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This project and expense has only resulted from Paulson’s wish to bring MLS to Portland. Why not let Paulson and MLS pay for his baseball stadium rather than take needed funds from the city and residents for basic city services and necessities?
Hey, people you need to realize how much smarter Randy is than all of us – just ask him.
Randy made promises to lil’ RIchie RIch and now he has to keep them. To those of you expecting better from a wanna-be leader, get used to crappy schools, 16% higher water bills in July, more potholes and less police.
At least we’ll have baseball in Lents and Paulson will pay for all of this – BWA HA HA!!!
So that’s what Randy was doing at the Ringside. Would have saved tax payers on all those expensed meals by just inviting Paulson to dinner at his house. We hear R.L. makes a mean Caesar salad.
Consider this a borrowed reply to Randy and Sam, which addresses Cordish, stadiums, neon roses, etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkfI_sRMAdA&feature=channel_page
@tangible
Good cause this isn’t coming out of funds for basic services. It’s URDs. Money that can’t be spent on basic services…but good try. Thanks and come again.
Right you are, blackedout. URD money is sacred, holy money which can only be spent on what it was initially allocated for, regardless of the conditions elsewhere in civic funding.
b.o., if you can’t see the connection between increasing indebtedness and decreasing services, you are hopelessly naive.
When the economy tanks, you know what the city can do? Close police precincts and lay off firefighters. You know what it can’t do? Stop paying bondholders.
As Lando said….”this deal keeps getting worse all the time”
PLEASE help me comprehend how this MLS-Stadium deal in any way pencils out for anyone but Merritt Paulson. So far, it is my understanding that:
¨ Taxpayers struggling to meet everyday obligations will be expected to bear the burden (potential or real) of millions of dollars in additional debt to re-develop a stadium for an MLS team when MLS has a documented history of adding little if any appreciable economic benefit to any community and
¨ The proposed average ticket price of $31 (not including parking or transportation, food, beverage, and souvenirs) is hardly “family friendly” and
¨ The sustainable jobs created will be well below “family wage” and likely require continued supplements from additional taxpayer dollars and
¨ The additional “requirement” that the re-developed park be for soccer-only mandates building of a new stadium for a minor league
baseball team that has been fun to watch but marginally profitable at best and
¨ Taxpayers (still) struggling to meet everyday obligations will be expected to bear the burden of even more millions of dollars in
additional debt to develop a stadium for said minor league baseball team and
¨ The development of said stadium would require one or more major change(s) to existing URA(s) resulting in other current and/or pending projects being put on hold if not eliminated altogether for the sake
> of a further taxpayer subsidized, privately owned property that provide little if any economic benefit, no affordable housing, and
even more below family-wage jobs and
¨ The subsequent average ticket prices (also not including parking or transportation, food, beverage, and souvenirs) to enter the new
stadium to see a minor league team would likely be even more prohibitive that the “major league” soccer team and
¨ The siting of said stadium will require thousands if not millions in additional study (taxpayer?) dollars and
¨ The location of said stadium will require additional millions in modification and/or (re)development of infrastructure including
parking, transportation, utilities, and relocation and
¨ There has been no meaningful public engagement around this issue much less the thoughtful presentation and careful consideration of a comprehensive and sustainable plan to finance, develop, market, and maintain these two new behemoths.
As a business person, community organizer, and engaged citizen; I just don’t see it. I plead with anyone to provide me with some semblance of rationale that might convince me that this deal is anything but a bad one for Portland.
It’s not about Portland, you silly.
Forget baseball altogether, if they can’t share space with MLS at PGE. Make Merritt Paulson pay to bring MLS and, only if possible, baseball, BOTH to PGE park; then make the whole deal contingent on Paulson ALSO going in with other LOCAL developers into making the MC into something fabulous for the community- a racquetball/rollerink/aquatic center/warm soaking pool/steamroom and sauna haven, housed alongside a great restaurant, bar and dance club, and an indoor arboretum/butterfly garden with a tarantula petting zoo. Problems solved.
It’s cold here. It’s May 13 and it’s like, 45 degrees. I would happily go right now to go to the MC for my modern-day Turkish bath experience, and not have to go to the other ends of the earth to feel warm in late spring(sunset racquet club out in the wilds towards Hillsboro).
So many more people in Portland would go to a venue like that, year-round, day-in and day-out than would EVER make it to baseball. Every tourist with children would stop in to the tarantula petting zoo, the way they do in Victoria, and then have lunch. Every grandparent in the surrounding counties within driving distance would take their grandchild to the roller-rink and the butterfly garden several times a year.
Retirees would flood the place every day the way they do at the YMCA downtown, to spend time in the warm pools to soothe their aching bones.
Why are people are seriously talking about eating hot-dogs and watching some guys throw balls?
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There is a very clear choice being presented with regard to development of a minor league stadium in Lents:
Invest in the stadium or invest in affordable housing and other economic development priorities.
Nothing is foolproof but the record on stadiums with regard to economic development is pretty clear: they have no impact.
Given this, I would rather see limited URA funds invested in projects that have more potential for long term enhancement of the local economy – significant mall business investment and related redevelopment projects, transportation improvements, affordable housing, etc. – than a stadium.