, we're seeing labor shortages all across this country. And so really investing in the next generation is so important.  And we're truly running a grassroots campaign. A 100% of the donations that we have received so far have come from individuals. We've been endorsed by over 30 elected officials, including US Congressman Adam Smith, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, our County Executive Dow Constantine, US Congresswoman Jayapal, and so many of our community leaders. Folks are ready to see a regional leader, and I'm ready to step up and do this work. I have the lived experience and the work experience to be a strong commissioner that works for the people that have elected me, or when I do get elected. I hope they base it on that, and they also look at records - look at the work that we've done and the facts - that will be really important. I have over 15 years of experience working in King County, and I bring the experience of advising on our County's $12 billion budget and have led initiatives that invested millions of dollars into our community. And so those are the sort of skills and work experience that I will put into the Port of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:06] All right. Thanks for joining us and have a wonderful day. Hamdi Mohamed: [00:33:10] Thank you so much. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:13] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you got your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe, to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in, talk to you next time.

This week Port of Seattle Commissioner Ryan Calkins joins Crystal to discuss not only what a port commissioner actually does, but how it can impact the lives of our entire state. Topics include what the Port is doing to fight climate change, how it can protect the rights of gig workers operating within the Port's area, and how an entity like the Port - that operates in several jurisdictions and cities - can promote environmental, social, and economic justice. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's guest, Commissioner Ryan Calkins, at @ryancalkinsSEA. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Learn more about the Port of Seattle's plans to fight climate change here: https://www.portseattle.org/blog/port-programs-fight-climate-change  Get into the pollution from the port that specifically affects South Seattle here: https://crosscut.com/2019/06/can-beacon-hill-win-fight-quieter-skies-and-healthier-neighborhood  Learn more about the cleanup of the Duwamish River here: https://www.duwamishcleanup.org/  Find out more about ideas for insuring gig workers here: https://hbr.org/2020/07/gig-workers-are-here-to-stay-its-time-to-give-them-benefits  Find information that has been presented to the Port's Biometrics External Advisory Group here: https://www.portseattle.org/page/biometrics-external-advisory-group  Find out more about the inaccuracies and risks of employing facial recognition technology here: https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/racial-discrimination-in-face-recognition-technology/  Read about Washington State's airports response to ICE deportations using their facilities here: https://crosscut.com/2019/10/searching-airports-host-deportation-flights-ice-gets-rejected-everett-and-bellingham  Learn about offshore wind farms, like the one referenced in the episode, here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest-could-get-its-own-offshore-wind-farm-by-2017/    Transcript Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm your host, Crystal Fincher. On this show, we talk to political hacks and policy wonks to gather insight into local politics and policy through the lens of those doing the work and provide behind-the-scenes perspectives on politics in our state. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. And I'm very pleased to be welcoming Ryan Calkins, Port Commissioner for the Port of Seattle to the show today. Thanks for being with us. Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:01:00] Thank you. Yeah, long-time listener, first-time caller. I'm really excited to be here. Crystal Fincher: [00:01:05] Super excited to have you. And I'm excited to talk about the Port. Being a Port Commissioner is a really, in my opinion, over the years has been slept on, but a really important position, really important function. You have a huge jurisdiction. You're responsible for a lot. So I guess I just wanted to start off by asking what attracted you to look at serving on the Port Commission and what are you responsible for? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:01:35] Yeah, so I mean, when I first ran four years ago, my motivation was really driven by a couple of things. Principally by what I felt like was the need to take climate change more seriously at the Port of Seattle, that it is an agency that is deeply involved in transportation and ships, trucks, planes, trains. And obviously the transportation sector has got a climate problem, and we need to act quickly to address it. And then the other part of it was it's an economic development agency at heart. And so when we look at our regional economy and how - that was right in the middle of this boom period for our City, prior to the pandemic, where we were seeing overall macroeconomic numbers go through the roof. And yet it wasn't a vision of shared prosperity for our economy. And I felt like the Port of Seattle was one place where we could really instill a sense of shared prosperity. How do we make sure that the - forgive the maritime metaphor - but how could we make sure a rising tide will lift all boats? And in particular, the areas in King County, in our jurisdiction where we have seen people historically be furthest from economic justice are areas right around Port facilities, the airport, the seaport. And so yeah, like you said, it's kind of a quiet political jurisdiction, but a really, really important one. And we have about $1 billion a year roughly in operating budget. And right now, we're doing about $1 billion a year in capital construction budget as well. So it's a hugely impactful agency to be a part of. And so that's why I got interested and was able to kind of surprise, I think, an incumbent. And before he knew it, I was off and running, and we managed to squeak out a win four years ago. And now I'm up for reelection and the messaging hasn't changed a whole lot, but I will say that there's one area that I didn't emphasize enough as a first-time candidate, and this time I'm really going to lean into, and that's that question of equity. That I came in very much an environmentalist, and now I would say that I'm an environmental justice advocate. And particularly after four years of lots of community meetings with folks who really appreciate the intent of a lot of the environmental movement, but have, like me - I'll admit I didn't understand how important it was to make sure that we had the right people at the table. And so this campaign cycle, I'm really thinking a lot about how do we do this? How do we carry forward a vision of shared prosperity and a message of environmental justice for those communities that historically have been most impacted by Port activities? Crystal Fincher: [00:04:36] Yeah and crucially important - a lot of conversations around that right now. And as someone who lives in the 33rd, certainly, there has been a lot of research done specifically when it comes to the airport, and impacts from the airport on air quality, and those who live in the surrounding areas, and having direct impacts on the health of the families that live there. And I guess starting out in terms of what can be done to mitigate that impact, I know that's something that you have been looking at, are going to be continuing. What is happening to help reduce the amount of pollution that's being put into the air, the surrounding neighborhoods, and to mitigate that impact and to make sure that we aren't looking at the kinds of health disparities between one area of our region versus other areas? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:05:34] Yeah. I mean, the 33rd, obviously, I hear from a lot of constituents there about the air and noise pollution associated with airport operations. And then in other parts of the district, and particularly in the Duwamish Valley, the neighborhoods of South Park and Georgetown and cities of Tukwila and elsewhere, they're dealing with the water and air pollution associated with maritime operations and just the overall industrial activity that occurs around a Port facility - trucks coming and going and the machines that operate on the facilities. And so we're really looking at how we tackle - what it comes down to for us, in most instances, is that we're a fossil fuel economy and we need to break that addiction as quickly as possible. So on the seaport side of things, we have put forward a plan called the Seattle Waterfront Clean Energy Plan that seeks to essentially decarbonize the waterfront in the next 30 years. And it's in collaboration with the City of Seattle because our waterfront is entirely within the City of Seattle, and we need their help. We need more electricity. We need Seattle City Light to bring us more electrons on the waterfront so that we can replace that source of energy that is currently coming from a lot of diesel fuel. And we also need industry partnerships in other things. There's a lot of areas that while we're a port, we may not have jurisdiction over. And that's where, with my colleagues, I like to distinguish between hard power and soft power, which is kind of from my old days in foreign policy stuff. We may not have hard power in certain areas, but we do have soft power to create influence or model the way for other agencies to say there is an economically viable way that we can sort of destroy that myth of environmental sustainability at odds with economic development. I really believe we're at a point now where those things go hand in glove in most places, and particularly in Seattle. And at the airport, where we're dealing with both the issues related to air pollution and noise pollution from airport facilities, probably the single most important project we're working on is sustainable aviation fuels, which is the creation of combustible fuels that can be used in current airplanes. You don't have to change anything about the airplanes, but it burns a lot cleaner and isn't a fossil fuel. And so the news this week that the State Senate passed the low carbon fuel standard, now it's going back to the House for concurrence, is a really important step for us. We are waiting with bated breath to see if that will get agreed upon and sent to the governor's desk. But if it does, it's a necessary but not sufficient step towards sustainable aviation fuels and a greater supply of clean electricity for our waterfront project as well. So that has been our highest legislative priority ever since I joined