The Port of Seattle is spending money on a campaign to encourage adoption of  the Seattle Center option for a new arena. / Don Wilson, Port of Seattle

As the city of Seattle’s April 12 deadline nears for submission of bids from private developers to re-make KeyArena, the Port of Seattle put some money where its mouth has been. The port in November hired a public relations firm to support the city’s interest in a Seattle Center solution while undercutting Chris Hansen’s arena project on the port’s doorstep in Sodo.

The Puget Sound Business Journal reported Tuesday that the port hired Ceis Bayne & East LLC, also known as CBE Strategic, and consultant Emelie East for a contract worth up to $185,000. Documents that disclosed the deal were obtained under the state public records act.

The port paid CBE Strategic $10,000 a month for the first month, and agreed to pay $5,000 a month for a year after. The contract includes options to renew for two more years.

Since Hansen’s plan for an arena south of Safeco Field was disclosed in 2011, the port has been a strident opponent of the location, saying arena attendees would add more congestion to what it said was an already jammed freight corridor for trucks emerging from the port’s main gate.

Despite a state-mandated environmental impact statement on the Sodo location that said the arena traffic, most of it in the evening, was forecast to be negligible, the Seattle City Council voted 5-4 in May to deny the project’s request for a vacation of two blocks of Occidental Avenue. The council members voting no cited the port’s claim of potential job loss as a reason, even though no direct evidence was presented of cause and effect.

The city in January put out requests for proposals to remodel the arena, absent an anchor tenant since the Sonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008, that could accommodate the NBA and NHL at minimal cost to taxpayers. Two Los Angeles-based developers, Oak View Group and Anschutz Entertainment Group, are responding.

PSBJ’s report said the contract with CBE makes no specific reference to communications or public affairs strategy work on arena projects. It does include unspecified “special projects” tasks and “work with outside stakeholders” and “acting to prevent actions that might prove harmful to the port.”

The story continues:

But the same day the port signed the contract, documents show its public affairs department shared a “Confidential draft communications and outreach plan” with CBE Strategic, which described five essential strategies to support the KeyArena redevelopment and oppose the Sodo project.

The first listed: “Build community understanding about the negative implications of the proposed (Sodo) project and other non-industrial development in Sodo.”

A second strategy: to “provide support for the KeyArena option, whether it might be funding for transportation enhancements or otherwise.”