The push to build a minor-league baseball stadium in Lents got personal last week as team-owner Merritt Paulson’s lobbyist, Greg Peden, tried to meet and speak individually with the 15 members of the Lents Town Center Urban Renewal Advisory Committee.
The committee is the all-volunteer group that Commissioner Dan Saltzman, the swing vote on the impending deal, is looking to for guidance on whether to use $42.3 million in urban renewal dollars from Lents on the proposed stadium.
Rachel Lent Cunningham — a member of the advisory council who is a descendant of Oliver P. Lent, the neighborhood’s founder — says Peden (pictured above) called her last week to talk about Paulson’s hoped-for project. Cunningham and Peden never connected, but Cunningham isn’t likely to be swayed anyway. She said urban renewal dollars in Lents should serve the vision of the community, and she said a baseball stadium is not part of the neighborhood’s vision.
John Mulvey, another committee member, met Peden for coffee last week, at Peden’s invitation. Mulvey, like others, said he appreciated the opportunity to hear directly from Paulson’s team but has already decided he’s leaning against the public-private project.
Several other members of the urban renewal group have expressed support for the stadium. But it’s not clear now if a majority of the group will vote “yes” on the project.
Back on May 20, when Peden and Commissioner Randy Leonard met with Lents residents to update them on the project’s details, it appeared an emergency meeting of the Lents urban renewal group to decide that question was imminent. Since then, there’s been considerable delay; no emergency meeting has been scheduled. To Mulvey, that appears to be City Hall’s fault. “My concern now is that they’re holding the URAC on ice until they think they have the votes,” Mulvey says.
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Tags: Lents, Merritt Paulson, portland beavers
Beth, is there any way in which the URAC can force a vote without the mayor’s blessing? Is the chair Cora Potter the one who is holding up the vote?
Each member is being lobbied???
Isn’t that a bit over the top?
Isn’t a meeting of URAC people public record, and if so, what was said, that needs an answer right now.
I think the open meetings act only applies when there is a quorum of a public board present. So, individual members of the board can probably meet privately with the Timbers’ lobbyists without violating the act.
Portland, and Lents — please vote this thing down. In times when schools are underfunded and the economy is in shambles why are we talking about spending so much money on something that will serve very few? Stadiums have a documented history of being extremely poor financial decisions for Portland that NEVER serve the public interest.
Tell Sam, Randy and Dan to concentrate on attracting business to Portland and actually grow our economy…those should be the headlines…NOT sleazy stadium deals that won’t pay themselves back.
I agree. Keep your wits about you Lents.
Don’t let this shmoozer in the extra starch, earning his bonus $$$ to make you feel like he sincerely thinks you’re special, and relating to you like he’s known you all your life, over that cup of Joe, all the while proceeding to make attempts on spinning you into stupid.
Over the top? What world are you living in, Jack?
Evidently not Paulson and Penden’s world.
BTW, whose PR firm is Penden’s employer and anybody know what kind of bucks a guy like Penden brings in for setting up personal coffee time with the LTCURAC? Those special one on ones would definitely be fun to eavesdrop in on.
I pay property taxes in Lents. That’s where the LTCURA comes from. The Lents Town Center Urban Renewal Advisory Committee gets their money.
I spent last night meeting with Friends Of Lents Park and then walking around my neighborhood asking folks to sign a petition against this waste of public funding.
I think a fix is in the Lents NA won’t allow a LNA vote about this issue. They refer to a survey done by a company owned by one of the LNA board members and the survey was paid for by a Merritt Paulson company.
The survey didn’t mention the $42.3 million of URA funding being used to subsidize this multi millionaire. The survey didn’t ask Lents residents if they wanted their URA funding used for a baseball park.
Many LNA residents are very upset about this misuse of URA funding.
But it seems our voices are being ignored by policy makers.
Draper says:
June 10, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Over the top? What world are you living in, Jack?
YES….over the top! That kind of BS, calling each member via phone, or in person, is over the top, it completly disrepects what should be an “open” PUBLIC PROCESS…now crawl back in the hole/hell of Portland politics.
