If this kind of thing isn’t public business, what is? Yet the port commissioners of Tacoma and Seattle spent months meeting behind closed doors to produce what they call the Seaport Alliance, a strategic partnership between the traditionally competitive waterfronts. They announced the plan last week.

The alliance is a big vision, and it looks like a promising one. Asian shippers are starting to bypass Puget Sound for other places that are fighting aggressively for their business. In 2000, Seattle and Tacoma handled 15 percent of the West Coast’s imports; now they’re down to 10 percent. Combining the power of Commencement and Elliott bays may help the region claw its way back into contention.

But it is jarring to have this sprung on the public out of the blue.

Competition is not a bad thing. The ports of Tacoma and Seattle have been rough-and-tumble rivals for more than a century, and the struggle has kept them both hungry and high-achieving.

Anything that smacks of a merger is fraught with regional politics. Past proposals have typically been attempts by Seattle to tame and dominate its southern rival; people on this end of Puget Sound have rightly been wary.

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