The City’s draft,
scored
On July 17 the City put the first Moda Center term sheet on paper — read it in the City’s public records. Below, it is scored against the fair-deal standard published June 25: before July 16 → in the draft → what must appear by signing.
On July 17 the City put its first term sheet on paper. Scored against the fifteen-term standard: 2 delivered, 4 partial, 5 open, 1 at risk, and 3 that live or die in the final lease. The protections converged; the economics didn’t.
$3M/yr Verified — the draft’s one priced return to the public (~$99M over 20 years).
The delivered draft is also weaker than what the City’s own negotiators sought: rent, a beverage tax, and street pricing were all on staff’s list, and none survived to the July 17 paper (The Athletic, July 27, 2026 Modeled).
The produced July 16 draft (public records, C471144 Verified) also contains terms the public debate has missed: the team covers cost overruns, a parent-company guaranty that survives a sale, City audit rights and periodic inspections, an anti-tanking clause barring a bottom-third league payroll, and a $3M payment shared with Portland Public Schools. Two caveats from the same document: the 20-year Term runs from substantial completion of a renovation allowed up to four years — and Exhibit A, the itemized $573M budget, is a page reading “to be attached.” The blank exhibit →
August 12 is when Council votes this term sheet. Whatever reads “Open” below is what an amendment can still fix.
How these numbers fit together
The same scope, escalated and repeated over 20 years: $505M. Inside it: ~$164M genuine repair, ~$341M revenue-generating upgrades.
This is the current number. The earlier “$600M ask” you may have seen was the floated figure this draft replaced.
The balance sheet’s ~$850M–1B modeled core sits inside this range.
Not the $2.5M-per-year maintenance reserve — that is a separate recommended term.
Verified primary document · Calculated arithmetic from verified inputs · Modeled assumptions disclosed & adjustable. Every line’s paper trail: the Public Balance Sheet.
Several terms in the City’s draft match — sometimes nearly clause for clause — terms published here three weeks earlier, when the common response was that no deal gets those terms. Read the remaining half accordingly.
Every row’s “Must appear by signing” column is written to be lifted. Full language: the fair-deal standard; the paste-ready redline keys each edit to the signed 2024 documents.
Published → Drafted
Four quote pairs — ours above, the draft’s below: the standard, June 25 (archived) · the City’s draft, July 17.
Every term, scored
The fifteen terms of the published standard that the July 17 draft addressed. (The standard now runs to eighteen; the three newest come from the 2024 closing package and appear in no draft yet.) BEFORE describes the deal on paper, not the people negotiating it.
| # | Term | Before July 16 — the deal on paper Existing agreement | In the City’s draft (7/17) Current proposal | Must appear by signing Recommended term | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00 | The condition precedent | Public commitments moved with no conditions attached | Funding level “subject to review of the plans, specifications, budget, and scope”; a City walk-away right absent a viable financing plan | City money expressly conditioned on actual bond issuance (SB 1501 §3(4)) | 🟡 Partial |
| 01 | Price the alternative | No benchmark study published, no market test, sole-source by choice | The PFM comparables summary surfaced July 9 — funding splits for six peers; deal terms unreviewed | The §6(2)(a) terms review published before the vote; the market test run | 🟡 Partial |
| 02 | More per ticket, not less | Five fee carve-outs shrink the public’s 6% on the seats the renovation adds | “A 6% User Fee… will continue” — carve-outs untouched; no participation; fee revenue committed back to arena capital (Exhibit D) | Premium fees at the price paid; 18% participation; returns paid to the City, not recycled | ⭕ Open |
