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Public Comment

Date: May 27, 2014
Re: Port of Seattle Commission Special Meeting Agenda, Item 7a

On behalf ofour clients, Concourse Concessions LLC, the SeaTac Bar Group LLC, Sun's Inc.,
and JLAD LLC, we offer the following public comments regarding Item 7a to the May 27, 2014
Port of Seattle Commission Special Meeting Agenda.

We are pleased to see the port staff moving forward with the Airport Dining and Retail Master
Plan work. We appreciate the complexity of that work. We embrace the dream of the
Commission laid out in its Century Agenda and in various motions and public announcements
concerning the strategic goal of sustaining the Seattle Tacoma lntemational Airport concession
program as a world class model of creativity, diversity, and success.

Our clients, however, have not been meaningfully included in the planning process. Except for
invitations to participate in "stakeholder" meetings, the planning process has not yet illuminated
a proposed solution to the dilemmas our clients and other airport small business concessionaires
have faced in light of disproportionally high build out costs, location disadvantage, loss of
enplanement opportunity and other consequences of what the staff now reports to have been
lessons learned from the past.

Concrete solutions to these dilemmas are long overdue. We believe no one will dispute the value
that the ACDBE and airport small business concessionaires contribute to the airport food and
beverage concession program. From creating national award winning designs to featuring local
and unique menus these small businesses arejob creating champions of the airport economy.
We also suggest that it is beyond dispute that these small businesses have paid a price for their
success, a price that justies continuation of opportunities for a reasonably extended term in
order to facilitate recovery of and a reasonable return on their investments.

Indeed, on September 11, 2012, the Commission, after considerable reection and discussion,
acknowledged both the value of the ACDBE and airport small business concession community
to the airport and the difcult economic conditions endured by many ofthem. In that motion the
Commission directed Port staff to address those conditions by negotiating direct leases with
extended and competitive terms for those ACDBE and small business concessionaires affected
by such conditions. The motion set a deadline of December 31, 2012 for accomplishment of the
basic work, so that our clients and their small business community would not be facing nancial
uncertainty and business threatening risk as their leases approach the threshold of expiration in
the near iture.

We note that Port staff mentions the September 1 1, 2012 motion and a few other salutary
remarks regarding small business growth in its report today. As of today, however, meaningful
conversations have not taken place with our clients regarding how and when the September 1 1,
2012 Motion will be implemented.


So, while we are here to thank the Commission for its unwavering support of the ACDBE and
airport small business concession community, we are also here to ask for direction as to when the
Commission expects its Motion of September 11, 2012 to be implemented. We ask, "if not now,
when, and how?"

Thank you.

Larry Setchell and Lauren Farris-Watts
Helsell Fetterrnan, LLP
1001 4th Avenue
Suite 4200
Seattle, WA 98154
206-292-1 144
lsetchell  helsell.com
lwatts  helsell.com