Read the entire article here on the Oregonian website.

D.C. Council OKs stadium plan
A new financing deal to bring the Expos to the nation's capital wins approval, but a Portland group will remain active
By JOHN HUNT
Wednesday, December 22, 2004

A few hours after the D.C. Council resuscitated the Washington Nationals on Tuesday, baseball proponents in Portland met to ensure that their major-league hopes would not die.

In Washington, the D.C. Council formally approved its stadium finance plan by a vote of 7-6 in a contentious session that could be the final drama in the relocation of the Montreal Expos. Major league baseball, it appears, will return to the nation's capital after a 33-year hiatus.

Nothing as dramatic took place at City Hall in Portland, where proponents once flirted with the relocation of the Expos but are now preparing the issue for a move of its own.

Mayor Vera Katz and her baseball adviser, David Kahn, met with city officials and business leaders to discuss the transition from the baseball-friendly mayor to the administration of Tom Potter, for whom baseball currently is not a priority.

Potter did not attend the session, but his chief of staff, Nancy Hamilton, did.

"This is not a public priority," Hamilton said. "It's a project that is viable for the private sector. If there's the will behind it to make it happen, great. But in terms of public sector dollars and public sector priorities, it's not a focus right now."

Katz, who leaves office on Dec. 31, will stay on the advisory committee, along with Kahn. Neither will lead the committee, but Kahn said he expects the group to stay intact and expand to include other business leaders. It will hold regular meetings, perhaps once every couple of months.

"Portland will be taking perhaps a little more methodical approach, now that there is no (Major League Baseball ) relocation committee with a designated team for the taking," Kahn said.

Committee member Wally Van Valkenburg, a partner at Stoel Rives, said baseball doesn't have to be a priority for Potter.

"We need to be ready if an opportunity presents itself and to keep the interest level I think we have in this community," Van Valkenburg said.

Hamilton said baseball's future in Portland comes down to risk and will. There must be very little of the former and a great amount of the latter.

An ownership group must buy a major-league team and express the desire to move it to Portland, then it would negotiate with the city. Perhaps someone would broker the deal, in a role once filled by Randy Vataha of Game Plan LLC, who has since aligned himself with the effort in Las Vegas to attract a team.

"This really does become, at this point, an entrepreneurial play," said Kahn, who said the Oregon Stadium Campaign will remain as an entity but not as a catalyst in the effort to attract a team.

The process of choosing a stadium site will continue in the meantime.

"If baseball had awarded us the Expos, we would not have had a site ready," Kahn said.

Portland's stadium finance plan is completed, although -- as in Washington -- many dollars remain unaccounted for.

Tuesday's vote in the D.C. Council was not without late-inning acrimony.

Council chairman Linda Cropp ushered the deal through, with protections for the city from any cost overruns and penalties if the stadium is not completed on time.

As for the 50 percent public/private requirement for stadium construction, that is still unclear. Cropp removed the sunset provision that would have terminated the stadium project -- estimated at anywhere from $440 million to $600 million -- if private money could not be found. Washington now has only the word of Mayor Anthony Williams that he will pursue private financing.

Commissioner Bud Selig issued a statement afterward, expressing his gratitude.

"Major League Baseball is pleased that the Council of the District of Columbia today approved legislation consistent with the terms of our original agreement to have Washington as a home for major-league baseball," Selig said.

Season tickets went back on sale, as did Washington Nationals memorabilia.

But not all of the council members were as pleased with the new agreement.

Cropp had "taken the world's lousiest deal and made it better," said council member Carol Schwartz.

Another member, Adrian Fenty, said the passed deal "started to bring it back to the cliff" off of which it fell.

"It's hard to describe how unconscionable this is," Fenty said.

Other members, though, were so gleeful that Cropp had to ask more than once for professionalism during the meeting.

Proponents Harold Brazil and Vincent Orange hugged after the final vote. Brazil wore a Washington Nationals cap and sang, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

Brazil, an outgoing council member, left his chair after the baseball vote as Cropp introduced the next item on the agenda, the Child in Need of Protection Amendment Act of 2004.

John Hunt: 503-294-7643; johnhunt@news.oregonian.com