Comments

1
Peter Apanel is even more of a kook than I thought.
2
Matt, you should check in on some of bojack's posts on this.

Seems that before we go out for bonds, we're going to use a credit line to get the $11.9 million, and bond sometime in the future to pay it back. The credit line is backed by the full faith and credit of... wait for it... the general fund.
3
Good deal for Portland. Well done.

And yes, Matt, you should definitely start using BoJack posts as a source. Would be comedy gold.

Go Brentford.
4
I may as well thank all the wanna-be "European hooligans," I mean, Timbers fans in advance for their contributions here in the comments. Keep them civil as always, guys. And be sure to reflect positively on the team.
5
Don't be so hurt, Matt. You'll stop a beneficial community project one of these days.
6
Why don't you address the substance of my comment, Jack? Cuz you can't?

http://bojack.org/images/pgelocrfp.pdf

Bottom of page three:

"SECURITY FOR THE LINE
The City pledges its Available General Funds, which are all taxes and other legally available general funds of
the City."
7
I enjoyed how Nick Fish contrasted his father's experience on the impeachment commission to impeach President Nixon with Merritt Paulson's father facing federal investigations for the AIG-Goldman Sachs backdoor bailout and his role in the subprime mortgage fiasco while he was CEO of Goldman Sachs. If Daddy Paulson has to jail time, what does that do to those financial guarantees?
8
Because keeping things civil and being a positive reflection have always been important traits that Davis holds dear and demonstrates often, of course.

Go cry yourself to sleep in the new UO basketball arena.
9
I wonder if Fish was making a snide remark, considering that Daddy Paulson was the assistant to John Ehrlichman, counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under Richard Nixon. He went to jail for his role in the Watergate breakins and coverup, convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. Looks like Daddy Paulson had a great mentor.
10
I'm curious, has major-league soccer ever been successful in America?
11
Daddy Paulson should enlist (draft?) the Timbers Army to show up at the investigation hearings. "Senator, it is incumbent upon yourself and the Senate to keep Henry Paulson out of prison so as to prevent the city of Portland from suffering any undue embarrassment and to protect our general fund. I am wearing this scarf as a show of my support for Henry Paulson. Please make the right decision, for the nation and for Portland. Thank you."
12
Fish: "there are already three votes to move this, so I'm free to actually do what I think is the right thing, and not weigh too heavily on what I think is the political thing."

Interesting admission by Fish that sometimes he doesn't do what he thinks is the right thing.
13
Is there a copy of the actual deal document available yet, or just the summary of deal terms? If it's not available yet, shouldn't it be?
14
From the city's Office of Management and Finance:

"Should the Fund not be able to support the bond expenses associated with this agreement, the General Fund would be responsible."

http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2010/01/27/mer…

15
Apanel has done his homework and what he is saying he can back up with documents. Don't dismiss him just because he posts on Bojack. If the newspaper reporters in this town did half the research he has done they would be against it too. But the advertising buget for a start-up sports team tends to keep reporters erstwhile occupied.
16
I wouldn't rule out that Peter Apanel may be correct on the number of toilets:
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-04/loc…
They did end up needing to build the parking garage, although nobody went down for fraud there either...
17
Not that it's surprising to many of us, but Matt Davis spent the first 20 minutes of council session reading his own articles in the Merc and the next 20 googling his own name.
18
Well at least we can agree that Apenel is a "crackpot".
19
@Daaaaaaave—it was 30 minutes. At least. And you'll notice that I was sitting directly in front of Merritt Paulson. I'm fucking brilliant, I swear.
20
Nick Fish...a wholly owned subsidiary of Randy Leonard. At least Nick can say he voted against it before he voted for it. Oh wait. The dowtown lawyers and developers own a large stake of Nick too. Maybe when the deal comes crashing down Nick will be able to house homeless people in the nicely renovated stadium.
21
I'm going to have to second Daaaaave. I sat almost directly behind Matt (That was me with the green and white scarf.) He read the Mercury for the first 20 or so...then he opened up his laptop and spent about 30 minutes reading google etc whilst others testified. Matt really sprung to action to get the Merritt shot though. On my twitter feed I saw he posted that Daily Kos grabbed his coverage of 66/67. Congrats Matt! You really covered it well...seriously.

You weren't directly in front of Merritt by the way. He was at least 2 people over to your right.

So my friend. You going to suck it up and sit in the north end of PGE again and take some crap or are you just going to poo pah everything? Hard feelings aside. Why don't we work something out?
22
Jeremy Wright, I thought you were "stepping back" from MLS while you ran Bill Bradbury's campaign for governor. In any case I do wish you'd stop using this ridiculous pseudonym. It's hardly becoming for a local politico. Does your boss mind?