the Port of Seattle Commission. And so a lot rests on that and I will keep pushing that for the next - I think we're down to 10 days in session - because we really need that to be able to take some strides. Just imagine, for instance, if we were able to produce sustainable aviation fuels from the municipal solid waste that is going into the landfill in Cedar Hills, in King County. We could divert that waste flow, turn it into energy that could then be used in our planes and our ships, and it burns a lot cleaner too. So the air quality benefits are good for our communities as well. And then we've got a number of - for the water quality piece, I think a really important part of that is what we've been working on in the Duwamish River. And that project has been successful in large part because the community mobilized and it wasn't just a bunch of electeds or public servants doing the planning. But instead it was led by community efforts in Georgetown and South Park to say, "We want cleanup and we want it done this way so that the folks in the community benefit." Crystal Fincher: [00:09:45] Well, that's certainly useful and helpful. One thing I wanted to talk about - you talked about balancing economic development and sustainability, and making sure that we don't harm our environment and the people living in it while still being competitive economically and growing our region and the economy in our region. There's been a lot of talk about wages workers are paid, conditions, workers - everyone from direct employees of the Port to truckers, people working throughout the entire ecosystem of the Port. I guess where are you at in terms of - do you feel like things are where they should be today? Do you feel like we still have a ways to go? And what's on the agenda? What's on your agenda for advancing worker conditions and pay and rights? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:10:42] Well, I want to start with wages because I think there's nothing like more money in people's pockets to improve outcomes in health, education, quality of life, longevity, all sorts of things. When you give people money - no, when people are able to earn more money, virtually every metric goes towards the positive, right? So 10 years ago when the debate was happening around 15 Now, I was part of the coalition of small business - I was a small business owner prior to this - I was part of the coalition supporting 15 Now, and I was pleased to see it pass in SeaTac originally, and then in Seattle. And I'm very much in favor of an increase in the national minimum wage, the federal minimum wage, as quickly as possible. And I personally believe that we ought to be north of $20 now for our region, for the country, to get back to where we were 30 years ago, let alone 40 years ago when really the Reagan revolution kicked off and undercut middle income families and has slowly resulted in income disparities that I think are really harmful to our democracy. And so wages are critically important at the Port of Seattle. This session, we're working with labor partners to ensure that this carve-out that had resulted in a number of workers around the airport, the flight kitchen workers, had been exempted. And it was originally part of Prop 1 - it was well-intended, but it resulted in a group of workers that were still earning $11.50-12 an hour instead of the north of $15 that they should be earning. And so we were able to go to Olympia this session, work with Senator Keiser and labor leaders to get that sort of technical fix in the bill. And as soon as the governor signs it, we'll be ready to work with the employers in the area to bring those employees up to the wages they deserve. In the larger Port ecosystem, there are a lot of folks who work in and around the Port that are gig workers. And I think there is an opportunity for Port elected officials to raise our voices about the need to backstop those workers with the same kind of protections that regular-wage workers have. So in the pandemic, we've understood that it's critically important for those people to have access to unemployment benefits. And I think portable benefits should be an option for workers, whether they're working for what we call TNCs, the transportation network companies like Uber or Lyft, or other forms of gig work that are popping up all over the place. And the ability for folks to maintain their healthcare, to maintain their pensions, to maintain other forms of benefits, as they move around in our really mobile economy now is, I think, really important. And so that's a conversation that we're having and something that I'm very supportive of because I think that kind of employee mobility forces employers to compete for workers too. Crystal Fincher: [00:14:11] Absolutely. And I think that's critically important and certainly part of our national conversation, the local conversation. What levers do you have, just within your jurisdiction in the Port, to try and move that forward? Is that something that you can address in contracts? Or if you're awarding contracts to vendors or doing that, what can you do as a Port Commissioner to help make that happen? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:14:41] So the Port of Seattle operates mostly as a landlord. I mean, we have 2,000 employees, roughly - 1,000 of whom work at the airport, and 1,000 scattered about at our administration building, or our maintenance facilities, or elsewhere. We have a police department, a fire department. We have, I think, just about two dozen unions that we negotiate directly. So we have a large workforce ourselves. But you think about the number of direct jobs at SeaTac, for instance. We figure there's about 21,000 people who work at the airport. So 1,000 of them are our employees, the other 20,000 work for the roughly 350 businesses - very large businesses like Delta and Alaska Airlines, and very small businesses like independent contractors who have a taxi. And figuring out how to herd those cats and get everybody providing quality jobs has been a real challenge, right? Because you're working with various levels of - you've got the federal government saying, "Here's a set of rules that you have to follow because you're an FAA grant recipient." You've got the state government saying, "Here's a set of rules that you have to abide by because you're an employer in the State of Washington." And then we've got municipal rules from the City of SeaTac, too. So there are a whole host of intersecting jurisdictions. And the way that Washington set up our port districts back in 1911 was as a limited-purpose jurisdiction. So we don't get all the same authorities that a city gets. And we fought that a few times. So we, for instance, can't personally set a minimum wage at the airport. That's set by the City of SeaTac, right? But we can, as I was saying before, use some soft power to say, "Hey, City of SeaTac. We would like to be able to do certain things within your jurisdiction." And we're a huge part of their tax base, and so that can be a conversation. In other circumstances, we can, as you talked about, work with contracts and leases to say, "If you're going to operate a business in our facility, then there are certain baseline minimum things that we want you to adhere to." Sometimes that pushes over certain lines and we get pushback. But a good example of that is - and they call that a use of a proprietary power - they say Sea-Tac Airport, as an operator of a big facility, is entitled to make certain requirements of its tenants to ensure that the facility runs in the way that we, the Port of Seattle, want it to run. And so yeah, when we sit down at the table with potential partners, whether it's airlines or concessionaires or others or taxi cab associations, we build into those negotiations - environmental key performance indicators, labor harmony agreements, customer service requirements, so that we have set of values that we're trying to make sure are carried out whether we're the operator or we contract with somebody else to do it. So that is absolutely a really important way that we can live out the values that we talk about on the campaign trail. Crystal Fincher: [00:18:00] I appreciate that. Another thing I'm wondering about, you mentioned that the Port has its own police department. You certainly work because there is federal facilities, federal travel, interstate travel. There's Customs and Border Patrol who are operating there in a number of jurisdictions, especially dealing with immigration and immigration enforcement. And we have been having a lot of conversations. And certainly in King County, it's pretty clear, just in terms of policies and cities throughout the county, that limiting interaction, cooperation with Customs and Border Patrol and ICE in terms of expanding their authority and cooperation - informing them, sharing data, that kind of thing, is not something that most cities here are comfortable with, most jurisdictions are comfortable with. And certainly looking at some of the actions that we saw from the Trump administration that are still continuing to this day and people being uncomfortable with the, I guess, scope of authority that other agencies have when it comes to immigration enforcement. Where do you stand on that? And what do you think is working right, and what do you think needs to change? