Kari, the other point not asked is:

Why should public (Urban Renewal) money be put up for any of the above?

I'm not generally in favor of either. Portland and Paulson should be able to tell MLS to stuff it. Numerous other soccer entities have had no problems in PGE stadium. I elicit several exhibition matches feature EPL and European teams, Women's World Cup and college soccer.

MLS needs Portland at least as much as Portland seems to want a LS team. (Note I refrain from calling MLS 'Major League') In the old days of the NASL there existed this wonderful three-way rivalry between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. With a resurgent Seattle Sounders and Vancouver ready to join MLS, the Portland market is something MLS needs to tap - especially with the foundering Galaxy and New York franchises.

The best approach in my opinion is to tell Paulson that the city will consider support for a new stadium in 2015. By then we will know if MLS is still around and the Portland market is flourishing.

Good question Kari.

My wife has been complaining to me constantly about this, so I'll throw her idea out here so others can hear it as well. There's all this space around Cascade Station. Why not put a park/stadium out there? It could be another Delta Park.

She has played on several recreational soccer teams over the years, so we know from personal experience that the area could use more soccer fields.

btw, I agree with Kurt.

If PGE Park is good enough for the World Cup then it's good enough for MLS. Until more than 2% of Americans know what the MLS championship game is called; can name even 1 MLS player (other than Beckham - is he still playing?); hell, can name even 1 TEAM! then they have no business demanding any sort of stadium standards. The NFL or NBA they are not.

Wait and see how many paying fans there actually are before committing to an upgrade of their stadium.

"Their Stadium". ????? The stadium we buy for them.

The root of the problem with PGE is that the MLS economic model is predicated upon its stadia being soccer-centric, and with its baseball dimensioned stands and cut outs/dirt in its turf, PGE is currently a venue of convenience when soccer is played there rather than the "downtown" showcase it could be.

Another detail that prevents the "just build a soccer stadium somewhere else" scenario is that PGE has another tenant that really makes the PDX Beavers the odd sport out, namely the Portland State Vikings. A stadium remodeled to serve the Timbers and Vikings makes more sense for the site long term than continuing to also serve baseball there.

Those two issues are what is driving a new home for the Beavers.

The Portland market for professional soccer is repeatedly proven both by the more or less continual presence of the TImbers and their ability to draw being among the best in the USL as well as the support demonstrated for the national men's and women's teams.

Ultimately though, when filled, PGE is a bad venue to catch a match because the seating is designed around the contours of baseball. PGE as configured would not long support full houses for crummy views. With remodeled stands however, the TImbers could easily draw between 10k-12k fans per contest.

Besides, if there was ever a professional sports owner the city should be giving the benefit of the doubt, that person is Mr. Paulson. He's a class act.

Merritt Paulson is a class act? His billion-dollar family is certainly in a class by itself. Would Portland be in all this turmoil about the private use of public funds if his name was, say, Merritt Jones?

What a snarky comment. Merritt Paulsen has been the consummate professional when it comes to owning the Timbers and the Beavers. What his family has or hasn't done is irrelevant to his exemplary civic conduct while a Portlander. Professional sports is chock-full of scumbag owners and Merritt Paulsen has certainly not been anywhere close to membership in that class.

You can beat City Hall!

Even if you live on the poor side of town.

The most cost-effective solution that satisfies all parties is for the Beavers and Timbers to continue to share PGE Park as they have done for the last nine seasons. The Paulson family makes money from this arrangement, and they will continue to do so into the future.

The Beavers generate revenue for the city's Spectator Facilities Fund. This Fund is used to pay for the existing debt incurred by the PGE Park renovations in 2001. Those renovations were contingent on attracting AAA baseball back to Portland, which is what happened. The Beavers play 72 games per season. This generates a lot of revenue for the city.

The city should spend money to upgrade the amenities of PGE Park. We can widen the concourse, fix up the bathroom, and add more concessions. We can also use a portable grand stand on the east side, similar to what was used for the Women's World Cup in 2003: http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/9594/pgeeastend.jpg

This will satisfy the needs of MLS. They are concerned with accommodating capacity crowds, providing comfortable amenities, and looking good on TV. The east side grand stand will not look any differently on TV if it is permanent or portable.

This also benefits the city as it will retain the 72 revenue-generating game dates provided by the Beavers. This helps make the new upgrades for the MLS pencil out. How can justify paying for new upgrades while simultaneously deleting 72 revenue-generating game dates from the Spectator Facilities Fund? And remember, we still have the debt from the 2001 upgrades.

Sam Adams was quoted in The Oregonian thusly: "We intend to be hard bargainers and negotiate a really good, prudent deal." http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/06/lents_stadium_plan_off_the_tab.html Sam is not bargaining hard at all by allowing settling for the MLS's extreme position during this negotiation process. He should understand that sharing is the most prudent deal. It will retain revenue needed to pay for the new upgrades, and it has the feel-good solution of keeping the Beavers in Portland, at a downtown location no less.

Kari,

I think (but am not positive) that the reason for not building a soccer specific stadium is two-fold: one, we can't get one done in time for the start of the 2011 MLS season (when the Timbers would join the MLS), and two, contrary to the old belief that the attendees of soccer games are soccer moms and their kids, it's young, urban men who above all attend the games. PGE Park is a prime location to attract that kind of audience, as compared to a field out in SE. I'm not sure what the plan is for the Beavers until their stadium is done. I assume they're going to have to play at a college field in the interim, but I really don't know.

Lastly, it is important to understand that you simply can't share a baseball stadium. Baseball stadiums do not have the appropriate shape for other sports, such as soccer, football, track and field, rugby, field hockey, and lacrosse. If you build one rectangular field, you can play all those sports there. Build one baseball stadium, and you're basically stuck with baseball and softball (and yes, you can play those other sports there, but neither the teams nor the fans will be happy with the layout).

Boats:

Besides, if there was ever a professional sports owner the city should be giving the benefit of the doubt, that person is Mr. Paulson. He's a class act.

Bob T:

Not if he tried (and is trying) to get tax dollars to build a stadium for his team.

Bob Tiernan Portland

What is really amusing is all of the abuse Merritt Paulsen took from the kooks in Lents when it is Randy Leonard trying to ram a AAA ballpark down their throats.

And there folks you have "blue oregon" in a nutshell. Anti-growth kooks who live in a drug infested slum objecting to progress unless the progress is in lifting a noise ordinance for bongo playing. An incompetent drama queen attempting to rape his own constituents out of their urban renewal funds who won't take "no" for an answer, all led by a remorseless and shameless child molester for whom parks are merely a place to get blown in the bushes.

It's amazing that anyone of means attempts to do business with such a menagerie of total morons.

It's also not too amazing that Merritt Paulsen has the sense to live in Lake Oswego.

Boats:

Ultimately though, when filled, PGE is a bad venue to catch a match because the seating is designed around the contours of baseball.

Bob T:

Well, there ya go. Answered your own question. This is why it's better for baseball to stay at PGE Park and Paulson to build his own privately funded soccer stadium somewhere else (with voluntary transactions - no use of eminent domain).

If he pulls the Beavers out of the city, it'll be due to spite. We'd then see a return of AA or A ball because Portland's too big an urban center for any team to not want to relocate here in the absence of a AAA team.

Bob Tiernan Portland

If the numbers make sense, there is no serious case to be made against the public financing of a stadium. As bad as a credit risk the Oregon State University Athletic Department is, they received public financing to expand Reser Stadium, a venue used the least of any major stadium/arena in the state. The legislature has rightfully given the OSU Beavers the benefit of the doubt that they will repay their construction bonds over time. It's only public money that is fronted if the going concern has to pay it back with interest.

Merritt Paulson is putting up $35 million in franchise fees to bring the Timbers up to MLS. He will be bearing the brunt of upgrading the payroll for the increased talent level the Timbers will have to carry to be competitive. The MLS requires a dedicated soccer facility as a precondition to having a franchise, or barring that, sharing with a football program that already can use a similarly dimensioned stadium. That partner is the PSU Vikings.

The Beavers have to move, primarily because a remodel for the TImbers and Vikings makes more sense than keeping an oversized baseball park for the AAA Beavers. The questions are where and how the Beavers go.

If the upgrading of the Timbers were free, it would be reasonable to tell MP to foot the entire bill for renovations at PGE and build a AAA ballpark himself, but that is not the way it is. From siting inside the UGB, to traffic impacts, to myriad other details, MP has little choice but to work closely with the city.

Since even MP does not have the cash flow to renovate a public stadium while building a private one somewhere else in Portland for the baseball club, while paying a franchise fee and upgraded payroll, it is reasonable to ask the City to help get the deal to work. However, from the get go the City has displayed incompetence, cowardice, or both at the same time. Paulsen didn't target Lents, Randy Leonard did. Paulsen didn't get chickenshit on redeveloping Memorial or telling the once bankrupted over the Rose Garden Paul Allen to suck it up and that a ballpark was going to replace the Memorial Coliseum eyesore.

Then again, what is to be expected of a city that cannot, after decades, get all of the asphalt and concrete put down across the entirety of southeast? "The CIty That Works" is more punch line than reality.

