You missed the best part in the bOregonian's story.

The price has now gone from $85M to $250M for a sports entertainment venue.

I think we have moved one scintilla closer to the actual truth - We're not ther yet though.

"It was a lovely night, except for the people who were too dumb to understand the genius of it all."

Boy that may be your best line ever.

And it resembles the Creepy angle of the Mayor Creepy's restroom visit.

It was a lovely rendezvous, except for the people who were too dumb to understand the innocence of it all.

The KPTV news report last night was in line with what The Trib is reporting. In fact I got the impression from the KPTV report that only opponents of the plan attended the meeting.

So that you don't underestimate the shrewdness and gamesmanship of Papa Paulson & Friends, check out the editorial in today's NY Times:

"Big Profits, Big Questions"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/opinion/15cohan.html

Relax. The MC isn't being torn down, it's just going into "retirement."

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/04/bring_the_beavers_to_the_rose.html

It seems that Joshua Cohen has discovered the best way to put the brakes on this project--using the City of Portland's planning code...nice.

We the tax payers get stuck with the mess, the bill, ruined credit,and Paulsons make out because they get the deal to run the construction project!Sweet...
2011...
Hey butler Sam and chauffeur Randy...what do you think of your new BFFs now? Oh really?... they don't return your calls?; they have blocked your numbers?; they don't write?; aw gee...

Jimbo, I hate to break it to you, but this is PORTLAND, where the mayor and city council can ignore criticism, their own rules, and legal process (or simply change things mid-stream) so they can accomplish what they . . . oops, their patron saint developer friends . . . want to do.

Perhaps a real challenge at election time or a serious re-call effort will educate these folks that we do not always trust their hallowed guidance. Randy Leonard, I'm talking to you, too.

I searched for the pink martini reversal you cited. I am so happy to see he has seen the light, now I can go back to listening to his music!
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/04/14/lauderdale-on-adams-he-doesnt-listen

The Oregonian is not going to oppose the deal because the most read part of a newspaper is the sports page.

If Sam Adams has lost the guy from Pink Martini, he has lost Portland, Oregon.

I feel proud to be a musician today.

Interesting, because in Reno, Nevada the PCL AAA Reno Aces will have their opening night on Friday, April 17th in their brand new 10,000 seat stadium that was built with funds from the ownership group - not the City of Reno. In fact, except for road, sidewalk and street crossing improvements; the City's costs were minimal. If another AAA team in the same League can underwrite their own stadium, why can't these Paulson fat cats?
I was also appalled to see that our local joke for a daily newspaper gave Paulson Jr. lots of print space this morning. News Flash Mr. Stickel! Your sorry excuse for a newspaper becomes more irrelevent by the day.

If I had more respect for the Fireman and Creepy Show, I'd almost think that all of this steering towards the Coliseum was to force the hand of Paul Allen.

He's been talking about doing stuff Real Soon Now™ in the Rose Quarter for years, but never doing any of it.

However, I just don't think they are smart enough to come up with that on their own.

"The price has now gone from $85M to $250M for a sports entertainment venue."

Yet the Timbers Astroturfer.... err... Army was on here chiding me for saying this would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

$200,000,000 = hundreds of millions of dollars.

I, like many Portlanders, have fond memories of the Memorial Coliseum and appreciate it every time I see it. But damn, are we supposed to maintain this dinosaur indefinitely, on the public dime?? Some folks are trying to save it by getting it registered as a historic place.

Really? I get modern design and architecture. But is it that great? It's 49 years old for crissakes. And it ain't getting any more useful, profitable, or carefree.

why the big rush? Mr Creepy only has 76 days left to waste the taxpeayers money...

Look, the only thing wrong with Memorial Coliseum is that it was built in a better time in America, a time when the rich didn't cloister themselves in luxury boxes when they went to an event -- the elites sat with the hoi polloi, which is unthinkable to them today. If they could figure out a way to put luxury boxes in there, Memorial would be safe from the chopping block.

And that's why the SamRand Taliban have to destroy it--their imam, Little Lord Paulson, has spoken and he declared a fatwa against Memorial, so it has to go. The owners in every league have gotten the economics so badly f***ed up that they cannot exist without huge public gifts, and their greed makes them compete with each other to see which one can bilk the public the hardest. And the main cash cow they always hold onto is the luxury boxes.

"But is it that great? It's 49 years old for crissakes."

That's positively young compared to the local schools.

