Commissioner Randy Leonard says this afternoon he will now vote against his own ordinance resolution (PDF) to move forward on the Major League Soccer deal after Beavers/Timbers owner Merritt Paulson’s announcement today that he will pull out of the Lents stadium proposal for minor-league baseball.
Leonard says he was embarrassed by the reception Paulson got in Lents last night, but suggested that Paulson calm down and re-think his decision.
“He needs to go home, have a sauna, take a deep breath and recant,” Leonard said.
UPDATED with more from Leonard:
Leonard says Paulson made him a promise when Leonard committed to decoupling the revamp of PGE Park for Major League Soccer from the effort to find a new home for the Beavers. Paulson’s promise, Leonard says, was that he would let the Lents process go through.
And while Leonard says he understands Paulson was unfairly targeted last night at the Lents meeting with catcalls, boos and calls for him to “get out of Portland,” he said today that he considers Paulson to have broken his word to him.
- Mayor Sam Adams Moving Forward With Soccer Deal While Com
- Randy Leonard Says City Is Now Exploring The Possibility of A Third Site for Baseball Commissio
- Dan Saltzman Also Ready To Move Forward On Soccer Deal Commissio
- Round Two: Randy Leonard Vs. Lents Neighbors — Why Lents May Be Cheering Today We’
- Breaking: Paulson Withdraws Lents Stadium Proposal Merritt P
Tags: Merritt Paulson, Randy Leonard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzq5X-p2C0Y
This is just drama and gamesmanship. Randy will continue to vote for soccer and anything else Paulson wants.
Perhaps we should move the Beavers to Lake Oswego, where Paulson actually lives. We could drain part of the lake and built it there.
The Lents proposal was always a foolish one.
It’s time now for Leonard to join the rest of Portland in worrying more about our unemployment rate, schools, roads, etc. and less about Paulson’s fortunes and pastimes.
If Leonard (and the entire Council) would pull their head out of their asses and actually listen to someone outside of the West Hills/Pearl types, they wouldn’t be getting strips torn off them in public meetings.
I’m glad you got humiliated in public by the folks in Lents Randy, now you know what it’s like to be pissed off and helpless to do anything (say like, a citizen of Portland.)
We don’t need soccer, we don’t want any more huge, stupid, wasteful projects. No more Trams, trains, or couplets.
Keep the cops, firefighters, and teachers. Pave the roads, pick up the trash. It’s pretty simple.
And by the way, get a spine injection and tell the creepy, lying sexual predator mayor to save us the trouble and resign.
Exactly right.
And from those of us who couldn’t make it, three cheers for all of the Portlanders that showed up and spoke up at the Lents meeting last night.
“Perhaps we should move the Beavers to Lake Oswego, where Paulson actually lives. We could drain part of the lake and built it there.”
=====
Cool! Or better yet, built it on a barge and float it on the lake!
I don’t want to get too excited before it’s finally done and over with, but this is wonderful news!
My faith in the people of Portland and our little sliver of democracy has been restored.
Paulson, Randy, and Sam deserve every ounce of the bitter medicine they have been fed!
I see that soap opera tabloid culture is now settling to every part of society. Portlanders should be ashamed of the behavior of their fellow citizens.
“I don’t want to get too excited before it’s finally done and over with, but this is wonderful news!”
It’s wonderful news that Portland is losing its soccer team, its baseball team, and the only tenants significantly contributing to the 28mil the City’s on the hook for, for PGE Park?
??
I think the Beavers and Timbers teams are just fine the way they are. It’s Mr. Paulson who’s getting greedy and ruining it all, so stop blaming the people of P-Town that recognize a scam when we see one.
When will you recognize that professional sports, with their commercialism and shady financing deals, have a more negative impact than positive in our society?
“…the only tenants significantly contributing to the 28mil the City’s on the hook for, for PGE Park?”
You mean they’re losing the Blazers? Really? Because the Timbers and the Beavers only contribute about $100,000 per year between the two of them to the city’s $3 million per year payment on outstanding PGE Park remodel debt. The rest comes out of other venues and tax revenue sources.
HAHAHA, Portland… what a joke.
Chill pal. You seem a bit hysterical….not hitting the sauce so early in the day over the bad news are you?
Mark Bunster CoP fire dept analyst, Lake O resident …er Torridjoe
Posting on taxpayer time again?
Thanks
[...] WWire « Round Two: Randy Leonard Vs. Lents Neighbors — Why Lents May Be Cheering Today Breaking: Randy Leonard Now To Vote Against Soccer Deal [...]
Re anton_Chirurh’s and ExLakeOhhh’s suggestions: Not bad ideas for the former Sucker Lake.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswego_Lake#Fulton, for which Ann Fulton’s “Iron, Wood & Water: An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego (2002) (ISBN 1893619265) is the primary reference.