Well Mr. Tiernan, why should the public continue to subsidize the Portland Beavers at the expense of the Portland Timbers and PSU Vikings? They are all tenants of the same facility, but two have needs in common and possess way more upside as revenue generators for the owners of the park (the public) than the baseball team does.

It's not news that Civic, nee PGE, has been a pretty poor AAA baseball venue for decades now. Leaders with vision would redevelop it for the interests that are better suited to it long term and that would be college football and professional soccer.

It is not inconceivable that one day Portland State could evolve to play at the highest level of collegiate football or even become a perennial power in their current division and draw 15k fans to a rectangularly reconfigured PGE. It is also currently conceivable that a renovated PGE with the Timbers as the main tenant will draw not only larger crowds to their contests, but will also draw traveling fans from Seattle and Vancouver BC as well, something the Beavers never do.

AAA baseball is the logical candidate for removal from PGE Park. Baseball at that location has no upside. It cannot be expanded for some pie in the sky MLB proposal. AAA baseball has no growth prospects comparable to MLS or NCAA football. A renovated PGE Park could easily become a future venue for a World Cup round, or even a site for more mundane soccer events such a qualifiers, tournament matches and national team exhibition matches, all of which far overshadow anything the Beavers can bring.

AAA baseball is also perfect for a shrunken stadium sited elsewhere in Portland or the surrounding environs, primarily because AAA is not so dependent on fan support or television rights to survive. Payroll is fronted by the parent MLB franchise, and so a rather modest park will allow the Beavers to thrive just fine while clearing the way for a better dedicated use of the current downtown PGE Park location.

Thank the christ this bullshit is over with. Boats, you are right about Paulsen being the consummate professional as it seems all professional owners think the public should pay for their stadiums. Want a publicly financed stadium? Then we own the team, simple as that. Keep the definition of public consistent.

"If the numbers make sense, there is no serious case to be made against the public financing of a stadium."

OK, $65M into a new stadium at 6% = $4.7M/yr in pmts over 30 years. Take 15 games a year, that means $300K/game. If last night's attendance of 8200 is any indicator, then $40/person/game in payments. What was the ticket price again? Don't forget salaries Paulson has to pay and the desire to make a profit or he is gone.

This thing is no where near making sense. Realize we still have $30M in debt for the last PFE deal at PGE Park also. Plus the way CoP budgets it will be 2x $65M. The only reason this deal is alive is because Paulson took Randy to NY to meet Mr Big Deal Garber. So now what, NASL was supposed to be pro and you really believe MLS is even close?

Think a little about the schools, potholes, closed police precincts and Sellwood bridge before you make statements like this.

Baseball is played, mostly, by Americans and for an American audience. (Yes I know about Cuba, the Dominican league, etc.) Soccer is played, mostly, by foreign players and - historically at least - has appealed to a mainly foreign audience.

Thinking out loud here, but perhaps the fact that globalization plus immigration from South America, Central America and Mexico is making soccer more popular in the US is making some folks uncomfortable. Maybe it is time to dump baseball as "America's Pastime" and admit that in ten years our national slogan may be switched from "Baseball, Apple Pie and Chevrolets" to "Soccer, Tortillas, and Kias".

Not suggesting that overt racism has anything to do with the baseball vs. soccer discussion, but the thought has crossed my mind.

Your math is all off but that won't stop you from being where you are so it hardly matters. Portland is destined to forever be a small time city because its denizens are navel gazing losers who reflexively reject commerce, stymie development, and elect utter morons to offices high and low over and over again.

"Portland is destined to forever be a small time city because its denizens are navel gazing losers"

Details, maybe we shoudl join the big leagues and be like Detroit (4 pro teams), Cleveland (3), Indianapolis (2).

Hate to break it to you, but places w/o pro sports like Austin (0 sports teams) are the fastest growing for jobs in the country.

Let me know where I am off math-wise and I'd love to correct it.

"Portland is destined to forever be a small time city because its denizens are navel gazing losers who reflexively reject commerce, stymie development, and elect utter morons to offices high and low over and over again."

Yet we keep getting voted as one of the most popular cities in America, even with no major sports team (worth mentioning). It seems a whole lot of people don't give a rat's ass about big expensive spectator sports, and are sick of being shoved deeper into debt erecting monuments to people like the Paulsons.

Thanks for visiting, Boats. Now leave. I've got a kickball game to get to.

Boats, It wasn't easy but I narrowed your comments down to the most ridiculous one. First, though, the way you started with such a measured, reasonable tone and then flipped the cranky switch was priceless.

  Take the beginning:
  "The root of the problem with PGE is that the MLS economic model is predicated upon its stadia being soccer-centric..."

  Nice. That sounds like a college thesis, for God's sake. You go on to talk about how classy Merritt is, but then a comment pushes your button and we're right into this:

   "...all led by a remorseless and shameless child molester for whom parks are merely a place to get blown in the bushes."

   I love the classy use of "whom" with that. This is great stuff full of irony. The person you're toughest on is Randy Leonard, yet you heat up at a Randy Leonard-like rate yourself. Very entertaining.

   Here's the sentence I think is the most ridiculous:

 "With remodeled stands however, the TImbers could easily draw between 10k-12k fans per contest."

  I read that PGE Park's capacity for soccer and baseball is 19,566 right now. So we're going to go through all this hassle and money just to improve the view from thousands of empty seats?

 We have a stadium that currently holds soccer and baseball games. Neither team is drawing that well, but the stadium is downtown and looks adequate. Why should we spend over 100 million dollars to try and change that during the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?

  Why aren't we focusing on helping the people who are being ground up by this economy?

  There are many examples of rich sons of important men who have visions. Some start newspapers during the end of the age of newspapers. Some start the war in Iraq. Our rich son, Merritt, takes Daddy's money and announces that his vision of another stadium will lead to certain results.

 What if they don't? Why gamble this much money NOW to see if Merritt is the exception to the rule of the rich son of an important man who is trying to set out on his own with a vision?

  It all ties together so well: George W Bush has to prove that he's a tough guy on a war footing with the Commander Jumpsuit routine. Before he's done he's practically ruined the country.

 He brings in Henry Paulson for a huge taxpayer bailout, and now we have Henry's son out here wanting to put us on an international soccer footing. What if Merritt's scheme is as good for Portland as George W's was for America?

  Why take that chance? I repeat: We have baseball and soccer teams playing in PGE Park right now. Tell the MLS people to deal with it. They are in no position to throw their weight around.

  A close second for your most ridiculous point was bringing up the TV revenue as a reason soccer needs to expel minor league baseball. Here's a glimpse at that from USA Today:

"The 2007 MLS season was the first season, however, for which television rights were sold to networks at a profit. Previously, MLS paid networks to broadcast its games. It is estimated MLS will receive about $30 million from TV revenue alone within the next eight years."

If those numbers are accurate, why should we spend 3 times the combined TV revenue of the entire league for 8 years out to make a pretty shot for the cameras? Do you even believe in soccer's TV future when hit TV shows and whole networks are in trouble because of falling ad money? This is a country that pays the NFL billions over the years for TV. Do you think soccer will put a dent into that? Why hasn't it happened already then? Remember, this league started in 1993. We had a World Cup here. Every possible chance for MLS to catch on big on TV was right there and it didn't happen. If MLS were a TV show it would be long gone - and in this economy it could easily go still.

   Let's use this money in a way that we KNOW will help or better yet, save it in case we face a real emergency like a big earthquake. Buying more toys for millionaires is not an emergency.

  This is different from other times. The margins for error are not there. As much as it must pain the politicians in charge of Portland, we just can't afford to be stupid right now.

Seeing empty MAX trains going to and fro from Hillsboro or next to no one getting off of it at the Oregon Zoo, it seems there has been plenty of margin for being stupid in the past.

8200 souls as an attendance projection for the MLS Timbers is a deliberate understatement. Someone already gave the Sounders' leap in attendance. Even if it doesn't hold at 20+k in three years, it will still be a five fold jump over when the Sounders were at the same level as the Timbers. A draw of 12-15k here, sustained going forward is not radical math. The MLS may be "unproven" but the TImbers are not really. Portland has always had the fanbase to support a professional soccer franchise as long as there were nearby rivalries to promote.

The empty seats at Civic/PGE have always been empty save for certain high level sporting events that sell the place out regardless of crappy views. PGE is too big for the Beavers and the wrong configuration for any other sport. As it is exceedingly unlikely that dysfunctional Portland will ever draw a ML baseball franchise, PGE should be configured to generate maximum revenues from the aspiring Timbers and the eternal tenant PSU Vikings rather than be lightly and reluctantly used most of the time.

Why do it now? Why not use the silly argument of the Obama Administration regarding its exceedingly pork laden and wasteful stimulus bill-- "It will create some local jobs--how can we afford to NOT do it?"

There, everyone onboard already? That shitty argument already worked once for the hope and change mob.

One more thing: Portlanders are small timers to the arts community too. The lack of a creative and energetic civic spirit is telling across nearly every Portland endeavor.

Put up the tram between OHSU sites and see someone print out "FUCK YOU" on their roof. Propose a baseball park to help renovate one of the absolute worst parts of the city and the hairy armpit set breaks out their megaphones to chant. Homeless punks litter the city, cops get nasty on their cell phones, the politicians are public and private embarrassments, but dammit, some magazine editor somewhere likes Portland in the abstract.

You should be so proud.

