From:            Megan Kogut
To:                Commission-Public-Records
Subject:           [EXTERNAL] North Seatac Park and the Port of Seattle Real Estate Strategic Plan
Date:              Thursday, March 3, 2022 10:55:10 AM

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Hello Port of Seattle Commissioners,
I am writing to express my hope that the Port of Seattle Real Estate Strategic Plan does not supercede environmental
justice and climate change concerns regarding North Seatac Park.
For years, I used to race my mountain bike weekly at North Seatac Park and South Seatac Park, so I'm very familiar
with both parks (in some places extremely familiar - I could point out to you all the places where I crashed.) Both
parks serve the purpose of outdoor recreation well, and they provide some wildlife habitat, and slow climate change.
They are key to their local communities - I came from north Seattle to race, but I could see locals walking and
playing in the park. I have a PhD in environmental chemistry, including experience in climate changeand botany, so
I know the value of even an average forested area to our future. Even though this park may be small, almost all
parks within cities are in danger of development, so every park counts.
In addition, because the airport has had, due to its noise and activity, such an impact on its neighbors already, and as
a result the surrounding neighborhood is largely low income, the Port has an additional duty to consider
environmental justice. The North and South Seatac Parks were created decades ago to help mitigate the growing
incremental impact of the airport and supporting industry. They were supposed to mitigate pastharms. At some
point, the Port of Seattle needs to decide when enough is enough in terms of chipping away at those parks and
undeveloped spaces. Is it now? If not, when is it?
And in addition, the Port needs to consider impacts on climate change: both the added activities, and the loss of flora
on the land that would be developed.
I'm not familiar enough with the Port's plans to provide specificjuidance. But I've been involved closely in politics
in my own cities to know that municipal staff tend to build empires. The personal career incentives, and in many
cases outdated priorities coded into documents and corporate culture, are strong forces. They do not necessarily
reflect the priorities of voters.
I know that the Port of Seattle has the objective to create jobs and grow itself. But not all jobs and growth are
created equal. And jobs and growth that requirethe creation of new infrastructure that impacts local neighborhoods
are maybe not jobs that need to be created right now. I do not believe in jobs for jobs' sake, which is the argument
put out for preserving coal mining and oil extraction. There has to be a consideration of other local and global
priorities.
When I vote for Port Commissioners, I vote purposely for more progressive candidates who are willing to balance
staff priorities and organization momentum with more modern priorities, including environmental justice and
climate change.
Please, on behalf of all of theSeattle arevoters who want a sea change towards environmental justice and climate
change, but may not know about this particular plan in Seatac because we're distracted by the pandemic, and
bipartisan politics, and the war in Ukraine, and the terrible news on climate change: please, make progressive
choices regarding all undeveloped land around the airport, and especially land currently used as parks. It's what the
majority of Seattle area voters would want for the residents in Seatac, and for the future.
Megan Kogut PhD
15806 10th Ave NE
Shoreline WA 98155










From:            Jordan Van Voast
To:                Commission-Public-Records
Subject:           [EXTERNAL] Re: Tuesday, March 8 public testimony Port Commissioner"s meeting
Date:              Monday, March 7, 2022 7:32:31 AM
Attachments:      public comment 3.8.22.docx

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p.s. Please use this copy as my final statement, not the one just sent. Thank you
On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 6:31 AM Jordan Van Voast  wrote:
Dear Commission Clerk,
I am attaching a copy of my prepared statement for tomorrow's Commission meeting. If
there are only a small number of people signed up for public comment, is it permissible if
my comment runs a little over 2 minutes - perhaps 2 minutes and 30 seconds? I've never
gone over the limit before. I always try to prepare thoughtful comments which contribute to
the public dialogue.
thank you,
On Sat, Mar 5, 2022 at 8:57 AM Jordan Van Voast  wrote:
Dear Commission-Public-Records, Please register me to speak at the upcoming meeting.
Topic - Port of Seattle's response to the Ukraine crisis. Note - I will make every effort to
join the meeting by phone at 11:45am, though I may not be able to join until noon. I will
submit written testimony as well closer to Tuesday.
thank you,
Jordan Van Voast
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Every single act of kindness makes all the difference in the world.
Jordan Van Voast, Licensed Acupuncturist
on Duwamish/coast Salish traditional land
CommuniChi Acupuncture Clinic
2109 31st Ave. S.
Seattle, WA 98144
206.860.5009
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https://seattlecruisecontrol.org/
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Seattle Cruise Control YouTube