“Mark Bunster CoP fire dept analyst, Lake O resident …er Torridjoe
Posting on taxpayer time again?
Thanks”
No, you lame, punkass bully.
This process has gone so smoothly up ’til now.
It was inevitable that they’d hit a little bump in the road.
Wait, Randy Leonard is throwing a tantrum after not getting his way?
That’s odd…
It is absolutely preposterous to me that our city government would even take this MLS proposal seriously.
Randy Leonard should resign immediately. As a City Commissioner, he has what it appears from anyone who watches this, has been “bought and paid for”! Granted I have no proof of this, but his actions all around from the literally jumping into Merrit Paulson’s lap, to the announcements being made well ahead of any real plans shows his connections are anything but non-partisan.
“Literally”?
I’d like to have seen that!
Like you said you have no proof. At least I have some documented proof that prefer accusations light on evidence and full of Omph and hutzpah. Sensationalism has no place here… why don’t you call TMZ.
“No, you lame, punkass bully”
Oooooh I’m so hurt.
Randy is always the victim. No matter if he’s obstructionist himself, a poor sport, or one of the most shortsighted commissioners ever to sit on City Council. It’s about HIM. It’s not about the community. RANDY is the victim. Has been for years.
What’s also alarming is the words he uses – such as “recant”, as if this issue were one of fidelity to a religion. And yet, he has no problem being cavalier with taxpayer money. “It’s just a stadium”, said his Chief of Staff in a blog post. Or that if Randy was wrong about the benefits of the stadium deal, he’d have to face angry residents. AS IF THAT IS ANY CONSOLATION. At the end of a public drubbing, he gets to go home and lick his wounds and forget about it while it is the RESIDENTS of Lents that would have to live with the consequences of his bad decision every day, NOT him. And finally – his letter to Paulson – his presumptuousness in thinking that he can apologize for their “rude behavior”. It is easy to read in his comments that should the Lents URAC turned the deal down, he’d simply decide that the interests of the community were not met in the vote and, therefore, he can ignore it.
I can’t believe we listen to this guy. He is clearly out of touch with Lents, with Portland, and with reality.
“Oooooh I’m so hurt.”
Clearly I’m not either, and that was your misguided point, you bojack-tron.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance?league=usa.1&year=2008&cc=5901
Team Overall Average
1 Los Angeles 390,762 26,050
2 Toronto FC 303,623 20,241
3 DC United 297,531 19,835
4 Houston 284,046 17,752
If you include the sounders who are averaging between 28-32k per game. Then you start to realize that an MLS team will draw more people than a USL team and more than pay of its debt. The feasibility study that was done found that even at 13k an MLS should be able to pay everyone and if you notice the only last year that drew less than that was Kansas. Who is playing in a small minor league baseball stadium while they build their stadium and can’t physically sell anymore.
Toronto and Sounders are the best examples of what can happen in Portland with proper marketing and fan support. They both drew very small crowds in USL. The Toronto Lynx drew around 1,000 and the Sounders drew less than 2,000. Now they sell out their respective stadiums. The key to their success is an urban downtown stadium easily accessible by public transportation. It’s the teams that have stadiums in suburbia that have struggled to draw, like Dallas.
I think Portland will sell out PGE park for 15-16 league games. With a few friendlies and maybe the all-star game/final. They could easily have 20 events. Add in a few Mens/Women national team appearances and you have more than 400,000 people a year attending soccer related events at PGE. Which is more than the beavers draw over 70 dates.
Soccer is not the city’s mission.
[...] the action on stage was pretty amusing, but on Friday afternoon, the plot went over the top, as Randlet suddenly demanded that Lord Paulson change his mind yet again, and force the baseball stadium down Lents’s [...]
Is torridjoe really a city employee? Surfing the net on the clock, on a Friday afternoon? If so, WTF? Why isn’t he fired? He’s not doing any work for the city while online. Is commissioner Leonard ordering city employees to surf the net and advocate for his position on the issues instead of doing their jobs? WTF!
[...] Randy Leonard pledged last week to vote no on his resolution [PDF] committing the city to go forward with Merritt [...]
Mike says:
June 19, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Mark Bunster CoP fire dept analyst, Lake O resident …er Torridjoe
Posting on taxpayer time again?
Thanks
Mike: WTF, People like Mark/torridjoe, are all the same…ARROGANT,Disrespectful, have not as clue what the “basics of government” MIGHT MEAN!
The guy has been in Leonard’s corner for years…If he is a city person on our time,Maybe the city auditor should look at it.
Jack since you are so keen on revealing peoples places of work and cities of residence. Do you mind sharing where you work, where you live, and confirming if Jack Peek is your real name? You have nothing to hide right?
