June 18, 2004
War of numbers in Portland
The Oregonian casts doubt on Portland's simmering stadium plans for luring the Montreal Expos, noting they assume taxes from an overly optimistic $75 million team payroll - which would have to grow by 5% a year for 25 years - corporate seat license sales that would require virtually every company in town to buy four seats, as-yet-undetermined business taxes, and other dubious economic assumptions. Ballpark boosters respond in an op-ed that a stadium would bring in new visitors from across the Washington state border, and that even though MLB payrolls have fallen of late, they were going up before that, so there. The whole debate may in any case soon be moot: pro-stadium Mayor Vera Katz leaves office at the end of the year, and neither of her possible replacements is warm to the idea of ballpark building.
