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).
As I mentioned in an aside a couple of days ago, I got the opportunity to chat with MLS to PDX spokesman Jeremy Wright last Thursday, in the shadow of PGE Park--where the newly granted Timbers Major League Soccer franchise will begin play in 2011.
Jeremy was an entertaining interview, and gave ample, spot-on responses to my questions. For a little look behind the scenes at the effort to get Major League Soccer to Soccer City USA. The interview lasts about 28 minutes, complete with bypassing skateboarders, Trimet buses, and panhandlers.
The audio file is attached here; you can listen to the entire interview in full that way. Careful; it's a .wma file that's around 14MB large. If you prefer a more readable text version, with quotations smoothed out a little to lose the "ums," "uhhhs" and false starts of sentences, simply keep reading!
-------------- How did you get involved as the tip of the spear for the grassroots effort to bring MLS to PDX, and what specifically have you done in that time to bring MLS here?
In short, I had the time. My background is actually with the Portland Timbers Army. I've been a fan since 2001 when the Timbers came back to town and were playing here at PGE Park. We've slowly built that group over the years, and as anyone who's been to a Timbers game you now know, the Timbers Army has been kind of an icon to both the team and the City.
About two years ago when Merritt Paulson bought the team, there began to be some noise about the possibility of bringing a Major League Soccer team--it was always his vision. About eight months ago, nine months ago he officially launched the idea of making a formal bid in October--this was last summer. And a group of us decided that there needed to be a grassroots arm to this. There needed to be something that really spoke to the fans' voices, that we want Major League Soccer as well. When you looked around at the other bids out there, there wasn't the groundswell of support that we knew that we could generate here.
A guy named Mason Adair and I, and a few other folks got together and launched the MLStoPDX.com website. Our goal all along was to really make this about bringing in the fans, and the Timbers Army--but not just the Army, but youth soccer, local businesses...we were able to bring in as many folks as possible and that's where it got started and that's where I got involved.
My role--I'm an old political hack and was working previously for the state of Washington, was unfortunately laid off last summer, and opened up my own consulting shop. A really bad time to decide to go into business for yourself. So I was chronically underemployed this last fall and winter, and decided I had the time to do this, and something comes along once every...if ever. This is a once in a decade kind of opportunity--you have the owner, with the right bid, with the City Council interested--so I decided to make it a full time job for a couple of months.
I finally managed to catch up with Portland Commissioner Randy Leonard, the tip of the spear when it comes to the MLS deal that has apparently precipiated the awarding of an expansion franchise to Portland beginning in 2011. However, we pretended that the news of yesterday wasn't official, formal or obvious--and in any case, we talked mostly about other issues surrounding the process, including his ongoing debate with Ted Wheeler about City and County finance, why he thinks the Blazers did an about face, and what should go into the proposed entertainment district for the Rose Quarter.
The whole audio file of our 39-minute interview is available here, so that you can hear precisely the questions asked, and Leonard's full responses. Be warned that it's a 20MB .mp3 file, and as such may put a strain on your PC if you are using older equipment. But it's worth the full listen.
However, so that you don't HAVE to listen to it, I've transcribed readable versions of some of the questions and answers that yielded the most interesting parts of the conversation. I would call the transcript "close to verbatim;" while I've edited some things out for readability and length, the edits do not change the meaning of the responses, and once he gets into the meat of his answer his words are almost 100% as he said them. And of course if you're skeptical about that, listen to the audio for yourself.
So with that, let's hear what Randy had to say on the eve of what shapes up to be an historic announcement in Portland tomorrow!
-----
What do you think Chair Wheeler is expecting from the "new covenant" suggested to bring the County and Portland Public Schools more closely to the table in the Urban Renewal District (URD) discussions for the PGE Park area?
He was referencing a broader conversation he and I have had with reference to Measure A, a resolution adopted by the county in 1984, that was a document that reflected the division of responsibilities between the City of Portland and County of Multnomah. Basically what Resolution A said was the county will do jails, the county will do human services, and the city will do police, fire, parks, infrastructure services because up until 1984, there really was no core delineation who did what, who was responsible for what.
Since 1990 and the passage of Ballot Measure 5 the County has had diminishing resources, then they've had administrations in the White House who've cut various funding for human resource programs, aging programs--that money has diminished at the state, and the state has diminished it to the counties. The County has found itself in the position of having all these responsibilities stay and even increase as we've had a growing aging population and in some case a growing poverty population where the resources have diminished.
