Portland Mercury90%
Opinion: Portland’s New Government Is Being Stress‑Tested By the $600 Million Moda Center Deal 84%
By Tiffany Koyama Lane0%
7/22/2026, 9:17:15 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 32 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Availability Heuristic, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 21.1% saturation with 194 hits. Analysis detected 1,523 faulty-reasoning hits from 918 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 76.4% and a BS Rank of 84% (3,264 of 20,314 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 83.90% of the article peer group.
Portland’s Moda Center is due for upgrades, but calls for a nearly $600 million arena makeover are testing the limits and political will of the new city government.
We are in the midst of one of the largest public‑private negotiations in Portland’s history: a $600 million package of public funding is being proposed to renovate the Moda Center, a city-owned asset and home to the Trail Blazers.
This moment is a major test of Portland’s newly overhauled government: our expanded 12‑member City Council and a new charter structure specifically approved by voters to deliver more transparency, accountability, and community voice.
We are wrestling with the very questions our new structure was designed to confront.
Recently, Rip City Not Rip Off’s analysis of over 5,300 pages of public records revealed a coordinated, behind-closed-doors effort across state, county, and city governments to secure hundreds of millions in public dollars for the Trail Blazers organization — now owned by billionaire Tom Dundon — with no private investment.
NDAs were signed.
The team was promised advance notice of public records requests.
The negotiation ran under a secret code name .
The mayor worked from talking points crafted by the team’s lobbyists to sway legislators.
This is the opposite of what Portlanders voted for.
Early on, I was warned that pushing for accountability could jeopardize my political future.
I pushed anyway.
I was the lone councilor who refused to sign a February letter praising the $365 million state funding bill; the public had no chance to weigh in.
Council members were asked to comply with an NDA to join an advisory committee.
Councilor Mitch Green and I declined.
The committee was scrapped.
Working with Council President Jamie Dunphy, we pushed for a course correction that led to June’s pop‑up listening sessions and a citywide survey , which received over 18,000 responses.
During Council’s first work session, my colleagues dug into the data and asked tough, thoughtful questions.
Let’s be clear-eyed about who we’re negotiating with.
Tom Dundon made his fortune in subprime auto lending .
Since taking control in March, his organization has laid off roughly 70 employees and signed a new head coach to a contract the president of the NBA coaches’ association publicly called a slap in the face .
Many characterize Dundon as a villain, but others simply, a disciplined negotiator.
Either way, in Raleigh, when the public arena authority insisted, Dundon paid rent, contributed private capital, and committed to development around the building.
He accepts market terms when someone across the table demands them.
Meanwhile, Portland faced a record budget shortfall of $160+ million, forcing layoffs and cuts to essential services.
Portland Public Schools is preparing for major staff reductions .
The state faces $421 million in Medicaid cuts .
Real losses for real people.
To use a sports analogy: Dundon is not on our team.
For weeks, the City asked for the team’s renovation plans and basic information.
The team refused , and, by some accounts, stopped responding to City inquiries altogether .
Though Dundon is part of Blazers’ ownership, the heart and soul of this franchise are the fans, our City and region, and the team itself.
I’ve heard from long-time season‑ticket holders, die-hard fans, folks with Blazers tattoos, who believe Dundon is exploiting our love.
We should approach this as one city, working with clear processes and shared goals, instead of letting billionaire interests divide us.
Before we hand over a 20-year monopoly on a building the public owns, shouldn’t we test the market first?
Cities like Oklahoma City (a comp the Blazers themselves have pointed to) use third-party arena operators instead of just defaulting to the team.
Seattle tested the market and ended up with a billion-dollar arena built with zero public money.
Portland has never even asked the question: Would another operator pay for these rights, invest their own capital, or share more revenue?
We don’t know, because we never put it out to bid.
Note: nothing about a market test touches the team’s tenancy.
A competitive bid only determines the operator who would offer the highest return to the public.
Many other NBA teams are tenants in buildings they do not operate.
In fact, in 2004-2007, the Blazers were a tenant under a third party called Global Spectrum in this same arena, so this is not something out of the ordinary.
Major deals often happened behind closed doors.
Our new structure is deliberately different—tense, at times, but more transparent.
We won’t always agree, but we’re doing it in the open.
The next few months are decisive.
We still have an opportunity to shape the asks.
The City just released the first-draft term sheet , and the first public hearing is later this month with Council’s vote on August 12.
Negotiations continue into December, culminating in a vote on a Memorandum of Understanding, with final lease and bond documents to follow.
The timeline is artificially compressed by the ticking clock imposed by SB1501, the state funding package , but this can be extended by the Legislature at any time in the next four years (the lease ends October 11th 2030).
At the heart of these negotiations is good governance, something increasingly precious as authoritarianism and oligarchic power grow nationwide.
People keep saying we’re living in unprecedented times.
Fine.
Let’s set some precedents.
Tiffany Koyama Lane is a teacher who currently represents Southeast Portland in District 3 on Portland City Council.
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