| 03 | Share the naming rights | 100% of arena naming to the operator, no City approval | Naming subject to City approval and content limits; naming deals are “Material Agreements” the City may assume — architecture, not revenue | The re-rate captured above the ~$4M baseline; the reversion priced, not granted at $0 | ⭕ Open |
| 04 | Fix the parking deal | City pays garage costs; operator keeps a 25% fee + Arena Garage event revenue; books closed to copies | “The City retains parking revenues from Public Parking Facilities”; an Amended & Restated Parking Agreement is listed, terms unwritten | The 25% administration fee ends; a City share of event parking; audit with copies | ⭕ Open |
| 05 | A payment in lieu of taxes | $0 — the building is tax-exempt; no PILOT existed | “$3,000,000 per year… escalated by 5% annually,” shared City / County / Portland Public Schools (~$99M over 20 years) | A greatest-of-three covenant: the certified floor ($1.2–1.5M, CPI) · the county’s ORS 308.153 formula ($5.1–9.4M/yr minimum) · appraised equivalency. Methodology | 🟡 Partial |
| 06 | A real General-Fund return | $1/year rent | No rent line appears; Exhibit D commits the City’s user-fee and parking receipts back to arena capital (~$275M/20yrs) | $4.5M/yr escalating 3% — the ownership’s own Raleigh signature (~$121M) — paid to the City directly | ⭕ Open |
| 07 | The development upside | 3-year operator exclusive; a veto on City land sales; the City’s share undefined on self-development | Not addressed — community-benefits partners are named; the development architecture is absent | The Raleigh architecture: milestones, 6% ground rent, the tax rolls, 10% affordable housing, §12.5 lifted | ⭕ Open |
| 08 | Caps, clawbacks, overruns | Overruns assigned to no one; relocation remedies at the statutory floor, operator-only | The payer is named: all costs beyond the Public Funding Contribution, overruns, and operating losses are Rip City’s; specific performance + liquidated damages + clawback; an anti-value-engineering clause | An owner-level GMP; a public-majority savings split; Exhibit A reconciled to the VSG study; formula-pegged damages | ✅ Delivered |
| 09 | Delete the surcharge ban | Lease §3.3 makes the City reimburse any City ticket tax dollar-for-dollar | Not addressed — carries into the “amended and restated” lease by default unless deleted | §3.3 deleted; the DA §28.2.4 definition conformed | ⏳ A&R lease |
| 10 | The first-class claim | A preserved, tolled claim, ~$164M face, “fully applicable upon termination” — the City’s own signed language | The forward obligation is delivered — “Rip City will, at its cost and expense, keep and maintain” to the Comparable Facilities standard. The accrued claim goes unmentioned — and the docs list includes an “amended and restated arena operating lease” | One sentence — the no-novation recital preserving the §§5.4 and 10.2 accrued claims (drafted in full below) | 🚨 At risk |
| 11 | Protect the backup plan | Lease §15 bars any 10,000–20,000-seat metro venue — including the City’s own options | Not addressed | §15 deleted or narrowed with a Coliseum carve-out and death-on-default | ⏳ A&R lease |
| 12 | End the secrecy | A term-long NDA; books that can’t be copied; confidential New York arbitration | Audit rights conceded in principle — “may audit detailed financial reporting… to verify public return” — “through a process to be established” | Copies, not look-only; the NDA ends; Oregon-seated arbitration; reporting past 2032 | 🟡 Partial |
| 13 | Guarantees that survive | Obligations lived in the operator shell; the 2024 backstop covered only the clawback | “TBL will provide an unconditional guaranty… of all Renovation and post-Renovation obligations”; binds successors; survives any change of control | The $50M evergreen letter of credit; springing holdco recourse; the place-of-business fix (ESA §2) | ✅ Delivered |
| 14 | Cap the NBA-rules clause | Lease §18.26 subordinates the whole lease to current and future NBA rules | Not addressed — and assignments are “subject to… the NBA’s governing rules” | An automatic make-whole on revenue-reducing rule changes; supremacy yields to non-relocation | ⏳ A&R lease |
Term-level tally: 2 delivered · 4 partial · 5 open · 3 on the A&R-lease watchlist · 1 at risk. Every sub-ask, scored one by one, is in the master ledger below.
