1. The Port of Seattle remained skeptical yesterday about the city's plans to sign an agreement with San Francisco hedge fund manager Chris Hansen to build a new Sonics arena in SoDo---and downright disinterested, if not hostile, to their plans to ask the Port to help them finance transportation improvements to make it work. Mike Merritt, the Port's government affairs manager, told city council members that the Port "wants to reiterate its intention to work with the city of Seattle to find a site for a new arena," but added that the commission "hasn't had the opportunity" to review the proposed agreement, which the council released just three days ago.

"As far as the Port's [financial] involvement goes," Merritt continued, "we'd like to remind the council that over the past several years the Port has contributed more than $40 million to transportation projects throughout the region," and has committed to spend another $300 million on the Alaskan Way tunnel project. "Please understand that at this point the Port does not have any uncommitted dollars for transportation projects."

2. In other arena news, Fizz noticed while reading the proposed memorandum of understanding between the city and Hansen that not all the details are exactly as the council described them Monday. In addition to the fact that (as we reported yesterday ) the "KeyArena fund" may be spent instead on the new arena, we noticed one change and one minor discrepancy between the way the city has described the deal and what the deal actually says.

The change: Instead of paying $2 million a year in rent on the new arena, as originally proposed, Hansen would pay just $1 million. Why the 50 percent discount? City staffers say it's because Hansen believes the arena will make so much money in tax revenues, $2 million will be more than he actually owes. The city budget office disagrees with Hansen---when the rent was $2 million, they anticipated he would have to make up an annual revenue shortfall of $4 million---but ultimately, since Hansen has to pay for any shortfall, the city is fine with letting him bet that the arena will do much better financially than the city anticipates.

And the minor discrepancy? Instead of "annual audits" to ensure that Hansen is worth at least $300 million, which is the mantra council members have repeated since their announcement Monday, the agreement would require audits when the council sees fit, but no more often than annually. It's unclear whether that $300 million net worth figure would be adjusted annually for inflation; over 30 years, $300 million in 2012 dollars might be worth considerably less than it is today.

3. 36th District state Rep. candidate Gael Tarleton, responding to charges by her opponent, Noel Frame, that she was squishy on a proposal that would send coal trains through Seattle on their way to a new coal terminal in Bellingham (and on to China), tells PubliCola she opposes coal, but that railroads are regulated by the federal government, not state legislators.

"Noel may not know this, but the federal government controls the railroads, so the only jurisdiction that can stop the coal trains is the federal government," Tarleton says. "Local jurisdictions can work with the state and federal government to say, 'Stop. We cannot allow these trains to take over our neighborhoods ... [and] the state can ask for mitigation" from the feds.

Yesterday, Frame accused Tarleton of “refus[ing] to stand up to the Port of Seattle’s corporate clients” and failing to protect “the health and jobs of working families in our community.”