If the property tax freeze in the proposed Urban Renewal District deprives the county and PPS of much needed tax revenue, then the deal, at least from that perspective, doesn’t look quite as sweet.

The studies are correct–but I’ll repeat: look at the deals discussed in those cases. Bigger public outlays, higher revenues required to meet obligations, little to no privatization of risk. The deal Paulson agreed to is much, much tighter. The task force–not of politicians, but citizens–laid out a stiff set of conditions, which they report have largely been met.

I am as skeptical as anyone about the general wisdom of such projects–but you have to analyze them case by case. This is an unusually sweet deal for the city, actually. The risk is extremely low.

And I just noticed the margins of the blog are notebook paper lines! Nice touch…

PPS staff and board members have been contacting City Council with our concerns and will be at the council meeting tomorrow – Trudy Sargent will testifying on our behalf.

A quick email or voicemail tonight from citizens would be most appreciated!

If you look at the long and dismal history of public funding of sports teams, you’ll have a hard time finding ANY deal that actually delivered on all the public benefits that were promised by the team owners. (See, for example, a Brookings study from 1997, Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: Are Stadiums Worth the Cost? http://www.brookings.edu/artic.....noll.aspx) The real bottom line is that the deal for cities almost invariably stinks at the end of it. These little boondoggles are just another example of the shameless “investment strategies” that have brought this country to its knees and are predicated on the socialization of costs and the privatization of profits.

Moreover, I find it vaguely delusional that we are talking about this now. Who’s going to buy these bonds worth $85 million? Have you read the papers lately? Ok, let’s assume for the sake of argument that you can find buyers. Has anybody considered the opportunity costs? Is there NOTHING more socially responsible that we could use some bond money for? But ok, let’s assume that this is a swell idea and the stadium gets redone – again. Who’s going to buy tickets? The projections on ticket sales embedded in the longer term “planning” for this team seem not to have factored in the economic meltdown and the ballooning unemployment rate. Can we get real here?

But more to the point, I am appalled that the public sector, and apparently the public, think that throwing boatloads of public money at sports is a fine idea, but heaven forbid we should give more than the barest minimum to education or any other actual public good. Remember the $300 M bond for the U of O football extravaganza? Anybody out there think we could convince anyone to float a $300 M bond to fund actual classrooms? I didn’t think so.

People say all kinds of things about what they “value.” But if you really want to see what they value look at the budget.

Bread and circuses.

Putting aside the obvious fact that we already are–why can’t we do so now? If they’re blighted, start up a URD.

But we’ll never see an army of man-children mobbing city hall with chain saws demanding it.

How many stadiums did FDR build?

This speaks volumes about our civic character.

That’s based on studies involving WAY more public investment, and MUCH bigger facilities. The proper measure of stimulus is whether the result will be enduring. The City will own two new facilities, with almost no risk. The conclusion was not that there is NO economic benefit to public stadia; rather, that the typical investment and risk are not adequately borne out by the returns. When returns come without risk, that changes the equation entirely.

The priority now should be JOBS, immediately–which makes this pretty much the best thing going to spend money on right now.

The big winner is Paulson. No way is that part of town blighted in any way, and no way is another renovation to PGE Park and a handful of soccer games a year going to contribute to increasing property values.

Anyway, the priorities are all screwed up. But that’s not going to stop the rump of the Goldschmidt gang from sticking it to the little guy to the benefit of some rich bastard… yet again.

Want stimulus? Build something useful to society. Public investment in sports stadiums never pans out the way the proponents claim it will.

County services are needed, but $15mil isn’t going to change a thing–and the rewards are huge. Just for starters, 600 immediate construction jobs. The amount of direct stimulus being realized for the cost outlay is a tremendous bargain–just $25,000 per job.

And it’s curious that no one’s mentioning Paulson’s committment to the City of Portland for what appears to be $3mil in direct recreational funding, 30% of which would go to fields that the City desperately needs.