Public comment. March 8, 2023. 
Port of Seattle Commission meeting 
Good afternoon Director Metruck, Commissioners and Port staff. My name is Jordan Van
Voast. I commend the Port of Seattle for its statement in solidarity with Ukraine. In
recent weeks, Western media has been called out for its pro-European bias that
marginalizes suffering in places where Brown and Black people live. 
Let's talk about bias. The Biden administration and Europe are now targeting mega
yachts owned by billionaires for their connection to Putin but giving a pass to yachts 
owned by Western billionaires, some of which have an annual carbon footprint1 several
times that of a Boeing 747. Why not confiscate and ban all super-yachts due to their
war on the planet?2 As usual, it all comes down to money and privilege. 
Which brings us to the 296 sailings 3 that the Port of Seattle plans for this year and the
biased cruise business model. We are told  with little evidence  that these bring
wonderful benefits to the local economy, though studies4 have repeatedly shown that
these benefits are usually overstated. The recently completed Lloret study5 
summarizing 40 years of peer-reviewed articles on the harms of cruise tourism had this
to say: 
"Overall, we can conclude that cruise tourism is a maritime activity causing
major impacts on the environment and human health and wellbeing, with
most likely small and doubtful local economic benefits when negative
externalities are monitored and disclosed." 

1 https://www.ecowatch.com/carbon-footprint-billionaires-
2650552617.html?fbclid=IwAR2I5RShrsR0xysdjupyNNjLIR_6Ipd0Xv0VUkh4gDV_H6X0VdVJvHDaz-E 
2 The Port of Seattle promotes superyachts in their business model. See:
https://www.portseattle.org/maritime/superyachts 
3 A nearly 50% increase over 2019  the last pre-pandemic cruise season! 

4 https://www.pressherald.com/2018/06/11/long-touted-economic-benefits-of-cruise-ships-far-overstated/ 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330139423_Overstating_Cruise_Passenger_Spending_Sources_of_Erro
r_in_Cruise_Industry_Studies_of_Economic_Impact 
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ttracanada_2018_conference/8/ 
https://thewalrus.ca/cruise-ships-often-represent-the-worst-of-capitalism/ 

5 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X21010134


It is widely acknowledged that cruise is the most environmentally harmful6 sector of the 
travel industry and as the IPCC has again recently stated, we are almost out of time to
win the war against greenhouse gases piling up in our home planet's atmosphere. Plans
need to be made for a just transition so that affected workers and businesses can adapt
to a business model that doesn't destroy the ecosystem or adversely impact human
lives. I'd like to acknowledge and thank Commissioner Hasegawa for recently stating
that "cruise as a regional benefit is debatable". There needs to be a deeper discussion
of cruise's costs as well as its benefits. We need to ramp up plans for a just transition,
not celebrating record numbers of cruise passengers and a correspondingly huge
increase in greenhouse gases. When will you make a true commitment to a sustainable
planet and accept that there is no place for giant cruise ships in our future? Thank you. 












6 https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/



From:            Noemie Maxwell
To:                Commission-Public-Records
Subject:           [EXTERNAL] Request to deliver spoken comments and attachment with written supplement
Date:              Tuesday, March 8, 2022 8:39:18 AM
Attachments:      Consensus_DefendersofNorthSeaTacPark.pdf
Maxwell_Vassilakis_Comments_3_8_22.pdf

WARNING: External email. Links or attachments may be unsafe.
Hello,
My name is Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis. I would like to deliver spoken comments at the Port of Seattle
Commission meeting today on the topic of protecting North SeaTac Park and our community forest.
I'm also requesting that the attached written comments and document be provided to the Commissioners
and entered into the public meeting record.
Many thanks!
Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis
253-653-6028

Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis
Resident of Burien, Washington
noemie_maxwell@yahoo.com