That Lents meeting was an embarrassment to the citizens of Lents. As one of the attendees, in support of the proposal I might add, the citizens looked like a bunch of uneducated hicks. Making preposterous assumptions and diverting from the task at hand whenever given the opportunity to personally mock Paulson. I have never been so ashamed of the Lents community than I am right now. Not for the rejection of the park, but for the way it handled the situation. I heard one outsider comment “with behavior like that, its no wonder they call this felony flats. That behavior should be reserved for animals and inmates.”
Uneducated hicks you say? Well then, Paulson should count his blessings he never has to soil his oxford cotton and khakis, rubbing up against the likes of that crowd, or making the Beaver’s wives endure sitting on bleachers amidst such such undesirables in their lovely verdant park, whilst watching their gallant husbands play ball.
Good going Lents! Your park for anyone who hasn’t been there, is worth the fight, into infinity!
I am sure that anyone who visits the largely unused park, albeit a mile from my house, anytime after dark will not sing your praises. I have had people attempt to mug me twice, seen countless drug deals go down, and will no longer let my kids play there for there are groups of teenager who sometimes harass individuals. Not quite the gem it is made out to be. I know your passionate Annie, but ignorance and uncontrolled emotion is never something to be proud of. I like your creative use of the metaphors though, especially the bit about soiling khakis, it really adds a bit of flash to what otherwise would just be needless facts. People should avoid the name calling if they want to be taken seriously.
Exactly Henry…so we can count on you not using”uneducated hicks” in further of your rants.
BTW, Hen dear..the people who know Lents park, know get a huge guffaw at your silly rumor mongering. It is a lovely park, and well enjoyed by many. As for your wandering around there at night…you are a fool. Nobody wanders anywhere in dark parks at night, nor have they in years. Not even Central Park, so don’t go try putting it off on to Lents. Accept defeat and move on.
You know who wanders around the park at night. People going to and from a AAA baseball game to the local bars/ eateries. Don’t worry Annie its not going to happen and you will ultimately forget about this plight and on to your next blogging endeavor. Anyone who has ever read wweek online knows your name and knows you like to make sure you voice a point on every single damn article. Pretty soon though, your constant whining and silly emotional diatribes grow old and turn people away. Boy your I bet me and your husband/ boyfriend/ girlfriend, whatever the case may be, have something in common. That shrieking sensation that runs up the spine every time you open your mouth.
I will accept defeat and will most likely look at moving out of Lent’s (this was my last straw, considering the already plummeting housing prices). Because I actually have to live with the consequences of this decision, unlike you guys who just love a good fight against city hall. I will still be worrying about getting mugged and the transients effect on the kids in the park, As far as people who know Lents park, Annie have you ever played a soccer game there? a baseball game there? had a picnic? what about flown a kite? Have you ever had to run for your kids because some 16 year old punk smoking a joint took their ball? No I don’t expect many of you have had to deal with any of this. Nor will you anytime soon. As for Lents it remains unchanged, we now have received absolutly nothing. NO URA no sidewalks no promise of more cops. We got a little publicity which will soon fade into cardboard signs begging for change on the freeway on-ramp.
Thanks everyone, progress has officially been halted.
Do you have any friends in Lents? Appears there was an entire group working to save their park, while you apparently spent all your time on the WW blog site with your repeated time wasting endeavors of writing argumentative essays to my posts (under a variety of Monikers).
Next time you have something you believe in as strongly as you wanted to spend $42 million from your community renewal funds for a corporate stadium in lovely Lents Park…my suggestion would be get your ass out of the Computer chair and organize some neighborhood action.
You lost, in part because citizens of the Lents Community took it to the streets, while you O’ Great Corporate Stadium Lover, got all hung up on me.
Umm actually this was the first thing that has ever pushed me to post on the blog. “my suggestion would be get your ass out of the Computer chair” you should probably take your own advice Annie. With the amount you post, there is no way you lead anything close to an active life. Your pathetic! See you next time I am forced to get on wweek, I am sure you will still be here, having the same ol silly arguments. Hers to the predictable mediocrity that your life has become!
Hen dear, elsewhere I’ve made a suggestion on where you might find reading more geared to your sensitivities…something that won’t rile you as much as it appears you get on the WW.
However, in case your not a bird fancier…and you really are more into masochistic adventures with your posting on this site; I’d suggest Katie Litvin’s piece from last week, the “Ink-Stained Wretch”.
It’s interesting on several levels, but for you….I see it as a possibility to connect with a poster named “Dave”, who comes across similarly to you, as the overstrung type. Maybe you two can connect (in case you two already aren’t joined at the hip). Life is short and one can never have too many friends. Au revoir….
[...] Soccer to Portland from its attempts to find a new stadium location for Triple-A baseball, despite earlier threats to the contrary. Commissioner Nick Fish also voted for the resolution, even though he voted against the two-stadium [...]