The master ledger — every sub-ask on the terms page, scored (63 rows)
Every sub-ask from the fair-deal terms. Tally: 6 delivered · 13 partial · 25 not addressed · 10 on the A&R-lease watchlist · 1 at risk.
| # | The ask, as published | The City’s draft, July 17 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00 | City’s signature as the consideration; condition, don’t ask | Footnote 4, all caps: “SUBJECT TO REVIEW OF THE PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, BUDGET, AND SCOPE” | 🟡 |
| 00 | City commitments expressly conditioned on actual bond issuance (§3(4) asymmetry) | “May contribute up to” is permissive; no express bond-issuance condition | ⭕ |
| 01.1 | Publish the §6(2)(a) review before the vote | Silent; benchmarks only to unnamed “Comparable Facilities” | ⭕ |
| 01.2 | Publish a relocation BATNA model | Silent | ⭕ |
| 01.3 | Test-sell disclosure (Portland-committed buyer) | Silent | ⭕ |
| 01.4 | Disclose alternative-operator economics | No disclosure — but the Venue Manager clause contemplates “a third-party venue management firm of national reputation” | 🟡 |
| 01.5 | Don’t renew the sole-source exemption for biddable pieces | Rip City leads all design/renovation under the PDA; no competitive process | ⭕ |
| 02.1 | Premium seats fee’d at price actually paid | “A 6% User Fee… will continue” — carve-outs untouched | ⭕ |
| 02.2 | Close the season-premium loophole | Not addressed | ⭕ |
| 02.3 | Close affiliate-netting + promoter-default holes | Not addressed | ⭕ |
| 02.4 | Suites at 6% of actual license revenue; single-event to 100% | Not addressed | ⭕ |
| 02.5 | 18% participation above CPI-indexed baseline | No participation anywhere — and Exhibit D recycles all Moda user fees ($201M/20yr) into arena capex | ⭕ |
| 03.1 | Naming re-rate captured via participation | No share; “Rip City will have customary naming… rights” | ⭕ |
| 03.2 | 50/50 district-naming split (§31.2.4) carried forward | Silent | ⏳ |
| 03.3 | Price the §31.4 reversion | Silent — but naming deals become Material Agreements: City approval and a right to assume | 🟡 |
| 04.1 | End/performance-base the 25% admin fee (§8.4) | Silent; an “Amended and Restated Public Parking Agreement” is on the definitive-docs list | ⏳ |
| 04.2 | Arena Garage gap closed; 30% of event parking to City | “The City retains parking revenues from Public Parking Facilities” — status quo; Arena Garage untouched; Blazers-event parking recycled via Exhibit D ($46.4M/20yr) | ⭕ |
| 04.3 | Open the private-garage books | General audit right over “Arena revenues” may reach it; copies not stated | 🟡 |
| 04.4 | Narrow §4.2’s team-protective sentence | Silent (rate-approval authority retained) | ⭕ |
| 05 | Greatest-of-three PILOT: the certified floor (CPI) · the county formula ($5.1–9.4M/yr post-reno) · appraised equivalency, no offsets | “Property Tax Offset Payment”: $3M/yr escalating 5%, split City/County/PPS “proportionally” (undefined). Falls below the county-formula minimum post-renovation; no completion reset, no true-up | 🟡 |
| 06.1 | Rent: $4.5M/yr esc. 3% + $2.5M per year operator capital reserve | No rent line exists in the document | ⭕ |
| 06.2 | Direct-payment covenant — returns never into the Arena Fund | The $3M offset does pay City/County/PPS directly — but fees/parking/VMC profits route into arena capex (Exhibit D, $275,000,016/20yr) | 🟡 |
| 07.1 | Development exclusive priced at Raleigh milestones + 6% ground rent + tax rolls + 10% affordable | No Rose Quarter development terms anywhere | ⭕ |
| 07.2 | Remove the §12.5 land-disposition veto | Silent | ⏳ |
| 07.3 | Delete §29.4 flip-only; define the share now | Silent | ⏳ |
| 07.4 | Binding community benefits (AVT/1803, MWESB, anti-displacement) | CBA required with 1803 Fund + Albina Vision Trust named; prevailing wage, PLA + labor-peace (Exhibit C), MBE goals, local hiring, 10+ community events/yr, LEED Platinum/net-zero. Economics absent; housing percentages bracketed | ✅ |
