As we know, no one is working harder or more frenetically to gin up opposition to the deal bringing MLS to Portland than Jack Bogdanski at his Crucible of Curmudgeonry, bojack.org. Grasping at any potential straw to indicate an agreement falling apart or suffering from lost support, bojack presents this article from Willy Week as his proof that "the wheels are coming off," asserting that "3rd vote" commissioner Dan Saltzman "smells a rat" and is now reconsidering his support.
To be fair, although WWeek's headline is somewhat more accurate and they may well have been misled a bit by what they print as Saltzman's comments, in the paper's recurring role as Bojack Lite on this issue they make rather the same mistake:
Saltzman, of course, was the swing vote on the council March 11, when this deal won initial approval. His proposed (and until now, unreported) amendment sheds new light on Adams’ announcement Monday that he would postpone three key votes on the soccer-baseball deal and reconsider the best use of Memorial Coliseum. At the time it appeared Adams was bowing to public opinion that called for saving Memorial Coliseum. Now it appears the mayor may have thought he was on the verge of losing his third vote.
Last night, Saltzman says he came to the conclusion that the proposed Rose Quarter redevelopment scheme calling for a new baseball stadium and an entertainment district south of Broadway is still moving too fast, despite a second one-week delay on finalizing the deal.
Citing lack of process, his own nostalgia for Memorial Coliseum (and a long-ago Jethro Tull concert) and increasingly troublesome questions about the deal’s financing, Saltzman says he told the mayor he wants to decouple the Major League Soccer deal from the Rose Quarter redevelopment.
Wouldn’t that imply Saltzman opposes the pre-development agreement, since it ties construction of a new baseball stadium to the city’s deal with Paulson to bring MLS to Portland?
“Yeah,” Saltzman told WW. “I didn’t say it [to Adams] in those black-and-white terms. I’m still going to listen to what he has to say about what he may come back with, but that’s the way I’m feeling now.”
Note carefully what Saltzman is saying (his quote notwithstanding)--not that he doesn't support bringing MLS to Portland under the terms Paulson specified, but that the baseball park doesn't HAVE to go in the Rose Quarter, and that the rest of the entertainment district and how the Coliseum fits into that should be a separate discussion from renovating PGE Park and bringing the Timbers here...because of course MLS doesn't care whether the Beavers have a place to play or not, as long as it's not PGE Park.
I wouldn't share Saltzman's perspective on this necessarily, but it's a rational point to make. It apparently was so rational that Mayor Adams and Merritt Paulson seemingly agree, as today's Oregonian reports.
They have indefinitely delayed the baseball siting question, essentially decoupling it from the rest of the deal, which is what Saltzman wanted. And much more directly, we have confirmation that he is still behind that part:
Commissioner Dan Saltzman said he wouldn't vote to raze the coliseum without a more lengthy public process, one that lasts two or three months and takes a hard look at alternatives.
"If I'm going to make a decision to demolish the coliseum, I'd like to do that knowing there's been some process to look at the options," he said. "All these competing uses in the Rose Quarter and the implicit commitment of public money makes me think we ought to slow it down."
Saltzman said he's not opposed to ultimately tearing down the coliseum, a building he's nostalgic about, but he wants to make sure it's the right move. He also said he's still in favor of bringing Major League Soccer to Portland and is still behind the city's agreement with Paulson. [emph mine]
So what's the upshot here? Are the wheels really falling off, or is Council doing almost exactly what critics have been asking it to do about the Coliseum issue--slow down? Saltzman still supports the deal, but doesn't want to rush the baseball aspect of it into a much larger plan being developed in the Rose Quarter. Couldn't we agree these are good things? (Nahhh, probably not).
For almost all of the 2007 college football season, the exploits of legitimate Heisman candidate Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and the rest of the spread-offense, speed defense Ducks have dominated Oregon football news. For the last few years the Beavers have lagged behind the Ducks in both wins and sartorial splendor, maintaining a solid pace of mediocrity punctuated by a bowl or two. For this year the roles seemed no different; the Ducks started out with a bang that included a huge and dominating road win over Michigan, while the Beavers stumbled. The Ducks were waddling high until Dixon finally faltered some two weeks ago and they failed to defend Autzen, losing to the Cal Bears by mere inches on a touchdown-cum-touchback.
Moving up to #2 in the rankings as previous Oregon thrashee Stanford took out USC, Cal looked to utterly squash a weakened Beavers team in Berkeley. Didn't quite turn out that way. In a wild finish that culminated in time running out on a Cal FG attempt, the Beavers blew a 10 point lead but held on as Cal tried furiously to snare the #1 ranking (LSU having flamed out in overtime vs Kentucky a week after a bruising win against Florida). As time expired, few could have imagined the mess at the top that exists now, with Ohio State and...South Florida?...suddenly 1-2 in the first BCS ranking. Oregon? Number 10, the SECOND highest-ranked Pac-10 team behind Arizona State at #8, whose biggest win at 7-0 is just Colorado and faces a severely pissed Cal team in two weeks. (Oregon is ranked by AP at #7; the Sun Devils at #12).
The Ducks have plenty more to show, and ironically Cal's loss has made BCS points harder to come by even as it improves the Ducks' chances for a Pac-10 title, since Oregon's loss is now against a lesser ranked team. But even with injuries to key players in the crushing win over Washington State yesterday, victories over Arizona State and USC coupled with (say) a Cal loss to USC, and the Ducks are Rose Bowl bound...or better. They head to take on the Huskies before two huge home games against USC and the Sun Devils.
In any case, major congratulations to coach Riley in Corvallis; after looking like yesterday's breakfast to start the season they are at 4-3, even up in the Pac-10 and just a couple of wins from a bowl game.
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