I was surprised when Timbers fans saved their biggest cheer at the Major League Soccer vote last week for Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who voted "yes" to the idea of MLS, but at the same time may have nixed the deal completely by proposing a last-minute amendment that pulled $15 million in urban renewal money off the table, at least for the time being.

Saltzman proposed the funding change after Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler appeared in council to beat up on Commissioner Randy Leonard for proposing to use the urban renewal money without first consulting with the county. As it stands, 26 cents for every tax increment financing dollar that goes toward the funding of new urban renewal districts is held back from Multnomah County in taxes that would otherwise fund education and social services, every year for the next 20 years.

Leonard says the city helps the county out financially all the time, and accused Wheeler of crafting a "stump speech." But truth be told, Leonard is grandstanding on this issue, too. Since Mayor Sam Adams took control of the Portland Development Commission's (PDC) budget in January, urban renewal has become politicized in a new way.

In the past, urban renewal projects like the South Waterfront and the Pearl District were controlled by PDC, supposedly in the best interests of Portland, without "political" interference. Leonard and Adams took control of PDC's budget because they felt PDC wasn't accountable enough to Portlanders, but the move had the side effect of shifting responsibility for controversial urban renewal projects away from PDC and directly onto city commissioners.

If Leonard is going to take responsibility for the possible failure of the project, you can be damn sure that he'll want to take credit if it succeeds. But instead of getting the county to the table early and making quiet tradeoffs in return for establishing a new urban renewal district, as PDC used to, Leonard will now have to fight the county tooth and nail, and in public, over the creation of a new urban renewal district that includes PGE Park, to fund the MLS deal.

Leonard's office says it may find the $15 million from elsewhere, but where? Until Leonard can get the county to sign off on the deal, Saltzman just made the next six months of his fellow commissioner's life a lot more stressful. And cleverest of all, he got a cheer for it from some Timbers fans. That's some crafty defensive play, I swear.