Port of Seattle

I spoke the other day with a respected local business leader, and he was advocating for closing the Port of Seattle's marine side down as polluting and duplicative of the Port of Tacoma - that Seattle would end up with better and safer roads, less pollution, and because of reduced diesel emissions from both ships and trucks...a healthier population. This, all at the same time that the Port marine properties (Harbor Island, waterfront properties, etc) could be sold off and re-developed as view condo's (not unlike, he shared, the experience of San Francisco in largely closing its' port in favor of Oakland) and other uses.

I hesitated to chime in with eager agreement, because in my experience things are never that simple. If elected, I think the notion bears examination - but I'm concerned about secondary and tertiary effects.

Where do all the truckers working the port today go for jobs? How will a port closure affect businesses in Seattle? If there is a significant displacement of workers (and the folks supporting those workers), just how strong an economic and human impact will that have on a recession impacted Seattle?

I'm open to reason on this one, but I'm fairly sure if we're going to talk about this and contemplate some kind of action - that it's too complex for a simple "yep, let's do it". I think our citizens are owed our time and effort to learn what doing it right looks like in this case, and only then moving forward.

We don't have the margin for repetitive "oops! Let's try again" as an approach, just now.