Bill McDonald, you are correct to be worried about us losing our shirts over this deal. However, I believe we can afford to pay for the MLS upgrades if we keep the Beavers at PGE Park. The Spectator Facilities Fund will benefit from a full schedule of events, and this Fund can be used to pay for the upgrades. Only people who are attending games will contribute to this Fund by buying tickets and concession items.

The risk is that the Spectator Facilities Fund will not have enough future revenue to pay off the debt incurred by the new upgrades. If this occurs, then the general fund will be tapped, and we need to avoid that like the plague. That is why it is paramount that the Beavers remain at PGE Park for this to work.

You are also correct that the city should not be overly concerned with how the games look on TV. That is the MLS's business. The city should be primarily concerned with sustaining high enough overall attendance among all events (soccer, baseball, and whatever else) that the Spectator Facilities Fund is robust enough to pay off PGE Park's debt. However, the city can still accommodate MLS's needs by using a portable grand stand in the east side. This will look just as nice on TV as a permanent grand stand. And it will allow the Beavers to remain at PGE Park.

Boats..Im liberal..but you really speak sense. A new PGE Park and a MLS team would draw revenue to Portland and a new stadium for the Beavers would be a boon to small business in Lents. But we cant have that can we? Dirty capitalists. If this falls thru it is the end for Portland in major sports. NOne of us like useing government money , but this can pay back in a few years.

There is a solution here and that is that Mr. Boats should join with Mr. Paulson in a business venture with their own money...Boatsy has convinced himself what a great business proposition the MLS/Beavers/etc. is.

Even more important he is in the same league as Mr. P. So pony up Boatsy. Use your own millions. Buy a share in Paulson's company. OOOPS. Not for sale?

Guess when it comes down to it Grandpa's orchard pissed Boatsy off for a lifetime.

Jesus such a bunch of small minded people here in PDX. I moved here..I thought this place had energy..but it is the same small town mentality in a big city. PDX is bound to fail this way..same morons who would tax micro-breweries to death for "the needy". Sickening. WE should be aiming for a world city..a metropolic on the Pacific Rim, instead we are vast village filled with nothing. Seattlke moves ahead..we fail as usual..but we can still say we are pure. Bollocks.

Boats, I don't believe that the experience of the Sounders will necessarily translate to the Timbers.

From what I understand of the situation, the Sounders in the USL were not marketed very well and were nearly invisible on the Seattle sporting landscape. They weren't able to break into the fold along with the Seahawks, Mariners, and Sonics. Not to mention the Storm and Thunderbirds.

Contrast that with the Timbers who are treated like one of the major teams in the city. They aren't up there with the Blazers, but overall the sporting landscape is pretty barren compared to Seattle. Thus, the Timbers get a lot of noteriety in the city, even among non-soccer fans.

Another thing that has really helped the Sounders is that the Seahawks are now part owners. They did not own the team in the USL. They have used their season ticket list to market the Sounders to football fans, as well as just having an overall stellar marketing aptitude. They have managed to turn the Sounders into a city-wide phenomenon. Also, the Sonics recently left town and left a huge void. Not to mention that last year Seattle sports teams were pretty awful, so a change of pace with a brand new team (and sport) was probably attractive to a lot of people.

Contrast that with the Timbers who won't have a strong marketing partner such as the Seahawks. The Blazers aren't going to lend a hand. I also don't see how the Timbers will be able to generate a sense of "newness" the way the Sounders were. Everyone already knows about the Timbers. What will change when they become an MLS team? Will that really increase attendance from 8,500 to 20,000? I have my doubts. There is also the unfortunate animosity that is growing between baseball and soccer fans. Too many soccer fans are licking their chops at pushing baseball out of the city, and too many baseball fans are getting defensive about that. That is going to hurt the Timbers ability to become a city-wide phenomenon the way the Sounders are in Seattle.

I have been going to Timbers games since 1975, and I believe we have a vibrant soccer community here. However, from a business standpoint, I am not sure if the Timbers are really the cash cow that some of my fellow fans believe they will be. Timbers fans are understandably emotional about the team and want to portray the Timbers in the best possible light. We have to be careful not to get caught up in that.

My grandfather's orchard pissed him off. To me it's merely a cautionary tale about the excesses of government. Loaning public cash to a stadium endeavor that will result in repayment is far better than pissing it away on "essential services" for the next to worthless in perpetuity.

Boats, There it is. You have stated exactly what's wrong with your whole argument in that one phrase: "...it seems there has been plenty of margin for being stupid in the past."

   Now check this sentence out:

"In just about one short year (March 2008 - March 2009), the bailouts managed to spend far in excess of nearly every major one time expenditure of the USA, including World Wars 1&2, the moon shot, the New Deal, total NASA budgets, Iraq, Viet Nam and Korean wars — COMBINED."

   Times have changed, Boats. That's the point.

   One other thing that may or may not bother you: One of the people who blew up the economic universe? Well, his money is buying this MLS franchise through his son Merritt. Now, why would you want to assist someone like this when we face true economic peril? I mean how many times does this family ask for more and how many times are we dumb enough to give them more? I say enough.

  There is nothing "classy" about what has happened to America's economic security - whether you are aware of the magnitude or not.

If you want Portland to have more major league sports teams, Paulson is currently the only game in town. Phil Knight seems disinterested. Paul Allen was once rumored to be looking to buy and move an NHL team to Portland, but lately the most common rumor about Allen is that he wants to move the Blazers to Seattle. Vera Katz was working to bring Major League Baseball to Portland, but that effort seems dead. The NFL will come to Portland just about the same time that Tre' Arrow becomes a partner at Stoel Rives.

Wondering about the demographics of this web site vs. the listeners to 95.5 "The Game" or AM 1080. My gut is that those sports radio stations have 1000 - 10,000 times more listeners and followers than this web site but that is only a wild guess.

If I cared, I would care. But I don't.

The Shipwreck says: "Loaning public cash to a stadium endeavor that will result in repayment is far better than pissing it away on 'essential services' for the next to worthless in perpetuity."

Name a few of those services.

Kari's suggestion to leave the Beavers and Civic Stadium as is makes sense. That simplifies the equation and requires MLS Soccer to stand on it's own.

I still have a hard time spending public money during a serious recession on an enterprise that is owned by the son of one of the Bush henchmen who is responsible for recession in the first place. If Merritt and his spouse want a new soccer only stadium in Portland then they can pay for it.

Henry Paulson is officially has a 20% ownership stake in the Timbers. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jan/14/henry-paulson-portland-sports

"In Portland, Merritt Paulson, the 35-year-old son of the US Treasury secretary, is 80% owner of the Portland Timbers – a second-division professional soccer team that has its sights set on Major League Soccer – and the Portland Beavers, a Triple-A baseball team. His father, who's reportedly worth $700m himself, owns the other 20% of the two teams."

Henry Paulson also provided $50 million to his son for the MLS proposal, which includes the $35 million franchise fee (reduced from $40 million). http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aiY0Dfcik.8s

"Paulson is using $50 million of his father’s fortune for the $129 million project. The problem is that Paulson wants the city to sell $65 million of bonds to turn the downtown home of his Portland Beavers minor league baseball team into a soccer stadium that meets major league requirements, and erect a brand new park for the Beavers.

Building two new stadiums for the son of a millionaire is a tough sell in a town hit hard by a recession that deepened in part because Henry Paulson’s efforts to stave it off at the U.S. Treasury were unsuccessful. Oregon’s unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in February, third-highest in the nation after Michigan and South Carolina, according to the U.S. Labor Department."

Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel and a whole host of other Democratic "graytards" have more responsibility for the current economy than does either Paulson. Neither of the latter were making possible the underwriting of, or defending the underwriters of, the sub-prime mortgage industry that overheated the housing market into a speculative bubble.

Nevertheless, Portland wastes a lot of money:

$650k for an "Office of Human Relations." Must be awaiting first contact or something. About $24 million for a slush fund called "Special Appropriations." About $47 million for BHCD About $12 million for the Children's Investment Fund.

Nearly $80 million annually right there alone.

Boats and all:

I don't think bringing Major League Soccer to Portland is such a great deal for Paulson or for Portland. The league is not in great financial shape. What success it has had is based on keeping player salaries low. A city the size of Portland might be able to average 15,000 paying customers a game, but the league only plays 30 games a season (not counting playoff games), and only half of those are at home. [Average attendance in Salt Lake City was 16,179 in 2008; Columbus 14,622; Kansas City 10,686; Colorado 13,659; San Jose 13,713. Most of these metro areas are bigger than Portland. I deliberately left out the biggest markets.]

Do the numbers. Soccer might generate 225,000 paying customers. But AAA baseball already generates about 400,000 paying customers. And really, Boats, if you think Portlanders will continue to support an MLS team here after the initial love affair is over when (as you say) ticket prices will be about $40 per game, I think you're fooling yourself. I wouldn't pay that much to see a game -- think about how much it would cost to take a family of four to see just one game. There's nothing major about MLS. The major leagues are in Europe.

I'm not opposed to spending public money on sporting venues, but it has to make sense. In the middle of the worst recession since WW II, committing public money for a soccer-centric venue seems ill advised to me.

