The Undead walk among us.

They feed on unwary taxpayers. They sign no-bid contracts, and take frequent junkets to cities with tropical climates. And ports.

They hold their public meetings at night.

They look a lot like Port of Seattle Commissioner Pat Davis did this month.

On Jan. 8, Davis sat with a puckered scowl on her face--the sort of expression you might have if someone insulted your mother just as you bit into a particularly sour grape--during the very first meeting of Port commissioners since the release late last month of a damning performance audit by State Auditor Brian Sonntag's office. Hundreds of angry taxpayers packed the meeting to voice their disgust. Davis is the longest-tenured Port commissioner and for over a decade has been one of the main symbols of the most arrogant, wasteful, corrupt, crony-driven public agency in the region. A good case can also be made for "incompetent," except that at the things it cares about--enriching its friends and hiding its transactions from public view, for example--Davis and her cronies have been skilled indeed. Which is why Sonntag's audit, which dragged at least a few of the Port's repellent practices into the unsparing light of day, was such a flashpoint for last week's crowd.

As often happens in such matters, Davis's responses at the meeting essentially proved the critics' points about the Port's deceptions, arrogance, and corruption. At one point, she announced that she was "pleased to know no fraud was found in the audit." Two problems there: first, a performance audit, as Sonntag's office has repeatedly pointed out, is meant only to analyze how effectively money is spent; looking for fraud is outside the audit's scope. The bigger problem is that so many indications of fraud were found anyway that the previous day, the U.S. Attorney General for Western Washington had announced that he was opening a federal criminal investigation into fraud at the Port of Seattle.

It got better. Davis: "I think you call it market forces and gripe and complain about the contractor, but you can't do anything about it because that is the marketplace." This was in response to complaints about a third runway construction contract that was given out as a no-bid contract (market forces?) negotiated between TTI Construction and former CEO Mic Dinsmore over dinner at a local steak house. (No doubt the steaks were very rare. The Undead like it that way.)

Better still: Citizens should not worry that the third runway money was misspent, Davis said, because "it is not [King County property tax] taxpayer money at the airport; it is grants, airport money." Most of which comes from grants by the federal government, which is funded by...taxpayers!! (Who knew?)

In 30 years of observing politics, I have never before heard an elected official make the argument that the waste of a large sum of money (in this case, a staggering $97.2 million was identified by Sonntag's audit) should be of no concern to you because it's not [any longer] your money.

Welcome to the Port of Seattle. Unattended wallets will be confiscated.

Davis, of course, was not alone. Dinsmore has been just as contemptuous of the audit's findings. As has Tay Yoshitani, Dinsmore's replacement, who promised, when brought in last year, to change the Port's culture. (That was immediately after the scandal in which Davis tried to sneak through an extra $320,000 in severance pay for Dinsmore's retirement.) So much for a new culture.

Thing is, the state audit of the Port of Seattle barely scratched the surface. It focused almost entirely on the third runway construction project. Nothing about the maritime operations, which are basically run as a massive wealth transfer scheme between King County taxpayers and the cruise lines and shipping companies that "do business" with the Port. Nothing about the entire terminal that was torn down so that a cruise ship dock could be built, only to have that facility torn down and the original shipping facility rebuilt (at a cost of many millions) four years later. Nothing about the sweetheart real estate deals along the waterfront. Nothing about the endless taxpayer-funded junkets. Nothing about being the only major West Coast port that somehow, consistently, loses money. (About as much money, in fact, as Sonntag found was wasted in unaacounted-for expenses, cost overruns, and cushy deals.) Nothing about the Old Boy (and Gal) network that has treated the Port of Seattle and its independent taxing authority as their private slush fund for decades.

That network includes a lot of other elites in Seattle that eat at the same steakhouses and golf at the same clubs. It includes, for example, the Brahmins of the Seattle Times, who normally rail against government waste but have yet to editorialize on the Port audit. It's a network whose winking and silence has protected the shenanigans at the Port of Seattle from public scrutiny and outrage for far too long. Finally, one would hope, the long night at the Port is coming to an end.