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Mayor Keith Wilson on Tuesday implored the Portland City Council in a public letter to fund its share of the Moda Center’s renovation.
The letter comes as the council debates both if and how the city should pony up $120 million to round out an estimated $600 million renovation of the Moda Center. And it comes as Tom Dundon, the new Trail Blazers owner, is set to make his own appearance at the arena for a business summit on June 24.
Both the state legislature and Multnomah County have pledged to help fund the renovation in hopes that it will ensure the Trail Blazers stay in Portland, rather than skipping town for another city—a looming threat that has swirled after Dundon, a Texas billionaire, purchased the Blazers earlier this year. The city has been the sole holdout.
“Our share may be comparatively smaller, but it’s enough to put the brakes on the project if we don’t take our role seriously,” Wilson wrote in his letter. “I want the best deal for Portland, a deal that centers the thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in annual economic activity generated by the team.”
In what seemed like a barb against some of the councilors who have taken to social media to lambast the merits of a deal—which they’ve framed as a cash-strapped city being bullied into paying money to a billionaire—Wilson wrote: “Good process means sitting down, figuring out the math, and keeping the public informed and empowered every step of the way, not duking it out in the media or on Instagram.”
At issue for some of the councilors opposed to helping fund the renovation is the proposed source of funding. Wilson has suggested using revenue from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, the city’s climate tax that’s flush with cash. But councilors primarily from the council’s progressive caucus have argued that the money should be preserved for its original intended use: climate resiliency.
On that point, Wilson appeared in his letter to soften his stance.
“If our PCEF committee believes that a portion of the funds they steward would be most impactful as part of the renovation process, we should rally behind their decision, including if it means diverting unspent funding from other projects,” Wilson wrote. “If they don’t make that determination, we’ll need to find another way.”
Dundon is set to appear at the Portland Metro Chamber’s annual summit on Wednesday, this year held—intentionally so—at the Moda Center. The Portland City Council is set to hold a work session on Moda Center negotiations around the same time, a meeting that Council President Jamie Dunphy declined to rearrange in response to the Metro Chamber’s ask that he do so last week.
A rally set to take place outside of the Moda Center before the Metro Chamber event begins, aimed at ensuring the city gets a “fair deal”, will feature councilors Angelita Morillo, Mitch Green and Tiffany Koyama Lane, who are all scheduled to speak.
Wilson’s letter on Tuesday appeared to be a plea to the councilors to negotiate in good faith with Dundon and the Blazers. But it also served as a chastisement.
“Calling foul and throwing around accusations can boost re-election campaigns,” Wilson wrote, “but we can’t wave away the very real risk of declining tax revenue, broken promises to neighborhoods, and lost jobs.”
Morillo on social media wrote that Wilson’s Tuesday letter “is an attempt to frame the Councilors asking hard questions as bad faith, vain actors rather than stewards of millions taxpayer dollars.””