A more far-sighted approach would be for the city to invest in a state-of-the-art stadium designed principally for football (like Qwest Field) that would also work for soccer. Admittedly, the possibility of Portland attracting an NFL team seems remote, but how much riskier is this approach than the one Adams is trying to get us to make, all in an effort to attract a minor sport franchise to Portland? Put another way, I think the odds of MLS thriving in Portland are as long as us getting an NFL franchise.

You can't compare Portland to Salt Lake City or markets that haven't worked. Better to compare them to recent markets like Seattle or Toronto who have taken to the sport better. Portland will likely be similar to them and draw 20,000 per game. Seattle is drawing 30,000 and Toronto 20,000 with no sign of slipping.

Boats, You're wrong again. Yes, there are others on the list of culprits including Bill Clinton. But it was the Wall Street firms who are most to blame, and the problem wasn't the initial mortgages. If that's all it was, we could have paid them off long ago.

   It was the derivatives - a financial instrument that exposed the world to....brace yourself....

600 trillion dollars worth of exposure should they start to unravel which they did.

  Firms like Goldman Sachs, AIG,etc...turned the economic security of the globe into a giant casino that made a bubble...brace yourself again....10 times bigger than the entire economy of planet earth.

  Henry Paulson then hopped from Wall Street down to Washington where he asked for and got billions to spread among his buddies while offloading the toxic assets onto us. We provided the money but he refused to tell us where it went.

  Now he wants us to bailout this baseball team by moving them so his son can play with his new MLS toy.

 I say let both teams remain in PGE Park.

 By the way, they keep saying the baseball experience of a smaller park is what makes it more successful. The fuckin' team isn't going to be any better.

 So if we provide this experience by spending millions on a park, aren't we subsidizing Paulson's profits directly? I mean, if the product is the intimate experience and we're building the intimate setting, isn't it our product too?

 Sure it is, but when it comes to making the profits suddenly it's not about selling the intimate experience. He provides the guys playing baseball so he gets all the money.

 No thanks. It sounds too much like TARP.

"A draw of 12-15k here, sustained going forward is not radical math."

So outside of Seattle, the other 12 or so team are losing money and their attendance is down, so what'r your point, that we will beat the odds?

"Loaning public cash to a stadium endeavor that will result in repayment is far better than pissing it away on "essential services" for the next to worthless in perpetuity."

Huh? Why is throwing money away on soccer justified becuase we bleew it on something else? I'm still waiting for you to disprove my math. We have no idea if Paulson will be here in 30 years. Heck, the "pro" NASL was here 30 years ago for about 5 years.

Garber is putting together MLS with smake and mirrors and the entire league is losing money with the exception of about 3 teams, none of which is in NY, Dallas or LAX.

Torrid Joe, I'm calling bullshit on this:

"Baseball won't survive at PGE Park; either it goes somewhere else in the area, or it will move/fold. The place is too cavernous for the team."

  To quote Dwight Jaynes, who knows a little something about sports in this town:

"People in Portland refuse to come to grips with the fact that minor-league baseball is successful, financially, just about everywhere and is here, too. Paulson’s made more money off the Beavers than he’s ever made off soccer."

 So the only thing that's too cavernous is the hole in your argument.

Boats, I am fast running out of any desire to chuck your fat little face under its sweaty, angry, red little chin and wish you well.

Give it a damned rest. Who cares if this Dem or that did this or that? That will not take any shine of Paulson and son's tarnished little nickel.

It just makes you look like an absolute fool.

Ok TJ, lemme guess: you are a sports fan. You don't really see it as a choice between dealing with infrastructure woes and social services and basic services woes... you really do not perceive a choice. Just a big, fat, shiney stadium.

Ok. I get it. This is not about reason or purpose. It's the mountain and you just gotta.

Sigh.

"The place is too cavernous for the team."

So what happens when MLS draws like now - 8000/game?

"Why should we do that?"

Because we will use up the CoP credit card (bonding authority) to pay for this. This means that much less to pay for potholes or sewers or police.

"You bond it, and then pay it back on increased property values,"

YOu pay it back by hoping Paulson pays it back. Property values will increase with or withour the Timbers.

"The franchise award is conditional on a soccer-specific venue."

The offer is conditioned on Garber jerking around the small minds in Portland. I believe MLS plays in a lot of non-soccer specific venues.

"The stadium we buy for ourselves, and charge guaranteed rent to use, you mean."

If you are going to tell me MLS will be her for 30 years, I'd have a hard time believing it. We've only been told soccer is the next big thing since the NASL blew into town.

"Number one, that $28mil left on the last renovation is being paid by the Timbers and Beavers."

Thru gate receipts. Paulson has only committed to paying for the upgrades from here on out. However, CoP will still see about $80M total debt left on PGE Park that CoP must pay.

"Paulson agreed to cover all but a tiny upfront potential overage."

Final point - Paulson has signed NOTHING and Paulson is smarter than Randy. We'll get stuck like we always do after the Timbers die off after 5-6 years.

I gawked in amaze as Leonard told the cameras, bluntly and with complete lack of self-awareness that he was being this transparent: since he broke the deal we made behind the scenes, I am breaking my part of the deal.

It was a deal. And has nothing to do with Randy really believing in this on principle, thus, being creatively and longterm invested. It was all about a broker, a handshake, a deal that was struck.

When you are simply doing politics and backscratching, fallings-out go just like this. But when you are truly working on something from a higher principal, you do not stand in front of cameras and point at the other guy who did not hang in for the bargain you struck.

I"m not sure I"m being clear about what I observed, but it was pretty craven to watch. Randy, transparent. No face to save.

Torrid Joe, I also don't sense the brilliance in your paragraph about keeping both teams in PGE Park:

"Cost effective it MAY be, but it's also 100% impossible. The franchise award is conditional on a soccer-specific venue. The City Attorney has verified this. They will NOT award if a baseball team is going to play there. So stop. Please."

 Not just impossible, but 100% impossible....Oooo! How about "Double Secret Probation" Impossible?

And, if that's not enough, "The City Attorney has verified this."

 It's a negotiation. We ask for what we want and they ask for what they want. MLS would be crazy to turn back now over the presence of the Beavers. As David Sarasohn wrote in the Oregonian, ..."MLS could share with baseball, as it does in several other cities."

 But even if they won't, what about the situation as it stands now led you to believe negotiations were done? Did you really think the city attorney thing would impress anybody?

 And have you ever considered that just maybe the MLS demand is a bluff carried off by people who want something to happen a certain way?

CK says: You can't compare Portland to Salt Lake City or markets that haven't worked. Better to compare them to recent markets like Seattle or Toronto who have taken to the sport better. Portland will likely be similar to them and draw 20,000 per game. Seattle is drawing 30,000 and Toronto 20,000 with no sign of slipping.

Like Kari, I'm agnostic about this whole thing but... why can't we compare Portland to similarly-sized markets with one major sports franchise?

Why is it 'better' to compare Portland (metro pop. ~2M) to larger markets like Seattle (metro pop. 3.2M) and Toronto (metro pop. 5.5M)?

Better why? Better for who and/or for what purpose?

I guess having a virtual stalker is not as exciting as it is cracked up to be.

If people are out there running around actually thinking of all jackasses in power as virtuous, that depth of naivete is unplumbed by most folks.

CK wrote: You can't compare Portland to Salt Lake City or markets that haven't worked. Better to compare them to recent markets like Seattle or Toronto who have taken to the sport better. Portland will likely be similar to them and draw 20,000 per game. Seattle is drawing 30,000 and Toronto 20,000 with no sign of slipping.

CK, that's just wishful thinking. LA and Toronto are the aberrant markets, the outlyers that have done pretty well. Seattle's experience is too new to judge. The great majority of the teams in the league average less than 15,000 per game. LA Galaxy, with Beckham as the big draw, managed to average 26,000 last year. But Carson, the other LA area team, managed just 14,286. Compare those numbers to the average attendance figures for Dodgers and Angels games and you see what I'm getting at. It's a minor league sport.

Torrid Joe, I've heard you make some pretty coherent arguments. This is not one of those times.

  I'm going to quote Marx here. And of course I mean the underrated music of Richard Marx:

  "It don't mean nothin' 'til you sign it on the dotted line."

   This deal is not done and pretending it's "100% impossible" for the plan to change is a kindergarten level understanding of reality.

Boats, that is not at all what I said. Not in the least. Virtual stalker? Heheheheheh.... cute.

TJ, yah, I know, the funds are different. I'm thinking, right now, about the idiot we have for a mayor focusing on this so quiveringly. Unless the media is being the usual packajackalopes and NOT reporting Hizzoner as being busy with substantive thought and action, I apologize for not being clear in stating that the diffusion of focus here is just as spendy, in my narrow view, as the idea of utilizing our money on this kind of development as opposed to some other, more substantive (in my view)kind.

I am not a sports fan these days. I do not and never did spend my bux to go to stadia and watch games, even when I was an avid runner girl. I rather love the aesthetic of PGE park and wish I still worked across from there - I enjoyed it (except on game days when my expensive monthly parking was given away to whatever pisher wanted to park for any event or game nearby... on a moment's notice, I was made late for work in my comings and goings, driving all over trying to find an alternate lot with room...) the way I enjoyed the atmospheres of South of Market in SF.

