Exhibit B
Minutes Exhibit 8 Port Commissron Special. . Meeting of October 25, 2016 TESTIMONY of David E. Ortman Attomey-at-Law 7043 22""1 Ave NW. Seattle, WA 981 17 (206) 789-6136 Before the Seattle Port Commission Seattle, WA October 25, 2016 2:00 PM] Agenda Item 6.c. Flight Corridor Safety Program Phase 1 This project represents yet another $3,231,000 for Sea-Tac at a location not viable into the iture. The Third Runway, which opened in 2008, resulted in a Washington State Auditor's ofce report that the Port wasted nearly $100 million in construction contracts. An internal investigation found numerous instances where Port employees broke state law or Port policy, and identied 10 instances of civil fraud.2 The Port's Third Runway EIS also failed to disclose signicant changes to inbound and outbound commercial airplane patterns and noise impacts.3 Because of SeavTac's N/S orientation, north Seattle and Shoreline residents are adversely impacted at a much greater frequency by landing patterns into Sea-Tao. Many inbound ights track north along Puget Sound, past Sea-Tac, with low turns back south (oen under 3,000 feet), along with past mid- night outbound overights that combine for noise impacts up to 21 hours a day.4 As a resident 16 miles north of SeaTao, in 2012, I successfully appealed our property tax assessment resulting in a property tax reduction due to Sea-Tac overflight air trafc noise. This reduction in property values throughout Seattle due to Sea~Tac is an unacknowledged cost of the Third Runway.5 Sea-Tao cannot support projected increases in passengers. In 2015, Sea-Tat: served 42 million passengers. The Port's Master Plan projects 66 million by 2034.6 So what to do? Negotiate with the Washington Congressional delegation to move Joint Base Lewis-McCord to Moses 1 It would be far more public "friendly" if the Port were to hold its Executive Sessions at 11:00 AM and begin the Port Conunission meetings at noon This would allow the public to attend at least part of the meetings during the public's lunch hour. 3 See: htmII/wmvhistorylinkorg/Filelnll 3 See attached Seattle P-I article, January 8, 2009. 4 While Sea-Tao does not control ight paths, the FAA has in the past diverted noise complaints to a phone sex line. See attached ill/yNortlnves-tcom article, September 28, 2011. 5 See attached statement of Will Coghlan 6 See: http://wmvponseattle.org/Business/Conschtion-Projects/Airport-Projects/Pages/ajrport-master- planaspx Lake, one of the largest commercial airports west of the Mississippi, with an under-utilized 13,500-foot main runway, one of the longest in the nation, and far closer to the Yakima Training Center. Eastern Washington could use the "business." Then move SeaTac to JBLM served by a rapid transit system 'om Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia. Agenda Item 7.c. Preliminary Tax Levy and the Draft Plan of Finance 2017-2021. Over the next 20 years, the City of Seattle wants over $100,000 of our property taxes for the privilege of living in Seattle. That is a formidable amount while living on retirement savings. And a not insignicant amount of that is the Port property tax levy, upon which King County taxpayers have never voted. The Port's Tax Levy PowerPoint is not the model of clarity.7 Page 25 depicts three areas of Tax Levy Funded Projects: Maritime - Fishing Industry Support; Maritime - Strategic Investments - Cruise Facilities; and Economic Development - Strategic Investments. As far as Fishing Industry Support, the Port loves to claim multiplier benets from international trade. A Febmary 2015, "Ties that Bind" report by the McDowell Group stated, "Including multiplier effects, nearly 24,000 Puget Sound jobs and $1.3 billion in labor earnings are tied to Alaska's seafood industry."8 That would appear to be a base sufcient to md Port shing industry support, not King County property taxpayers. As for Cruise Facilities, again, costs for cruise facilities support should be borne by the mega- cruise industry and passengers, not King County property taxpayers. As for Economic DeveIOpment, T91 is billed as providing short-term and longterm moorage for commercial workboats and shing vessels, including factory trawlers, tugs, barges, ferries, breakbulk reefer vessels and rollon/roll-off vessels. Again, upland development costs should be borne by the users, not King County property taxpayers. In summary, this is a request for the Port to end its property tax levy. 7 Page 30 of the Pan's PowerPoint also includes RCW 53.25.030 denition of "marginal lands." RCW 53.25.0200) declares that "The existence of such marginal lands characterized by any or all of such conditions constitutes a serious and growing menace which is condemned as injurious and inimical to the public health, safety, and welfare of the people of the communities in which they exist and of the people of " the state." The denition of "marginal Ian includes "The existence of lots or other arms which are subject to being submerged by water." RCW 53. 