Rupert's container port finds some interest in Seattle

The Seattle Post Intelligencer has focused it's reporting on the current state of affairs at the Seattle Container port, an apparent parking lot of a shipping point. As well as the on the ground problems there, the PI was busy exposing some rather inflationary spending by the Port Commission and an attitude that it can do whatever it pleases because it's the only game in town.

Well, the Seattle paper pointed out that the idea of a monopoly on the business is no longer true, and it even used the Prince Rupert container port as a hammer to show how much change is coming to the world of transportation on the Pacific Ocean.

The PI, suggested that while fancy parties, dinners and such may stroke the egos of the shipping companies, it's delivery times and bottleneck free shipping zones that really turn their cranks.

From the article, the snippet below gives you an idea as to where the features were going the last few weeks.

Shipping company executives may like eating and drinking on the Port's tab, but they probably would have a greater appreciation of not having their cargo idling in traffic or rail yards and their ships idling at terminals.

Too much idling, and the shipping companies will decide to explore options. How about Tacoma? Maybe Everett would like to expand in the container-handling business. Or how about making the longer voyage south to Los Angeles/ Long Beach, which has the added advantage of a huge consumer market at hand. Or perhaps the options lie north, at Vancouver, or even that terminal under construction at Prince Rupert, B.C.

It's that kind of reminder that will probably do quite a bit to get the idea of shipping through the Rupert port out there. One or two lines about the misfortune of one place, countered by the possibilities of another.

You can't actually go out and buy that kind of publicity, it must be a bonus for the local Port when it just seems to fall into your lap.

Here's the full story from the Seattle paper, it makes for an interesting look at an organization that got a little fat and a little arrogant and may soon suffer from competition that wasn't even on the radar three years ago...

The port must quit acting like it has a monopoly
By BILL VIRGIN
Seattle P-I COLUMNIST
Tuesday, January 2, 2006

At times, the Port of Seattle's attitude toward its taxpaying constituents, and its less-than-rigorous devotion to the fine points of skinflint budgeting and spending, recall the famous comedy routine with Lily Tomlin as a telephone operator, a bit that ends with the line, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

But the analogy breaks down quickly because the phone company was a monopoly, at least until the feds allowed competitors into Ma Bell's long distance business and eventually forced a breakup of the entire AT&T conglomerate.

The Port of Seattle, however, is not a monopoly -- at least not to the people who count.
Which are not, many of you will be disappointed to learn, the taxpayers.

The port has been in the news a bit of late, with an illuminating three-day series in the Seattle P-I on the port's financial arrangements and management that highlighted and revived long-standing concerns about the organization's lavish spending, the compensation package for its chief executive, its dabbling in real estate ventures, the incessant wining and dining and international junkets -- er, customer relations and research trips -- and cozy relationships with those contracting to do business with the port.

The stories certainly did nothing to dissuade those who believe that port commissioners and management should be devoting more of their time and attention to a relentless pursuit of increased revenue, decreased costs, higher market share, greater financial return to the taxpayers and the region -- or else find a way to unwind the whole operation.

Port defenders might argue that the lack of a true "a-HA!" moment in those stories indicates that things are just peachy down on Pier 66 (although such are the low standards in these parts that "good government" means "they're not stealing from us"), and that the media should stop fixating on all that inconsequential stuff of a buck here or there.

They might also contend that the port is in fact doing just those things its critics wish them to do. In November, the port issued a forecast for record revenue in 2007, reflecting, according to the announcement, "higher passenger fees and volumes at the port's cruise terminals, increased grain exports, higher occupancy rates at various Seaport properties and more passengers at Sea-Tac Airport."

It also announced a small decrease in the tax levy per $1,000 in assessed value, although the port actually plans to collect more money because of increased property values.

But another recent story raises the question of just how well the port is paying attention to the big-picture issues.

Seattle P-I ports reporter Kristen Millares Bolt recently wrote that port management was considering making a $5 million donation to the University of Washington's business school. Fortunately, the idea struck a majority of commissioners as being too odd even for them, and the proposal has been tabled.

The immediate temptation is to suggest that if the port doesn't have any better idea of what to do with an idle $5 million, it might actually consider the radical notion of returning it to beleaguered taxpayers. But the larger question is why the port couldn't have found something better to do with the money within its core business.

Maybe $5 million doesn't buy a lot in the way of concrete and rebar these days, but surely it might buy something in the way of tweaks to get cargo in and out of the port quickly, or even to study how to relieve the Northwest's increasingly congested rail lines. Those are the sorts of ideas the general public wouldn't know of, but that's why we pay good money for port commissioners and staff, isn't it?

And the port ought to be scrambling about now for ideas on how to accomplish "freight mobility," especially if certain interests get their wish to tear down the viaduct and dump all that traffic onto surface streets.

Shipping company executives may like eating and drinking on the Port's tab, but they probably would have a greater appreciation of not having their cargo idling in traffic or rail yards and their ships idling at terminals.

Too much idling, and the shipping companies will decide to explore options. How about Tacoma? Maybe Everett would like to expand in the container-handling business. Or how about making the longer voyage south to Los Angeles/ Long Beach, which has the added advantage of a huge consumer market at hand. Or perhaps the options lie north, at Vancouver, or even that terminal under construction at Prince Rupert, B.C.

Even in the air business, the Port of Seattle does not hold a monopoly. It has quashed, for the moment, the threat of Boeing Field emerging as a competitor, and residents' objections may keep Paine Field from ever developing as a passenger terminal. But that's not to say flights and passenger traffic couldn't be diverted to Bellingham, or Olympia, or even McChord, should the Air Force ever decide it no longer needs the base.

Monopolies are never secure even when they're complete -- and the Port of Seattle isn't, which is why taxpayers would like to see a more competitive attitude from it. For taxpayers, the Port of Seattle may be the only port we've got. But the Port of Seattle isn't the only port shippers have.