I guess I just have my mind on such different things, it exasperates me to see this topping the news week after week. Is THIS the most important thing we REALLY are thinking about? Worse: our city council and so-called leadership? I'm not hearing anything much else... and despite my deep jaundice regarding the local fishwrap and TV Noose... I have to trust they might be talking about it if it was not just yet another bomber in Salem and more about Soccer.... anyway, sorry I laid into you. Boats is making me ill with ire. Just... a pantingly arrogant fool... and it spilled over onto you.

I do not agree with you that this is where our priorities should be laid at this time. Really don't.

Boats:

Well Mr. Tiernan, why should the public continue to subsidize the Portland Beavers at the expense of the Portland Timbers and PSU Vikings? They are all tenants of the same facility

Bob T:

I mentioned this because it's an existing condition (not that I supported the $40 million rip-off renovation deal that was also supposed to be a deal that would solve all of our baseball problems. The stadium was given to the city long ago, or at least is treated as such by the Mult Athletic Club so long as the city makes sure that it is used as such.

But if no teams want to play here, that's that. I'm opposed to using tax dollars in any form to lure any teams here. The Beavers are here now. For the time being.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Portlandlover:

Building two new stadiums for the son of a millionaire is a tough sell in a town hit hard by a recession

Bob T:

Again, this is all irrelavant. These deals should not be made under any circumstances. And Paulson's particular family connection has nothing to do with this, either because then people will seem to be saying that they'd support using tax dollars to build stadiums for mega-wealthy people like, say, billionaire Oprah Winfrey because of her political views.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Creative pdx leadership could have partnered up Paulson with PSU and approached the legislature for a request for bonding approval taking substantial risk off of CoP's voters and pols. It would have been extremely hypocritical of the lege to allow Oregon an expansion of Autzen and a new basketball arena and OSU an expansion of Reser and renovations at Gill and leave PSU with no authority to raise funds to renovate PGE into a rectangular facility with CoP's blessing. Such a move would have left the problem of a new Beavers baseball park in the Paulsons' lap for financing with the City helping to find a suitable location where the new park could be sited.

A stadium renovation spearheaded for a state institution that isn't likely to ever abandon the facility while spreading the negligible risk amongst all of the state's taxpayers would have mollified many of the finance critics out there.

The flaw in that option is that it wouldn't allow for Randy Leonard style grandstanding and it also requires a mayor who actually follows through on something outside of a sordid affair with a boy.

Bob, You believe Paulson's family connection has nothing to do with it because it shouldn't come down to political views? You think that's what this is about?

  My God, man. You and every American should educate yourself on how this economic crisis happened, and the prominent role Henry Paulson played in it.

   It's all there. They are literally getting away with it because of the ignorance of people like you. Let me tick off a few little details from Matt Taibbi:

1. Paulson - then running Goldman Sachs - called up SEC director William Donaldson in 2004 and quietly arranged to get the state to drop capital requirements for the country’s top five investment banks. After that, it was party time! Bear Stearns in just a few years had a debt-to-equity ration of 33-1! Lehman’s went to 32-1.

2. Paulson ran up a debt-to-equity ratio of 22-1. "A number that would have been much higher if one didn’t count the hedges Goldman bought through a company called AIG."

3. "Thanks in large part to Paulson’s leadership in his last years as head of Goldman, the company was so massively over-leveraged that it would have gone under if AIG — which owed Goldman billions when it went into its death spiral last September — had been allowed to collapse. But thanks to Hank Paulson, who heroically stepped in and gave AIG $80 billion the same weekend he allowed one of Goldman’s last key competitors, Lehman, to collapse, Goldman didn’t have to go without that money; $13 billion of the AIG bailout went straight to Goldman. So I guess we have Paulson to thank for the fact that he used about $13 billion of our taxpayer money to essentially bail out his own fuckups."

4. "Remember that Henry Paulson was actually in charge of regulating the financial environment during the last years of the crisis and did nothing as his buddies on Wall Street built one gigantic mountain of leverage after another."

5. "Paulson got a $200 million tax deferral thanks to an obscure rule that allows executives who join the government to defer taxes on their holdings. That means that not only did Paulson use billions of our money to bail out his own mistakes, he managed to use a loophole to get out of paying his fair share of that same bailout."

Maybe the woman in charge of TARP oversight now can help give you a sense of what went on here:

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor, said her group estimated the Treasury paid $254 billion in 2008 in return for stocks and warrants worth about $176 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Warren said the Treasury, under then-Secretary Henry Paulson, misled the public about how it would price them.

"Treasury simply did not do what it said it was doing ... They described the program one way, and they priced it another,"...

Heard enough? This isn't about political views. No more than doing a deal with the Gambino crime family would depend on if they were liberal or progressive.

  This is about the biggest greed orgy and rip-off in the history of the world. This is about a direct threat on the future of America. We will be paying for Henry Paulson for the better part of a century if we survive at all.

Didn't your Mom ever tell you not to associate with the wrong people?

Bob, I'm aware you are against these deals under any circumstances but we're always going to have interactions between the government and families for one reason or another.

 I say let's not jump in just because someone shows up with a few bucks. We have a reputation to protect - an image of Portland that's worth a lot.

  All I hear is how this deal will enhance our image. I don't get that. I think the rest of America will be extremely turned off - especially if this Wall Street caused crisis continues to deepen. We'll come off as your typical small-town rubes who got hustled by the same people who took down the economy.

   Only we had a warning. I swear the more I think about this and the rich-folk groupies like Randy, Sam, etc...the more idiotic this all seems.

  What are we thinking?

It is sad when even a site titled "Blue Oregon" has to deal with a such a rabid troll as this "Boats" character. It seems is entire raison d'etre is to bash Portland.

You want a soccer stadium, do it the old fashioned way, save up your profits and buy it on your own. Why we, the public, need to go in debt and assume the risk for something as trivial as a professional soccer team is beyond me. If professional soccer is so financially rewarding, than why isn't every investor in the country cashing in on stocks and bonds and investing in it?

And why all the hype about a professional sports team? Go drive around parks in Portland,most are jam-packed full of people getting exercise, playing sports and enjoying each other's company. Why the hell would you want to sit on your duff and let a bunch of "professionals" do it for you? Entertainment? There are numerous options for entertainment in Portland, a professional sports team just seems like you want the luxury of choice. Where I come from, we pay for our luxuries with our own dime.

Here is what I would be willing to offer, a property tax and permit fee credit that would be paid off from the top of any profits engendered by the sports team.

TorridJoe, I have been very clear about what a sharing arrangement would look like. We can accommodate everything the MLS requires to make an MLS team successful at PGE Park while simultaneously allowing the Beavers to play there. It all revolves around the use of a portable grand stand in the east side.

What the MLS really needs are upgrades in the amenities, which we can pay for. This includes widening the concourses, fixing the bathrooms, and adding more concessions. They also want soccer games to look good on TV. A portable grand stand will look no different than a permanent grand stand on TV.

It makes no economic sense to delete 72 games dates that generate revenue for the Spectator Facilities Fund. Do you understand this concept? We would be throwing money down the drain. We could use this money to help fund the very improvements that the MLS is asking for. The Beavers at PGE Park would not get in the way of an MLS team being successful at PGE Park. It is a red herring to say that the Beavers must be kicked out of PGE Park, and therefore out of Portland.

"If people are out there running around actually thinking of all jackasses in power as virtuous"

Not at all, I am only trying to show how this screws the taxpayers who really has no representatives in power.

Bill where did you get this information above?

"1. Paulson - then running Goldman Sachs - called up SEC director William Donaldson in 2004 and quietly arranged to get the state to drop capital requirements for the country’s top five investment banks. After that, it was party time! Bear Stearns in just a few years had a debt-to-equity ration of 33-1! Lehman’s went to 32-1."

I have read other references to this, or something along the same lines, but have not been able to find it.

Can you clue me in?

Thank you

There is an Oregon subforum on Democratic Underground if one desires groupthink without being challenged in the least.

I hardly have a monopoly on vitriolic blather and insults around here.

Besides, if people here can't figure out the basic difference between URA financing via bonding and the CoP's general fund for "schools, potholes, and public safety" there is no point in a rational discussion of this topic.

With the Seattle Sounders and Vancouver Whitecaps moving up to MLS, if Portland blows it for the Timbers' ascendence, the team will die on the vine. With one key tenant removed from the PGE renovation reimbursement picture for past renovations, the whole repayment plan is jeopardized as the two remaining entities do not have to bear the burden of the missing one, CoP does.

My bet would be that if the Timbers are killed off by Portland's political dysfunction that the Beavers will eventually be sold and moved too. That would leave PSU as the lone solid tenant of PGE, and they would not have any contractual obligation to pick up the entirety of the bond issue's repayment schedule. Therefore, for the sake of not enhancing a largely successful long term relationship with the Timbers and Beavers, the CoP risks having to pick up bond reimbursements it didn't have to had it helped keep the TImbers and Beavers remain viable franchises.

So I'm sorry to say, but if the Timbers are killed off and the Beavers fold or move away it will be because of the very navel gazing I accused Portlanders of doing. The world has changed around the Timbers and Merritt Paulson is trying to keep pace for the team, who are undeniably an important tenant for PGE Park and its bonded debt repayment schedule. Killing the Timbers' move to MLS be active or benign neglect will be yet another instance of the "City That Works" not working at all.