Actually everybody in the city contributes to the Lents URA funding. That said, I live in Mt. Scott-Arleta and I care a lot.
This proposal that is wrong on many fronts (loss of URA improvements, loss of park space, detriments to immediate neighbors.)
The people who oppose this proposal are not nuts or NIMBYs. The reasons to say no are myriad and valid.
This terrible idea gone worse needs to end now.
Dan,
Maybe your voices aren’t in the majority, as well. Just because you rant, doesn’t mean you have the numbers.
It is against PDC policy for URAC members of any URA to meet privately with lobbyist.
Also, any URAC can call for a vote on an issue. The chairperson(s) can be requested to have a meeting. If the chairperson opposes having a meeting, a majority of the members can initiate the meeting.
The city attorney should be immediately looking into what is happening in the Lents URAC and not take 4 months to respond.
Draper says:
June 10, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Dan,
Maybe your voices aren’t in the majority, as well. Just because you rant, doesn’t mean you have the numbers.
Hey Draper,Why don’t you take your “rant” back to city hall where you came from.
The numbers if this goes down will come from a stacked deck, and I bet you no idea how that is done,I do,I have watched it for years.
Keep fighting Lent neighborhood, don’t lose this one.
Say, your name isn’t Leonard..IS IT?
Here we go playing dominoes again…
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 single 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 single 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 you 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 a sad moment when baseball, a sport that is supposed to bring a community together, becomes a catalyst for a very confused, reckless city plan that appears to benefit only one spoke on the
wheel —Merritt Paulson while tearing up the community of Lents.
In all this, no attempt to host a design charrette of all possible stadium relocations has ever been presented that I know of. Early on, during the Coliseum debacle, a site by OMSI was brought up, which was interesting, sites adjacent to the Memorial Coliseum seemed reasonable too, what about the large open space on NW Yeon next to the Pearl? If it could be located there it would feel like a Wrigley Field complex. Why not out in Delta Park, where you pull from PDX and Vancouver? Having an open review and dialog of all potential areas including not moving from PGE Park, by informing and engaging the tax paying citizens of portland so that we all know what has been considered seems like a no brainer.
However, City Hall has no intelligence when it comes to engaging the citizens of this city. It’s easier to hold closed door meetings and piss everyone off in a public forum. Then, when it’s real bad go to plan B with the Gallatin lobbyist to convince you that the stinking plan is really good for you and that’s why the city has to ignore the voices of Lents.
Keep Lents Stadium Free.
RECALL ADAMS
RECALL LEONARD
This soccer/stadium mess is the last straw:
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/06/house_endorses_money_for_socce.html#preview
The soccer thing and this:
http://wweek.com/editorial/3531/12679/
I remember when WW and several other publications quoted Adams’ aide Amy Ruiz … who worked on the expose’ about Adams and Beau Breedlove … as saying she had no idea why Adams hired her for a job for which, “I have no experience.”
I have been Mayor Adams most reliable supporter.
I’m fed up.
Are YOU Fed Up?
I’m now going to do what another staunch Adams supporter … de facto voice of the Gay Community Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini … will do.
I will vote to RECALL ADAMS.
Lauderdale will now sign the recall … NOT because of sex … but because of the Columbia River Crossing mess.
I WILL sign the “Recall Adams” petition … NOT because of sex … but because of the soccer and stadiums mess.
Leonard is next.
Whoa….I just got an amazing set of goosebumps! Go PETE COLT, and if I find out for sure, what you have posted about TL of Pink Martini is true, I will re purchase each of their 3 CDs X 3, and send to friends who may not have them in their collection yet!
May you have a St. Cupcake kind of day.
AHH…give the guy a break,(he’s just “numb”) Randy thinks we all love him, but little does he know, he’s losing friends faster then he knows.
See that’s the problem…HE DOESN’T CARE!
Let Paulson take his own damn money and build where he wants. This is just BS!