Now: The ability to multi-task in council hearings is what enables me to continue keeping readers entertained and informed. I don't think I've been to a hearing in three years and not been checking multiple blog feeds, instant messages, emails, google alerts, and the like, while I listen to everyone blabber on. Try as everyone may have to pretend, there was nothing new about the first hour of testimony yesterday. And I was hoping that Paulson would read my "Major League Boner" column over my shoulder before he testified.

That I am an egotist and a self-promoter is hardly news, either. But I am glad you, of all people, noticed, because you could probably learn something from me.

And I would rather eat a pooh pie than ever watch another Timbers game, after the way the fans have behaved over this.
23
@BlackedOut: What are you saying? That most people that testify at city council are boring, and Matt got some other posts in while waiting for something interesting to happen? How can that be? (When I testify I consider myself lucky that the commissioners don't fall asleep.)
24
"And I would rather eat a pooh pie than ever watch another Timbers game, after the way the fans have behaved over this."

Misplaced grudge much?
25
@Matt Davis

I imagine you meant me and no I'm not Jeremy Wright. I think that's been painfully apparent over the course of time...especially to some of you readers. You haven't exactly been objective or fair when it comes to reporting anything within this sphere of news. Whatevs. No skin off my back if you never come back. Just trying to be nice. Enjoy the $200 million taxpayer funded arena in Eugene you didn't write a word against.

@Matthew D

I was laughing at the fact that Matt was reading his own paper and then apparently spent the next little while googling his own name. The narcissist inside of me got a cynical laugh out of it.
26
Matt, actually, we're all RedFly. Didn't you know, dude?
27
First of all Mr Davis, they are" wanna be British hooligans". Don't involve Europe. Secondly they are easily the best behaved hooligans I've ever seen. More like passionate fans. BTW, are'nt you yerself a limey? Just saying. Also, I know the financial aspects of this are shaky but I think we should all be grateful to get an MLS team. God knows there are way too many alternative hipster/emo dork pussy nerds in this town for Portland to get a Major League Football or Hockey team.....god knows we're losing the JUNIOR hockey team we have.......way to go idiots. Oh, and and Matt....oi oi oi....go back to blighty wanker
28
did Vinny Jones kick Matt in the nads when he was a lad?
29
@Blacked Out: My apologies. It turns out you aren't Jeremy Wright, after all. He just emailed me to say he knows you, but that he isn't you. I forgot. He was "Finnegan," back in the day when he could get afford to get involved in blog fights. Apologies for my early-morning error.
30
Your ability to "multitask" seemed to prevent you from mentioning that 3 labor union leaders unanimously voiced their support for the deal. I'm sure that while everyone appreciates your dedication to read your own paper in council chambers, because who better to critique your own writing than you, you managed to avoid all of the "blabber" of Steve Janik actually reading out the major financial implications of the deal.

Maybe next time a deal of this size comes through City Hall, you can try to bask a little less in the glory that is being cited as a source in a Kos diary (joining the likes of Larry Johnson and Jane Hamsher, what an honor!) and do your readers the service of paying attention throughout the testimony and reporting on the details rather than take a picture of Paulson and regurgitate the same tired sarcastic troll lines.

During this debate, you've been called out multiple times for either misrepresenting or being outright ignorant of the financial details of the stadium renovation. You've had your blatant hypocrisy on whether public money should be used on building stadiums exposed. You've let personal animus get in the way of any possible veneer of objectivity and so every "article" on the subject is filled with snarky comments about the Paulson surname, playing some populist card that I'm sure makes you popular among the bojack crowd, a demographic you seem to enjoy pandering to.

And so, I suspect, by the end of the day today Steve Humphrey will lift up his skirts to let you hide underneath once again. He'll shuffle in with the voice of editorial authority he's never worked for or deserved to back his reporter who manages to write about a lot but report nothing.

And why? Because you figured out long ago that articles that are pro-soccer attract only soccer fans but anti-soccer articles drive up traffic among both pro- and anti-soccer readers. And since we've already been told that the editorial desk is run out of the sales office, that decided your byline before the first detail about the renovation was ever made public.

In the Merc's 10 years or so of publication in Portland, there has been only one local beat writer worth a shit, and when Katia left for Chicago that was gone. You are no Katia Dunn.
31
This has really touched a nerve with you, hasn't it Dave. Let's set up an interview. As you know I'm on 503 502 2106. We'll call it "irked Timbers fan fights back." And you can lay it all on the line.
33
^^^^^^^^

World championship passive-aggression from our Matty. Well done son.

GO DUCKS!

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