Last night’s sold-out soccer game between the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders has fans preparing for more big crowds at PGE Park in 2011, when the Timbers officially join the Sounders in Major League Soccer competition.
In the meantime, the Timbers’ biggest fans, the Timbers Army, are taking steps to prepare for another development: the creation of a new nonprofit group in Portland dedicated to soccer.
Jeremy Wright of the Timbers Army writes:
The name is going to be “Pitch Invasion” and the concept is to utilize the human resources of the Timbers Army to go out and work with local soccer clubs, the City of Portland, local municipalities and school districts to fix up soccer pitches across the city that are currently used by kids and are not well maintained. We will concentrate our efforts in areas that are under funded, lower income and/or have a district incapable of maintaining the pitches.
We recognize that despite the best efforts of the institutions responsible for these fields there are simply not enough resources to prioritize field maintenance. Many of us are involved with local youth and adult soccer leagues and we see on a daily basis the dire state many of these fields are in. We see an opportunity to make a difference for the kids and the game in the Portland area. It also fits with our mission statement of supporting soccer in the Rose City from the grassroots to the highest professional level.
In other soccer news, the Portland City Council will consider an ordinance (PDF) on Wednesday, July 8, to increase the city’s contract with Ball Janik LLP from a maximum of $100,000 to a maximum of $225,000. Ball Janik has provided outside legal counsel for services related to the city’s deal with Timbers-owner Merritt Paulson to revamp PGE Park for Major League Soccer.
Photo of Wednesday night’s game against Seattle, courtesy Jeremy Wright
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Tags: Ball Janik, Timbers Army
“preparing for more big crowds at PGE Park in 2011, when the Timbers officially join the Sounders in Major League Soccer competition.”
Uhhhh….I believe that the MLS deal is still $15 million short. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, it’s bad luck. All the better though since this deal as it currently stands is simply bad all around.
It is actually $20 million short because the $5 million coming from Salem fell through. That means more than half of the supposed $37 million it will take to renovate PGE Park is not accounted for. There are also no blue prints or schematics for the renovations at this point, so the $37 million is actually a moving target. All in all, this deal has been handled very badly from all sides. We are going to remove 72 dates worth of revenue for the Spectator Facilities Fund while simultaneously adding $37 million or more to $25 million of debt from the last round of renovations in 2001. Tack on interest, and we are talking more than $100 million the city will be on the hook for. What kind of responsible government reduces revenue while increasing spending? And spending on an unnecessary amenity while we are cutting services and closing police precincts? That makes no sense.
“the city’s contract with Ball Janik LLP from a maximum of $100,000 to a maximum of $225,000. ”
Glad to see the usual parsites are feeding again at the public trough, let me know when Walsh COnstruction gets its pound of flesh out of the taxpayers.