Actually Boats, you started it. And it has been enjoyable to descend into the Ocean of Blissful Meanie in matching bathyscaphs. I've watched others react to the splendor of your arrogance and condescension all over other threads.

You are reaping what you sow in this case. You came in assured of your rightness and other's softheadedness. You have ZERO interest in anyone's views but your own; and are quick to batter some posters who have actually engaged you in a reasonable fashion. I think it got into gear when you decided you were truly the right guy to talk for god... so maybe you can try to take a breath and go back to pre-gay marriage thread and pick up your personality from there?

You still come off from the start as certain and supercilious. But you were not quite so bellicose as now that you are getting back some of what you give.

Try it on. It does wonders when you see the light.

Is this Merrit Paulson junior masquerading as Boats, maybe? Sometimes I'd give a lot to know who was who behind these made up names!

Funny thing, this is the most ridiculous discussion of all time. I cannot believe that asshole mayor we have visited this upon us at this time of all times. If the unemployed and food-insecure were logging on up here, Blue ORegonians, you would lose the respect of a HUGE constituency!! Yet, if the Lentsians were to log on, you would win their active vocal support. The thing tha is important here is that the very wealthy truly thought the ignorant poor would roll over for their bread and circuses deal. They did not count on the people protecting their open spaces and the integrity of their neighborhood. Even if it IS everything the news and posters here have characterized it -- broken down, should be grateful for anything we give it -- all that elitist business. I view this as important to have looked at on BO because there will be more boondoggles before this eocnomic collapse is thru, and if we are not vigilant and diligent, there will be unrecoverable losses. THink of the black hills... think of any number of great land grabs that a certain millions of people are still suffering to this day... it might be on that scale, but it surely is in that myopic, classist tenor.

I meant to say some few posters, not ALL posters. There has been some small amount of belief that broken down little Lents should disrobe and get on the table for the "face lift". But not a lot.

The discussion revealed important aspects of finance and budgets we will have to keep an eye on till the collapse is through.

The Libertarian Guy,

  As I mentioned in the comment the source is Matt Taiibi. That quote is off his blog Taiiblog. Matt is the best young journalist I've seen with a great sense of humor reminiscent of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and there can be no greater praise.

 Matt also has the appropriate sense of outrage. His article called, "The Big Takeover" for Rolling Stone magazine should be read by anyone who wants to get into this topic.

  I have read many articles on this, often driven by sheer disbelief once I started fathoming the magnitude of this completely avoidable crisis.

  I don't remember the financial guy who said this quote, but it's the definitive statement on this mess: "It's going to get worse, before it gets worse."

   Just listen to the noise on the national wind.

You hear so many Bush officials spinning so many things. Have you seen much of Henry Paulson lately? I mean the woman who oversees TARP now basically went on "60 Minutes" and called him a liar and worse. Where's the response?

   No, the family heads out from the East Coast to innocent little Portland, and Randy and Sam welcome them with open checkbooks. It's embarrassing.

  One other little thing I thought of recently: The right loves throwing the word "elitist" around

in attacks with all its implications of exclusivity and being above the rest. Doesn't it smell of elitism when one sport says, "Baseball can't use PGE Park anymore even though it has for decades. It must be ours - all ours. We're just that special. This is a gated soccer community now."

    Well, I say, fuck that. Making baseball go begging for a place to play is elitist and to use another one of their tired tactics, it's downright un-American.

Bill McDonald:

Bob, You believe Paulson's family connection has nothing to do with it because it shouldn't come down to political views? You think that's what this is about?

Bob T:

My point is that I'm opposed to government building stadiums and offering many other tax breaks and incentives to keep and/or lure sports teams, and that the politics or family of any team owner is a non-issue. If it becomes an issue, then you open yourself up to making exceptions for team owners who have "approved" political identities or better parents.

I've ignored your history of what the elder Paulson may or may not have caused because I was not questioning that to begin with, and it's irrelevant to this stadium issue.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bob, For you it's irrelevant. As I noted, I know you're against all of these things which is an easy stance to defend. I even think the intent of the Oregon Constitution forbids what's going on here - it just doesn't state it clearly enough. The intent was to prevent governments in Oregon from contributing money to private companies. As usual, there is a highly convoluted explanation for why it's legal, but the reasons why these things are bad ideas were anticipated - if not addressed - correctly.

  Am I to understand the city government pays part of the wages of concession people at PGE Park to bring them up to a higher wage?

 At some point we are directly subsiding Merritt Paulson's business. If our contribution to the wages of a concession employee, makes the experience of going that much better, then we have increased the likelihood of a return customer and thus we have made money for Merritt Paulson. I'm sure a good lawyer could make that case even if I can't.

So I agree with your big picture argument about this, but the specifics of this deal call for a look at the people involved. The people of Lents sure got analyzed. Why not the people who stand to make the money getting a look too?

You may also ignore the national part of the story, but it is not ignoring you. Every American out there has been negatively affected by the actions of Henry Paulson and the other Wall Street cronies who brought on this crisis. And he's not just one of "the parents"- he's one of the financial participants.

 In a truly free market, the Paulsons would be a lot less rich than they are today. Even in our system of corporate welfare, this was an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer money one way, and toxic assets back to us.

 Maybe it's chump change to throw more money at them for something like this after the huge bailout of Wall Street, but if ordinary people in 1,000 towns each stop another 100 million dollar boondoggle from occurring, it will be significant. Maybe even the start of turning America around.

 We could call it the Lents Revolution. When America finally said, "Enough!"

Thanks Bill. I saw the Matt Taibbi comment, but thought maybe it was from a book, or an article. And thanks I'll dig up the Rolling Stone's article

I devolve all of the time when people bring up every little irrelevancy to avoid discussing an issue on factual grounds. This started off as a public policy discussion about the future of PGE, the TImbers and the Beavers.

Trashing Merritt Paulson for the sins of his father, bringing up the general fund like a bloody shirt, blaming Bushitler for the condition of the Lents 'hood, and every other little damn thing that has nothing at all to do with bonded public works debt past, present and future, especially as concerns a city that would let the Oregon Ballet Theater go down the tubes while having a bullshit Office of Human Relations go on burning cash for feel good happy horse puckey, is not an enlightened level of discourse to begin with.

I hope Boats and his aging parents, his children and all other loved ones get a chance to taste why the bullshit Office of Human Relations (whatever the f that is, but I do suspect he is making reference to anything having to do with leveling playing fields, addressing and mitigating human misery) exists.

He might get some much-needed humanity and humbling.

I know that sounds like a curse. Dunno: maybe it is.

Boats and his ilk, once they start to show the true colours of the heart, are why we have war. The unbending, stony, dismissive and unfeeling HARD LINE.

TJ, hang on a sec: are you saying Boats is a lefty? I could not tell! I thought I was talking to another burn in hell rot in your misery Righty McRighty!

Sheesh. I lost track, and went for the raw feeling meter on this one........

Torridjoe, I apologize for the snarky nature of the kindergarten comment. You did make me mad, but I'm going to work on that.

  You threw out a statement on the Beavers not being able to go on financially if they stayed in PGE Park because it is too "cavernous."

  I called bullshit on that. Never mind that there has been some form of minor league baseball there almost continuously since I moved to Portland in the 70s. I went the extra mile and brought in the opinion of Dwight Jaynes as my source.

   You responded with this little gem:  "Whether they reach a better profit than the Timbers (which you'll have to show) or not..."

  That did make me mad because I had cited a respected source while you just pulled your bullshit out of thin air. Now you're telling me I still have to show you what led me to believe something? I'm not here to take orders from you.

  Now, I enjoy back and forth on blogs, but if somebody is just going to pronounce something and then get huffy when it's thrown back at them, well, that's all I need to know about their ability to make their case.

  So is this a pattern?

 Now you have pronounced this deal set. You do this by being emphatic. Before it was "100% impossible" - now it's: "Change that. No team. Period."

  Here's the scenario: Merritt goes back to MLS and says, "The People of Portland don't want to build another stadium. You made a soccer-only stadium a condition of getting the franchise. Would you be willing to  change your mind on that?"

   Now maybe you sit on the fuckin' board of MLS so you know what they'll say. Maybe they'll even say your exact words, "Sorry, that's 100% impossible. No team. Period."

   But maybe they won't. In my opinion they'd be stupid to turn their back on the Portland market and the franchise fee. But unless you are ordering them around like you tried ordering me around, you are just talking.

   And while you're making your next pronouncement, stop and think about this: Keeping the two teams in PGE Park has been suggested by dozens of different credible people such as Kari, David Sarasohn, and many others.

    If it was as impossible as you have decreed, why are they not seeing that?

    This deal is not set and you know it. I've seen your blogging A-game. This was not it.

rw, all I have to say is that you might be surprised at the political track i have carved over time living in Oregon. Suffice it to say that I used to know both Les AuCoin and Kevin Mannix, Ron and Jayne Cease and Kevin Mannix, so on and so forth. I worked for Measure 5 and multiple times against the OCA, I tried to expand the bottle bill with OSPIRG and collected sigs for Measure 11. I worked on Measure 16 and against attempts to modify or repeal it.

I can and have made common cause with both sides of the spectrum. I think Karen Minnis is a twit. I also think Ginny Burdick is a bigger twit and Bill Sizemore a bigger one still.

