Didn't they say something about the current deal being "Phase 1," or something similar? Phase 2 appears to be the roof. What a joke. Well at least the new winter MLS schedule they propose wouldn't interphere with the Beavers' schedule, and they'd have plenty of time to roll out those temporary bleachers!

How much will it cost to put an ECO-roof on PGE Park?

I can't imagine that this issue hasn't already been raised with Paulson. My guess is that he'll find a sure home for the Beavers, work out the details and then this will come up in the PGE design. Portland is not nearly as important to roof as say New England, D.C., Columbus, Chicago etc.
Time will tell...

There are plenty of indoor soccer facilities around town. Paulson can just rent one of those. Im sure they can handle the "crowds" of ticket-buyers.

Is MLS sure they want Garber as commissioner?

This guy is a megalomaniac for a sport that has yet to turn a profit (outside of buy-in fees) in 15 years and wants to take on the NFL (or the Blazers or NHL) in the winter and have cities build roofs on parks?

Honestly, I'd like to see MLS survive, albeit without the govt handouts, but he's pushing a rock uphill on this.

...Are you implying that the honorable Mr. Paulson would spring this roof scheme on us after all the other details were signed and done? Astonishing.

Over the next 15-20 years, the cost would be $0, since this is about as likely to happen as Rush Limbaugh winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

In business you have to know who you are dealing with. We have got to get some ironclad agreements in writing that stipulate that - if we need a roof - the Paulsons have to pay for it. There has to be an upper end on these costs or they will never end. If we're not careful Randy and the others will sign agreements that put us on the hook for the roof and God knows what else - without even realizing what they're doing. If they haven't already.

If as Roger suggests, that it's unlikely, well, then they shouldn't mind putting it in writing. But let's make it forever, not just 15 to 20 years. If it isn't going to happen, they shouldn't be afraid to sign.

What we don't want is a situation where we are on the hook and that factors into their decision to change the schedules because it wouldn't cost them. That's among the things we really don't want.

Think of PGE Park as a troubled asset that we guarantee while Merritt sells risky derivatives on it and tries to get richer.

We are now part of the Paulson Empire which means they believe they have the right to dominate our city government and tap our city revenues for their needs. It is called entitlement. They believe they are the ruling class and we just exist to serve them. The last few months, dealing with them has become the story line of Portland, just as dealing with Wall Street has become the story line of America.

Henry Paulson - the minority owner of the Timbers - has long been suspected of rigging the game for his old buddies at Goldman Sachs. Now comes word that when he was at the Treasury, months before he got an ethics waiver to deal with his old firm, he met privately with the Goldman Sachs board in June of 2008 in a hotel in Moscow. It was billed as a social event - although it didn't appear on any social calendars, but our nation's economic business was discussed faraway in Russia. Maybe Sarah Palin could see the meeting, but the rest of us couldn't.

These people have a repulsive disregard for our system of laws and they will do whatever they have to, to get paid. It is all about them - they are the ruling class. We are now officially afflicted with them and Portland exists as a remote outpost feeding into their empire.

Tonight President Obama throws a fundraiser in New York where lots of Wall Street types will pay over 30 thousand dollars each to attend. These people have the money, but they want just want more.

We have to tie up this PGE Park deal so it can't go on bleeding huge sums from us. The Paulsons are bad news for America. They are a curse on this country and now they want to get Portland on the revenue stream. We've got to be extremely careful here.

You have to know the people you do business with.

My thoughts exactly Steve. He's got pretty big plans for a young, on-the-edge sports league. Especially, when much more established pro sports are on the bubble right now. Remember when they canceled an NHL season a couple years ago and nobody noticed?

It's also interesting how Garber didn't immediately dismiss the schedule change idea. If things are going so well, why would you even want to discuss drastically rearranging the league?
Garber should have said, "No thank you. We're already golden here"....if MLS was the winner lots of people swear it is.
Talking about switching to the winter months and coming up with hundreds of millions more to put roofs on stadiums? That sounds like a desperate man talking.

Eco-roof. Good one.

Maybe we could just buy the Tacoma Dome and have Terry Emmert move it down to Portland.

Gee, if the water bureau hadn't given away, errrr... sold those reservoir covers, we could have draped one over the stadium and used Randy's Water Bureau Army guards to hold it taut.

How much will it cost to put a roof on PGE Park?

1 Mayor + 1 City Councilor + the soul of the city + 1 arm + 1 leg

In the late sixties there was a plan to put a bubble over Candlestick Park in the bay area (never a popular stadium because of the cold and the wind). As I recall, it would have been kept inflated by Giant fans.

I realized later the mention of Paulson's meeting with the board of Goldman Sachs in Moscow must have sound like a deranged conspiracy nut but it's in the new book, "Too Big to Fail." The specific story is in the Business section of today's Huffington Post.

Look, I don't enjoy sounding so irritated but I am convinced the financial story of these times is not understood. I had one Timber Army type act like the TARP money had been repaid and that was that. So what's the big deal?

People don't understand the details of what has happened here.
They're taking the standard approach: "If I want something, then my side is right and your side is wrong." It's disappointing.

Meanwhile, nothing has been addressed. We've spent trillions from the future to get through this and forestall the day of reckoning.
But nothing has been done to prevent that day from arriving.

I'm with you Bill. The day of reckoning began last fall, but then the feds just through a bunch of temporary stops in front of it, and are trying to tell us it's solved.

They're sticking fingers in a leaky dam and telling us that now it's sound. But at some point you better actually fix the dam, cuz the water is still behind it.