Inslee comes to Kent’s Oberto headquarters to pump up transportation package

Gov. Jay Inslee didn’t hesitate to borrow a line from sausage maker Art Oberto during a Thursday visit to Kent to promote the passage of a major transportation package by the Legislature.

“I heard him say you want to get a return on your investment, and when you invest in transportation you don’t spend money, you invest money in your future,” Inslee said at a news conference outside of the Oberto headquarters in Kent. “Art Oberto understands sausage and he understands transportation. He’s right. We need an investment in our future in transportation.”

Art Oberto joined South King County business leaders and elected officials at a 20-minute roundtable with Inslee inside an Oberto conference room prior to the news conference. Local leaders want adoption of the transportation package because it includes funds to complete State Route 509 from South 188th Street in SeaTac to Interstate 5 in Kent that would improve freight mobility.

“I tell you one thing, governments spend a lot of money but this is not an expenditure, it’s an investment,” Art Oberto, 87, told the governor. “And if the government spends money on investments, it will pay dividends forever. If you spend money, you’ve got to get some value out of it. This could have residual value, this is definitely something that will have residual value.”

The Senate and House, now in special session, must agree on an operating budget before coming to terms on a transportation budget, Inslee said.

“I hope you will all urge legislators to put their compromising hats and consensus-building leadership hats on rather than their chest-beating hats,” Inslee said. “This is a moment for agreement and compromise rather than blowing the bugles of partisanship. When we do that then we can get to the transportation budget.”

The Senate has approved a $15 billion transportation package that includes a 11.7-cent state gas tax increase over the next three years. The increase would be phased in with a 5-cent jump this year, a 4.2-cent increase in 2016 and a final 2.5-cent jump in 2017.

Kent is the fourth-largest distribution and manufacturing center in the United States, so the importance to complete Highway 167 (also part of the transportation package) in Puyallup and Tacoma to connect with the Port of Tacoma and finish Highway 509 to connect to the Port of Seattle means a lot to businesses. It’s also why Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke supports the project.

“It may be a lesser known connection because it doesn’t exist in its completeness yet,” she said at the roundtable, “but 509 will be cheered by the public when they realize how it will relieve the congestion on I-5 to be able to get the trucks to the destination of both ports.

“Highway 167 always has been this unfinished project,” Cooke said. “We are truly looking at a spine of the transportation system of 167 that parallels I-5. With our increased population, but particularly with the marketplace, it’s a priority to have the capacity and the connection.”