Where the deal
stands.

Where it stands

City framework

Adopted August 12Nonbinding

Next decision

Definitive agreementsDecember target

The public test

Complete, affordable, enforceable

The City adopted Resolution 37750 and an amended nonbinding term sheet on August 12. The County adopted its own conditions on August 6. September 3 Resolution 37751 directs negotiations with AVT over district development. The complete final agreement suite has not been verified in this review. On September 28 the team’s president told media day that ownership is “committed to a deal that works for our ownership” and “for our public partners,” and that the talks are “most productive for us” behind closed doors; on September 25 the Mayor named the first-class standard, union labor protections and rent as still unresolved. The City’s Moda Center page still shows the July draft, with no draft agreement, budget exhibit, financing plan or County IGA posted.

Sources: OPB, September 28 · KGW, September 25 · Resolution 37750 · August 12 City term sheet · County Resolution 2026-050 · September 3 Resolution 37751

The numbers, in context

Different categories and timelines. How these figures fit together →

The next decision and the actual deadlines

1. August 6County conditions adoptedContribution sources, receipts and public conditions.
2. August 12City framework adoptedNonbinding term sheet, with rent added.
3. September 3AVT negotiations directedDevelopment process, valuation and milestones.
4. December · targetBinding agreementsConfirm the agenda and allow meaningful document review.
5. Q1 2027 · targetThe lease ordinanceThe formal lease ordinance, a separate and later vote on the City’s own published timeline.
6. 2027 · budget cycleBudget votes at both governmentsCity and County shares still need appropriation; the State’s bonds follow SB 5701’s tranches, with DAS pointing to a spring 2027 sale.

Definitive agreements are being negotiated for December 2026. The September 4 site update reported a December 17 Council vote target; confirm the published Council agenda before relying on that date. The City framework uses a year-end target. Neither is a statutory December signing cliff in SB 1501. SB 5701’s tranche authorizations and actual financing lead time still matter.

Sources: August 12 City term sheet · Enrolled SB 1501 · Enrolled SB 5701

The August 12 vote, councilor by councilor

Resolution 37750 and the amended term sheet passed 8–4. A cross-bloc amendment package sponsored by Dunphy, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan and Kanal passed 12–0 and wrote rent into a sheet that had charged a dollar a year; a floor amendment raised that rent to $3.17M a year, 7–5; two further amendments failed 6–6. Six days earlier, on August 6, eleven amendments had reached a recorded vote and all eleven failed. The table records the final-passage vote and each councilor’s August 6 pattern; per-councilor tallies on the 7–5 and 6–6 amendments are not itemized here.

Adoption of the term sheet is a nonbinding step. The same twelve councilors vote again on the definitive documents, targeted for December 17, and later on the lease ordinance. Write to yours →

Sources: Resolution 37750 · The outcome, with the amendment record · The complete record

The governments need a consistent offer

The City’s August 12 package assumes franchise-sale Business Income Tax funding that the County’s final resolution excludes. The County also requires arena-related receipts sufficient for its bond payments. A shared initial $3 million tax offset cannot simply be promised in full to every claimant. The combined plan needs a reconciled source-and-distribution schedule before the private obligations are priced.

The City wants retention and a manageable public asset; the County seeks protection of its budget, repayment and community conditions; the State controls a financing route and statutory conditions. These are distinct institutional incentives. A County remedy against the City can move risk within government unless the City obtains matching direct rights against a capable private obligor.

Sources: August 12 City term sheet · County Resolution 2026-050 · City CFO financing memo

What is on paper and what remains

Rent of $3.17 million a year was added to the proposal, with commencement and escalation conditions. It is a proposed obligation rather than a payment already delivered. Full budget detail, a consistent financing plan, new private cash, commercial participation, claim treatment and enforcement mechanics remain the tests. Read the updated proposal check →

The evidence still needed

• Buyer assumption/reaffirmation and current obligor/lender structure.
• Independent cost plan and a legal/engineering maintenance-claim matrix.
• Integrated financing, revenue priority and downside model.
• Venue/event records, affiliates, naming licenses and prepaid rights.
• Joint Authority powers and the term/default/termination matrix.
• Construction calendars and binding other-tenant/community commitments.
• The itemized construction budget behind the $573M: the adopted term sheet’s budget exhibit still reads “to be attached.”
• The concession contract, venue revenue reports and suite and premium-seating revenue: the operator’s actual books.
• The Arena Garage monthly facility reports, which show who earns the parking money.
• The independent deal-terms review SB 1501 §6(2)(a) requires, and the City–County IGA.

The documents behind the deal

Review history

How we handle being wrong: we fix the live copy, not just the log; superseded material stays up, dated and labelled, never quietly deleted; a correction says what was wrong, not only what is right now; and anyone can start one by sending the document, because a primary source outranks us and we say so with a date on it. The running record of corrections is kept once, at the correction record.