I like to keep the money I make, so I don't like taxes. I don't like religion so I have no time for evangelicals on most issues. I despise their politics for the most part. I hate liberals for their gun control and safety nazi impulses too. I fought against the lumping in of homosexuals in with pederasts and such, but I don't go for the gay community's normative efforts either.

Were I to describe my own politics they'd be de facto small "i" independent with a mostly libertarian tilt coupled with extreme skepticism regarding most of the things the state does as union driven along with a healthy wariness about the hypocrites pushing morals from the right. Throw in a strong distaste for illegal immigration with genuine respect for legal immigration, a profound hatred of criminals and vandals, and a respect for the rights of homosexuals to be free from official harassment but a disdain for their in your face lifestyle and you pretty much have it.

Whoops, I meant to name drop Gordon Smith, not Mannix twice.

The analogy of the UO and OSU stadiums to this whole deal is entirely irrelevant.

First, the University of Oregon and Oregon State University are PUBLIC institutions of higher education whose product (educated citizenry) are better enabled to give back to the society, which gave them their higher education in the first place.

Second, Merritt Paulson and his company are a PRIVATE, profit driven enterprise.

Merritt Paulson and his company are not a nonprofit organized to put all the profits they generate back into the community that they serve. The profits that they reap are for the private gain of the owners and they will throw in a few hundred thousand or two back into the community every couple years just to show that they "care about the community."

If Merritt Paulson "cared" about the community then he would show how this whole deal led to 300+ living wage jobs with full healthcare benefits and a pension instead of underpaid hot dog vendors who are partially subsidized by Portland, OR taxpayers.

Gee, how about we fix the bridges that are about to fail around Oregon before we try more sports porky projects ? So called Democrats let so much sport spending go through without a word. Ever heard Defazio say anything about the 300 million dollar UO arena ? No, he is bought out. Blogs like this one protect the creatures in the political swamp this state has. I am sure if a Oregon bridge does fail this blog will be the first to cry for more funding for climate change research. That is right...you will claim the global warming boogeyman did it.

One of PGE's tenants is Portland State University. The only reason I mentioned Autzen and Reser at all is then it would have been possible, with more creative city leadership, to spearhead an effort to renovate PGE with PSU on the point down in Salem as they too are A PUBLIC INSTITUTION. Since THE PUBLIC would still own PGE and the Timbers would be RENTERS, a financing package that was backed by the state rather than the city was possible, and therefore the examples of Autzen and Reser are not irrelevant in that context.

People have accused Randy Leonard of having his own deal making agenda in all of this, not so much around the PGE angle as much as the Lents angle, and there is very likely something to that. It made no sense to try and get the City to back another renovation of PGE AND build a new Beavers ballpark when one of the main beneficiaries of a PGE remodel is PSU, a state institution of higher education whose position could have been leverage at the capital for the same bonding deal the two other top universities in the state already received. With the PDX/metro contingent being the largest in the legislature, state bonding for at least $15-30 million would have been child's play for a competent governmental affairs office.

Dan writes; "FWIW, there are many references online for the SEC's 2004 rule change on capital requirements and Paulson's role as then head of Goldman - from the NYTimes to the New York Sun all the way to Matt Taibi and even Paulson's Wikidepdia entry.

Not exactly an obscure reference, in other words."

Thanks Dan I'll check these out. Other that reading the daily press and a Harper's by Simon Johnson, or Samuel Johnson I have spent much time digging into this issue. I jus' know that we been scammed! Big Time.

Thanks for citing the letter from Garber. I have no care either way, my public money isn't going into this bad idea. However I bet $10 to the charity of your choice that in a game of high stakes chicken that MLS will flinch. MLS need Portland to anchor their new PNW strategy. The Seattle Sounders, while very impressive in fan support may not sustain their big numbers by themselves if their play remains at current mediocre levels. OTOH, the three city rivalry established in the 70's glory days of the NASL would pump up stadium attendnenace as well as television package revenues.

The Libertarian Guy, One area that you should check out if you're into this, is the way derivatives based on loans that the banks knew were shaky, wound up getting the triple AAA rating. Considering the institutions that rate these products work for the banks, you can see where it leads. So shaky loans were made, bundled and sold. The institution that made them sure didn't want them so the risk was moved for a fee. These security swaps went round and round generating nice fees and balance sheets for these big firms.

 Then the music stopped.

 When you see how these were rated you get into the area of fraud. Deliberate fraud where pension funds, etc...got snookered by firms saying, "These things can't fail. They're rated so high because they're bundled together. If some fail the rest survive." And on and on.

  You know, of the other huge expenditures we've made as a nation such as paying for WW2, etc...this is the first one that we brought on ourselves for no reason at all. And it's bigger than all the other big expenditures combined.

   In addition, we've become such a nation of feel-good, short-attention-span wimps that we can't even muster the nerve to get irritated about it. Bush officials BRAG about their war crimes and nobody even flinches.

  The Paulson thing is sold as a nice young man from a rich, important family and it comes across as anti-family values to even suggest there's been wrongdoing here.

   Well, think of all those other families who lost everything in this crisis. Think of all the elderly whose pension plans took a huge hit. Think of kids not going to college because of hits to various investment plans.

   Those all involve families too.

"has nothing at all to do with bonded public works debt"

This is where I am lost. Public bonds work like this:

1) CoP takes out bonds 2) Cop pays the bonds 3) CoP hopes tax revenues and Pualson help pay for bonds 4) Paulson leaves town after 4 years and CoP pays bonds out of general fund for 26 years like they are doing on the PFE debacle.

WHat don't you get about this? The Timbers are NOT going to change prop values one way or the other. Soccer has had about 3 tries (NASL, USL and MLS) at least. Each one has been a money loser.

MLS has only 3 teams out of 14 making money. Garber is running a Ponzi scheme that needs new owners to throw in larger sums of money to older owners.

Stop me when I missed a point or am off topic.

"I'm taking Garber's word for it."

So why do we get special treatment compared to the other MLS teams plying in baseball stadiums now?

Glas to hear CoP council takes their orders from Garber now.

"The analogy of the UO and OSU stadiums to this whole deal is entirely irrelevant."

Yes, UofO and OSU are actually making money and are not going ot leave in 4-5 years of they lose money like Paulson will.

Boats and other MLS supporters:

Your argument in favor of reconfiguring PGE Park for soccer using public funds is based essentially on your desire to see Portland land an MLS franchise. You're a soccer fan, I get it. But as I wrote yesterday, MLS is not a great deal for Portland or Paulson. MLS might require a reconfiguration of PGE Park, but we should say no. Take it or leave it.

Adams, in yet another private fantasy, wants us to imagine that a new baseball park and a renovated PGE Park are not related. How stupid does he think we are?

I think it would be fun to have an MLS team here, on our terms. But you should have no illusions about what this means. It is not big time soccer. It is a cut above the Timbers, but decidedly bush league when compared to European soccer.

How good a sports town is Portland? The jury is out. Sacramento, a market a little smaller than Portland, is home to the AAA Rivercats. They have a great little stadium with a capacity of about 15,000; the stadium is designed to be expanded should MLB ever come to town. They have superlative baseball weather. They lead all of AAA baseball in attendance -- they managed almost 1 million customers last year. That is a town ready for a major league team.

I wonder why MLS hasn't found a home there . . . and suspect it's because MLS soccer can't come close to competing with a successful AAA franchise.

Everyone has a right to assess Don Garber based on their own instincts. Some people accuse him of running a Ponzi scheme making the turning down of a franchise fee highly unlikely. Torridjoe has looked into Garber's soul and is ready to elope with him.

 The rest of us are doing what we do in a million situations: Look at the clues and try and assess what they mean.

  1. TV is a revenue X factor for the league. You don't have to dilute the talent by adding more teams to get money. By the way, did you know 6 players on the New York team are making like 32K to be a professional athlete? The cap isn't going up so the league's getting weaker talent-wise. Its calendar is all messed up to take players from abroad where they play from late summer to May. So there are several clues already that spell trouble.

   2. How's TV doing? Okay, this Saturday, the big showcase game in Seattle was on ESPN2. Huge crowd - lots of excitement. DC United in the house. So what happened when the College World Series went long? Did ESPN show the game on one of its other channels like Classic ESPN that was showing Tiger Woods from 2002? No.

  ESPN2 joined the Seattle game over 60 minutes in during the second half. Now what does that say? To me it says ESPN doesn't give a shit about soccer, they certainly aren't nurturing it, and are probably looking to get out of it as soon as possible. What happened in Seattle on Saturday is a huge clue about the viability of soccer on US airwaves.

  Incidentally, Don Garber came out with a BS spin explanation saying the same thing would have happened to baseball if MLS had run long. Everyone pointed out what a disingenuous statement it was since soccer can't run long like this. Some also implied that Garber was talking out of his ass because the game could have easily been shown live on another ESPN channel if they actually gave a shit about it - which they don't.

  We knew from ESPN canceling the Thursday night broadcasts that MLS is struggling on TV - let's just say they were not worried about offending the "huge" audience who wanted to watch Saturday night. That is probably because it was really a very small audience. TV can't go with fake numbers like sports owners do.