| 07.5 | Use-it-or-lose-it reversion deadlines | N/A — no development terms | ⭕ |
| 07.6 | TIF capture, public-majority authority | Not addressed | ⭕ |
| 08.1 | Name the overrun payer | Delivered verbatim — the sole-responsibility clause, quoted above — plus post-renovation operating losses | ✅ |
| 08.2 | Owner-level GMP, not contractor-level | GMP not specified; PDA to set schedule, bonds, delay/abandonment consequences | ⭕ |
| 08.3 | “Authority-requested” defined narrowly | Inverse half delivered: TBL/Rip City–directed change orders are Rip City’s; authority-side definition absent | 🟡 |
| 08.4 | Savings split 65/35 public | Absent | ⭕ |
| 08.5 | Budget reconciled line-by-line to VSG | Exhibit A is blank; footnote 4 supplies the mechanism | 🟡 |
| 08.6 | No side doors (Arena Fund can’t absorb overruns) | Not explicit | ⭕ |
| 08.7 | Anti-descope protection (the five-question test’s spirit) | Anti-value-engineering clause: no reducing “building systems and the structure to solely benefit revenue generating improvements” | ✅ |
| 08.8 | Cap the §5(5) maintenance commitment; match to operator spend | Capped — Exhibit D annual ceilings, “revenues beyond… will not be available”; match requirement absent | 🟡 |
| 08.9 | Relocation penalty above the statutory floor, full-stack, specific performance | Substantially delivered: TBL executes the non-relocation agreement; specific performance, TRO, injunctions “without the necessity of proving actual damages or posting bond”; liquidated damages “reflecting the public investment”; clawback/recapture; State/County/JA third-party beneficiaries; successor-binding | ✅ |
| 08.10 | Formula-pegged damages (Illingworth-safe) | “Reflecting the public investment” — direction right, formula absent | 🟡 |
| 08.11 | Coliseum games fee’d + counted as home games | “All… home games at the Arena, subject to limited exceptions” TBD in MOU; VMC side door unresolved | ⏳ |
| 08.12 | Fence the §6(1)(e) injunction sword | Silent | ⭕ |
| 09 | Delete the §3.3 surcharge ban | Silent | ⏳ |
| 10a | Forward first-class obligation restored, with inspection rights | “Rip City will, at its cost and expense, keep and maintain the Arena… consistent with Comparable Facilities,” all capital repairs, 5-yr capital plan annually, City may perform periodic inspections | ✅ |
| 10b | The accrued claim: quantified, settled at $120M, credited once, no novation | Unmentioned — while the docs list includes an “amended and restated arena operating lease” and the preamble runs on supersession | 🚨 |
| 11 | Kill or narrow the §15 non-compete | Silent | ⏳ |
| 12.1 | No NDA carryover | Silent | ⏳ |
| 12.2 | Audited annual public disclosure | Government audit yes; public disclosure no | 🟡 |
| 12.3 | Audit rights with copies | “May audit detailed financial reporting… to verify public return” — copies unstated | 🟡 |
| 12.4 | Oregon records/arbitration supremacy | Silent | ⏳ |
| 12.5 | Reporting past the 2032 sunset | 5-yr capital plans + JA information rights continue; §7-equivalent public reporting absent | 🟡 |
| 12.6 | Publish annual diversion amounts | Silent | ⭕ |
| 13.1 | Joint-and-several TBI backstop | “TBL will provide an unconditional guaranty of Rip City’s performance of all Renovation and post-Renovation obligations,” binding successors, surviving change of control, assignment consent to City + JA + NBA rules | ✅ |
| 13.2 | $50M evergreen letter of credit + springing holdco recourse | Absent | ⭕ |
| 13.3 | Publish the ESA §3.3 sale-assumption instrument | Silent | ⭕ |
| 13.4 | Close the place-of-business hole | Silent | ⭕ |
| 14 | §18.26 make-whole; supremacy yields to non-relocation | “Good standing under NBA Rules” appears; supremacy clause fate unaddressed | ⏳ |
Package, process & conditions-precedent items — tally: 3 delivered · 3 partial · 2 open.