September 28: At media day the team’s president said ownership is “committed to a deal that works for our ownership” and “for our public partners,” reported a 94% renewal rate and ticket revenue up 22% year over year, described the City’s first-class maintenance claim as “used as a weapon … by a City Council member,” and said the negotiation is “most productive for us” behind closed doors. On September 24 the Mayor told KGW the team had selected PCL Construction; on September 25 he named the first-class standard, union labor protections and rent as unresolved and said the team needs “to show up in a more robust manner.” The July 30 answers these revise →

September 8: Rebuilt the public Register; corrected maintenance valuation, parking, naming, guarantees, takeover, confidentiality and financing descriptions; withdrew unsupported package totals. Read the correction record →

September 4: The quiet phase. Three weeks after the vote, nothing about the negotiation had surfaced: the City’s Moda Center page still showed the July draft, and no financing plan, budget exhibit or County IGA had been posted. The binding vote was reported as targeted for December 17 (Sports Illustrated); confirm the published Council agenda before relying on the date. A 30-day publication window for the definitive documents would make mid-November the test.

September 3: Council directed AVT development negotiations. Resolution 37751 directs earnest negotiations with Albina Vision Trust over the City-owned parcels next to the arena, including parcel valuation and milestones; it does not itself transfer title or extinguish prior rights. What the contracts change →

August 13: The December watch opens. The as-amended term sheet was posted in full, and its budget exhibit still read “to be attached.” Standing watch items for the fall: the independent deal-terms review SB 1501 §6(2)(a) requires, the County IGA, the Joint Authority’s first meetings and pending records requests. What must appear in December →

August 12: Council adopted the amended nonbinding City package. A cross-bloc package passed 12–0: rent where the draft had a dollar, development rights retained, a return-on-investment directive that had failed 6–6 six days earlier, Bridge-comparable protections, and the County’s contribution capped at $101.6M ($88M toward construction plus up to $13.6M of continuing support). A floor amendment raised the rent to $3.17M a year, 7–5; two amendments failed 6–6; final passage was 8–4, with Avalos, Green, Koyama Lane and Morillo voting no. The vote, councilor by councilor ↑ · How it happened →

August 12 to 21: The national mirror. The day Portland adopted its term sheet, the Lakers changed hands at a $12.5 billion valuation, a quarter above the price the seller had agreed to pay fourteen months earlier; nine days later, control of the Timberwolves sold at $4.5 billion, three times what its sellers had paid. The sales and the sources →

August 11: The parallel track. A Council committee unanimously advanced the resolution directing development-partner negotiations with Albina Vision Trust for the City-owned parcels next to Moda Center, with those agreements to return to Council alongside the Moda lease (OPB). The term sheet’s retained-development-rights sentence is the predicate; December’s questions are what the City receives for the land and whether the operator’s 2024 consent rights are extinguished rather than inherited.

August 10: ECONorthwest released the complete technical memo behind its $15.2B figure, with the team’s permission, after this site’s public requests. Published in full, with our reading →

August 8, correction: The facility-condition memo did reach Council. Our retrospective had said it never did; that was wrong, and KATU’s Wright Gazaway supplied the record. The Council President’s policy director sent it to every council office on June 3, 2026, with the facility assessment, the twenty-year capital plan and the 2022–23 economic impact analysis, ahead of the June 24 work session. Two caveats travel with the $80 million figure wherever it appears: the administration’s, that assessment costs should not be compared directly with the proposed renovation; and the memo’s own, that some removed items would still be needed for WNBA and college basketball. The June 3 memo · The corrected retrospective →

August 8: What the August 6 session established, added across four pages: the six-vote line that held (definitive agreements need seven), the Mayor’s on-record answer that “market rate” came from discussions with the NBA with nothing written down, the February 11 Senate testimony pledging the City’s $120M a month before the sale closed, and a dated prediction of what December delivers. The retrospective →

August 7: Published the Fan Compact: league-wide rules that would end the city-versus-city arena auction, a petition for fans in every market, and an invitation to the players and to Commissioner Silver. Delivery to the league office comes at 19,393 signatures, one sold-out Moda Center. Also published the August 6 amendments record, each defeated amendment with its vote count. The Blank-Check Problem →

August 6: County adopted its conditional contribution position. Resolution 2026-050 covers the County’s $88M construction share and up to $13.6M of continuing support, with contribution sources, receipt conditions and public conditions attached.

