By David Steves, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
May 7--SALEM, Ore.--In a bid to lure a big league baseball team to Portland, The Oregon House on Friday approved a bill to come up with $150 million in public money to pay for half the cost of a new ballpark.
The vote to send the bill to the Senate came only after lawmakers debated whether Major League Baseball and a $300 million baseball stadium would be an economic boon for the state and its largest city, or a squandering of lottery-backed bonds that would be better spent on the less glamorous but critically needed rural sewers, telecommunication systems and downtown revitalization projects.
The vote on House Bill 2941 marked a major victory for baseball boosters who started the session with an idea that struck many in the statehouse as wishful thinking by politically naive sports enthusiasts.
But thanks in part to the muscle of some of the Capitol's most influential lobbyists, the bill developed the support needed to pass the House, 31-27.
'I think the biggest hurdle was just cleared,' said Sen. Ryan Deckert, D-Beaverton. As the Senate's lead sponsor of the bill, Deckert will now face the task of trying to get the bill passed in the Senate. First, though, it must go to the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee, where lawmakers plan to revamp the way the state would provide its $150 million share.
In its current form, HB 2941 calls for the state to sell $150 million in bonds that would be paid back with lottery proceeds. The idea has proven controversial because the state has the authority to sell up to $315 millon in lottery-backed bonds and Gov. John Kitzhaber already has proposed to use $140 million of that authority for not-yet-identified projects in distressed communities.
Before the bill goes to the full Senate, supporters say they want to have it changed so no more than $75 million in lottery-backed bonds are used.
The rest would come from what's called a 'lease revenue bond option.' Income tax revenues collected on the salaries of the Portland team's players would be used to pay back the bonds over 25 years.
Lobbyist Kevin Campbell, who helped persuade lawmakers to consider the revenue-bond option, said it's being used in Maryland, where income taxes on player salaries of the Baltimore Ravens National Football League team have helped pay off part of the cost of that team's stadium.
Both the lottery-bond and the revenue-bond versions of the bill would require that before any state money is spent, local public money and private dollars would be secured to pay the estimated $300 million stadium construction costs and the $60 million or so it would cost to acquire and relocate a franchise.
Three of the 30 Major League teams -- the Montreal Expos, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Oakland Athletics -- may be willing to relocate because they aren't faring well financially in their current cities, Campbell said.
Portland is the largest U.S. city with only one major professional sports team, but it would be the fourth-smallest city to have a Major League Baseball team were one to relocate in the Rose City.
It would be up to teams considering whether to move to Oregon to analyze the area's demographics and economics and determine whether it would make a viable home for a big league ball club.
Campbell and other lobbyists urged House members to take a leap of faith by passing the bill with the controversial lottery-backed bonding scheme, in part on the grounds that the mere passage of the bill by one of the Legislature's two chambers would send an important signal to Major League Baseball that Oregon is willing to put up the money to attract a team.
'We're hoping within days to hear something positive either from (Commissioner) Bud Selig and Major League Baseball or one of the teams,' Campbell said after the House vote. 'I think Oregon has demonstrated its interest.'
One House member who voted for the bill but remained skeptical was Ben Westlund, R-Bend, co-chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He said the state would have to be able to put the dollars forward without jeopardizing funding for other state programs
After all the heavy lifting by the House, Westlund said, it was baseball's turn.
'We're out here dancing a jig for Major League Baseball, and I haven't seen one scrap of information that there really is interest in moving a team here,' he said.
For some lawmakers, a legislative session in which universities, senior services, state police and other programs are facing cuts because of a budget shortfall was the wrong time to take up public financing for a stadium where millionaire athletes will play games.
Rep. Robert Ackerman, D-Eugene, said he voted against the proposal because it represented the wrong priorities for constituents in his district.
'I get feedback like, 'Let's restore the human services budget or let's improve higher education,' he said. 'But my Eugene constituents don't talk to me about this because they don't want a baseball stadium.'
Eugene-Springfield area lawmakers said that for the most part, their constituents have been quiet on the subject, generating only a small number of calls, letters and e-mails.
One such Eugene resident, Gary Haliski, contacted Rep. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, by e-mail to oppose the funding proposal.
'There are many more important uses of the money,' he wrote. 'Education and environmental issues (rivers and salmon) come to mind as just two areas in great need.'
Rep. Randy Leonard, D-Portland, said Oregon's legacy of high-minded policy decisions, such as the creation of the Bottle Bill 30 years ago, didn't spring from Legislatures that played things safe, but rather from ones that took risks when they seemed worth pursuing.
'In my mind, this is an example of tough decisions that legislators are asked to make to provide leadership to the state,' he said, adding that baseball 'isn't just good for the state, it's good for all the jobs it will create.'
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(c) 2001, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