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:19:35] I personally am - I believe we need to change the overall narrative around immigration. I think a lot of us on the left have simply bought into the storytelling that the right uses around immigration - that immigration is a sort of, it's an evil that we need to avoid. And instead, I think immigration is the secret sauce of our country. I mean, the narrative tends to be, how do we stop these people from coming? And we know that some will eventually get through anyways. And instead, I think we should be saying, how do we embrace those immigrants who are coming to the United States? Because it has forever been what has made us so innovative and vital and continue to push economic and cultural leadership around the world because we get the very best ideas from all over the place. And it isn't that we assimilate them. It's that we change to be more like the cultures that come and make up our new blend. And so this is something I'm personally very passionate about. I'm especially exercised right now about what's happening on the southern border with children, where the narrative continues to be, how do we stop this flow of children? And I feel like, No, we ought to be talking about how do we step up with all of our societal wealth and rescue these kids who are escaping a place that has undergone horrible natural disasters that in fact, weren't natural. They were human disasters as a result of terrible policies. And I speak from a position of real experience, right? My first job out of college was - I spent a year in Honduras working disaster relief. And it felt in so many ways like this year was just a repeat of what we saw 20 years ago, when two hurricanes this time came through. And these folks are desperate. And if we were in their shoes, we would simply be asking for an opportunity to find safety and a bite to eat and a roof over our heads. And I think we in the United States need to recognize that we have an obligation. We have a moral obligation to provide help to these folks. So let me start by saying that. Now, putting back on my Port Commissioner hat - so the Commission provided a policy directive to our police force that they will not share information with federal agencies around immigration status. And that's actually been in place for some time now. But around that issue of our relationship with Customs and Border Protection, the TSA, ICE, and other agencies, we are attempting right now to craft a policy that will limit the amount of data that's shared overall, particularly as it relates to biometrics. So you're probably familiar with all the different ways in which our biological identifiers, whether it's our eyes or thumbprints, or even things like the way we walk, and of course, facial recognition, which gets the most news, I think. How that information can be gathered and used - and so we put a moratorium on the use of biometrics by our police department. We put a moratorium on the use of any sort of mass surveillance because we are a quasi-public plaza, right? If you walk into SeaTac Airport, you don't think I'm walking into a place where somebody would have the right to just grab my image from the video feed and use that to identify who I am. And now what we're working on is how do we - we have a set of seven criteria that we're using to determine our own use of biometrics around justification, transparency, making it voluntary so that you're not just automatically - you have to personally choose to be a part of it, equity, and I'm forgetting the other two. But the idea is to create a system with guardrails in place. Biometrics is already a part of most everybody's lives. If you have a smartphone, you're using it in some way in most cases. We've used biometrics for decades in thumbprint analysis and other things in our criminal legal system. But at the Port of Seattle, we're really trying to conscientiously think about - here's this technology that has been supercharged by artificial intelligence. So on the one hand, it's a double-edged sword. It's becoming great for things like convenience and efficiencies, but the double-edged sword is it's also becoming a really powerful means of identifying people who do not want to be identified, or are real concerns about privacy violations. And so we're trying to figure out where our jurisdiction and our powers allow us to limit the use of that, and then negotiating with our partners, whether it's federal government agencies or private enterprises that are operating at the airport, where we can put those same guardrails in place for the relationships with them. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:52] Certainly. And even beyond just whether someone has the ability and right to identify you, and whether that's an opt-in situation or not, and privacy concerns - there are also accuracy concerns. And I'm sitting here as a Black woman, familiar with a lot of research and data demonstrating that a lot of biometric technology is not as accurate on people with darker skin tones. And misidentification with - in these contexts, really potentially massive consequences, horrible consequences, life-altering consequences. And so I guess throughout that process, I appreciate there being a thoughtful process to look at that. How are you addressing that and who is involved in the conversations to craft this policy to make sure that that is accounted for and adequately addressed? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:25:52] So we started up the process of a Biometrics Working Group. And Sam - Commissioner Cho - and I, Sam Cho and I lead that working group. And it's been - gosh, I want to say we've been at it for about 18 months now. We have brought in a group of external stakeholders who have provided feedback - experts on AI, the ACLU, some Microsoft experts were there as well. As well as had numerous public sessions, study sessions, a couple of presentations at our public meeting where these experts came and presented. And out of that formulated these seven criteria. We are trying to both address the real concerns that organizations like the ACLU have brought to the table around the inequity of certain of these systems and the fact that there's real data privacy concerns associated with it. And then also avoid putting in place policies that are going to get knocked down immediately in a lawsuit. So we're trying to thread that needle, and Sam and I have been working on it now for over a year, but we think we are going to take the next step here in the next few months on a guiding policy for biometrics at the Port of Seattle. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:20] And you talked about looking at limiting the information that you're sharing with federal immigration agencies. Dow Constantine previously signed an order basically amending lease practices, wanting to ban flights of immigration detainees chartered by ICE. Is that something that the Port is doing, can do, will do in the same vein? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:27:54] We have never had a charter flight like the ones that were leaving King County Airfield, or at least certainly not during the time that I was there. And when those flights were happening out of KCA, and I believe out of Yakima, we immediately went to staff and said - I went to staff and said, "Is this occurring at SeaTac unbeknownst to the Commission? And what can we do to stop it?" And we were given a set of kind of legal parameters and told that should it ever, should we ever be requested, you will know. And so far we've had to avoid that. The good news is Biden won. And our federal liaison, our liaison to the federal government has been working on what it looks like now in a post-Trump world. For me, the real concern becomes - what happens when the federal government is no longer of a mindset that this kind of in-the-dark-of-night flight shouldn't be happening. And so we do need to make sure that we put policies in place that avoid that kind of concern. There are still instances where - well, I shouldn't say that - the most recent instance I heard, of that kind of use of charter flights, was in Yakima, but it's been probably six months since I've been briefed on that. Crystal Fincher: [00:29:27] Would you support banning that type of use? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:29:32] If we could put a moratorium on those flights, absolutely. Crystal Fincher: [00:29:37] I suppose looking ahead - we have a couple minutes left here - just in terms of, looking forward, certainly you're making your case to the voters again right now about why you should be re-elected. What might be flying under the radar right now that you think is really important for voters to be considering as they look at all of these Port races? Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:30:02] Yeah. I would ask voters to think about who's bringing ideas to the table that are going to - I think about it, the three Es. So economy, equity, and environment. Who's bringing ideas to the table that are really going to move the needle in those areas? And so we are in a moment at the Port and in the port ecosystem where we really need to get economic recovery right. And just increasing top line revenue is not a good metric. What we really want to be looking at is how many family wage jobs have we preserved or created as a result of our economic development policies. So that's key. The second one is how are we addressing environmental justice at the Port of Seattle? And as I was saying earlier, I don't believe that it's a trade-off anymore. In fact, I believe that those agencies, cities, regions that are embracing industries prepared to take action on climate are the ones that are going to get that first mover advantage and be out ahead as the new clean energy economy really takes root. And an example that I've been working on for the last year or so is the development of renewable offshore energy. So the Pacific Coast has historically not been an area where there's a lot of renewable energy created offshore, but we're going to catch up. And particularly now that President Biden has devoted so much energy to offshore wind in particular. It really started in Europe and has been very successful there, Asia not far behind. Now the East Coast of the United States is developing significant wind farms. And the next is going to be the West Coast. We have some unique challenges because the Pacific is very deep. It drops off really quickly. And so our wind turbines are going to have to float. But they're also going to be enormous. And if my math is right, one of these enormous wind turbines will produce sufficient energy to power all the homes in Edmonds, for instance. And the Port of Seattle has some unique opportunities to be a part of that supply chain, which would mean tens of thousands of union jobs on our waterfront could potentially be activated by the development of that advanced manufacturing, assemblage, and the servicing of these offshore wind farms. And so that kind of idea, we need somebody to build the coalition and get that work done. And so that's my biggest project for the next four years - is how do we bring that part of the green economy to fruition here in Seattle because it'll mean jobs for 50 years, at least. And it's the kind of work that will replace the fossil fuel economy and move us towards diminishing greenhouse gases and local air pollution. And I also think it's just a really fun project to work on. So it's a question I ask of everybody who's seeking my endorsement. What are you doing to advance that kind of project for our region? Crystal Fincher: [00:33:14] Well, certainly exciting to look forward to - certainly the kind of innovation and direction we need to be moving towards, in order to make sure that as you said, this rising tide can lift all boats here in our region. So thank you so much for joining us today - sincerely appreciate it. Commissioner Ryan Calkins: [00:33:32] Thank you so much, Crystal. It's been a pleasure. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:36] Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks. Our chief audio engineer at KVRU is Maurice Jones, Jr. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I, and now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type in "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our mid-week show delivered to your podcast feed. You can also get a full text transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced during the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. Talk to you next time.

