The paper trail

Who gets told when you request records?

On January 24, 2026, the Trail Blazers’ Natalie King sent City deal staff a set of documents. The email — forwarded into City hands by Dan Jarman of Crosswater Strategies, a government-affairs firm, on a thread that included the Governor’s office — opens with the terms of the handoff:

Read the sentence slowly. It contemplates notice to the team before the City fulfills “any public records disclosure request” — not requests about these attachments, any request. “As discussed” means the arrangement predates the email. If you have ever filed a records request about this deal, this is the understanding that sat on the other side of it.

The fix: Term 18 — no blanket confidentiality, exemptions claimed per document in writing, and a public data room for anything submitted in support of the funding ask.

What were legislators told about the money?

On February 4, 2026, while talking points for the Mayor’s Salem conversations were being drafted, the City’s Aisling Coghlan wrote to Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira:

The plan in the sentence: give legislators the number, withhold the source. The same day, The Oregonian sent the City an inquiry titled “PCEF & Moda” — asking, among other things, about a site visit to the arena by Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund committee co-chairs — and the same talking-points thread carried a colleague’s offer of “our TPs on Moda/PCEF” (productions PRR_C443668_000307, 000275). The documents do not say the arena money would have come from the climate fund. They say the source was the part not to be named, in the same week PCEF and Moda appeared in the same sentences.

Five months later, the source was named in public. Councilor Sameer Kanal’s July 28, 2026 newsletter lists, among the questions the City still cannot answer, which renovations “could be evaluated for eligibility to use resources from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, as proposed by the Mayor.”

And the administration’s own planning paper says it plainest. The internal “Timeline and Major Phases” document, drafted March 24, 2026, lists in its funding rows: “City Special Purpose Fund commitments (PCEF, Prosper SIF)” and “FY27-28 City budgeted funds available (PCEF, SIF)” (production 467663-0006 Verified). The climate fund was in the plan five weeks after the money’s source was the thing not to be named.

The fix: name the source before the vote — the work-session question asks it directly, and Term 18’s independent financial analysis makes the answer part of the public record before December.

Whose campaign was Salem?

The email that carried the records-notice sentence had a subject line: “Legislator calls.” Its body delivered something else — thanks, and a list:

The team thanks the City for offering the Mayor’s calls and supplies the legislator list. Ten weeks later, after SB 1501 passed, Deputy City Administrator Oliveira closed out the standing coordination meeting — whose invite list included Blazers executives, the team’s consultant, and Crosswater’s Jarman alongside City and County staff — with a valediction that names what the meetings were:

Why it matters now: the team has since told reporters it considers the March bill a promised deal — its stated reason for withholding renovation documentation from Council (The Athletic, July 27, 2026 Modeled). The bill the City “partnered” to pass is the leverage now pointed back at the City’s own term sheet.

The fix: Term 00 — the City’s signature is the consideration. The leverage the City lent in Salem comes back one way: conditions on the signature the whole structure still needs.

What was the NBA told about Council?

In March 2026 the Council president circulated a letter for councilors to sign, assuring the league of the region’s commitment. On March 20 he reported the result to the Mayor’s office:

The letter that went forward reads, in part:

Two facts sit side by side in the production: a Council majority declined to sign even “watered-down language,” and the league was then told the governments were “united and all-in” — on a deadline the NBA itself had set. The councilors’ “persisting” concerns never reached the league on paper.

The fix: August 12 itself. Council’s vote — and the standard it applies — is the first statement about Portland’s position that no letter can characterize for it.

What did the City ask — and what came back?

On June 16, 2026, Senior Deputy City Attorney Ken McGair sent the team’s general counsel seven numbered questions and asked for written responses “to provide a good starting point for the provisions in a proposed term sheet.” Two of them, verbatim:

The other five: confirm the team covers all cost overruns; confirm it covers all operating costs and capital expenses above the public subsidy; good-neighbor agreements; “some substantial community benefits agreements”; labor-harmony agreements. Eight days later, the City’s spectator-venues manager wrote internally: “we have not received a written response” (production 467663-0016). No written answer to any of the seven appears anywhere in the records the City has produced — and the July 17 term sheet’s terms map, nearly one to one, onto the seven unanswered questions.

