Emergency! Paul Allen's sister wants money.

Wham bam, thank you, ma'am! The City of Portland has struck a deal with the Trail Blazers regarding the Moda Center, and whaddya know, the City Council went ahead and approved it before the public got much of a look at it. In an "emergency" ordinance.

Ah-OOO-gah! Ah-OOO-gah! That's the scam alarm going off.

From what I can gather, though it's pretty vaguely described in the media, the city will buy the building for $1, and some land in the complex for $7.13 million. Apparently this will mean that the Blazers' ownership and their various shell entities won't have to pay property taxes any more. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

But even wilder is this: City money will pay half the cost of renovating the place. In exchange, the Blazers are agreeing to stick around for a big five years.

And the team plans to hit up some other, as-yet unnamed, group of unsuspecting taxpayers to pay some or all of the other half of the renovation costs. As KOIN put it:

With the promise of “major renovations” coming to the Moda Center, the Blazers and the city are working on a long-term agreement that would keep the team in Portland for 20 or more years.

“Rip City Management, LLC intends to seek public funding from sources in addition to the [City of Portland] to provide the public financial support necessary for a long-term agreement and needed major renovation,” the emergency ordinance reads.

Who would those other "funding sources" be? The state? Metro? If you live around here, it's definitely you.

Given the appallingly bad product that the Blazers have put on the floor the last two years, they should be ashamed to be demanding massive handouts from City Hall. I remember when they tried to twist Tom Potter's arm for money when he was mayor; he laughed them out of his office.

Now, granted, the city money that's being tapped here is supposed to be coming from the revenue the city collects from ticket and parking fees generated by Blazer home games. But let's face it, if you put it up for a public vote – should any city money should be paying to renovate the arena – I seriously doubt that the answer would be yes. 

And of course, this backroom deal is being tied, shamelessly, to Black reparations, by the prevailing ungodly stretch of the imagination. Every scam in that neighborhood is now sold as somehow restoring the neighborhood that was torn down more than 50 years ago.

Wheeler’s statement reads[,] “A major Moda Center renovation will also be a centerpiece for revitalizing the Rose Quarter and the Lower Albina neighborhood into a vibrant transformational area and supporting community-led efforts to restore the Black community.”

All five bobbleheads on the City Council voted in favor. Shame on them, too.