5PM - TSA lines stretch into parking garage at Sea-Tac Airport // Drivers wanted: Record demand at Uber as vaccinations rise // ‘MudHoney’ is the winning name for Seattle Public Utilities’ newest tunnel-boring machine // America Is About to Go Botox Wild // YouTube pulls Florida governor's video, says his panel spread Covid-19 misinformation // Hanna Scott: Rep. Walsh: Bill prohibiting WA vaccine passports draws a line on what’s acceptable // Your Letters + Letter of the Day See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My anticipation of performing in Tulsa, OK, on Thanksgiving reminds me of the time my family had Thanksgiving dinner at 13 Coins near Sea-Tac Airport. This week, I appeared on both Pittsburgh Community TV and the top live podcast in the world, "Kill Tony." I discuss my initial feelings on those things and how I should maybe dial it back on the overthinking.

Yuri Ruley is an epic, legendary American musician best known as the drummer of MXPX.  Do you need more description? We talk from an airport lounge in Sea-Tac Airport. Get access to Yuri’s mind, how he thinks and his approach to drumming and life.  Enjoy this one! Lot's of music process discussion. Find Yuri online: Facebook Instagram  Twitter ------------------------- Have you subscribed to the pod?  Big Thanks to RØDE MICS  MXPX FULL BAND LIVE STREAM THIS FRIDAY OCT 16! --------------------------------------------------- Let's Ride! ADD on SPOTIFY! Fever Dream by MXPX out NOW! LIFE IN QUARANTINE - THE COLLECTION HOMEWARD BOUND! I know you've got a lot of worries…There’s a new MXPX song out now!! Listen / Watch here: https://smarturl.it/mxpxworries TEXT LIST - Join our Text list by texting MXPX to 31996 Merch still available at www.mxpx.com MUSIC -LISTENER CHALLENGE- Listen to MXPX Self Titled Deluxe Album at least once a day. Use hashtag #mxpx or #mxpxsuperchallenge The MXPX Super Challenge Playlist Big link to everything MXPX BAND LINK  MXPX - Self Titled Deluxe Edition  Mike Herrera - Moment's Like These: TX Mike Herrera - Superman - LISTEN HERE!  I now have an Artist Series Music Man Stingray from Ernie Ball! You can order straight from the shop on the Music Man website.  A portion of proceeds goes to MusicCares!  MIKE HERRERA SIGNATURE SERIES BASS If you like the podcast- Subscribe, rate and review on Apple. Support what I do at MXPX.com  Leave a message with your question on the new Mike Herrera Podcast voicemail. (some will be aired on future episodes of the podcast) 360-830-6660 (US number) 3 min limit per message. Tip-Write your question down and read it. Will be more clear. ;) 

- Tribute to The Sky King - The BBBC - My wheelchair friend  - Full blown Stelter - You don't have clearance To support the show, please subscribe on Podbean, iTunes or Patreon Join the live audience on D-Live Follow on Twitter @BoogieBumper Join the Discord Grab Daily Boogie Merch Show links;  Piecing together Richard Russell's last day at work SEA TAC hijacker communications with ground control (abridged) Alaska flight forced to return to Sea-Tac Airport after man threatens passengers Saturday night BBC Director General issues apology for use of the N-word in a news broadcast BBC apologises for using n-word in report on racist attack after 18,000 complaints Sideman quits Radio 1Xtra after BBC defends use of N-word on air What is white privilege? Unbelievable. The culture is in a sunken place "When you see entire media companies essentially exist to tear down Joe Biden, is there an equivalent of that on the left, tearing down Trump?" Stelter: We are witnessing creeping authoritarianism Sen. Chuck Schumer calls for declassification of intel on Russian interference in 2020 election “without compromising sources.” This woman in Scottsdale, Arizona was super upset with Target for selling face masks. So upset in fact, that she attacked their display....

