Matt, personal attacks aside. You're a good journalist and do good reporting for the most part. Your reporting on the stadium issue has been piss poor. You toss out facts that are refuted and have no defense, you cite Jack fucking Bogdanski as some sort of authority on the matter, you don't look at the issue from both sides, and when all that fails you cite one of your mates in England who makes fun of MLS.

With that kind of reporting I can't imagine why some people would be offended and resort to personal attacks on you. You're not a martyr so get over it.

Excellent idea. Might be good if one of the friends of urban renewal was included.

Old Town.

For clarification:

"a representative from the Portland Development Commission will...be there"

But Merritt Paulson has already paid off the debt on the last renovation of PGE Park AND he is currently paying off the debt on the last renovation of PGE Park, all through his rent payment doesn't even cover the the annual operating expense of PGE park. Plus he's going to pay off the new debt through the same way. The man is a financial genius.

@not convinced

Fair enough...but just because you DON'T like something doesn't mean it doesn't work from an economic or financial perspective.

See what I did there?

You can use the "I have a pothole" argument or the "what about the children" argument all day and it's not a good one. Those 2 things will always be a problem and would be brought up if Amanda Fritz wanted the city to bond a homeless shelter run by the risen spirit of the holy Mother Teresa herself and financially backed by the Pope.

They're two separate amenities. One helps homeless people - the other helps businesses in and around PGE Park and the Rose Quarter. Both would just be asking the city for bonds and they sign a legal document backing the bonds at no risk to the city whatsoever.

If it's for the stadium the NIMBYs cry, "what about the children."

In the homeless shelter the curmudgeon's say, "I've had a pothole in front of my house for 2 years."

In both instances it's a stupid argument.

Matt, please share with us your thoughts on the private-public UO basketball arena project. That one is costing three times as much as the Portland project, and it's only for one stadium instead of two. Based on your foaming at the mouth hatred of the Portland deal, I can only imagine you're on the verge of passing out due to the rage you have for that Eugene nonsense. Right?

So changing stupid to controversial makes this less of a volatile discussion about MLS and Portland? Wow, color me not impressed at all.

And wow, Smiley, top notch commenting there as well. Outside of the lesbian pothole, vegan bikelane, and ignoring the kids argument, I never tire of the "his name is associated with that guy who caused the financial crisis" argument.

You'd think nobody in this town ever took a risk without having such calculated odds of success in their favor that they would prefer to just sit in their favorite coffee house or dank pub, drinking the day away watching the world go by.

Matt, I like you very much. Keep it positive, my man.

Fuck that soccer money, yo.

Regardless whether you want or don't want MLS in town, a public discussion about Urban Renewal will be a good thing. There is too much confusion and a lot of myths out there about it.

While you have those panelists on the hook, you should also ask them about tax abatement, what it means, and how many or few buildings receive it.

For clarification: That's true. Someone pointed it out to me in an email almost instantly after I wrote it...sorry.

We're pursuing it.

GK107, you're arguing with the voices in your head again.

Ahhh stacking the deck again. Who wants to see a County Commissioner and a State Rep from Gesham whine about Urban Renewal Districts.

Nobody from the County or Representative Kahl can ever answer the simple question: "If you oppose the formation of URDs as a policy that you say hurts funding for schools and county services, are you willing to reject all of the revenues that have now been generated in the form of property taxes, income taxes and business licenses and taxes from mature Urban Renewal Districts?"

You won't get that answer. They want their cake and want to eat it to.

I'm tired of County whining, the City should simply cut them off entirely - no more money for Multnomah County Budget period. Better yet, let's get rid of that entity all together and combine city and county government. 5 less politicians to grandstand. No more duplicative services. Taxpayer savings. What's not to like?

Urban renewal districts are fine as long as they have free birth control clinics and pools every 12 blocks to combat unwanted children and the obesity plague. Once the public has a place to swim and safe comingling of opposite sex elements we'll be good. Then, after the economic depression of the next five years, let's talk about a FUCKING STADIUM. And yes, the poor will always be with us. But think how much happier they would be if they didn't also have children and no public place within walking distance to shower any time they want.

Oh God, I long for the days of Tom Potter, who said things like "people didn't elect me to build stadiums."

Hopefully some of the soccer fans will show up to defend the plan.

Is it true that Matt Davis lives in a condo that used to be a low-income housing unit and paid for his sweet digs through his wife's work on a publically funded stadium project in Eugene?

Cause that would be fuuuuuu-nnneee

Gonetorio, it's a sad day in Stumptown when I actually miss Tom Potter, too. I thought he was a pretty lousy excuse for a leader. I thought Adams would be different, but I sure as hell didn't vote for him so he could build stadiums. What an outrageous squandering of public money. I now support his recall, and it has nothing to do with whose dick he sucked, although I suppose his fling with Breedlove was yet another example of his extremely poor judgement and Texas-sized ego.