| The item | The draft | |
|---|---|---|
| Term: 30 yrs + options, §4-sunset contingent | “At least twenty (20) years from substantial completion” + mandated good-faith extension talks | 🟡 |
| County locked first, joint protocol | County terms embedded via the “Moda Center Funding Intergovernmental Agreement”; $88M = $53M bonds + remainder contingent on sale Business Income Tax | 🟡 |
| City $120M re-sourced — no PCEF | Sourced to “bonds or other debt instruments”; PCEF appears nowhere | 🟡 |
| Coverage analysis, bond-counsel memos, assessor opinion, JPMorgan release | All silent | ⭕ |
| PLA executed as condition | Exhibit C: PLA + labor-peace agreements as “a material condition of the City entering into the Arena Lease” | ✅ |
| Civic days / community use | Reserved civic days + major city-wide events, rent-free, cost-recovery only | ✅ |
| Separate lease/funding votes; publish 30 days out; mandate disclosure; no hospitality; on-record no-terms | Process items — outside the draft, still open | ⭕ |
| December deadline cited to statute | No December date anywhere in the draft; the clock is “four (4) years” from PDA execution — the fact-check, corroborated | ✅ |
The four columns, term by term
Each strip is a diff: before July 16, the City’s draft, and what must appear by signing.
Overruns & the relocation stack
✅ Delivered — hold itOverruns assigned to no one; statutory-floor relocation remedies, operator-only.
The payer is named — the sole-responsibility clause, quoted above — plus an anti-value-engineering clause; specific performance, liquidated damages, and clawback.
An owner-level GMP; a public-majority savings split; Exhibit A reconciled to the VSG study ($573M sits $68M above its 20-year plan); formula-pegged damages.
Guarantees that survive
✅ Delivered — hold itThe obligations lived in a disposable operator shell (the 2024 backstop, ESA §4.5, covered only the clawback).
The unconditional TBL guaranty of “all Renovation and post-Renovation obligations,” binding “any successor” and surviving “any change of control”; assignments need Joint Authority and City approval.
The $50M evergreen letter of credit; springing holdco recourse; the place-of-business fix (ESA §2).
The payment in lieu of taxes
🟡 Partial — finish it$0 — the building is tax-exempt (ORS 307.171); no payment in lieu existed.
“$3,000,000 per year… escalated by 5% annually,” split among the County, City, and Portland Public Schools — roughly $99M over 20 years.
The greatest-of-three covenant: the certified pre-exemption floor ($1.2–1.5M/yr, CPI) · the county’s construction formula at completion — a $5.1–9.4M/yr mechanical minimum · appraised full equivalency. The methodology →
Transparency & audit
🟡 Partial — finish itA term-long NDA (§11.6); look-only books (§10.14); confidential New York arbitration (§14).
The principle is conceded — the audit-rights clause, quoted above — mechanics “through a process to be established.”
Copies, not look-only; the NDA ends; Oregon-seated, publicly filed arbitration; annual public disclosure; reporting past the January 2032 sunset.
The condition precedent
🟡 Partial — finish itPublic commitments moved with no conditions attached.
The funding level is “SUBJECT TO REVIEW OF THE PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, BUDGET, AND SCOPE” — and if the operator “fails to demonstrate a viable financing plan,” either party may “terminate the Renovation with no further financial obligation.”