To: Port of Seattle Commission President Ryan Calkins
Commissioners Samuel Cho, Fred Felleman,
Toshiko Hasegawa , and Hamdi Mohamed
March 8, 2022
Re: Written supplement to comments at the March 8, 2022 meeting of the Port of
Seattle Commission

Dear Commissioners,
Many thanks to all of you for standing against putting an airport parking lot over
11 acres of trees and bicycle trails in North SeaTac Park last summer.
I'm writing today as a Defender of North SeaTac Park in support of keeping our
park whole and protecting the forested land in our community around the park.
I've attached a copy of the Community Forest Consensus that this group recently
finalized and which has just started gaining signatures.
The Consensus calls for securing North SeaTac Park as a park in perpetuity, halting
deforestation by the Port on lands it controls within two miles of SeaTac
International Airport, and for a comprehensive plan to protect, restore, and
expand the forest in our near-airport communities. You can sign, and share it
from this page: KCTreeEquity.org/consensus 
March 8, 2022                Comments of Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis                   P a g e | 1

I understand that completion of a Port-conducted inventory of a forested part of
North SeaTac Park, filled with wetlands and tributaries of Miller Creek, where the
Port proposes 31 acres of commercial development, is expected this month.
This inventory will help guide your decisions on whether this land should be
developed. I am writing to express that, regardless of the inventory's findings, it
would be a serious error to destroy trees on dozens of acres of land in our
community where the health department recommends increasing trees and
green space coverage in order to protect us from exposure to airport pollution
that is shortening our lives and causing babies to be born prematurely and
underweight. (1)
The fact that we're in the middle of a climate emergency - and in a community
with high levels of environmental health disparities would make this substantial
loss of our guardian trees even worse. So would the fact that this development
would extend very close to the boundary of Tub Lake, which is a regional treasure
that enjoys special protections as a sphagnum bog under the King County Surface
Water Manual.
Developing inside this park, which was established to compensate area residents
for cumulative airport impacts, (2) would be a special kind of betrayal by the Port
of Seattle of the people in this community.
The Port should honor its commitment to be "accountable for equitable policies"
that ensure racial, social, and environmental, justice. (3) It should honor the
commitment it made as a signatory to the King County Cities Climate
Collaboration letter of commitment to protect forests and reduce sprawl. (4)
You as Commissioners can require that Port's real estate and development staff
upgrade their policies and culture so that your agency is equipped to properly
value our life-saving trees and green space as critical  and endangered 
infrastructure. It is especially critical to protect, restore, and expand this
infrastructure as our population grows and climate impacts worsen.

March 8, 2022                Comments of Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis                   P a g e | 2

Trees keep deadly airport pollution out of our lungs. They stabilize our climate.
They clean and cool the air. They prevent flooding, reduce urban heat, filter
stormwater, protect streams, stabilize slopes. Adequate tree canopy is associated
with reduced crime (5), improved mental health (6), and stronger local
economies. (7)
The Port of Seattle, which controls a substantial proportion of the forest and
green space infrastructure near the airport in our community, must be equipped
to accord proper value to it. A pause on your agency's planned deforestation
within two miles of the airport, as the Consensus calls for, would allow time to
update your practices so that they reflect current knowledge.
I believe that the Port's current plans in and around our park are sprawl, plain and
simple. I wish to call your attention to a 2018 letter from Alaska Airlines to the
Port (8) in which the author noted that near-term SAMP proposals pose "a
substantial risk of overbuilding," when "less ambitious alternatives" would likely
suffice  and urged the Port to conduct a more rigorous environmental
assessment.
And we cannot simply wait for the federal environmental review process to play
out. A recent study examining 19 airport expansion projects nationwide that
found that, during the NEPA planning process, "the FAA and airport owners did
not consistently detect environmental justice impacts, nor did they consistently
confer importance to those impacts when high proportions of protected
populations were detected." (9)
We ask you to stand against development within the park and to support our
Community Forest Consensus. Please do not allow the destruction of a significant
portion of our irreplaceable community forest.
Thank you for taking my comments and for your work on behalf of our
community.
Sincerely,
Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis
March 8, 2022                Comments of Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis                   P a g e | 3

