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The Crosscut Blog »
Feb 13, 2008 11:39 AM | last updated Feb 13, 2008 2:18 PMTaking the long view, the Muni League investigates the Port of Seattle
But appearances can be deceiving, said Bruce Carter, a Seattle Municipal Court judge pro tem who will lead the league's work.
"We decided we'd do this quite a while ago, before the audit came out," said Carter, who left the U.S. Attorney's office in 2001 after serving 30 years as a federal prosecutor who specialized in white-collar crime.
The Muni League decided to wait until after last fall's port elections were done, Carter said, because it didn't want its findings or recommendations turned to "short term advantage" by candidates. He could provide no timeline for when the league's study will be done but said it will take months.
In a release announcing its work [PDF], the good-government group noted that in 1911, when the league itself was only a year old, it "successfully advocated for the creation of the publicly owned port to offset the influence of shipping and railroad monopolies."
Asked if the review meant the league planned to clean up the mess it helped create, Carter laughed and demurred, saying the goal will be to improve the "openness and effectiveness of the port."
"We were thinking we'd be providing a positive perspective," he said. "We're still hoping to do that. We're not going to be plowing ground behind auditor or for Justice Department."
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/
seattlepolitics/archives/131649.asp
Posted by Richard Pope at 2/11/08 4:21 p.m.
I think the Municipal League should dissolve in response to the Port of Seattle scandals. The Municipal League was established in 1910 for the express purpose of changing state law to provide for the creation of port districts. This could have been done by allowing the county commissioners in each county to run port districts. Instead, the Muni League pushed for the establishment of separately elected port commissions, special government units that special interests could control.
The Muni League has always been controlled by the wealthy special interests in Seattle, including the shipping companies who were the beneficiaries of the Port of Seattle (and its generous subsidy to shippers through general property taxes in King County). Over the past century, the Muni League has advocated the election of port commissioners allied with these shipping interests. They are basically responsible for King County taxpayers being ripped off to the tune of $80 million per year to subsidize shippers (and real estate developers as well).
The Port of Seattle and the Muni League have caused a lot of harm to King County taxpayers and citizens over the last century. The people of King County would be much better off if both organizations were dissolved.
I TRUST THE LEAGUE TO DO AN INVESTIGATION AS MUCH AS THE COMMISSION ITSELF IS DOING OF ITSELF WITH THE "SON OF PAT AND MIC" BILL BRYANT, A DEMAGOGUE, WHO BEAT ALEC FISKEN , WHO WAS ON TO THE GAME, AT HIS PARENT'S BEHEST, IS LEADING? WELL LETS SEE WHAT HE DOES... HOW LONG IT WILL BE DRAWN OUT NOW THAT THE PORT HAS VOTED TO DEFRAY THE COST OF THE DEFENSE OF PORT EMPLOYEES. NOTE AARON ANDERSON AND ALEC FISKEN'S OP-ED IN THE SEATTLE TIMES: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/
cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=
aronsonfisken06&date=20080206&query=ALEC+FISKEN
THE PORT DOES HAVE TWO FIRST RATE COMMISSIONERS AT PRESENT: LLOYD HARA AND JOHN CREIGHTON, the beleaguered Pat Davis is/ was obviously the creature of Dinsmore and of SSA MARINE [which no one ever talks about and which is a taboo subject at the Seattle Times, perhaps at the PI too] and two new members, Gael Tarleton, and the as far as I am concerned dubious Bill Bryant.
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