City and County commitments expressly conditioned on actual bond issuance — §3(4) makes the state’s $365M a declared intention, not an obligation.
The benchmark study
🟡 Partial — finish itSB 1501 §6(2)(a) requires “a professional with expertise in arena negotiations” to review comparable NBA projects; none had surfaced by late June.
PFM’s “State Funding and Governance Comparable Summary” — six NBA peers, surfaced July 9 — records peer precedent for rent, a naming share, relocation security, and 18–52% private capital, and reviews no deal terms. The details ↓
The statute’s terms review, published before the vote; the draft reconciled to the state’s comparables.
Rent
⭕ Open — add it$1 a year.
No rent line appears in the document.
$4.5M/yr escalating 3% from occupancy — the schedule this ownership signed in Raleigh; ~$121M over the term, payable to the City directly.
Private capital into the project
⭕ Open — add itNo ownership capital contribution in the public record.
The $573M Renovation Budget “is the public portion” — City $120M + County $88M + State $365M, to the dollar. No ownership capital line appears.
A private-capital line with a number on it — the standard prices ~$245M against the ~$341M revenue-generating scope; peers paid 18–62% (Cleveland 62.2%, D.C. 35.6%, Atlanta 26%, Indianapolis 18%).
Per-ticket return & participation
⭕ Open — add itFive carve-outs shrink the 6% fee on the premium seats the renovation adds — ~$2.2–2.7M/yr of leakage.
“A 6% User Fee… will continue throughout the Term.” Carve-outs untouched, participation absent — and Exhibit D commits the fee’s receipts back to arena capital (below).
Premium seats fee’d at the price actually paid; suites at 6% of license revenue; 18% participation above a CPI-indexed audited baseline.
The naming share
⭕ Open — add it100% of arena naming to the operator, no City approval (DA §31).
Naming is “subject to City approval and reasonable content restrictions,” and naming agreements are Material Agreements the City may assume — architecture, not revenue.
The re-rate (reported ~$4M/yr toward $7–9M/yr) captured above the audited baseline; the 50/50 district split carried forward; the reversion priced.
Parking
⭕ Open — add itThe City pays garage costs; the operator keeps a 25%-of-gross fee plus Arena Garage event revenue; books closed to copies (§16.9).
“The City retains parking revenues from Public Parking Facilities” — the status quo restated. An Amended & Restated Public Parking Agreement is on the docs list, terms unwritten.
The 25% fee ends; a City share of gross event parking (the standard prices 30% from 2031, ~$70M); the Arena Garage gap closed; audit with copies.
The development upside
⭕ Open — add itA 3-year operator exclusive (DA §29.2.1); a veto on City land disposal (§12.5); the City’s share undefined if the operator self-develops (§29.2.4(d)).
The development architecture is absent; Exhibit B commits to “partner with community development organizations on Rose Quarter redevelopment projects,” naming Albina Vision Trust and the 1803 Fund.
The Raleigh architecture: milestones ($200M/yr 5 → $400M/yr 10 → $800M/yr 20), 6% ground rent, the property-tax rolls, 10% affordable housing, §12.5 lifted.
The three clause deletions
⏳ A&R-lease watchlist§3.3 reimburses any City ticket tax; §15 bars the City’s own backup venue; §18.26 subordinates the lease to future NBA rules.
None of the three is addressed — each clause carries into the “amended and restated” lease by default unless deleted.
§3.3 deleted; §15 narrowed with a Coliseum carve-out; §18.26 capped with a make-whole, yielding to non-relocation.
The first-class claim
🚨 At risk — protect itA preserved claim, ~$164M face value, “fully applicable upon termination” — the City’s own signed language (§10.2), limitations tolled.
Unmentioned — and the docs list includes an “amended and restated arena operating lease,” the instrument whose boilerplate can extinguish an accrued claim; the operator takes the building “AS-IS, WHERE-IS… WITH ALL FAULTS.”
