Openness and accountability coming to the Port of Seattle... Yeah right!

By Christopher Cain 3/14/08

So, here we go again, On January 28^th, 2008 I requested, formally, from the Port of Seattle, expense account records of Ceo, Tay Yoshitani. I received the information the next day via email. Most of the 11 PDF documents they sent me were all the same but had different title numbers. So, I had to ask again and explain to them what they had done wrong and wait for them to send the new documents. I received them several days later. Now, I had almost all of the requested documents but even to this day I still don't have any documentation for an entire month of expenditures, the month of June 2007. I gave up trying to get it after yet another request failed to produce the documentation.

In the documents that I did receive, I noticed that some of the expenditures were questioned by staff. (documents are scanned by the Port such as credit card receipts and taxi cab vouchers as well as travel itineraries and so on) One note which was scanned into the file was from an internal auditor who wanted to know more detail about a particular expenditure of the CEO. The record showed that Mr. Yoshitani spent $10,700 on a registration fee to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce Study mission to Japan. The auditor wrote:

“We don't have the receipts scanned into our system yet so I wanted some more information on the seminar conference charge for $10,720 with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Was this really some sort of class?”

So, I sent another public disclosure request to the Port asking them to explain in detail. They sent documents that had nothing to do with what I asked for. So, again I decided not to pursue it. But I still wanted to know more.

On February 10, 2008 I requested the expense records of two Seattle Port Commissioners to see if they had also spent large sums of money on the trip. They responded to my request by saying that this time it would take twenty days to process the request. In the end, it took thirty days to receive another response, but they did not send me the same documentation as before. This time, instead of the scanned documents, they sent a typed summary of the file. Apparently, they did not want me to have the actual scanned documents and they made me wait a full month to get the cleansed version.

I wrote back and told them that this was un-responsive to my request and asked if they would please send that actual documents just like the ones they sent went I asked for the CEO's file. They said it would be another ten days. And tried to make it look like I was the one who was not clear about what I was asking for. They wrote:

“Please be advised that we sent the “expense records” we understood to be responsive to your request. Given your recent clarification of the nature and scope of your request, we anticipate that we can produce records responsive to your revised request within ten (10) business days from the date of this letter.”

I checked my records and found that the first request was for “expense account records” and the other request was for “expense records” They gave the same info, just in a different, cleansed format. So they knew what I was asking for, just did not want to admit what they had done.

From the information I was able to obtain from them, the record seems to show that all told, the CEO and two commissioners spent $15,200 just on registration fees for the trip. To this day the Port has not revealed to me what the expense was actually spent on. $15 k seems like a lot of public money to spend just on registration fees. But maybe not, I just wanted to know, what was it used for? But now, it seems that the money likely wasn't used for any legitimate purpose or the Port would be more open about it. And, its really not even that much money, but its public money, and the CEO and the elected commissioners have a duty to spend our money wisely because we know that there are people who really need it.

It should not be this hard to get public information from a public agency, especially since they have shown that it really only takes a few clicks of the mouse and Bam! there it is. And especially in light of the fact that the Port is already under investigation for fraud. One would think that instead of creating more problems for themselves they would stand up tall and say – OK, from now on were just going to play by the rules and be honest, after all, that is the best policy...Right?