Eddie Rye with Co-Host Hayward Evans: ? *Dr. E. Faye Williams, Chair, National Congress of Black Women, Inc. comments on the priorities of the organization that has chapters throughout the country. *Sam Cho, Seattle Port Commissioner talks about his first six months on the commission, he was elected in 2019. *Perry Cooper, Public Relations at Seattle Tacoma International Airport will let you know about the changes at Sea Tac Airport to keep workers and passengers safe. *Sharon Lee, Executive Director, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) discusses the organizations mission and talks about housing i the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic. *Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best comments on the status of the SPD in the wake of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protest. The Seattle protest has been the focus of national news coverage.

Eddie Rye with Co-Host Hayward Evans: ​ *Dr. E. Faye Williams, Chair, National Congress of Black Women, Inc. comments on the priorities of the organization that has chapters throughout the country. *Sam Cho, Seattle Port Commissioner talks about his first six months on the commission, he was elected in 2019. *Perry Cooper, Public Relations at Seattle Tacoma International Airport will let you know about the changes at Sea Tac Airport to keep workers and passengers safe. *Sharon Lee, Executive Director, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI) discusses the organizations mission and talks about housing i the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic. *Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best comments on the status of the SPD in the wake of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protest. The Seattle protest has been the focus of national news coverage.

Kathy is the owner of Kathy Casey Food Studios® – Liquid Kitchen®, a global agency specializing in food and beverage innovation and concept development. Her team can often be found in the field training staff and supporting new openings. A successful restaurant owner and operator, Kathy’s concepts include, Dish D’Lish®, a “Food to Go Go” favorite for healthy options on the go, along with the companion line of retail and foodservice products – and Rel’Lish Burger Lounge™, a full service restaurant specializing in inspired burgers, salads, snacks and cocktails on tap . Kathy is a founding partner in 1915 KCHouse Concepts, a women owned airport F&B operations company. Lucky Louie Fish Shack™ opened at Sea-Tac Airport in 2019. Connect with Kathy via her websites or by emailing info@kathycasey.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/christie-lawler/support

4PM - Tom and John react to Gov. Inslee's press conference // Rachel Belle: Quarantining With a Ghost? It’s Scary // To combat coronavirus, Sea-Tac Airport is stretching lines, blocking seats — but some ask what took so long

6PM - Starbucks demands landlords lower its rent for the next year, citing ‘staggering economic crisis’ of coronavirus // Seattle council bill, if signed by Durkan, would allow for rental payment plans after coronavirus crisis // As Unemployment Soars, Lawmakers Push to Cover Workers’ Wages // Rachel Belle: Quarantining With a Ghost? It’s Scary // Hotels vs. Airbnb: Has Covid-19 Disrupted the Disrupter? // To combat coronavirus, Sea-Tac Airport is stretching lines, blocking seats — but some ask what took so long

With only a plane ticket to Dublin to guide her, Eimear heads to SeaTac Airport where she hopes to learn more about who she is. But it's not about where she's going. It's about who she meets on the way there...

Welcome back to Death by Champagne, the podcast here to keep you up at night! This week we continue our dive into Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. This episode solely covers GRK victims #2-#15, we pick up right where we left off with victim #2, Debra Lynn Bonner. We cover a lot of ground this week and touch on a few of Rigway’s dump sites, including a major site that will be further discussed in next week’s episode; the Star Lake Site. We end the episode in October of 1983 when Kelly Ware is discovered near the SeaTac Airport.   This episode contains foul language, graphic discussions about rape, murder, body sites, and decomposition. We also dip our toe into politics at the end. We’ll do our best to stay on track, but the bottles are popped!   Sponsor Podcorn Sources Brenda Lackey, Carlie Jones, Julie Johnson - Assessment from Radford University Psychology Department Ann Rule, Green River Running Red Eric W Hickey, Serial Murderers and Their Victims Sheriff David Reichert, Chasing the Devil Prosecutor’s Summary of Evidence Blaine Hardin, Washington Post, November 16th, 2003 Sean Robinson, The News Tribune, December 16th, 2001 Katherine Ramsland, PhD, Psychology Today, Triad of Evil Green River Killer Case: HistoryLink.org David Quigg, The News Tribune, “A Different View of the Ridgway Family”, Dec 20, 2001 Murderpedia Green River Victim’s Family Finds Peace in Forgiveness: Seattle pi Article UPI Archives, “Suspect Says He Isn’t The Green River Killer” Nadia Young and Rachel Baye, CNN Special Investigations, “Woman describes close call with Green River Killer” Green River Serial Killer: Biography of an Unsuspecting Wife by Pennie Morehead Carlton Smith, Seattle Weekly, Oct 9, 2006

YVR vs SeaTac --- it's a battle for customers and SeaTac announces a multi-billion dollar improvement.

Episode 16 – ASA Northwest ATE 2020 Sets the Bar for TrainingASA Northwest incoming chairman Bryan Kelley and Executive Director Jeff Lovell have good reason to be proud and excited about the Automotive Training Expo event scheduled for March 27-29 at the DoubleTree Hotel near SEATAC Airport. Listen in as Bryan and Jeff share the story behind the event, along with the outstanding lineup of technical and management training that is absolutely the Best int the West!· Hear about the all-star lineup of trainers available· Learn how the technical and management training is carefully selected by shop owners and technicians for shop owners and technicians· Abundant networking opportunities to meet and share ideas· Special program for Educators and special pricing for ALL asa mEMBERS· Find Out about the new ASA-NW Apprenticeship program to develop new talent· Register now at atetrainingexpo.com

with Co-Host Hayward Evans: *Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D) represents the 7th congressional district of Washington State. She serves on the House Judiciary Committee, we will ask for an update on her committee work and comment on her legislative priorities for her district. *Ed Prince, Executive Director, Washington State Commission on African American Affairs comments on the work of the commission and talks about the Small Business Expo that was sponsored by both African American Commission and the Washington State Asian Pacific American Affairs at Sea Tac Airport on Wednesday. *Ernie Dunston, President, the Breakfast Group pays tribute to Bill Hilliard who passed away on yesterday, Bill was the first president of the organization that has thrived for over 40 years serving the community and specifically young Black Men that need counseling and tutoring. *Tana Yasu, Treasurer, Seattle/King County Martin Luther King Jr. Organizing Coalition updates the progress of the organization's efforts for the January 20, 2020 MLK Holiday Celebration and invites you to the Tuesday, October 8 meeting at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. *Author Addie Jones invites you to the Urban Book Expo at the Northwest African American Museum Saturday, October 5 12:00-5:00 pm. She will showcase her book, "Skin Deep: An Interactive Coloring Book" by her nickname Screebee.