25. 030(5). These are also known as wetlands, which are not a "menace to the public health, safety, and welfare of the people of this state." The Port could generate some goodwill by requesting that the Legislature delete subsection (5) from RCW 53.25.030. 3 See; http://www.seattlemaritime101.com/news-l/ Port tries to reassure public about third runway Use mischaracterized, Sea-Tac neighbors say By KRISTEN MILLARES YOUNG, P-I REPORTER Published 10:00 p.m., Thursday, January 8, 2009 The Port of Seattle told a group of angry Sea-Tac Aimort neighbors at Thursday's Highline Forum meeting that the new third runway is being used as it was intended, despite elected ofcials' and citizens' protests to the contrary. "We did the best we could to project what was going to be the noise associated with operation of runway," Port of Seattle Aviation Managing Director Mark Reis said. He later added that the Federal Aviation Administration whose air trafc controllers are in charge of the third runway's daily use, is "seeking ways not to use the third runway during night hours" from 10 pm. to 6 am. Des Moines Mayor Bob Sheckler is co-chairman of the Highline Forum and the former chairman of the Airport Communities Coalition, a group of cities that Spent more than $15 million suing the port in an unsuccessful effort to block the third runway's construction. The port's argument for building the third runway has always rested on its assertion that about 44 percent ofthe year, poor visibility and bad weather conditions require air trafc controllers to [and planes on only one runway, rather than two, causing delays. Now, they can land planes on two runways during poor weather -- and can continually stage landings and departures on all three. Neighbors said the port has overstepped its past promises by using the third runway so much, while the port counters that wintry conditions contributed to the heightened usage -- which, in the end, it does not control, the port said. In 1997, the port estimated for its supplemental environmental impact statement that by 2010, 27.7 percent of planes landing at SeaTao each year would do so on the third runway. Now, the port's gures show that 44 percent of all planes arriving at Sea-Tac landed on the third runway from its opening day Nov. 20 through Dec. 17, which airport spokesman Fem Coo g wrote "reects the low visibility conditions ofNovember and December as you would expect." "The premise seems to have changed from being used as a foul-weather type of facility," state Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Normandy Park, said. "it's been shifted, and I am very concerned about what that does to the process on the EIS" -- the environmental impact statement required to get the third runway permitted. "Why go through it if you are going to change the operations after all the construction is done?" Keiser said. Reis replied that "when the rationale for the runway was articulated from the economic perspective, we were able to articulate what the economic benet was the EIS never said the runway was only going to be used in foul weather." Des Moines Mayor Sheckler, who has acted as chairman of the Airport Communities Coalition, told the Seattle P-I the port had mischaracterized the third runway's use when advertising the project to the community and responding to neighbors' concerns. During the meeting, he said that whenever anyone questioned the port about the third runway's use, foul weather was the answer. "They really emphasized that one idea -- that it was only going to be used for that purpose," Sheckler said. "That is why so many people in the public are upset about it." After the meeting, Port Commissioner Pat Davis said that the port had not deliberately misconstrued the third runway's purpose. To mitigate the third runway so far, the port has bought 64 homes and insulated 1 14 more as part of an FAA program called the Part 150 process, which requires that airport operators study and mitigate the noise effects of airports. The port is tracking the newly situated noise created by planes landing and taking off along the new runway's more westerly ight path in order to determine whether additional noise mitigation is warranted. A formal Part 150 process will begin in November -- one month alter the reopening of the airport's longest runway, which is being closed for reconstruction from April through October, leaving the third runway and the center runway to handle all of Sea-Tac's air trafc. "The afternoon that they opened the third runway, the planes started, and it's been nonstop," Sea-Tao neighbor Ted Turner said. "My wife came home and cried for two weeks -- this is hugely affecting