The fix: the term sheet is the seven questions, converted into terms after a month of silence. August 12 is where Council makes them binding — the fair-deal standard prices each one.

What the team said to itself

In August 2026 the City produced 1,188 more pages — and inside them, by accident, the team’s own deliberation about those seven questions. The team’s general counsel later replied to the City Attorney from inside an internal thread, carrying the whole private chain in the quoted history. Here is what it says. On June 15, hours after receiving the questions, the general counsel wrote to the team’s public-affairs director:

The team’s president, thirty minutes later: “We should discuss whether we even respond to this.” And twenty minutes after that: “Very much feels like a trap.” (PRR_472174_00042–43.) By June 19 a written response had been drafted — “26.06.16 Response to Questions from Ken McGair.docx,” circulated internally with the note “we’re still weighing whether or not to send a written response” (PRR_472174_00042). It was never sent.

Then the timeline turns. On July 7, the City Attorney’s office wrote the team proposing a legal fix for the litigation worry: an agreement under Oregon Evidence Code 408 giving “protections/inadmissibility in the context of litigation… regarding the ‘First Class Standard’” — adding, “It seems this can be easily achieved through an agreement” that renovation scope documents could not be used in court (PRR_472174_00001, 00077–78 Verified). Three weeks later, the team told The Oregonian and then Council that it could not share building information because of the litigation threat. The internal June record gives a different reason — the answers would not be well-received — and the litigation concern, once raised publicly, had already been answered in writing by the City’s own offer.

The fix: the questions still stand, and they are now answered by conduct: a drafted response withheld because, in the team’s own words, the answers would not be well-received. The questions · what the answers should cost.

What does the $573M itemize to?

The draft term sheet the City sent Council, the State, and the team on July 16 prices the renovation this way:

Exhibit A, in the produced document, is an empty page bearing one line:

The itemization of $573 million — the number three governments are being asked to fund — does not exist inside the City’s own founding document. The same draft does contain terms the public debate has missed: the team covers overruns, a parent-company guaranty that survives a sale, City audit rights, periodic City inspections — and an anti-tanking clause barring a bottom-third league payroll. What it does not contain is the budget.

The July 30 work session closed the question. The team, per the session’s caption record: “until we have the funds to pay those architects, we don’t have plans.” City staff, same session: “we don’t have an Exhibit A yet” — and the deputy administrator: “we still don’t know what 573 is getting us.” The itemization doesn’t exist anywhere, by everyone’s account, on the record.

The fix: Term 18’s public data room — the documents behind the ask become public on receipt — and the work-session question that asks, simply, whether the itemization exists and when Council sees it.

Whose deadline is December?

Every party’s own paper points past it. The team, one week after its purchase closed, proposed its own timeline in writing:

The City’s answer, sixteen days later:

And the administration’s own internal phasing document (March 24) schedules definitive documents for January–May 2027 and execution with the first bond tranche for June–July 2027 — with a cover note to the Governor’s office explaining that per counsel with “a combined 50 years of experience,” “in many instances, the signed MOU between the governments, team and NBA suffice for financial actions” (productions 467663-0005/-0006 Verified). The team proposed February 2027. The City proposed spring 2027. The plan runs to summer 2027. The December cliff appears in none of them.

The fix: Term 00 — the City’s signature is the consideration, on the City’s schedule. A good deal in February beats a bad deal in December, and every party’s own paper agrees.

What the City used to insist on

The strongest way to read 2026 is against 2024, because the same institution faced the same request and answered it differently. A transition memo written for the Mayor’s office on January 17, 2024 — produced in full, without redaction, in a later production — is the clearest surviving snapshot of the City’s old posture.