Charlie Engle sits down the only place he and Matt can talk with microphones, an airport. This time it’s Sea-Tac. Enjoy! Todays Podcast is sponsored by: VJ Shoes – The new modes are out, and ORM still has the best discount! Show Notes: Charlie’s Site The other Charlie airport episodes Support Us On Patreon

My compatriot Jacob Bicknase was in town this week and we played a lot together during that time. Me and Jake were both part of Left Field Quartet in Madison WI a little while back (https://leftfieldquartet.bandcamp.com/releases). My sister sent me the first of a series of field recordings she is taking of her trip to New Zealand, the first being Seatac Airport of [con]course.

@Conwayshow (8/13) Timmy interviews Ben Schaechter, the man who tipped off @AronBender about the stolen plane/ suicide at SEA-TAC Airport

A little bit of follow up leads to the story about Richard Russell stealing a plane from SeaTac Airport, goofing around for 75 minutes and then crashing.  Abdul and Collin also discuss Ninja refusing to stream with female gamers in an attempt to mitigate any rumors.   Giveaway link is: http://swee.ps/hXLOZlqCG    Follow us at: http://www.twitter.com/unrelatablepod http://www.twitter.com/advil http://www.twitter.com/loboexplosivo http://www.twitter.com/ayoalexmusic

Luke and Andrew cover a lot ground today, including the story of the man who stole an airplane from Sea-Tac Airport this weekend, an in-depth review of AMC's Lodge 49, and some very timely Linda Trippe jokes. . . . Today's show is sponsored by Everlane. Visit Everlane.com/tbtl to get free shipping on your first order.

Join Carlos, Nev and Matt for this week's later than scheduled show. In today's episode we go over the details and dangers posed by airport staff after an unauthorised takeoff at Sea-Tac Airport, our favourite A380 from the Farnborough Airshow goes out on wet lease to Norwegian and a Boeing 747 gets a new lease of life helping to fight fires. Matt chats to Dana about his visit to the UK when we all met up at the Farnborough 2018 Airshow. In the Military the search for a new home for the Red Arrows begins and an accidental missile launch takes place on a NATO Eurofighter. Next week is our first PTUK Fly In Barbecue at Seething Airfield and we're hoping (technology permitting) to do the show live from there next week. Get in touch with the show by searching social media for PlaneTalkingUK or by emailing podcast@planetalkinguk.com.

Port of Seattle officials say they’re taking greater steps to address human trafficking. That includes a public awareness campaign at Sea-Tac Airport.