“This Agreement is not a novation; the obligations and accrued claims under Arena Operating Lease §§5.4 and 10.2 are expressly preserved [or credited at $___ against the Public Funding Contribution].” Its absence erases it.
The recycling schedule
🚨 At risk — protect itThe 6% user fee and the City’s parking receipts were the public’s only recurring return.
Exhibit D commits the City’s user fees ($201M), Blazers-event parking ($46M), VMC profit share ($20M), and visitor-facilities allocation ($8M) — $275,000,016 over FY2027–28 through FY2046–47 — to arena capital, up to annual caps — the caps are the whole protection.
The schedule trimmed to Blazers-derived revenue or sunset at bond retirement; a boundary between the operator’s keep-and-maintain duty and “eligible capital expenses,” so the same dollar isn’t counted twice.
The week the documents landed — July 9–17
Three documents in nine days: the state’s benchmark data, the County’s conditions, and the City’s opener.
July 9 · The state’s comparables summary (PFM)
- What it is: PFM’s “State Funding and Governance Comparable Summary” — six NBA peers, surfaced July 9. Read it in full, via oregon.gov.
- Peer economics, in the state’s own pages: private capital — Indiana 18% · Minnesota ~46% · Milwaukee 52% · Cleveland listed at 38% (contemporaneous reporting says the Cavaliers funded $115M of $185M, 62.2%; we flag the discrepancy) — against Portland’s proposed 0% base. Rent — Cleveland $2.0M/yr · Minnesota $1.6M/yr · Orlando $1.0M/yr plus “revenue share from naming rights and corporate suite sales.” Relocation security — Indiana’s ~$750M early-lease-termination payment. Per-ticket — Milwaukee’s $2/ticket surcharge (~$60M).
- The state-share outlier: Oregon’s proposed ~62% against a peer maximum of 42% (Memphis); Indiana 34%; Milwaukee 15%; the other three 0%.
- The summary’s own caveat: “Ongoing tax exemptions, land value subsidies, infrastructure investments, and below-market leases would raise the effective public share for virtually all arenas if included.” Portland’s deal carries all four.
- What it is not: a review of deal terms — no rent, relocation-security, or revenue-share comparison.
July 16 · The County’s reset letter — the gate is live
- Who and what: Commissioners Meghan Moyer (D1) and Julia Brim-Edwards (D3) — two of five votes — write Chair Vega Pederson that “the current process has failed; a reset is needed.” The Board’s vote moved to August 6, and they move to strip the ~$35M business-income-tax slice from the County’s $88M. Under SB 1501 §5(5), no state bonds issue without the County — the letter holds the gate on the entire $365M.
- Their floor: a revenue stream that “at a minimum matches debt payments” on County bonds; a contribution no greater than the City’s; a clawback if the team leaves; labor and community-benefit agreements; no new TIF without County approval.
- Run their floor against the draft: the County’s slice of the $3M offset is ~$0.7M/yr against ~$6M/yr of debt service — an eighth of their minimum. With interest, the $88M becomes ~$125M, more than the City’s $120M, with no user fee, parking, or Exhibit D stream.
- A number to chase: the letter’s “$482 million over 20 years” estimate sits below the term sheet’s $573M and the VSG study’s $505M; its source is unstated.
July 17 · The City’s draft
- The opener lands eight days after the state’s summary and the day after the County’s letter; it doesn’t cite the summary, and its economics sit outside the summary’s range on private capital, rent, revenue share, and state share.
One renovation, five official numbers
- $482M (the commissioners’ letter, over 20 years, source unstated) · $505M (the VSG study’s 20-year plan) · $573M (the draft’s Renovation Budget) · ~$575M (the state summary) · $600M (the earlier floated ask). None is reconciled to another; Exhibit A, the itemized budget — currently blank — is where they converge or don’t.
New in the draft — nobody asked, worth knowing
Credit where due: the City’s team drafted past the published standard in three places.
