Beaverton mayor says city could pay for Beavers stadium

Mayor Denny Doyle on Tuesday said the city could afford to build a baseball stadium for the Portland Beavers, and is looking at two privately owned locations in addition to the publicly owned Westgate site.

“The whole idea is to make this pencil so that it doesn’t cost the taxpayers any money — at the end of 25 years,” said Doyle, who returned Monday night from a European business trip. “And that’s possible. But we’ll see what the numbers are.”

Beaverton’s front-runner status to land the Triple-A baseball team appears to be improving and will become clearer at the end of the week when owner Merritt Paulson and Portland leaders hit their Aug. 1 deadline to find a location.

– Excerpt from The Oregonian, July 29, 2009