I can't believe you people have such little faith in young Mr. Paulson.
He tells us this morning, in The Oregonian, that "a new ballpark will increase the Beavers' annual attendance from roughly 400,000 to 600,000 a year."
See his brilliance? He can see into the future. He knows that attendance will average over 8,300 per game in his new ballpark, which, in the same paragraph, he says will be "an intimate 8,000-seat stadium."
More fans than seats? No problem. Sellouts every night? Even on cold, damp April evenings when the Blazers are in the playoffs? No problem.
Maybe he'll even put it in the guarantee he gave Randy Leonard.

choice comments from Lauderdale in the Portland Mercury:

"dog and pony show"
"This public process is a sham"
"appalled"
"this process is fraudulent"
"he's really alienating me"
"people are unfortunately scared to oppose the mayor"
"it's an unbelievable turn of events"
"feels like he's lost his stated principles from before the election"
"feels like he's desperate"
"after experiencing him for the last couple of months, he doesn't listen"

welcome to reality, Thomas. we've been waiting for you.

Breaking news - Mayor McLiar is going to throw $12M more at the CC Hotel.

You just knew it was in the napkin drawings of the Rose Quarter.

The price has now gone from a $250M project to $500M.

Still not close to the truth yet.

Re Joshua Cohen's (and Jimbo's) hope in the permitting process to counter this shameless rush to fatten a few wallets, Matt Davis -- who is fast becoming Portland's hardest-working, clearest-eyed political reporter -- has already previewed what's in store for us:
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/power-grab/Content?oid=1307411

Adams and Leonard want control over the entire process:

"'A few well-intentioned folks believe that the way you maintain balance in this process is to maintain dysfunction,' Adams [said]. 'Well, I respectfully but forcefully disagree. For the first time we will hold one official responsible for the city's achievement of its policy goals.'"

Adams does not specify whom he means by "we."

Is the mental hospital in Salem still open? Can we send these obviously deranged individuals there now for their own protection? NOW?!

Expatriated I am from SoCal, this is the SAME TEMPLATE that the Chargers and the Padres used to get new or improved venues.
Giveaways and subsidies at taxpayer expense all for the call of "redevelopment". Hurry, hurry or we'll lose the opportunity, LOL. And, of course the Blazers want in on this. It's something you do when a team has a good season. Never attempt this when the team is a loser. Everyone loses in this except a few fat cats.

Just got back from San Diego where PetCo Field (Padres) sits next to the convention center on the bay-sound familiar?

Let's just say the only good thing about the site was the weather and the view.
Can we say that about this plan?
ajr

It is obvious that several posters haven't attended past Sammy Shows called Town Halls. The same "dog and pony show" phrase was used in the media as well as this blog about Sammy's Tram Show at PSU three years back. It was fixed, his mind was made up, and he asked for public input that was totally ignored.

It is too bad Lauderdale didn't notice some of Sammy's proclivities before; it was certainly known by some of the media, and many of us commoners.

Any time a person in a power position works a room with a microphone soliciting comments, sticking the microphone directly into someones face who wants to give an opposite, forceful opinion than than the microphone holder, that is not really a fair, equitable, town hall approach. I applaud the people who still attempted to speak their hearts.

Speaking of Cordish, get ready for the KC experience:

"After all, Cordish is getting an extraordinary amount of public assistance. The city issued bonds to pay for the land, prepare the site and help fill the buildings with tenants such as Ted’s Montana Grill. The debt will require an astounding $506 million in public money. If bison burger sales fall short of projections, taxpayers are on the hook."

http://www.pitch.com/2008-02-14/news/drunk-on-power/

In reviewing the mediocre sketches that Randy and Sam are calling "Plans", there seems to be another major stumbling block in the city's planning code: "Super Block Regulations".

It appears that more streets, public walks are being realigned, eliminated that will require extensive public review and meet pages of zoning code requirements as well as approval. The process is lengthy.

A few decades ago CoP adopted regulations when new "Super Blocks" are formed or altered. Super Blocks are when streets and/or public right-of-ways are closed off/altered that many conditions are imposed to insure public access, views, etc. to mitigate the public's loss of the public owned streets.

Portland's first Super Blocks were in the first South Auditorium Urban Renewal District(east of PSU) started in the 60's. We created wide/long blocks comprising four and more of our typical 200ft x 200ft blocks. This left many urban dead zones in these Super Blocks as well as disrupting traffic patterns. That is why the Planning Bureau eventually adopted the Super Block regulations.