my personal life, my family; it has damaged me seriously." Turner said his home's value has plummeted; he said he tried to move when the third runway was proposed but couldn't find anything comparable. "Our neighborhood flat lined while everything around us skyrocketed," Turner said. "I can't nd anything now, though I sure would like to move." Bothell resident Mike Hughes owns a Burien rental home whose tenants called to ask for a $300 monthly rent reduction because of the noise, threatening to move out if they didn't receive it. "The chance of me re-renting a house with airplanes over it, especially at this time of year, is slim to none," Hughes said, later adding he was hoping tojoin his neighboring property owners in redeveloping their parcels as light industrial, as permitted by new city zoning. "The quality of life the fuel, the noise, the exhaust I could sell the house as a residence, but I am sure it would be rather difficult." The port's Reis said during the meeting than an anomaly in the port's ight tracking numbers since then prevented the port from releasing more current data, which he said was in conict with the FAA's own gures. Read more: htt ://www.seattle i.com/locaI/anicle/Porttries-to-reassure- ublic-aboutthird-rumva '- l297055 .th#ix7_z l sztMSz7 August 1, 2012 Statement of Will Coghlan: My name is Will Coghlan. I live at 7038 Jones Ave N.W., in north Ballard with my wife Elspeth and our 10-month-old son. We moved to Seattle from New York in 2010. We rented an apartment on Capitol Hill from August 2010 to December 2010. At that time we noted noise and airplane ights over Capitol Hill from planes landing at Sea-Tao. We moved to north Ballard and bought our house on November 29, 2010. During the process of purchasing our house, we were not informed that the Federal Aviation Administration had re-routed north bound commercial airplanes at low altitudes over north Ballard in order to make the turn back south to land at the Port of Seattle's newly constructed third runway. The re-routing of commercial airplanes at low altitudes over north Ballard has had a detrimental impact on our neighborhood. Despite the fact that we have some double paned windows throughout the house, the frequent low over ights, especially after midnight and early in the morning, creates a noise nuisance, eSpecially for our young son. Had we known of this noise problem at the time of purchase we likely would have offered a lower price or looked elsewhere. Sincerely, Will CoghlanV 7038 Jones Ave NW 917-208-4306 FAA directs complaints to phone sex line - Print View - MyNonhwes... http://mynorthwest.com/'?nid=l89&sid'553478 MYNoEthwestE swarm Click to Prlnt Thls Pa e Updated Sup 2!. 2011 - 11:48 am FAA directs complaints to phone sex line In what was apparently a very unfortunate mistake. the Seattle Air Trafc Control Tower was unknowingly sending those with complaints about air trafc noise to a phone sex line. David Ortman lives In Seattle's Ballard neighborhood and told 97 3 KIRO FM he reached out to the Federal Awation Administration to complain ab0ut loud low-flying commercial planes over his home. "Plane alter plane after plane," Ortman said of the all-day and ail-night air trafc. 'When you think the last one has gone. another one comes over" He called the Seattle Air Trafc Control Tower, but reached a voicemail prompting him to dial on 800 number to leave a noise complaint after hours He dialed the number. but what he heard had nothing to do with airplanes. "Exciting local people want to talk to you newt" shouts a perky, female recording on the other end of the dial. who prompts the caller to dial yet another 800 ntmber Ortman dialed the next number. and was met with low. sultry music and the sound of a woman's voice. 'Hey there sexy guy." the recording says "Welcome to an exciting new way to go live chemo-one with hot (expletive) girls," Ortman said he was 'shocked" by the recording. which offered up "hundreds of hot girls" for "95 cents per minute," and thought he had dialed the rst 800 number by mistake 'I thought, oh wel. I either I misheard it. had taken the number down wrong." he said. "Sol called it again" There was no mistake. When asked about the trafc tower's recording, an FAA ofcral said they were not aware the number was wrong According to the ofcial, it appeared a secretary had simply misspoken. and replaced the last number of the complaint hotline with a 2 instead of a 7. The trafc control tower could not say how long the incorrect recording had been in use. but as of Tuesday afternoon it had been changed. The Port of Seattle runs the real 800 number. and says it has not changed in around 10 years. The correct number for air traffic noise complaints is 1-800-325-1147 or 208-787-5393 lo cal locally. I no en's-Anti IO'I'HII
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