The villain in the great Lents baseball debate is now a single word: “misinformation.”
Since the ballpark plan is essentially a private-public business deal that’s being hammered out somewhat publicly — with the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) deciding whether they should pony up money for the city to invest in a Lents’ Beavers ballpark — there has been a lot of confusion and vagaries on all sides. Tonight out at Mt. Scott Community Center from 4-6PM, the city is holding an open house, hoping that several tables of friendly city planners can answer many of the neighbors’ burning questions about what all this $42.3 million hubbub is about. Nick Fish and Randy Leonard are even skipping tonight’s council meeting to line up with neighbors on opposite sides of the Lents meeting.
URAC member Brian Agee called today to say he was still undecided on the plan, but that his email is filling up with ill-informed, polarized rants from both sides. “I’ve got an inbox full of, ‘Don’t do it! They’re going to plow over the whole park!’ And then I’ve heard some unrealistic economic projections.”
So, for the record, here are much-debated topics and some quick answers. Feel free to check out the five hours of open house/public meeting for the long answers! Bring me a grilledcheeseburger if you come, thnx.
1. Is the Urban Renewal Advisory Committee (URAC) voting tonight on whether to spend $42.3 million in urban renewal funds on building a ballpark? No! Contrary to certain press releases the URAC decided to table a vote on the controversial proposal until next week. Tonight they’ll just take public input and ask questions.
More quick Q&A below the cut! Including: Um, aren’t two of the proposed options illegal?
2. If the URAC votes next week not to spend urban renewal funds on the stadium, is the Lents Beavers deal effectively dead? Yes! According to the mayor’s office, if the neighbors vote it down, the city’s done with the whole ballpark-in-Lents shebang. BUT if they approve the money, the stadium isn’t a done deal. According to a memo from Amy Ruiz and Skip Newberry in the mayor’s office: “Should this project move forward with a City Council-approved pre-development agreement, it is possible that issues may arise during the planning and predevelopment process that render Lents Park nonviable as a site for AAA baseball.”
3. WTF does that memo mean? Tonight and next week the URAC is just voting on whether to even make the money available to build the stadium. If the cash is approved, the city, Beavers and the neighbors have to hammer out all the “quality of life” issues like parking, lighting, loss of park land and a good neighbor agreement. If the groups can’t agree on any of those, it could derail the deal.
4. Parking?! Did you say parking?! There’s not going to be enough parking!! Okay. Thanks to the new green line MAX, the stadium’s zoning doesn’t technically require any parking at all. But the current draft plans include about 360 spaces, which is probably the most controversial part of the early drawings because the lot eats up about two to five acres of previously-green park.
5. Since the $42.3 million pricetag makes people cringe, couldn’t the URAC approve less? Uh… maybe! The URAC right now is looking at six official options, two of which only put $27 million from the Lents URA in and take $15 million from the Central City URA to cover the gap. But the URAC could write up an entirely new idea to recommend to city council.
6. Wait, is it legal to take $15 from the Central City URA to build a ballpark in Lents? Probably not! “You can’t take money from a URA when it hasn’t actually been created yet,” says Newberry, in the mayor’s office. If anyone happened to file a lawsuit about the shell game economics of dipping into the still-fictional Central City URA, it could derail and kill the whole deal.
Number 6: “If anyone happened to file a lawsuit about the shell game economics of dipping into the still-functional Central City URA, it could derail and kill the whole deal.”
Not to mention didn’t the State Land Use Board of Appeals just come out against the City for transfer of URA funds from one URA to another as per a lawsuit against the city by the group Friends of Urban Renewal? WHY YES!
Trust me, a bunch of us are already on the case waiting to file our lawsuit papers against the City over this similar idiotic proposal.
Isn’t this “Central City URA” something that does not yet exist? Perhaps it’s a wee bit presumptuous to start writing checks against that.
No checks have or will be written in the immediate future. However, the research is being conducted, the groups (which include land use, economic and planning consultants as well as lawyers) are getting organized and positioned, just in case.
Nothing presumptuous about that. It’s called being positioned and ready.
ExCityEmployee, are you saying that the city has already lost a lawsuit for transferring funds from one URA to another, yet they are trying to do the exact same thing regarding the baseball stadium at Lents? If so, this is just unreal.
Yep. Pretty much: Land Use Board of Appeals (the highest land use decision maker in State outside of Supreme Court) put the kabosh on the transfer of funds from the River District to David Douglas in January : From the Oregonian: “Earlier this month (January), the appeals board rejected the city’s attempt to use tax dollars generated in the River District Urban Renewal Area to build a new elementary school in Southeast Portland’s David Douglas School District. The state agency said the city had not shown how the proposed school would benefit property owners in the Pearl.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2…
LUBA also rejected River District expansion based on the proposed URA not meeting state criteria for blight. I doubt the “super” Central City URA will meet the criteria either.
