Notes From Third Milwaukie Listening Lounge

On Thursday, November 17, I attended the third City of Milwaukie "Listening Lounge," a forum for residents to express their opinions about the possibility of bringing professional baseball to Milwaukie, Oregon.  According to the city, this was the best-attended session, with more than 70 people crowding into the Linwood Elementary School cafeteria.

As usual, people signed up to speak, and were initially limited to about one minute of time, but they could, and many did, raise their hands to speak again later.  I'm probably prejudiced because I favor the stadium, but of the people who spoke, I counted eight who were definitely pro-stadium and three who were definitely anti-stadium.  The rest leaned one way or another but had concerns.

On the pro side, these were the major points:

• A stadium would bring commerce and people to Milwaukie.  We need to create a vibrant economy.
• Milwaukie is dying. We need to do something to get the storefronts back.
• We need to be forward thinking.
• How much worse do you want it to get.  We don't have another choice.
• Milwaukie is a blue-collar town.  We like baseball here, and the population and location are better than Salem-Keiser.

On the anti side, these were the major points:

• We shouldn't be subsidizing baseball when we can't afford to pay teachers.
• We should pay for sidewalks and streets first, the waterfront and the plaza before baseball.
• We'd have to pay more for police, firemen, services.
• Studies show that baseball doesn't bring economic stimulus.

Other concerns were:

• Naturally, how are we going to pay for this?
• Extra noise and light.  Will it be a problem?
• Concerned that we already spent money on a study.
• We should do an economic study first, to see if a stadium makes sense.
• We need the budget committee to be involved.
• If baseball is so great, why did Portland lose it?
• With MAX, people might come to games, then go right back home.

But all in all, despite my listing more items that are anti and concerns, I still felt that the majority of people who attended this event were positive about the possibility of baseball in Milwaukie.  There were two or three people who were "violently" opposed to the idea; one lady closed her eyes and shook her head whenever anyone said anything positive about a stadium (she was shaking for most of the meeting), and clapped whenever something negative was said.  But a large number of people echoed the positive points.  They seemed genuinely concerned about their community and wanted to do something positive to make it a better place to live.  Baseball seems like a lifeline to many of these folks.  They want to grab on and pull themselves up from being just a town of strip bars.  I was impressed.  This thing may actually have a chance.