111in       A
Port Commission Re 3)\a~v
Meetingot bol  9
arz     7.013
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May 28,2013
RECEIVED 
Port of Seattle Commission                   MAY 3 0 2813
27" Alaska" way
Pom or- SEATTLE
Seattle, WA 98121                       COMMISION

Dear Port of Seattle Commissioners:

At the Port Commission meeting on March 12, Roger McCracken ofMasterPark made
statements in opposition to the Doug Fox lease that are factually incorrect. MasterPark
protests that Doug Fox should incur and charge back to its customers an airport trip fee
notwithstanding the substantial concession rent paid to the Port by Doug Fox. MasterPark
further states that Doug Fox is seeking to gain
a competitive advantage by exposing the
Opaque or deceptive practices of some parking operators to "recoup" the airport trip fee. It
is difcult to conclude that these and other statements by MasterPark
were made in support
of the public interest.

The Port of Seattle charges commercial operators
a fee for accessing the airport. In January
2009 the Port moved to a cost-recovery model and the fee for
parking operators increased
from $1.25 to $3.13. It was at this time that MasterPark pioneered the practice of
charging
a Trip Fee to their customers and most parking
operators followed their lead. What began
as a means to pass through this airport fee to the customer has since
expanded into a
signicant source of revenue for parking operators. By
one analysis, this practice generated
nearly $2.8 million in revenue and over $1.5 million in prots to parking operators in 2012.

Many parking operators attempt to misrepresent this fee to the customer
as a tax. They
employ various methods such as grouping the trip fee with the SeaTac Parking Tax
or
including it in the receipt Tax Subtotal as MasterPark does with at least
one of its parking
facilities. It is practices such as these that prompted State Representative Sam Hunt
to
sponsor a bill, EHB 1483 - Concerning Public and Private Airport Parking Facilities,
which was introduced during the 2013 state legislative session.
The'original bill was
amended with language provided by MasterPark that lessened the
parking operator's duty
to notify the public of rates, discounts, and fees. Doug Fox
sought to make the legislature
aware of deceptive marketing and rating practices by some parking
operators when
considering further amendments to the bill.

Mr. McCracken testied that Doug Fox Parking
currently charges its customers a trip fee
as a means ofpassing through the airport's trip fee and should be
required to continue to do
so. Doug Fox Parking has never charged a trip fee in its
public rates contrary to Mr.
McCracken's testimony. Furthermore, Mr. McCracken's logic for
maintaining the airport's
trip fee on Doug Fox Parking in the new lease is awed. Doug Fox operates under
a
concession lease with the Port paid
as a percentage of gross revenue and there is
no
exemption for passing trip fees through to the customer. As
a result, Doug Fox has been
operating at a disadvantage to its competitors since 2009. The
new lease merely levels the
competitive playing eld by removing this disadvantage.

Sincerely,


Darin Lang
President
ATZ, Inc.
dba, Doug Fox Parking