WASHINGTON — Amtrak announced late Friday that its federally mandated annual public Board of Directors meeting will be held in Seattle on Dec. 4, 2024.
As in past sessions staged at St. Louis Union Station in 2022 and at Richmond, Va. Main Street Station in 2023, company officials will review operating results from the just-completed fiscal year and provide an overview of strategic priorities for 2025.
The gathering will be held at Seattle’s Embassy Suites in Pioneer Square from 9 a.m. to noon Pacific Time and will be live-streamed. A press release on Amtrak’s website says a “panel discussion with Amtrak partners” will begin the meeting. A question-and-answer session will also be held, though “participation will be limited.”
Those planning to take part must register by Nov. 25 and specify whether they will be attending in person or online; a registration link is available here.
It is unclear which board members will attend in an official capacity. Recent nominees Ron Batory, Elaine Clegg, David Capozzi, and Samuel Lathem answered lawmakers’ questions at a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing last September [see “Nominees to Amtrak board support national network …,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 12, 2024]. Shortly thereafter, a fifth nominee, Lanhee J. Chen, attended a separate hearing. However, the full Senate must confirm each individual, and it does not return to Washington until Nov. 12, when senators have nine working days to act before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Chairman Anthony Coscia, and board members Chris Koos and Joel Szabat were confirmed in January 2024 and have attended the non-public meetings since then. Members with expired terms continue to serve until their replacements are confirmed. They are vice-chairman Jeffrey Moreland, Albert DiClemente, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, and Christopher Beall.
Amtrak’s annual Board of Directors meeting was held in the train stations of the respective host cities the previous two years. This year, it will not be held at King Street Station in Seattle but at a hotel. If the meeting had been held in Houston, it would be perfectly understandable a hotel was chosen because the Amtrak station is a concrete shanty and the former head house to Houston Union Station is now the façade to Minute Maid Park, home to the MLB Houston Astros.
These new board members certainly need to be confirmed. The annual meeting needs to hold management to be more open. However, partisan politics may tie up the Senate in other matters. If someone knows how to fast track these nominations I certainly hope they can.