Maybe that is why the present Rose Garden complex is "dead" as called by Sam and many others-it already has closed off streets. The new sketch with the ballpark and entertainment center just adds to this Super Block area devoid of cars, street life.

The Las Vegas Convention Center is also privately funded and operated.

There is not a shred of justification for Goverment to be operating our convention center at tremendous loss to taxpayers year in and year out.

Goverment simply should not be doing anything like this.
And certainly not the soccer/baseball deal coming either.

Government should be limited to "doing well" only that which the public must have and cannot do for themselves.

As every goverment expansion into the absurd tasks occurs the ability to do well that which it should be doing lessons.

Mayor Creepy et al do nothign well now.

As they expand their attention and incompetence core functions all will become less functional and funded.

This morning's Oregonian articles, including Master Paulson's editorial (accompanied with elegantly furrowed brow portrait) were full of contradictions and unintentional hilarity.

As someone already pointed out, Paulson does not speak of "demolishing" the Coliseum, but of "retiring" it. That kind of retirement I wouldn't wish on anybody. He conveniently neglects to mention that we would be "retiring" a multi-use venue in favor of a single seasonal, minor-league sport stadium. Gushing on about the storied history of the Beavers is not an argument for a new stadium. The Beavers have a stadium that, while maybe a bit large for a minor league team with minor league attendance, still serves not only the needs of the Beavers but of other teams. A remodeled PGE Park would accomodate far fewer uses.

Something was also mentioned re. a one year notification to businesses before demolition. Of course this has not happened, nor does there appear to be time to do it before the Paulsons' and MLS's hurry-hurry deadlines loom.

Mayor Sam makes it sound as though this entire project has been in process for up to two years with high public involvement. That's a complete misrepresentation.

He goes further to say that some projects must be fasttracked and not follow traditional processes of public review. I'm reminded of another poor public servant who remarked that it would all be much easier if he were only Dictator. This approach is becoming a pattern. Visualize the result you want and if your co-workers and the public don't agree, put together a handpicked atta-boy committee or hold a meaningless charrette where people may speak but what they have to say matters not.

That many businesspeople shy away from open opposition speaks to the very real possibility of invisible and figurative heads on pikes, inspectors suddenly appearing at one's doors, audits, denials of service.

And a building not yet 50 years old is not at all an old building. It is not unrealistic to expect that such a building would need some upgrading and maintenance and it would certainly cost far less than razing the entire structure and building from scratch.

The Tribune wrote, in part: "Although the city and area property owners have discussed the need to redevelop the Rose Quarter for many years, plans are being finalized now because of the Major League Soccer team awarded to Portland businessman Merritt Paulson in January."

Why don't they call Paulson what he is: "Sports entrepreneur." He's not a businessman who dabbles in sports; owning sports teams is all he does. Even calling him a Portland businessman is disingenuous since he lives in Lake Oswego.

It seems to me that calling Paulson a "sports entrepreneur" is too kind. Let's call him what he really is, "a swindler" out to take the city of Portland for a helluva lot of money!
And you are correct about the business community nw portlander,....no one wants to publicly oppose this for fear of retribution.

I love this post and wouldn't Mayor creepy love another reason to have bike lanes on a new inerstate bridge. Great reminder MJMC. Maybe Vancouver can own the team if we can extend the Urban Renewal District across one of the 12 lanes.
Posted by mjmc on 04/15/09 at 9:31AM
build the stadium in delta park. there is plenty of parking, interstate and light-rail access there as well. and we wouldn't have to demolish a piece of our history.

Doesn't this whole thing hinge on Revenue Bonds rather than General Obligation bonds? In other words, if the things fails, the bond holders have nothing but the revenue of the project to fall back on, right?

If that's the case, who cares? Let them build something cool, although I prefer they do it on the PPS property on Dixon rather than blowing up a perfectly good building... If they can make the Rose Quarter a true entertainment district, then even the convention-center hotel might pencil...

I rarely concur with George Seldes, but he's right about the luxury boxes. I sat next to Phil Knight and his wife in the M/C in the early 90's watching the Blazers.

I don't think anybody bothered them, and they appeared to be fine rubbing elbows with the unwashed masses. Alas, once you've had skybox, you never go back.

My wife served on one of the Scone's citizen's advisory committees and was appalled at the bald faced transparency of the rubber stamp mandate.

The simple truth is Sam and Randy know what's best for us: that's putting mo=re money into Pauslon's and Allen's pockets.

