And speaking of “Approve sports spending first, work out the details later,” this just in from Portland, Oregon regarding Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon’s $600 million arena renovation request:
As a deadline to commit public dollars to Moda Center renovations rapidly approaches, it appears that Portland city councilors will be asked to approve spending $120 million on arena renovations next month without knowing where that money will come from in the city budget.
According to city officials, that’s because the Portland Trail Blazers have yet to share details of the renovation plans they have in mind for the Moda Center. The Blazers say they need the city to commit to funding before they’ll share designs.
Sorry, wut? If ever a moment called for the employment of that Simpsons “aurora borealis” meme — oh good, looks like J.C. Bradbury is already on it.
With Dundon keeping his pig firmly within its poke, that limits Portland’s options for coming up with its $120 million share, because two sources of funding — the Portland Clean Energy Fund and a city economic development fund — have restrictions on what they could be used for. Not that it really matters: If those funds aren’t used, Portland will have to come up with other tax money, and if they are used, Portland will have to come up with tax money to pay for whatever those funds would have otherwise been used for.
Still, the fact that the Portland city council is set to commit to a term sheet for Blazers lease talks on August 12 and won’t know by then how it would pay the $120 million bill it would be committing to is, let’s go with “not great.” There’s nothing stopping the council from calling Dundon’s bluff, of course, and saying they won’t release his money until he releases his arena plans. That would seem to be the absolute least they could ask him to do, since it wouldn’t cost him any actual money — and Portland lawmakers could still totally request that he chip in more of that — but nobody ever became a billionaire by acceding to reasonable demands.
There’s chutzpah (accent first syllable) and there is chutzpah (accent second syllable).
The first is courageous nerve.
The second is shameless arrogance.
Dundon has the second, which is not admirable.
It’s an Albany expression.
In political parlance, this is called “Vote Now, Find Out Later” or VNFOL.
In the colloquial usage, it’s just FAFO.