The Oregonian is reporting Merritt Paulson told a town hall meeting in Beaverton Tuesday night that he won’t follow through on a Major League Soccer deal here in Portland if he can’t secure a baseball deal over there. This is the same line Paulson gave at one point in Lents, before the SE Portland neighbors shouted him down.
You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult for Paulson to push the Beaverton deal through. After all, Beaverton recently hired Paulson’s own former consultant, Don Mazziotti, to lead its “community development department.”
Now the Beaverton Valley Times is reporting that Beaverton plans to tax residents $5 per property through 2036 to pay for the $59million sports stadium without a public vote. Paulson won’t actually contribute a cent to the development, other than pre-paying $9million in license fees and a paltry six percent of ticket fees that he would have had to pay, regardless.
Best of all, Beaverton city council says it has done a “visioning project,” consulting just 4000 residents, who have “showed overwhelming interest in attending local events, such as concerts, sporting events or baseball games.”
I’d rather watch the cub scouts do Tosca, personally. My point: Isn’t that justificatory sentence a little broad?
We have a call in to City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who led the MLS deal with Paulson here, to get his reaction to Paulson’s remarks.
Paulson should hire a PR person to do his talking, so he stops being quoted saying stupid shit that piss off the people that are supporting his endeavor.
at least for the MLS portion…
Merritt Paulson is a liar and a spoiled brat. Can we PLEASE get someone else to own the Timbers? Maybe the city could buy the team? Just get this dirty family out of our city. It’s embarrassing that he is tied to our soccer team, and it’s going to take years to wash the stink out now.
My property owners are the same people who own the projected site as well as much of the land around it. They DO NOT want to sell it, especially to anyone connected to him. Just saying
“Merritt Paulson told a town hall meeting in Beaverton Tuesday night that he won’t follow through on a Major League Soccer deal here in Portland if he can’t secure a baseball deal over there.”
Sounds like a plan!
Do the economic benefits of MLS outweigh the costs? I doubt it.
This spoiled brat (his name should be Neppottism, not Merritt) is a stick-up artist. Maybe city council will grow a pair and tell him to take all his teams and cram ’em.
I have to say that I consider it in poor taste to attempt to discredit a person because of their parentage or birth.
If you want to make reasonable statements about the facts and the situation as it concerns Beaverton, Portland, Paulson, the Timbers, the Beavers, and the People, then go ahead.
The “private” money for this whole venture is coming from his dad, who also happens to own 20% of the team. Merritt Paulson is just a figure-head because his dad is too busy with subpoenas. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206…
Turns out they can watch baseball right now without paying any tax, they just take a short max ride to Civic Stadium, so let’s all just tell Paulson to suck on it and keep things the way they are, at least until he finishes paying back the city of Portland for the last upgrade to Civic Stadium!