What's up with Attorney General's investigation? Where is that thing?

And I love the suggestion that the process isn't moving as fast as it seems. Again, the problem seems to lie in other people and their warped perceptions.

"Past 20 years" is about right. The policy of ignoring important upkeep and purposely restraining event volume at the Coliseum coincides with the building of the Rose Garden.

It is not in the players' best interests to operate the Coliseum at a profit or to invest in it.

This has been a campaign of intentional neglect that could have been avoided. Tearing the Coliseum down is not the solution. Once again, we are looking at a "foregone conclusion" that city council members are scuttling about to find evidence to support.

See:
"Memorial Coliseum deal was structured for the arena to fail"
http://www.portlandarchitecture.com/

(scroll down; second article)

I'm not as opposed to replacing the MC as some - I'm also not entirely sold on the idea - but this whole "20 years of approval" argument smacks of re-writing the rules in the middle of the game. Kinda like Hillary arguing that we shouldn't count delegates from the states that had caucuses during the Democratic Primary.

The thing is, you usually don't try to re-write the rules unless you think you're going to lose playing straight up. Could be that Sam is starting to fear for the success of his little project.

Have you been to a city council meeting lately, or watched on Cable Channel 30? Every Wednesday morning meeting begins with the ritual tongue-lashing of our mayor by one of more of our fellow citizens. The mayor welcomes these people before they start in on him for their allotted three minutes. Some try to shame him, others verbally abuse him. All the while the mayor and the city council sit in their seats with wooden expressions on their faces. It's not surprising that the mayor is doing inexplicable things.

This goes way beyond Portland Weird to just plain bizarre.

For those of you who have been sparring with the commenter posting as "da Sharks," we regret to inform you that he or she has left the building. Worth noting, however, that he or she was hurling those bitter salvos from a U of O computer.

No mention in the article of Sam and Vera's hamfisted attempt five or six years ago to a chunk of the money Joan Kroc had left for the Salvation Army under the guise of transforming the Coliseum into some sort of community rec center. Was the plan to take the money, build the rec center, and bulldoze the thing a few years later? Is this the plan now? Build a minor league ballpark and just bulldoze it in a few years after Paulson has sold both teams and someone else wants to transform the neighborhood? Seems that's what they're trying to do at PGE Park.

Latest news this evening is that the council has put off a vote on demolishing the Memorial Coliseum.

Now the mayor says that they will be considering other sites for the ballpark.

Reminds me of that 1970s garbage barge cruising up and down the east coast unable to get anybody to allow it to dump its cargo.

In further breaking news, Marta Guembes was interviewed at KATU. When asked why a new bridge or park couldn't be considered as an alternative to street name change, she smirked and said that either COULD . . . AFTER a street is named for Chavez.

Nightly news is all over what looks like about 10 Timber Army members gathered near City Hall this evening to demonstrate for MLS.