- A Joint Authority. A City–State body stewards the funds, approves design, and holds a termination right. The County, whose $88M is in the stack, is not a member.
- An anti-tanking clause. Minimum competitive standards — “prohibition on finishing in the bottom third of league-wide payroll” and playoff benchmarks — because “team performance constitutes a material component of the return on public investment.”
- A community-benefits package with real exhibits. Prevailing wage, PLA and labor-peace agreements, MBE goals, rent-free community events, transit passes, LEED Platinum / net-zero — none of it in the 2024 lease. The labor commitments are funded from the public budget; where the standard asks for anti-displacement protections, Exhibit B offers a “neighborhood displacement history information display/art.”
- The budget construction. The $573M Renovation Budget and the Public Funding Contribution are the same number, to the dollar — “This is the public portion of the Renovation” — and Exhibit A, the itemization, is blank: “Estimated Renovation Budget to be attached.” Whether the cap is real turns on that exhibit.
- No deadline. No December date, no signing deadline — consistent with the enacted statutes.
What must appear between here and signing — the complete list
- The market test — the move that prices the other six. A benchmark solicitation for the post-bridge operating contract; the incumbent can bid and win. How it works →
- A private-capital line with a number on it — ~$245M against the revenue-generating scope; peers paid 18–62%.
- Rent, distinct from the tax offset — $4.5M/yr escalating 3%, the Raleigh schedule, paid to the City directly.
- A naming capture or credit — the re-rate above the audited ~$4M baseline; the reversion priced, not granted.
- Exhibit D trimmed to Blazers-derived revenue or sunset at bond retirement, with the operator-duty boundary drawn.
- The §10.2 preservation recital. One sentence: not a novation; accrued claims preserved or credited.
- Named Comparable Facilities with formulas, not adjectives; the §6(2)(a) review published.
- The non-relocation stack — specific performance, clawback, successor-binding — held intact through the MOU’s “limited exceptions.”
- The walk-away right and the financing-capacity test — carried into the definitive agreements unchanged.
- The audit rights, upgraded to copies — a process the public can read.
- §3.3 (the surcharge reimbursement) must not carry forward.
- §15 (the metro venue non-compete) must not carry forward unpriced.
- §18.26 (NBA-rules supremacy) must be capped with a make-whole and yield to non-relocation.
Every item already exists in the City’s draft in principle, in Portland’s 2024 signatures, or in this ownership’s Raleigh deal — nothing here asks the negotiators to invent anything.
for the remaining column.
Tell Council to back its negotiators — and finish the column before the August 12 vote.
Email Portland City Council →A real contribution means the owner puts in his own money. That’s not what’s happening here.
At the Portland Metro Chamber’s June 24 annual meeting, Tom Dundon argued the public money funding the renovation is really his contribution:
Asked on stage why he isn’t putting his own money into the renovation, Dundon explained why he counts the public’s ticket and parking fees as his contribution:
…when you charge an incremental fee on a ticket, we’re really just paying it. So we are investing in it because if you didn’t charge that money on the ticket, we would charge more for the ticket… It’s not that we’re taking the money.
Walk it through source by source and almost none of it is his: the parking is the City’s — publicly built, publicly owned garages; the ticket fees are the fans’ — a public charge collected by the City; and the income taxes are the players’ — owed in 41 of 50 states, here or almost anywhere they played. He isn’t putting money into this building; he’s relabeling the public’s money as his investment. (To be fair: at most a sliver of the ticket fee genuinely comes out of his pocket — a rounding error against a $1 billion+ commitment, which is why “private contribution: $0” is the fair scorecard line.)
The full source-by-source dismantling — the fee-incidence math and the no-sales-tax advantage →
Sourcing note. Quoted from Dundon’s on-stage interview at the Portland Metro Chamber annual meeting (Moda Center, June 24, 2026), a public event; verify exact wording against the recording before citing. Full sourcing and the §10.9 / SB 1501 §4 routing are on the work-session page.