City councilors blocked attempts to demand rent and naming rights from the Trail Blazers, preserving the original term sheet ahead of a high-stakes final vote on arena renovations.
The Portland Trail Blazers' ongoing Moda Center negotiations have another important date approaching.
But before Portland City Council takes its final vote on the city's proposed term sheet Aug. 12, some councilors tried to make a few changes ... 19 of them, in fact.
City Council rejected all 19 proposed amendments Thursday, leaving the document largely unchanged from the version Mayor Keith Wilson and Portland's negotiating team presented to the Blazers last month.
Most of the amendments came from members of the council's progressive caucus and shared a similar objective: getting more in return for Portland's potential public investment in Moda Center.
And some of the ideas were significant.
Councilors proposed asking the Blazers for rent, a portion of the arena's naming-rights revenue, increased ticket user fees, a larger share of parking revenue and proof of private financing, among other conditions.
None received enough support to pass.
That doesn't necessarily mean a majority of Portland's council opposes every one of those ideas, though.
Council President Jamie Dunphy said at the beginning of Thursday's meeting that he planned to vote against the amendments because they hadn't gone through the process he'd previously outlined, which included consultation with the city's negotiating team.
"My priority remains putting forward a term sheet that sets us up for success and centers the priorities of the people of Portland," Dunphy said, via KGW. "This term sheet is not a blank check."
Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney offered a similar explanation, arguing that adding more requirements could limit the flexibility of Portland's negotiating team once formal discussions begin.
That distinction is important because some of Thursday's rejected ideas aren't necessarily dead.
Dunphy said the city's negotiators will review the proposed amendments and determine whether any are worth including in another package ahead of the Aug. 12 vote.
Still, the decision frustrated some of the councilors who proposed them.
Councilor Mitch Green told KGW he felt "really defeated" following the meeting, while Angelita Morillo argued that the council was relinquishing some of its power by declining to make changes before negotiations.
And all of this is happening while Portland still hasn't received the response it wants from the Blazers.
Team leadership previously called the city's proposed term sheet a "non-starter," with Blazers president of business operations Dewayne Hankins criticizing both the proposal and the bridge agreement currently keeping the franchise at Moda Center through 2030.
The city, meanwhile, is considering contributing up to $120 million toward the nearly $600 million renovation.
So Portland's term sheet has now survived 19 attempts to change it ahead of what could be a consequential vote.
There could still be another round of amendments Aug. 12, and even approval wouldn't represent a final arena agreement. It would establish the framework Portland's representatives take into negotiations with the Blazers.
For now, though, the city appears prepared to enter those discussions with essentially the same opening offer the Blazers already rejected.
Whether that gets negotiations anywhere is another question entirely.