In addition, Friends of Urban Renewal are currently positioning themselves to challenge the City on a proposal to increase the maximum indebtedness of the River District. This is applicable to Lents and the MLS since the City will have to increase indebtedness as well. From the Portland Tribune yesterday: http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.…
In the case of the current LUBA challenge, this has put many city projects on hold until resolution can be met. In the case of the proposed maximum indebtedness: it will be the same.
Seriously, These aren’t cranky Nimbys suing the City. Friends of Urban Renewal are land use, Tax Increment, Economic Development and Law experts, who for the most part are pro-urban renewal. Many of them (including yours truly) have extensive experience working with the City and PDC on URA issues over the years. They know what they are talking about and are upset for many valid reasons. When the City creates new URAs, issues TIF and does City bonded projects including loans to private developers, the money needs to be repaid. If it can’t be repaid then the City ends up owning the debt. In the case of MLS/Lents we are talking over $85 million dollars. That’s a risky amount to be throwing around for sports stadiums; a genre that has a strong history in many cities of not paying debt back.
The Lents proposal is very dangerous for the City from a public finance perspective. It runs the risk of causing the City to go bankrupt.
This is what is so infuriating (one of the many things). The City is brazenly ignoring current LUBA rulings to proceed with this similar idiotic proposal. TIF isn’t a bag of money that can just be thrown around from one geographic location and project to the next and is most risky when used in large chunks for single projects – especially sports.
Sarah, just a note on your headline… while we have nothing against our neighbors in Lents, the Mt. Scott Community Center is actually right in the heart of the wonderful Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood. You weren’t in Lents.
“especially sports.”
-ExCityEmployee
Insightful, to say the least. Oppostion to your argument usually comes in full swing through circular logic though.
But then again, I guess I’m not hearing too many proponents of the Lents Stadium Deal pushing for park-replacement anymore. They’re fixated. Could be dangerous to someone down the road.
So where’s the next neighborhood the Beavs might go? Back to PGE, screw MLS commission reasoning? I could be for that.
Not anti sports or sports stadiums, FYI. It’s just that they are very risky for cities when using public financing such as TIF and given the track record in most cities, especially around MLS and minor league baseball, well, the case studies aren’t looking very good. Each deal needs to be crafted very carefully and the risks weighed against the good of the city and city financing as a whole. In fact, in the studies that have come out on the proposed project, the numbers are just not looking too keen, nor is the financing structure.
Instead, the Lents proposal is a fast track political advocacy by a couple of special interest individuals on Council. That too is bad government. Councilmen (including the mayor) should be very cautious in advocating so strongly for the specialized financial interested of one single wealthy business owner who also wants to be a sole source contractor without a competitive bid process. That’s getting into very Jersey/Detroit/Cleveland/New Orleans and other corrupt city governments territory. In addition, other more pressing city business (like the recent layoffs at BDS, continuing and growing problems with existing PDC defaulted loans like the Nines and the Heritage Building) are suffering due to Leonard’s and Adams’ “Shiny Objects” fascination and time spent on this.
It’s absolutely infuriating.
Just a point of clarification – the $15million would not be transferred to the Lents URA. It would be used to fund a portion of the PGE park renovations. The result would be that more money would be available from the Spectator Fund bonding capacity and other project funding sources to apply to the Lents portion of the project.
The LTCURA is not deciding to dedicate funding from a new URA to the project. They’re simply saying that they recognize the City should seek other sources of funding other than the LTCURA to fill the $15 million dollar funding gap in the full project funding requirements.
@Psymonetta Isnoful: My money’s on your committee saying “pass” to the entire steaming pile. Cheers!
With all due respect Psymonetta Isnoful, we are talking about different pots of money in the same kitchen.
The budget scenarios in question produced by PDC specifically ID programming $15 million from a new Central City URA for stadium development. Which stadium isn’t really important with regard to the outcome.
If the Lents URA adopts a scenario that utilizes more Spectator Fund Bonding and doing so requires a not formed URA to use $15 million to fill a funding hole for PGE park, that is not really different from committing $15 million from the not formed URA to fund the Lents stadium.
In both cases, $15 million in URA funding in a not formed URA is being committed with no input from that not formed URA advisory committee and so on and so forth…
Either way it is a shell game and “Probably not!” is right answer when considering the overall legality.
The big news in all this seems to have got buried. Adams has finally said, on the record, that they’re decoupling the baseball and soccer stadiums. I realize that most of the less-reactionary people around here knew long ago that that was effectively the reality, but it’s now official. Which means people can stop their ceaseless blabber about how only Timbers fans want the baseball stadium built, and will be forced to accept that the Beavers decision has absolutely no impact on the MLS issue.
In other news, bye bye Beavers. It’s been nice knowing you. Good luck with finding a city where more than a couple of hundred people might show up once in a while.