Matt, I have no doubt that soccer fanatics will be there to "defend" the plan. And by "defend" I mean chant really loudly and sling mud at anyone who disagrees with their opinion that we have nothing better to spend our money on than two goddamn stadiums.

Also, FYI, there is an 11 week course through PDC/PSU moderated by Vera Katz which goes through all of this info, I think it started two weeks ago. If it is not full (and you are a pdx resident) you can attend for free. It is a great opportunity to ask questions like why a stadium is considered "urban renewal" when all of the other issues regarding livability remain unaddressed.

@JBarleycorn

The funny thing is that the city isn't really paying for the stadiums. Merritt Paulson is. The city is simply backing bonds that Merritt Paulson's family is personally backing. That means he's going to sign a document that says if this doesn't pan out he'll pay for the bonds.

@Matt Davis

I already went to city hall to all the task force meetings, wrote my city commissioners and talked to some of them personally. I'm not sure if its really important for me to show up @ Backspace to watch Nick Kahl moan about something when I can just go to a bar on Hawthorne and find him there.

The point is you are one sidedly attacking this and not reporting it. That's why there are personal attacks. You have been writing opinion pieces and putting them out as reporting. You're attacking one side of the argument and the side you're attacking attacks back. You still haven't been able to produce a single entity who would pay for rent on PGE Park if Paulson wasn't. In a comment section you once said you would look into that. Neither has anyone else...

So I'm still waiting...

With Vancouver moving up to MLS in 2011, the USL Timbers' nearest competitors will be in Blaine, Minnesota and Austin, Texas. No one has threatened to leave. But the team may not be able to exist simply based on the economics of the USL.

It's only a single west-coast rival as of this year, of course. Seattle was a USL team up to this season and there was a Bay Area team two years ago, and with 3 or more teams on the west coast, the league built schedules to allow the Timbers, etc. to play their regional rivals more often than their transnational ones. That option is severely curtailed now, and will be gone altogether in 2011.

You have to remember how dirt-poor/cheap the USL is. A player who makes $15K a season is near the top of the pay scale, and Portland's 8500 home attendance is next-to-top in the league but would easily be worst in MLS. Given those econmics, the travel costs for the northeast and southeast franchises *barely* pencil out with the requirement to play against two teams on the west coast. The league makes it work by having visiting teams play multiple games in short time spans: sometimes as many as 3 matches in 5 days, which is awful for fans and players alike. There's every reason to believe that several teams won't be able to support similar travel bills to play half as many of their games on the west coast in 2011 if that's what happens.

Conversely, if every single Timbers match is a multiple-time zones trip, the Timbers become less tenable. We're talking about flights and hotels for 25 or so people for every single away match, versus bus trips to Seattle and Vancouver. Again, it's a minor league. In baseball, minor league teams almost never travel out of their time zones.

Actually, if the Timbers *don't* go to MLS, then that's a possible scenario for post-2011.

USL2 is a developmental level league with almost no following anywhere (how many Timbers fans have seen the Cascade Surge, pride of Salem, play?). The Timbers are actually starting a junior team at that level this year and offering a season ticket for $15: for the **whole season**. It's meant to be a feeder team for upper division teams, including USL1 and MLS. The Timbers junior team will play its matches at high schools and parks throughout the region because attendance/income for the league can't support the game day expenses incurred by merely unlocking the gates at PGE Park.

Not sure this is going to insure the viability of the current economic model for PGE Park.

I'm not saying people wouldn't go see it. But far fewer would, surely. (The record attendance for a west coast PDL match is about 2000.)

You could stick the name Timbers on a PDL team, but that wouldn't make it a professional team; in fact, it would be bait-and-switch. PDL teams are squads of largely non-paid college, high-school, used-to-be and never-were players trying to get a look from pro sides. There are recreational leagues all over Portland that play at a level quite comparable to PDL -- and you can watch those for free. So, yeah, attendance wouldn't be the same.

A team operating under that financial model -- a $15 season's ticket, as opposed to a $12 general admission ticket for one match, which is the current rate -- wouldn't be able to afford tenancy at PGE Park, which costs thousands to operate each game day. It would likelier fold altogether.

(To be clear, we're talking about PDL here, which is essentially USL level 3. The nearest USL level 2 team to Portland is in Pittsburgh, and those teams are far less able to afford trips west than even the relatively low-budget level 1 teams.)

Keep whining and Portland will forever be the provincial backwater po-dunk town, proud of its we ain't go nothin, but we'll "keep it weird" culture. Having/not having a MLS isn't going to make our other priorities disappear, it's passing up on a opportunity to revitalize a dead piece of land.