Some people in Kansas City have taken to calling the entertainment district the Power & White District, instead of Power & Light, because Cordish has imposed a dress code which allegedly discriminates against black people.

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/17503

What will Cordish's dress code include here in Portland? No Birkenstocks? No Crocs? No bike shorts?

Yes, Portland Native, just as the Washington DC press corps learned to lob nothing but softballs at Bush Jr., or be consigned to the never-never land of invisibility.

The real joke is that Merritt Paulson is a johnny-come-lately . . . a minor league player in Portland. He only arrived two years ago and his chutzpah and sense of entitlement know no bounds.

IMO the city council is afraid to oppose him because of his father's connections to Goldman-Sachs and the larger international and global banking community.

NW Portlander, you may be correct about the influence of Hank Paulson, a partner in his spawn Merritt's enterprise. Everyone recalls that Paulson got his start under Nixon before moving on to Goldman Sachs, prior to being reassigned to the Bushleague Treasury? The Monday blog in this forum advised us that Goldman Sachs both sold NJ bonds and advised that their default was likely:

http://www.propublica.org/article/goldman-sachs-sells-new-jersey-bonds-then-warns-of-default

GS, it seems, routinely deals doubly -- and it has been deemed too large to fail. No city with bonds to sell can risk offending such power, especially a city whose rating would appear to be on the verge of slipping.

It was Paulson who gave the FDIC's Sheila Bair the go-ahead last September to transfer $307bill in WaMu's assets to JPM Chase's covetous Jamie Dimon for a laughable $1.9bill, although WaMu was solvent when seized by the discredited OTS on Sept 25th. Paulson, that is, oversaw the biggest bank robbery this country has ever known.

WaMu was stolen shortly before Paulson began distributing TARP billions to CITI, Bank of America, AIG, Wells Fargo, and even JPM Chase ($25bill). Perhaps the discovery processes pursued during the spate of lawsuits following that theft will tell us more about Paulson's operating practices. In the meantime, we can watch the hurry-up style in action. Extortion is the description that comes to mind: who can forget the 2 1/2-page gun-to-the-head bailout document Paulson flung at the country last fall? But since that term has a formal meaning, we should avoid employing it even in this forum.

The loss of WaMu has been especially costly to residents of Portland and the Northwest. We might have hoped that Paulson had finished damaging us, but apparently he has found Adams and Leonard such willing colluders that he cannot resist plucking still more millions from us under the ruse of providing something we did not know we needed. Do we still have time to determine that, yes, we really don't need it?

And is there countervailing power sufficient to overcome what has been gathered against our best interests? 3-2?

According to The New York Post, all the money that Little Lord Paulson is currently playing with comes from of a $50 million loan he got from his father.

Just call it "Green & Sustainable" development. Hire Gerding Edlen. How can you say no to that?

" . . . a $50 million loan he got from his father"

What Merritt told the NY Times in a piece last November is that it's a "legal loan."

Meaning ... it's structured as a loan, but is really something else???

Meaning . . . it's a "loan" (wink, wink)????

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/sports/soccer/07franchise.html?scp=3&sq=Merritt%20Paulson&st=cse

Gift, loan -- whatever. Merritt Paulson looks a lot to me like George W. Bush, without the trail of disasters behind him. Portland will be his first.

Does this mean that LLP will run for prez too in 25 years? Yikes!
The running mate selection could be pretty scary too.

Doesn't this whole thing hinge on Revenue Bonds rather than General Obligation bonds?

The city bonds will probably be payable out of property taxes from some designated area, rather than from the whole city. But it will that much less property tax that the city has to spend on other things. And if you look at a Portlander's property tax bill, you will see that a quarter of every dollar paid to the city goes to "urban renewal" -- which is what the stadium bonds will be -- even if you don't live anywhere near an "urban renewal" district.

Watching this thing unfold is just astonishing. It truly is like listening to Bush's pre-invasion hysterics. What a disaster. Probably a half-million or so fewer people will die, but it's that same sickening momentum created when moneyed, motivated blockheads get heroic.

I spent some time at a Cordish "entertainment district" in Louisville last summer. "Date rape and chain restaurant district" seemed like a more appropriate moniker. Thumbs down.

The New York Post article sez, in part, "Portland, like most cities these days, is strapped for money and financing a stadium for the son of a multimillionaire isn't exactly on the top of its to-do list.

Sorry NYP but, unbelievably, it IS on the top of the Portland City Council's to-do list.