We’ll have more on the stadium deal, as KGW is reporting that Beavers owner Merritt Paulson is pulling his Lents stadium proposal, in a bit.
Maybe Paulson’s decision arose from last night’s community meeting, which did not go well for Paulson or Commissioner Randy Leonard.
Leonard went before Lents residents again to make his pitch for putting minor-league baseball in Lents Park, but the neighborhood’s hostility toward the proposal appeared to have grown since Leonard last visited Southeast Portland to discuss the stadium deal.
One reason for the anger at Mt. Scott Community Center Thursday night might have been the constantly changing landscape of the stadium deal. Originally, the Lents Urban Renewal Advisory Committee was to be voting Thursday night on whether to use $42.3 million in Lents urban renewal money for the baseball project. At the last minute, the vote was delayed until next week, June 25. At the same time, Mayor Sam Adams announced the baseball proposal was being divorced from the effort to bring Major League Soccer to Portland.
Anyway, Leonard was heckled pretty intensely. And at moments, audience members in the front of the room had to hold up little fluorescent-colored signs prodding people to “be nice” and reminding them that “civility rules.”
That wasn’t even the weirdest part of the evening. The thrust of Leonard’s argument on behalf of the stadium was that folks downtown don’t want minor-league baseball in Lents because they think Lents is crime-filled and unpleasant. Lents is, in fact, neither the poorest neighborhood in Portland nor the most dangerous. “There’s been a whisper campaign downtown and in City Hall about the Lents community,” Leonard said, that has perpetuated a myth about Lents “that is as untrue as it is unfair.”
“That’s not Lents! This is Lents,” one man shouted at Leonard. “The City Council is out of its mind,” another yelled.
Leonard, for his part, stayed at the meeting longer than Paulson, who was also greeted harshly by the crowd when he went before the urban renewal committee. He gave a very brief statement, then left the Mt. Scott Community Center.
That didn’t stop many of the 40 people who testified against the project from taking shots at Leonard and Paulson throughout the night. (Only one person spoke in favor of the project; a poll of the audience revealed 70 percent of the several hundred people who had gathered saw absolutely no benefit to bringing the baseball stadium to Lents.)
“Randy Leonard seems to think if we were properly informed, we would be for the stadium,” one man said. “I am properly informed, and I am very, very against the stadium.”
Another woman, referring to Leonard’s build-it-and-they-will-come sentiment, said someone should tell Leonard “The Field of Dreams was a Hollywood movie picture.”
“They’re working for Merritt Paulson,” another audience member testified. “They’re not working for Southeast Portland.”
The weirdest part of the evening was the closing, when the facilitator for the three-and-a-half-hour meeting (after noting that seven clickers that audience members had used to take a poll on the project were missing) declared the event “Lents hospitality at its best.”
- Randy Leonard vs. Lents Neighbors The cafet
- Breaking: Randy Leonard Now To Vote Against Soccer Deal Commissio
- Randy Leonard Says City Is Now Exploring The Possibility of A Third Site for Baseball Commissio
- Update Your Scorecard: Baseball In Lents Requires New $2 Million for Parks Commissio
- Paulson on Lents Neighbors: “That Straw Poll Is Worth a Whole Lot of Nothing.” At the end
Tags: Lents, Merritt Paulson, portland beavers, Randy Leonard
Congratulations Lents for fighting for your community and your pretty park.
Way to go Lents. You not only lost out on a great opportunity, but you also could very likely have cost the city of Portland the AAA Baseball team. Wow, Portland is full of extremely stupid shortsighted conservative people who call themselves progressive all the while sitting stagnant in dirty water.
Nobody likes a poor loser. BTW, by the looks of your post, it appears you might be the stupid conservative one.
I’m going to miss Paulson’s stooges clogging the comment section with indignant cries that this was a completely inaccurate and unfair account of what actually happened at the meeting. So long, shitpumps.
Don’t forget everybody, the Beavers can always keep playing at piggie, just like they have been, if they can’t find a place with $43 mill +just burning a hole in the community pocket.
That is of course, if certain key members of the TA, can deal with the idea of roll away bleachers.
If I were the Beavers, I’d find out what exactly the TAs had against them, that they can’t share. I’d take the Beavers over the TAs rights at PGE, anyday.
The NIMBY’s in Lents should be embarrassed of themselves. I don’t know how any rational person thinks that being so outwardly hostile in a public meeting would accomplish anything other than to utterly and completely turn off residents in other neighborhoods to Lents. Good luck with your urban renewal; hope things are better in 20 years than they are now. I doubt I’ll be getting off at their MAX stop to spend any of my money at their shops.
There is a price to be paid for such juvenile and uncivil behavior, especially by such a large group that is representing their community. I feel very sorry for the rational few that must coexist with the lunatics in that neighborhood.
How dare they not sacrifice their park for our underattended ball team! Shame!
Did I say they should have been in favor of the ballpark? Well, let me go back and read my two short paragraphs… Well no, in fact, I believe I didn’t.
My opinion of the Lents residents that showed up to the meeting has nothing to do with them opposing the ballpark in place of their neighborhood park, it was their juvenile and uncivil behavior in the meeting.
Now now now, No fan…don’t go away mad. Just go away!
To rearrange a famous poem:
There is great joy in LentsVille for poor Randy has struck out!
Re this insane ripoff project:
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead the Witch is Dead The Witch is Dead! Ding Dong the wick-ed witch is Deaaaad!
P.S. Randy reminds me of Mr. Drysdale in the Beverly Hillbilies (”Where are you going with MY money! You can’t leave!…sputter sputter) Control freak deluxe. He’s even got the nerve to tell Mr Paulson who has finally come to his senses (paraphased) “your allowing your emotions to cloud this issue”.
Sheesh what about all the emotions you ignored Randy from all the Lents residents who DIDNT want this thing when you started railroading it in the first place?