August 6: The City amendments session: eleven votes, none passed. The Council President said before the first amendment was introduced that he would oppose all of them because they had not been pre-cleared with the administration’s negotiating team. Defeated: rent on a building the City owns and leases for $1 a year (6–6), private capital from an owner who paid $4.25B for the team (5–7), naming-rights revenue (5–7), a funding-source and opportunity-cost report 30 days before any vote (5–7), and one sentence directing the Mayor to negotiate any return at all (6–6). Councilor Green also put Exhibit D on the record: it pre-pledges up to $275 million of arena revenue beyond the $573 million construction budget. How the two ceilings fit together →

August 6: ECONorthwest answers. In a written response published in full, the study’s author confirmed that the $15.2B figure does not estimate the return on the $573 million public package or on Portland’s $120 million contribution, that the analysis assigns no probability to the team leaving, and that it was produced for the Blazers to support conversation at the Legislature. Two of our own chart characterizations were corrected on the page, dated. The letter →

August 6: The bill’s sponsor on camera. In a KGW interview, Sen. Kate Lieber described the State’s $365M as sized from the team’s ask, between 500 and 600 million, with no renderings to price it against, and, asked whether the owner should contribute: “it was not something that was overwhelmingly needed at the time.” The number came first →

August 6: The “grassroots” coalition’s receipt. “We Are Rip City,” launched July 16 as “a broad coalition of Portland restaurants, small businesses, community organizations, and civic leaders,” lists as its media contact a person registered with the state ethics commission as a lobbyist for the Trail Blazers from February 16 to April 9, 2026, the window of the Legislature’s $365M push. The retrospective →

August 5: Published the complete public-records chronology, extended the model review with the City’s internal facility-condition analysis, and published the signed retrospective in draft; its outcome section was completed the day after the vote.

August 4: A 1,188-page production lands, including the team’s own internal emails about the seven questions. June 15, the general counsel: “I don’t think our public answers will be well-received.” The president: “Very much feels like a trap.” A written response was drafted June 19 and never sent; on July 7 the City offered, in writing, the legal protection the team’s later public explanation said was missing. What the team said to itself →

August 3: Published The Blank-Check Problem (what the August votes authorize, the protections audit and the five fixes) and The Model, Reviewed, a graded public review of the ECONorthwest study with thirteen answerable questions and a standing offer to publish responses in full. Scored the July 30 work session from the full session record: every published question, with the answer it got.

August 3: Three further public-records productions, read in full (C467663, C471144, C471148). The City Attorney sent the team seven numbered written questions on June 16, on private capital, overruns, operating costs, rent and its basis, good-neighbor terms, community benefits and labor harmony; no written answer appears in the produced record. The team’s April 6 letter proposed a lease “no later than February 2027,” while the City proposed spring 2027. The seven questions · Whose deadline? →

July 30: The work session, held and scored. The team attended and answered on the record: the building is “in first class condition,” with no deferred maintenance; “until we have the funds to pay those architects, we don’t have plans”; and the private contribution, in its telling, has to come from the public sector. The Mayor: the March commitment came from the NBA, “while not written, implied,” and the City has “never contemplated suing the Blazers.” Every question, scored →

July 29: The team states its condition. Its spokesperson told The Oregonian that the City must take the prospect of litigation off the table by affirming the team’s first-class maintenance of Moda Center, calling that a first step toward a freer flow of information about the building. The demand shows what the claim is worth to the team; its value to the public is still unvalued, pending a legal and engineering matrix. The maintenance claim, as it stands →

July 28: Two councilors put the split on the record. Kanal wrote that the draft term sheet had been presented as though it reflected Council’s direction when it did not, and confirmed the Mayor had proposed Portland Clean Energy Fund resources for the renovation. Novick wrote that the delivered sheet carried a single financial ask, and that the team is also seeking roughly $14.5M a year in ongoing maintenance support.

July 28: County amendments filed. Commissioners Brim-Edwards and Moyer filed roughly a dozen amendments for the County’s August 6 vote: fund the full $88M from the existing rental-car tax so business-tax revenue from the franchise sale stays with county services, and add a clawback if the team leaves.

July 27: A nonstarter. The Athletic reported the team calling the term sheet a nonstarter and declining the July 30 work session, then reconsidering within hours of publication. The same report said the City’s own negotiators had wanted rent, a beverage tax and street pricing in the term sheet; none survived to the delivered draft. Also that day: read five public-records productions (1,160 messages) and published The Paper Trail, and reviewed the full executed 2024 closing package, correcting our parking-fee, records-access and first-class-claim language against the documents and adding The Bridge Deal, Decoded.

July 25: This page launched; status, score and numbers reflected the July 17 draft term sheet.

July 24: The invitation. Council President Dunphy invited the team, in writing, to a July 30 work session on how the $120M City share would be spent.

July 17: The City’s draft term sheet landed: a $573M public budget, a $3M-a-year tax offset, non-relocation language, no rent and no private construction requirement. That draft is history; the current framework is the August 12 term sheet, as amended. The proposal check →

July 16: Multnomah County’s reset letter put its $88M share in writing.

July 9: The State’s PFM comparables summary documented how peer cities structured their deals: private shares that run from zero to 100 percent across the comparables, with rent, naming and revenue-share arrangements that vary case by case. It measures none of Portland’s terms against those peers. Peer arena deals →

Sources: OPB, September 28 · KGW, September 24 · KGW, September 25 · September 3 Resolution 37751 · Resolution 37750 · County Resolution 2026-050