 3. Just from this weekend the clues would point to Garber being less than candid - a point the Yankees sure got when they slapped his ass down for stupid statements about their attendance from earlier.

 4. If TV is hurting the only real piles of cash are the new franchise fees. That's why the charges of a Ponzi scheme are underway.

  5. That  means if we have the leverage then we can tell Garber what's going to happen with PGE Park and if he doesn't like it, he can stick it.

  Now, I know this news about Don Garber may come as a heartbreaker for Torridjoe. I just hope you haven't sent out the invitations to the wedding yet.

Oddly, Boats, you and I are alike in what you say. I am certain I pissed people off to no end when I harped repeatedly on holding Obama and ALL of the desired candidates touted here accountable. JUST as accountable as McCain and the rest. Indeed, we had a thread that offered money for every lie unearthed, referenced and validated - on McCain. I could not do that. BUT I did make sure to post sometimes daily on BOTH; over the long haul, McCain and his posse were clearly and heavily to the tainted tuna side of things - I vetted my chosen resources for this with Thomas Civiletti, who is REALLY clear in thought and craven to nobody's influence or approval. Once I was satisfied that I was not buying blindspots, I spent the rest of the election researching and ensuring that if The Chosen on this site was straying, it was at least placed in that thread and referneced if anyone cared to challenge their/our desire to BELIEVE for the first time in way too long.

Nobody liked or approved of it. But I felt it was necessary. Likewise I teeter now on the edge of rationalizing or overlooking that which would elicit howls of pained rage and radical disbelief had we La Palin and etc to deal with... and with taking note that indeed, it still is politics as usual, but at least a more-possibly-palatable usual.

Boats, you will have noticed that these days, occasionally, I am dialogued or referenced. This took time, and more than a few earned apologies: FROM ME. And some from others here and there.

So, really: I am glad you Knew or Know such important people... it does a body good to have bona fides of that sort. We all have them up here... of one kind or another... but simply going on the ballistic attack and essentially presenting yourself and the only one with a trustworthy or reasonable view is just not reality-based. You are going to be humiliated to find yourself in agreement at least once with every person up here, and also probably at some point wanting a tete a tete instead of this continuous mano a mano.

My guess is that if you took a step back and considered if you came here just to hold forth (that's valid- every last person here does it, lots or little), or do you plan to have a mixed-use presence. There are a few intellects here I really enjoy hearing, learn things from, find provocation for consideration from. They tend not to be the people who are constantly pushing others onto their swords. And they are the same ones who modestly or otherwise admit when they tripped on it themselves.

So: check it out - you may discover that there are more than a few just like you. And in that they are completely unlike you, angeringly so, just the sort you really SHOULD be treating as comrades in a friendly thumb wrestle. Not a fight to the death.

conspiracyzach:

Gee, how about we fix the bridges that are about to fail around Oregon before we try more sports porky projects ?

Bob T:

How about we fix any that actually need it, and still say "No" to professional sports projects?

conspiracyzach:

So called Democrats let so much sport spending go through without a word.

Ever heard Defazio say anything about the 300 million dollar UO arena ? No, he is bought out.

Bob T:

No need to label them "so called" since I see nothing in the record to indicate that supporting such projects is contrary to what the Democratic Party has long been heavily into (as has the Republican Party as well).

They don't have to be "bought", either, because following the current example provides many of the reasons why politicians of all stripes are prone to back these projects, even in cases where a team owner actually wants to move away. It's called "using tax dollars to show how indispensable you are as an elected official".

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bill McDonald:

Bob, For you it's irrelevant.

Bob T:

No, it's irrelevant whether everyone accepts that or not. In other words, when discussing the issue of a corporate welfare, privileged deal over a sports stadium or arena the character and/or family of the team owner matters not one bit since the answer is "No" to all requests.

Your additional comments regarding any the elder Paulson, whether accurate, partly accurate, or not accurate at all are irrelevant as well since I never questioned the accuracy of what people have been writing about the subject in this thread and basically ignored it since it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not his son should benefit from a typical deal in a distorted, managed economy. Not when the answer is always "No". Game over.

Bob Tiernan Portland

bob t -

"conspiracyzach:

Gee, how about we fix the bridges that are about to fail around Oregon before we try more sports porky projects ?

Bob T:

How about we fix any that actually need it, and still say "No" to professional sports projects?"

You made me chuckle. THank you for causing me to go out on a humorous note.

RyanLeo:

The analogy of the UO and OSU stadiums to this whole deal is entirely irrelevant.

First, the University of Oregon and Oregon State University are PUBLIC institutions of higher education whose product (educated citizenry) are better enabled to give back to the society, which gave them their higher education in the first place.

Bob T:

Well, sure, but what does a 300 million dollar stadium have to do with what you describe? Is that where the classes and lectures are held?

Bob Tiernan Portland

No, it is not where the classes are being held.

The provision of a vibrant athletics program gives opportunities to physically-gifted and many times, underprivileged youth. Take that vibrant athletics program away and you just lost a lot of potential talent and opportunity for society to benefit from as a whole.

If that $300 million university stadium provides an opportunity for a single, underprivileged youth, then it is priceless in comparison to the contrary.

Yet, I see that as always, you are picking and choosing passages of an entire comment. Let me elaborate on what you are intentionally leaving out.

I believe wholeheartedly that tax dollars should either be given back to taxpayers or used in the provision of a public good.

Higher education, public safety, infrastructure, and other services are public goods.

Wealthy individuals managing and/or owning for-profit enterprises whose sole purpose is to provide the greatest return on investment for themselves and their owners are not in the business of providing public goods.

Don't ignore the obvious. Paulson and those whose money is with this whole endeavor are not in it for some progressive purpose where both sides provide an equal amount and the profits are reinvested back into the organization to provide a living wage, full benefits and a pension.

They want to make as much money from the whole deal while paying out the least amount on their end.

Tax payer dollars should never go towards furthering the petty, self-interested wants of private investors whose sole aim is profit and screwing the working man over.

How about the fact that professional soccer has been a cultural drag everywhere it has become popular? Which is the biggest threat to English/French/Spanish/German society? Al-quaeda cells among young, disenfranchised muslims, or the footy values pursued by the majority of their youth?

Of course, a lot of the young terrorists like its "values" too. What about the effect on other sports? Everywhere it is popular, it has been at the detriment of other sports. What will it be cannibalizing here?

Not all soccer fans are hooligans. Most are just too dumb to think for themselves. One can see this watching American football and soccer fans. Can you imagine, say, a tennis fan, not noticing that, every week, year in and year out, they watch more commercial time than play time? These aren't the brightest pups in the pack!

And if you have any doubt that American Soccer is all hype, just study the person of Alexy Lalass (from the Greek lalo+ass, "i.e. prattering ass"). Only in the US could you have a never-been turned commentator turned owner. Yeah, how about Terry Henry for mayor? Oh, right he's a turd. Better just spend big bucks to watch him dive. Great life lessons. Fuck the skill. How's your diving? Diving's good practice for skiving! Fraud makes the US go 'round...

I'm tired of City time being spent on this. Memo to Randy: Fuck Football!

memo to baseball fans: Ty Cobb had at least one thing correct when he described the homerun derby as the seriously detrimental to the game. And now it's the steroid derby. Strategy and the most exciting thing in baseball (which is baserunning) are diminished.

Also, in Cobb's time (dead ball era), games would start at 3:30 PM and be done by 5:00 PM. It was a fast-action game!

(not to mention owners in that time completely financing their own ballparks).

But attendance is strong. Even with the NY Yankees charging $2500. each for the best seats (I remember when the best seat was $4.00 at Dodger Stadium).

So why do people support it? Nostalgia? Sentimentality? And are those factors why people support the dysfunctional political systems of the U.S.?

...as being seriously detrimental to the game...

Stephen Amy:

memo to baseball fans: Ty Cobb had at least one thing correct when he described the homerun derby as the seriously detrimental to the game...Strategy and the most exciting thing in baseball (which is baserunning) are diminished.

Bob T:

I disagree. That was just his preference, apparently because he couldn't hit 'em that far, for his time. I prefer the outfield wall instead of no wall with homruns being hits that the outfielders had to chase and chase.

There's still plenty of strategy, and baserunning excitement.

I'm more concerned about artificial turf (get rid of it), the DH (get rid of it), and now, interleague play (get rid of it).

Stephen Amy:

not to mention owners in that time completely financing their own ballparks.

Bob T:

I'd still like to get a realistic study regarding what stadiums/parks would be like nowadays had government not gotten involved in the first place. Some people are so wedded to stadium images of modern decades that they think the large ones are how they have to be, at minimum. Wrong. This part of the game was not permitted to find its market level. Owners love it (and after decades of this who can blame them for asking?), but politicians won't give it up, either, because they want credit.

Bob Tiernan Portland

I agree with Kurt Chapman's point: "Why should public (Urban Renewal) money be put up for any of the above?"

Merritt Paulson's dad served as Secretary of the Treasury for George W., and he's a billionaire. Merritt's family could pay for the stadium construction all on their own, and why shouldn't they? Their stadium construction competes with the city's other infrastructure needs. How is that major league soccer and AAA baseball are of such overriding public value?

For more information on this type of debate, check out Dave Zirin's on line column of today, at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090713/zirin. Or better still, check out his book "Beyond the Terrordome."