The following excerpts are from a column by the Oregonian’s Steve Duin:
You can’t say the Port of Portland isn’t accommodating. Neighborly. Generous to a fault.
When the work slowdown at Terminal 6 put the screws to ICTSI Oregon, Bill Wyatt, the Port’s executive director, stepped up and voluntarily agreed to reimburse the Philippines-based company $4.7 million to ease its pain.
That generosity sparked a federal lawsuit by the longshoremen’s union, which suggested the “giveaway” was akin to bribery and stacking the deck against labor. But Wyatt is resolute.
He remembers the problems at T6 in the 38 years the Port managed the container terminal — “In a really good year, we almost broke even” — and he wants ICTSI to hang around for awhile, its 25-year lease to operate the terminal notwithstanding.
Accommodating? That’s positively magnanimous.