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July 30, 2009
Beaverton mayor: We're gonna build us a stadium somehow!
Minor-league baseball is normally outside the scope of this site, but I just can't pass up a Beaverton Beavers story. Especially since it's really part of the Portland Timbers story. And the mayor of Beaverton is named Denny Doyle — though sadly, not that one.
So anyway: Mayor Doyle now says he hopes to have an MOU for a new Triple-A stadium by the end of August, and a financing plan in September. He doesn't know how much it would cost or who would pay for it, though he does helpfully note, "We would go out and put together a package that both sides would contribute."
Doyle also ruled out using property taxes or urban renewal money to pay for a stadium, which, in the words of Oregonian reporter Brad Schmidt, "would leave city-issued bonds." Of course, bonds don't actually pay for anything — they're just a means of financing, meaning this makes as much sense as saying Beaverton plans to pay for a stadium "by putting it on its credit card." But presumably Schmidt was just repeating what Doyle told him, and that's journalism, right?
"The key thing is the size of the stadium and the dollars to pay for it, who pays for what, and how? That's the art of the deal," Doyle said. "And you're not going to see negotiation happening in public."
How comforting. All the negotiations will happen in the dark. As you once said "the trend of letting the dumbest guy in the office negotiate the deal" continues.
Posted by Thomas on July 30, 2009 01:08 PM