1.For transit passengers, the re-boarding time is 9:30 p. m.过境游客请于晚上9点30分重新登机。2.Where is the transfer counter?转机柜台在哪里?3.Where do I make my connection?请问要转机的话应该怎么走?　4.Which gate should I go to then?请问需要去几号登机口?　　5.Where can I get my baggage/luggage?我要在哪里取行李?6.Which terminal should I go for my connecting flight?  我应该去哪一个航站楼转机?7.What is your final destination?请问你的最终目的地是哪里?　　8.Have I missed my connection?我错过我的转机航班了吗?　　9.How long is my transfer time?换乘时间有多久?　　10.Do I need to go through immigration for connection flights?我在转机时需要重新出境再入境吗?美国机场转机全攻略在美国，可以入境的机场有：洛杉矶，旧金山，西雅图，纽约，芝加哥，亚特兰大，华盛顿，底特律。对于入境以后需要转机，英语又不是很流畅的同学更是一件麻烦事，列举一些机场航站楼的示意图，这样在临行前做好转换航站楼的准备，找好摆渡车的乘坐方向，这样就不会担心错过下一班飞机啦。另外，从机场到学校也是有一段距离的，很多初次到美国的同学并不知道要怎么打车或者是乘坐交通工具，提前在网上订好shuttle也是重要课程之一。所以，点击www.supershuttle.com学习如何订Shuttle吧~温馨提示：当一个城市里有不止一个国际机场时，可借助三位大写字母组成的机场代码来分辨自己前往的是哪个机场，如LAX，ORD，etc.No.1 LAX-洛杉矶Los Angeles机场No.2 SFO-旧金山San Francisco机场No.3 SEA-西雅图Seattle机场No.4 ATL-亚特兰大Atlanta机场No.5 DTW-底特律Detroit机场No.6 ORD-芝加哥Chicago机场No.7 EWR-纽瓦克Newark机场No.1 LAX-洛杉矶机场航站楼示意图及转机指南洛杉矶国际机场国际航班转国内航班如果你乘坐的航班需要转换航站楼，请注意看下面的Ground Transportation waiting areas示意图。在LAX转机简直就像噩梦一样，比如你乘坐国航抵达LAX，转乘UA前往其他城市时，如靠走路，至少要走上40分钟！LAX一共九个Terminal，而每一个Terminal都是分开的。目前TBIT（Tom Bradley International Terminal）是作为主要国际航班到达。中国几大航空公司的航班：China Airlines, China Eastern以及China Southern，都是在TBIT降落的。注意，Air China是在Terminal 2... 所以，是不是很乱？如果你是乘坐中国的航空公司来LAX，那么转机时候一般都是乘坐美国的航空公司班机，因此你需要到其他Terminal，或许你的麻烦事开始了....Delta是在Terminal 5United是在Terminal 7/8Continental是在Terminal 6American 是在Terminal 4首先，无论你在哪个Terminal下飞机，都是有海关，然后领取行李的。每个Terminal都有入境处，而入境方法和注意事项和其他机场一样，然后领取行李过海关。（具体入境方法参考入境全解析一文）过完海关，请注意：并不是每个航空公司都会在你所在的Terminal有行李转机托运的！如果没有，很不幸，你得带着你所有的箱子，去另外一个Terminal找行李转机...Terminal之间是有巴士连接的，但是需要注意，你必须看清巴士的种类，只有Shuttle Bus A才是连接各个Terminal的，其他Bus，会把你带到其他地方...比方说，停车场。需要注意的是，Shuttle bus是单向的....意味着什么？你可能要花大把时间在坐车上...一定要留意自己的转机时间了。另外，从TBIT出来的话，必须走到Terminal两头才可以看见Shuttle Bus，中间路标非常不明确...所以，如果迫不得已的话，尽量不要选择LAX作为你转机机场。特别是如果父母来美国探亲，那更要避免。你英文那么好都会觉得晕，父母在里面迷路那更加正常了No.2 SFO-旧金山机场示意图及转机指南旧金山国际机场是联合航空和维珍美国航空的主要枢纽，也是阿拉斯加航空的重点机场之一。因此，乘坐United的同学，很可能就会在SFO进行转机。斯坦福大学，加州伯克利大学的同学可能会选择SFO为目的地机场。旧金山机场一共有4个Terminal，其中所有国际航班都会在International Terminal到达。我们以G91-G102为例，下了飞机之后，你只有往前走，可以跟着人流走，即可，如果赶时间的话，推荐冲在人群前面，先去排队。走到尽头就能看见入境办理手续了，如下图的最右侧红过了入境，然后等候行李。SFO的行李车是免费的 :)取完行李之后，就往前走，如果需要申报的，就填表申报，如果不需要的，则直接走过海关即可。此时，如果需要转机的童鞋，请看清标识牌，Arrival Lobby和Connecting Flights Exit是在大厅的两头，不同的方向，不要走错了。一路跟着指示牌，你不难找到你要乘坐的航班转机行李托运处。把行李托运掉之后，一下子就轻松很多啦~SFO机场内不同的terminal也是通过AirTrain来连接的，下图则是机场列车的行驶路线图。SFO机场还是挺方便的，个人觉得非常不错。如果是SFO为终点站的同学，同样可以乘坐列车，然后转乘去做BART，到底湾区各个地方，去Berkeley和旧金山市中心，坐BART就相当方便，不过BART车票好贵啊！在进入下一个Terminal之前，你依旧需要安检，和之前在国内的安检一样。No.3 SEA-西雅图机场示意图及转机指南你们会在西雅图机场登陆入关，这个机场叫做SEA-TAC Airport。西雅图机场是去华盛顿大学的主要目的地机场。1.下飞机：下飞机后,随飞机上的人流走就会来到海关.2.入关（具体入关方法见入境全分析一文）3. 取行李（Baggage Claim）。总结：西雅图机场转机较容易，看得懂英文，或者跟随大流走即可~乘坐不同航空公司的飞机会在不同的机场终端（这里叫做 concourse）登陆。你们可以看到有标志Concourse A浅绿色 /B橙黄色 / C深绿色 /D土黄色的4个终端，比如乘坐的中国海南航空公司到达西雅图的终端是左边那块单独的蓝紫色方块south satellite(南卫星楼）你们在中国拿到登机牌的时候就可以注意一下,西雅图机场的登机门(GATE)都是由一个字母和两个数字组成,字母代表是在哪个终端登机. 是C就是在终端C登机,是D就是在终端D登机.No.4 ATL-亚特兰大机场示意图及转机指南亚特兰大机场是Delta的主要枢纽。从上海经Delta的航班，很可能会在Altanta进行转机。同时，亚特兰大机场也是去Gatech，GSU，Emory三所大学留学生的目的地机场。亚特兰大机场一个有六个Terminal，使用地铁连接，因此，转机的同学肯定会从一个terminal，坐地铁去另外一个。你可以从机场网站上查询：http://www.atlanta-airport.com/flights/ 每个航班的terminal和Gate的位置基本上是固定的，当然会有突发情况。亚特兰大机场的Terminal图片参见上图Gatech，GSU和Emory的童鞋，直接过关出来之后，就可以找地铁站，Atlanta的地铁站名字叫：MARTA。不过需要注意的是，MARTA最近的地铁站离Gatech的Campus仍然有一定距离，因此还是建议让师兄师姐来接一下。GSU和Emory的童鞋同样如此，机场离市中心大约20分钟车程。需要注意的是：1）亚特兰大机场的行李推车是收费的，可以用信用卡刷卡付款；2）在夏令时，Atlanta和中国的时差是12个小时，如果是在寒假出发，Spring semester入学的话，那就是13个小时时差。你可以在上飞机之后，就把手表时间调整到Atlanta时间，这样方便你计算航班会何时到达。3）亚特兰大机场的wifi是不免费的。4）一般情况下，从上海起飞赴亚特兰大，全程大约14个小时。No.5 DTW-底特律机场示意图及转机指南底特律机场是达美航空公司的枢纽机场，该机场是全国最现代化的机场，堪称新机场的模范生~底特律机场有二个Terminal，分别是麦克纳马拉航厦(McNamara Terminal)和北航厦(North Terminal)。Delta与其SkyTeam Alliance则使用麦克纳马拉航厦，其他航空公司则使用北航厦。具体哪个航班在哪个terminal可以查询机场官方网站：http://www.metroairport.com/airlines/或通过登机牌得知~下图则是McNamara Terminal的指示图国际到达是在绿色的那一层，过海关之后，领取行李，往前走，重新托运行李的就在这一层。如果是在North Terminal的，一定要注意自己相应的航班柜台。托运完之后，则上楼，到达蓝色的那一层 Level 2。大部分的Delta和西北航空都在Concourse A，如果有需要的话，可以乘坐机场内部小火车。如果是在Concourse B和C的话，则需要走一段炫彩通道（所以说DTW是新机场的典范吧！太酷炫了！如果是需要去North Terminal的，你就得坐机场内的Shuttle Bus。而North Terminal则是相当简单了。在进入Terminal之前，你需要再次安检。虽然DTW机场非常不错，但是如果需要转机，也同样尽量安排2个小时以上的转机时间，1个半小时的转机，会相当紧张。