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.

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.

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.

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.

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, and C454416; 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.