What Ted was talking about yes, I think let's talk about URAs and the impact on us, but also this broader discussion--should Multnomah County really be saddled with repairing all the bridges anymore? Shouldn't they be the City's responsibility? Should we be funding Hooper Detox anymore, when really primarily the people that are being served by that are Portland people? I know that's what he was saying, because he and I have had that discussion before.
"An important announcement about the future of professional soccer in the city of Portland” is scheduled for Friday morning.
The news is included in invitations that went out to members of the Portland business community Wednesday morning. It said the announcement would be made at the downtown Portland Hilton Hotel.
The invitations were made in the names of Merritt Paulson and Major League Soccer, Paulson is the Portland businessman seeking an MLS expansion team franchise. Neither party would publicly confirm the event to reporters who called seeking comment.
But Commission Randy Leonard's office confirms the press conference is scheduled with Paulson and MLS officials Friday morning. Leonard has been the most outspoken member of the City Council in support of bringing professional soccer to Portland. A number of City Hall sources say MLS Commissioner Don Garber will be at the event. [emph me]
So breaking (and apparently rushed), you need more than one hand to count the typos!
In an article posted at KGW.com about 1030AM and now updated with a rather mischevously revealing quote from Commissioner Randy Leonard, it would appear pretty damned likely that on the heels of the award of a franchise to Vancouver, BC today, Portland will indeed secure the second expansion team for 2011 play.
A news conference was reportedly scheduled by MLS and the Portland Timbers for Friday morning to make an announcement, according to several soccer message boards, including SoccerCityUSA.com and another website devoted to bringing a pro franchise to town.
According to reports, the press conference was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday at the Portland Hilton between Timbers and MLS representatives.
Supporters hoped that if professional representatives were coming all the way to Portland, it must be to bring good news. "It looks like this is going to be the celebration we have all been waiting for," Portland resident Jeremy Wright wrote on one message board.
City Commissioner Randy Leonard, a supporter of the proposal, would not confirm nor deny the reports. He did speculate that league officials would "probably not travel to Portland to announce a franchise in Philadelphia."
You can almost hear the grin in Leonard's voice from that quotation. The article notes a bit wryly that Philly doesn't even have a bid on the table, which points either to Randy's need for city alliteration--or he's trying to tell you something in his non-confirm, non-denial.
I'm crossing lines with Commissioner Randy Leonard the last couple of days, getting his messages to late to respond to them, missing him by phone. I promise you I'll nail him down some time this week to answer questions on the MLS deal, particularly looking forward as the PGE Park Urban Renewal Area question looms, or in its place the search for alternate financing and how this affects Merritt Paulson's bid before MLS, or even Paulson's own desire to push forward with the gap unaddressed.
All of which is I suppose an ironic prelude to the point of this piece, which was to highlight how well Leonard is culling the reportage and opinion on the Council's approval of the agreement in principle last week, at his new website, http://www.commissionerleonard.typepad.com/..
Hey, that's off the venerated PortlandOnline gulag...er, centralized portal! Commissioner Randy doesn't mean to be impolite about his "employer supplied" website, but no sooner is "Welcome!" out of his virtual lips than you're urged not to hang out too long--look, Randy's got a new website, off the grid as it were! And while it's no marvel of flash animation and Randy-themed games or downloadable Randy Ringtone quotes (use that, Commissioner, and this is my record of the claim for 50%), it's pretty informative and transparent, even of reportage that's not necessarily flattering.
The most important document at the moment is undoubtedly the description of the terms of the agreement reached with Paulson, which you can read in detail here. For more of the info on the way the numbers were compiled, in that piece there's the link to the Task Force analysis as well.
But be sure to read through the links he provides; he captures a lot of the discussion from the big three papers plus the Business Journal, some of the TV coverage, etc. But you can get the gamut just from one source...The O. There's the laudatory (back page lead editorial), the critical (news analysis), the neutral but visceral (City Hall blog), and the sidebars, like Canzano's WTF about the sudden Blazers flip on the idea of a baseball park in the Quarter.
One thing that's original is a set of responses to some additional questioning from commenters at the site, written by Chief of Staff Ty Kovatch. And when I can stop Leonard's motor for 20-30 minutes and get him to answer even more questions (take a mile!), I'll report back. The FAQ-plus for the MLS deal is below the fold.
RSS Feed: http://www.loadedorygun.net/rss/rss2.xml