因此，预定机票时候请大家注意啦~~No.6 ORD-芝加哥机场示意图及转机指南芝加哥机场是北美客流量最大的机场之一，目前仅次于亚特兰大机场ATL。芝加哥机场是很多去北美留学同学转机机场，同时，因为航班太多，机场太热闹，因此飞抵芝加哥的飞机有时候会误点，同时入关的人数可能会比较多，因此希望要在芝加哥机场转机的同学，做好心理准备，同时预留出足够的转机时间。（官方报告以班机延误比例为标准，将奥黑尔列为全美最不准时的机场——wikipeida）一般建议，在ORD机场转机的同学，要预留两个到两个半小时以上的时间。芝加哥奥黑尔国际机场共设有186个豋机门,通过4座航厦 (1, 2, 3, 5)及9个大堂 (B, C, E, F, G, H, K, L, M)操作。所有飞抵奥黑尔机场的国际航班均停靠在第五航厦和在其他机场一样，下飞机之后，你只要找到Immigration的指示表，或者跟着人群走，去入关即可。入关处地图如下图所示：过了移民局入境之后，等待领取自己的行李箱，然后往前走，过海关。如果你有携带任何食品的话，要么立刻吃掉，要么就乖乖申报，不要有任何侥幸心理，被抓大麻烦会比较大。然后如果要转机的同学，则找到相应的航班的转机行李托运处，如上图所示的Baggage Drop-off处。注意，不同的航班的转机行李是在不同的地方，你需要自己留意。对于转机的同学请注意，到了Arrival Lobby，即达到大厅之后，不要直接出门了...你需要上两边的电梯，去做ATS小火车，也就是ORD机场内部不同Terminal之间的列车。ATS列车行驶站为：三个国内机场Terminal, 国际机场Terminal, Long Term parking, the Metra station 和 PACE stop。因此，在坐ATS之前，先看清你下一班飞机的Terminal在几号。(第二张机场全图中，红色的线就是代表ATS行驶线)。Terminal 1: 主要是United和United ExpressTerminal 2：有Delta，Air Canada, UA, US AirwayTerminal 3：主要的AA在此处ORD机场的航班查询：http://www.flychicago.com/PassengerInformation/FlightInformation/Default.aspx再次提醒：ORD转机，一定要留出尽量多的时间，避免发生赶不上飞机的情况，有人因为误机，不得不在ORD停留24个小时...因此建议：1. 尽量早下飞机；2. 下飞机就往前冲，尽量在人群前面，想想一架坐满的777有多少人等着入关？3. 如果万一误机，跟机场人员联系，帮忙改签...No.7 EWR-纽瓦克机场示意图及转机指南纽瓦克机场距纽约州纽约市曼哈顿约16mile路程，纽约都会区的三大机场之一，另外两个是纽约的肯尼迪国际机场JFK和拉瓜迪亚机场（LGA）。以后大家去纽约玩，一般会选择LGA机场，因为离曼哈顿地区更加接近。纽瓦克机场是全美第10大繁忙的机场，以及全美第5大国际直飞机场，并且是美国大陆航空的第二转运枢纽，是本场最大的航空业者（目前使用C与部份的A Terminal）。纽瓦克自由国际机场拥有三座Terminal，其中Terminal B为主要的International Terminal，但是从中国起飞的美国大陆航空，则可能会主要在Terminal C降落。飞机到达EWR机场之后，跟随着人流或者找到Immigration的指示表，去办入境手续。下图显示了Terminal C处得入境点。入境之后，领取自己的行李，这里需要提醒的是：EWR的行李推车需要支付5美元，因此准备好纸币或者硬币。一般不推荐使用信用卡，因为有人遇到过在机场推车使用信用卡然后账单很夸张的情况。拿完行李，然后过海关，不需要申报的话，直接出门找自己需要转机的柜台。一般从北京走的话，乘坐美国大陆航空的同学可能会比较多，而大陆航空在Terminal C还是非常方便的。托运完行李之后，找接下去转机的Terminal，有可能大陆航空的国内航班的Terminal在A，因此你需要去坐机场内的列车。下图则为机场Airtrain的路线图，在非繁忙时段，列车是15分钟一班，繁忙时段则为3分钟一班。你需要乘坐的，就只是从Terminal A B C中间三站。如果你是乘坐UA， US Airway的，则需要去Terminal A；Delta的航班则是在Terminal B。祝大家旅行愉快~转机顺利！（原文转载自Echo Studio微信平台：echo_studio）UCSO特别温馨提示：根据TSA发布的最新消息，飞美国的新安检规定，从7月10日起，所有登机行李里的电子产品，（笔记本、ipad、剃须刀、手机等）必须充电到可开机的程度。新的规定是针对最近一周发生的一起安全未遂事件而做出的。 请即将美国的朋友注意新规定！在安检时需要现场开机，如不能开机将被没收，而且还可能被小黑屋抽查而延误航班，请大家不要掉以轻心！此外，充电宝只能在手提行李中携带或随身携带，严禁在托运行李中携带。充电宝额定能量不超过100Wh,无需航空公司批准；额定能量超过100Wh但不超过160Wh，经航空公司批准后方可携带，但每名旅客不得携带超过两个充电宝。严禁携带额定能量超过160Wh的充电宝；严禁携带未标明额定能量同时也未能通过标注的其他参数计算得出额定能量的充电宝。不得在飞行过程中使用充电宝给电子设备充电。对于有启动开关的充电宝，在飞行过程中应始终关闭充电宝。Where do I make my connection?请问要转机的话应该怎么走?音节分解1（多音节词详细分解，方便读音与记忆）三音节词co-nnec-tion：/kə-ˈnek-ʃn/ n.(名词）转机逐个单词2（标准美音慢速朗读，讲解拼读、音标、词法、语法）where哪里 do I make制作 my我的 connection转机?拼读与音标音标双元音/eɪ/例如：make制作  nation国家facial面部的 able能够词法和语法无连读分解3（连读略读，全面分解，真正说出一口流利美式英语）连读do I→do Ido (/w/)I略读无一气呵成4（慢速朗读，反复收听，大声模仿，脱口而出）Where do I / make my connection?请问要转机的话应该怎么走?英英解释单词学英语思维connection：联运;转车;转机 If you get a connection at a station or airport, you catch a train, bus, or plane, after getting off another train, bus, or plane, in order to continue your journey.如果你在车站或者机场要connection，意思就是你下车或下飞机后需要转乘其他的交通工具。

On this episode, three guests provide some perspective on the politics and the economics of the Fight for $15. First, I speak with Jonathan Rosenblum, campaign director at the first Fight for $15 at SeaTac Airport, just outside Seattle, Washington. Workers there won an immediate raise to $15 via a municipal ordinance in 2015. Jon is also an […]

It's Thursday morning at 8 am and you know what that means! It's time to get the latest in headline news from renowned reporters Bryant Willis, Tanya Fleetwater, and Fabian von Heezil, who go behind the scenes to get unique insights into the weeks' most interesting under reported stories. This week guest Alison Luhrs is in studio to help Willis and Fleetwater cover a tree's arrest on the streets of Portland, Oregon and meet a scientist who discovered signs of learning in a ball of dough. Plus, Alison sends Fabian to find her lost luggage at SeaTac Airport and Tanya advises a former cult member looking to start one of his own. This Week's Headlines: http://www.9news.com/news/local/tree-arrested-in-downtown-portland-for-blocking-traffic/340894472 http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2016/10/24/researchers_find_hints_of_learning_in_a_ball_of_dough_109789.html

Your place to get your very own exclusive Sup Pop neck pillow and favorite vinyl Nirvana album.