Is this satire?

Someone please explain to me why Thomas Lauderdale is an authority on civic matters.

Well, it doesn't take much to counter the strongest argument any Timbers fan has presented: "We like soccer!"

Snooooooooooooooooooore!
Please tell me Storm is getting down on bended knee and singing again?

"Someone please explain to me why Thomas Lauderdale is an authority on civic matters."

Well, according to his Wikipedia bio:

"... When he was fifteen, he won the Oregon Symphony's annual Corbett Competition[1], marking the beginning of a long association with conductor Norman Leyden. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Oregon Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Chamber Music Northwest, the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland and Oregon Ballet Theatre ... He graduated from Portland's Ulysses S. Grant High School in 1988, where he was student body president and editorial editor of The Grantonian. ... Beginning in high school, Thomas became interested in politics. He worked in Portland City Hall, first under Mayor J.E. “Bud” Clark, in the office of international relations, and later under City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury on the city's civil rights ordinance. He was appointed by Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt to the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee; by Portland Mayor Bud Clark to the Metropolitan Youth Commission and by City Commissioner Mike Lindberg to the Public Safety in the Parks Task Force. In 1992, after serving a brief stint as a security guard at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, he moved back to Portland … and became immediately involved in the No on 9 and No on 13 Campaigns, in response to two measures that would amend the Oregon constitution to declare homosexuality illegal."

I see a pattern here of involvement in the arts (including civic institutions), politics, and civic affairs, from an early age.

I hope that answers your question.

WWDSD? What would Dan Savage do?

Clearly Thomas has not been inside the MC in the last few years. I doubt beautiful would be the word he would use to describe it afterwards.

Ok, it has to be said... Pink Martini is really boring.

Regardless of whether or not you think him qualified to speak on the issue, "Suz", Thomas is acting as all good citizens should. He cares about an issue and is speaking his mind.

And whether or not you consider him an authority - although Bob R. makes a fairly compelling case in favor - it's noteworthy because Thomas has been a staunch defender of Mayor Adams on "other issues" occurring recently. So when one of the Mayor's friends comes out publicly on the opposite side of an issue, it's news.

Another "unnecessary fiasco"!

The Coliseum may/ may not be beautiful...but it DOES brings in $. Spectrum (NOT Paul Allen's company) did a really great job of utilizing the venue, something Allen's company couldn't figure out when he had his hands on it (and *sigh* he got rid of Spectrum once they turned the venue and Arena around). The Coliseum hosted concerts (Panic at the Disco brought in nearly 3000 screaming kids I recall), home and gardening shows, skating, Motorcycle Ice Racing for god's sake, The Winterhawks, and annual events like a (huge) haunted house underneath. On a night in October, you could have a game going on in the Rose Garden, Winterhawks playing at the Coliseum, and the haunted house below. When/If it becomes a MLB stadium how can it possibly host this type of variety? Will it be covered for the remaining 6-9 months of the year for further use? I'm betting not...

Who's the hot blonde next to Lauderdale? Yummy

When was the last time Pink Martini played in the MC? I hear it's a really beautiful building (mostly I hear this from people who never step foot in the place).

Keep fighting the good fight, Matt. Are you as stoked as I am about that new UO b-ball arena? GO DUCKS!

More on the Rose Quarter redevelopment here:

http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…

Let's face it, the Memorial Coliseum is butt ugly. Of course, the new buildings might be just as bad, but still - nothing to mourn in its loss.

Now if only they could find a way to get rid of the grain silo, the Rose Quarter might turn into a really nice riverside district that people would want to go to for reasons other than sports and bad concerts...

Stu: The grain silo is the only thing in the area that actually makes money and pays taxes instead of relying on corporate welfare.

Funny. It's good to know that Lauderdale cared so much about the MC that he's worked so hard over the years to prevent it from becoming a little-used dump of a venue for the past 10 or so years. Oh wait, he didn't. And it has.

Wait, the Memorial Coliseum looks worse on the inside? This whole post is confusing me. We're talking about this building, right? http://basketball.ballparks.com/NBA/Portla… What the hell does Lauderdale see in that?

Does Pink Martini want to play a bunch of concerts to raise the millions upon millions its going to cost to renovate the MC? If you keep it I would estimate you'd need to remodel it and at least make it not smell like a hockey locker room. That's a very special smell. Here is a similar arena that was remodeled. It's even a war memorial!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_County_…

They've only spent $61 million since 1989 fixing that baby up. Since Portland nothing really on fixing it up...I imagine it would cost somewhere around $50 million to remodel so fracking Panic at the Disco and the motorcycle ice racers will have somewhere to go.

"Involvement in the arts?" Are you fucking kidding me?

No, not kidding. What part of "he won the Oregon Symphony's annual Corbett Competition, marking the beginning of a long association with conductor Norman Leyden. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the Oregon Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Chamber Music Northwest, the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland and Oregon Ballet Theatre" doesn't constitute "involvement in the arts" for you?

Plus that other stuff showing a long history of involvement in civic affairs and local politics.

Thomas Lauderdale also raises tons of money for community resources through his benefit gigs. He's one of the few public figures in Portland that puts his money where his mouth is and for that he has my boundless respect, even if I don't fully understand his stance on the Colosseum.
People don't have to attempt to completely negate his community involvement in an attempt to attack his position on it, though. Or perhaps they do.

Still...if you want to keep it you need to maintain the damned thing. It will cost more to refurbish that old arena than build a brand new baseball stadium.

The MC is not some sort of architectural masterpiece. It's a fucking glass box that has a big concrete bowl inside of it with some old plastic seats screwed into the concrete. It wasn't designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

No, it wasn't designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but it was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill, one of the most important architecture firms of the post-WWII modernist era, and probably the main proponent of the International Style in the USA.

Chunty - I love soccer and I like baseball quite a bit. this plan does a lot to enhance soccer to bring the top level of American soccer here, and gives baseball a park that they can actually fill without playing in a cavernous arena. PGE Park is simply too big for baseball, but perfect for soccer, football, and other events similar to that. I like the MC just fine, and wish that the city would have taken better care of it, but I like the thought of giving the area a new stadium to bring in more events, and giving the veterans a memorial that is more fitting for them. Uh, I think that's a bit more that just saying "I like soccer"

Oh boy. Who cares what Lauderdale thinks? The building has long been past its date of service, and it is not an architectural icon of any note.