NOTES
1.  Community Health and Airport Operations Related Noise and Air Pollution: Report
to the Legislature by Seattle-King County Department of Health in Response to
Washington State HOUSE BILL 1109, December 1, 2020
https://app.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Home/GetPDF?fileName=Community%
20Health%20and%20Airport%20Operations%20Related%20Pollution%20Report_c7389
ae6-f956-40ef-98a7-f85a4fab1c59.pdf
2.  Federal Aviation Administration Compliance Reviews of Airport Noise Land Use &
Financial Operations 2016 p. 11. 
https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_compliance/compliance_reviews/ 
3.  Port of Seattle Equity Statement and Vision
https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2020-07/OEDI_Folio_individualPages.pdf
4.  The Port is a signatory to the King County-Cities Climate Collaboration Joint Letter of
Commitment: Climate Change Actions in King County, which commits to reducing
sprawl and protecting forests. https://your.kingcounty.gov/dnrp/library/dnrp-directors-
office/climate/joint-commitments-update-with-signatures-final.pdf 
5.  Vibrant Cities Lab: "Trees Improve Public Safety"
https://www.vibrantcitieslab.com/public-safety/
6.  Wolf KL, Lam ST, McKeen JK, Richardson GRA, van den Bosch M, Bardekjian AC.
Urban Trees and Human Health: A Scoping Review. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17(12):4371.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124371
7.  Website: Green Cities Good Health, University of Washington Urban Forestry Urban
Greening Research: "Local Economies"
https://depts.washington.edu/hhwb/Thm_Economics.html
8.  Letter from Shane Jones, Alaska Airlines to Steve Rybolt, Port of Seattle,
9/27/2018, published in Sustainable Airport Master Plan Near Term Projects Scoping
Report Final Attachment 4G. Transcription and link to official version:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KWZkRIm9yS9Zc3jJUUWmnDDdvIBkMwqm/edit?
usp=sharing&ouid=108760430335353386846&rtpof=true&sd=true
9.  Investigation of environmental justice analysis in airport planning practice from
2000 to 2010, Amber Woodburn McNair, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and
Environment, V 81, April 2020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920919311149





March 8, 2022                Comments of Noemie Maxwell Vassilakis                   P a g e | 4

Defenders of North SeaTac Park
Community Forest Consensus
https://KCTreeEquity.org
info@KCTreeEquity.org



Calling for emergency action and long term solutions by our elected
officials to defend the health of people in the North SeaTac Park
community and within ten miles of SeaTac International Airport as well
as the stability of our climate by protecting this community's guardian
forests, waterways, parklands, and trees.

In order to defend the people in the community surrounding North SeaTac
Park, and all who live within the ten-mile community surrounding this airport,
from the negative health and climate impacts posed by near-term plans for
extensive deforestation and green space destruction by the Port of Seattle,
the current owner and assigned steward of North SeaTac Park,
We call for:
I.       Legally-binding securement of North SeaTac Park as a Park in
Perpetuity with a permanent prohibition, within the park, to
commercial development and tree removal. This may be
accomplished by changes in zoning and law, by conservation
easement, by transfer or sale of this park land to an appropriate
governmental entity, or by a combination of these or other means.
The Port caused the removal by eminent domain of thousands of
residents, along with their homes and schools, from the land that this
park now occupies. The Port has acknowledged that the creation of
the park was "the culmination of a long term and very open planning
process to compensate the area's residents for cumulative airport

Community Forest Consensus               1 | P a g e              Defenders of North SeaTac Park

