After a six-hour hearing on Wednesday, Portland expansion bid leader Merritt Paulson, with dozens of Portland Timbers scarf-wearing fans in attendance to provide their support, watched city officials vote 3-2 in favor of a deal that could bring an MLS expansion team to the city in 2011 based on renovations of downtown’s PGE Park and the financing of a new minor league baseball stadium.
But, there’s a catch. A $15-millon catch, to be exact. That’s the amount of public funding that City Commissioner Dan Saltzman took off the table in an amendment to the original financial plan before he agreed to commit his deciding vote.
While Paulson said the agreement was a “positive step,” he admitted it still presented a major monetary challenge, as his personal investment is already “on the table above and beyond” his own financial limits.