Three things in that memo describe a City behaving like a landlord rather than a partner. It records that the team had no scope document: “nor are they presenting a capital improvement plan with specifics about deferred maintenance and upgrades that would be funded by public investments.” It records that the team would not open the building: “RCM has been reluctant to share maintenance information or provide access to the building for inspection.” And it records the rule the City then applied to itself:

The memo also records that when the team asked the Mayor to lead the lobbying campaign in Salem, the answer was no. Its words are that the team’s expectation that the Mayor advocate for state funding in 2024 “has repeatedly been rejected by the team” — where “the team,” in this City author’s usage, means the City’s own negotiating team, and “RCM” means the Blazers. The City’s negotiators said no, more than once.

Set that beside where things stand now. The ask has grown from upwards of $350 million to $573 million. The Mayor did lobby legislators, in a campaign coordinated with the team. Due diligence before the Council question became a Council question with, in the team president’s own words to Council, “concepts” rather than plans. The one thing that has not changed in two and a half years is the missing document: the capital improvement plan with specifics, still not presented.

The fix: restore the 2024 rule. Term 01 and the blank-check problem both say the same thing the City once said to itself: understand what you are buying before you put the question to Council.

What cuts the other way

An honest reading of five productions includes what they show officials doing right — and the record shows real lines being held.

Ticket ethics were enforced in writing: for a Blazers game that included a league reception, a Mayor’s-office staffer was instructed to “pay Donnie back for the ticket by personal check or venmo in the amount of $80” (production PRR_C452264_000133–138). Small money, real discipline — and the same official who wrote the funding sentence above wrote the ticket rule.

That sentence is a City manager proposing to pressure-test the central premise — all-public financing — as presented by the team side’s consultant. It is the question this whole site asks, asked from inside the building. The production also shows councilors’ offices pushing back hard enough that a signature campaign failed (above) — skepticism on Council is documented, not imagined.

What the productions don’t contain

Absences are findings too. Four stand out:

• The coordination meetings’ substance. The “Project Mt. Hood” series met weekly, then twice weekly, from November 2025. The productions contain the calendar invites — and no agendas, minutes, or notes. By contrast, the City’s Coliseum construction meetings are minuted to the page.
• Who Crosswater Strategies works for. Dan Jarman appears throughout the coordination traffic; no document in the productions states his client.
• Why a private citizen sat inside the deal meetings. The coordination invites include a businessperson with no stated City or team role, via a personal email address. No document explains the seat.
• The confidentiality agreements themselves. The 2024 lease references a nondisclosure agreement; reporting and council statements reference constraints on what members can say. No NDA text appears in the productions.

Each of these has a records request that would answer it. The Public Balance Sheet tracks what has been produced and what remains withheld.

Where this comes from

Everything quoted above was released by the City of Portland under Oregon Public Records Law (ORS 192.311–192.478) in productions numbered C443668, C443791, C452264, C454409, C454416, C467663, C471144, C471148, and 472174; page citations are the production stamps printed on the released PDFs. Quotes are reproduced exactly, including shorthand. Anyone can request the same records from the City’s Public Records Request Center and check every line.

• PRR C443668 — deal-team email and chat, including the Jan 24 “Legislator calls” thread and the Feb 4 “Moda TPs for Mayor” thread.
• PRR C452264 — Mayor’s-office email, including the March NBA-letter traffic and the game-ticket logistics.
• PRR C454409 — coordination-meeting records, including the April 10 “Dear Partners” sunset email.
• PRR C443791 · C454416 — staff chat and scheduling traffic quoted above.
• PRR C467663 — the negotiating-team correspondence: the June 16 seven-questions letter, the April 6 / April 22 timeline exchange, the March 24 internal phasing document, and the March 30 negotiating-team email.
• PRR C471144 · C471148 — the July 16 draft term sheet with its exhibits, and the July 16–17 release traffic.
• PRR 472174 — 1,188 pages including the team’s internal June 15–19 deliberation on the seven questions (produced via a reply that carried the private chain), the City’s July 7 evidence-protection offer, and the April 23 Populous architect review attended by the Mayor.