impacts." (1) This measure would honor that expressed intent of the
Port.
II.      An immediate moratorium on tree removal and green space
destruction on public lands by the Port of Seattle within 2 miles of
SeaTac International Airport, with exceptions only for targeted
measures to protect public safety or the health of the surrounding
natural ecosystem, or to prevent substantial physical damage to
existing private or public property, where these objectives cannot be
reasonably achieved through other means.
This call for action responds to the recommendation of Public Health
- Seattle & King County (PHS&KC) to increase green space and tree
coverage, particularly coniferous trees, within ten miles of SeaTac
International Airport in order to reduce human exposure to airportgenerated
pollutants known to cause disease and shorten lives.
PHS&KC has found that, with severity increasing as proximity to the
airport increases, lifespans in this area are between 1.7 and 5 years
shorter than in the balance of the county; premature births, low
birthweights, and childhood learning problems are more common;
and rates of cancer and heart, respiratory, cardiovascular, and other
diseases are significantly higher. (2)
Furthermore, this call is put forth to safeguard human health in a
community where residents experience high levels of environmental
health disparities as measured by the Washington State Department
of Health. (3)
It holds the Port of Seattle and our greater community accountable to
the principles of environmental justice under Presidential Executive
Order 12898 as well as to US Department of Transportation Order
5610.2 which requires that activities that will have "a
disproportionately high and adverse effect on minority populations or
low-income populations" must be avoided or mitigated when
practicable. (4, 5) As reported by PHS&KC, "the majority of people
in King County identifying as Black/African American,
Hispanic/Latino, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander live in
communities within 10 miles of the airport", "a greater proportion of
people in these communities are immigrants, and a slightly higher

Community Forest Consensus               2 | P a g e              Defenders of North SeaTac Park

proportion are children," and the percentage of people in near
poverty or poverty increased the closer you are to the airport",
ranging from 37.2% - 24.4% within ten miles of the airport as
compared with 16.1% in the balance of the county. These poverty
rates are even higher for children. (2)
This moratorium must go into effect immediately in order to prevent
the Port of Seattle from implementing its current near-term plans that
would result in significant reduction of green space and tree
coverage in this community, and must continue until the CARE Plan
for the Greater North SeaTac Park Community, as outlined below, or
a plan with comparable protections for our community's health and
our climate-stabilizing urban forest, is in place
III.     A plan for Comprehensive Action to Restore the Ecology of North
SeaTac Park and Community (CARE Plan), by the Port of Seattle
and other partnering jurisdictions, that is fully funded and
professionally managed, in order to restore and maintain for future
generations the natural areas within and surrounding North SeaTac
Park, including forests and waterways, with emphasis on Tub Lake
and its prehistoric peat bog, a type of wetland that is highly
environmentally sensitive and increasingly rare in King County.
The plan must include control of invasive weeds and preparation for
existing and expected climate impacts such as drought, high heat,
and pests.
It must, in a manner and at a scale recommended by experts in
urban forestry and public health, implement the recommendation
made by PHS&KC to increase the number of coniferous trees near
SeaTac Airport to reduce residents' exposure to toxics from airport
operations. (3)
It must protect and retain existing trees, as large-diameter trees can
capture more toxic particulates, store "disproportionally massive
amounts of carbon," and "fulfill a variety of unique ecological roles
such as increasing drought-tolerance, reducing flooding from intense
precipitation events, altering fire behavior, redistributing soil water,
and acting as focal centers of mycorrhizal communication and
resource sharing networks." (6)

Community Forest Consensus               3 | P a g e              Defenders of North SeaTac Park

It should set a goal of restoring urban tree canopy coverage in this
community from its current low averages, for example, of 21% in
SeaTac (25% not including the airport), 30% in Burien, and 29% in
Des Moines, to 40% or more, as recommended by Forterra NW in
three studies that it prepared for the Port of Seattle Airport
Community Ecology Fund. (7-9)
And it must include concrete actions to limit, as reasonably possible,
development activities of the Port of Seattle within ten miles of the
airport to its existing developed footprint. The Port controls sprawling
multi-acre, single-level parking lots as well as other already-paved
and underutilized properties, where redevelopment with higher
density approaches are possible, feasible, and ecologically sound.

The lands and waterways within ten miles of SeaTac Airport and beyond are
un-ceded territory of first nation Tribes, past and present, who have stewarded
greenspaces here and in this region since time immemorial, and who continue
this work today as co-managers of the natural resources of this area. We
recognize and honor them and their connection with this land.

* Citations and links to numbered sources 1-9 at https://KCTreeEquity.org/cites








Community Forest Consensus               4 | P a g e              Defenders of North SeaTac Park