"Not tonight, honey, I have a meeting"

The story of a face-to-face meeting between the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers and the Portland city manager is amusing on a couple of levels. Fourteen months ago, no one in town had ever heard of either one of them; now they're arguably determining the city's future.

The two men, team owner Tom Dundon and city administrator Raymond Lee, reportedly met in private this past week to discuss the future of the Moda Center arena, in which the Blazers play their home games. Dundon insists that local taxpayers foot the entire bill for an extensive renovation of the facility, with no contribution by the team, whereas the city wants the Blazers to pay a regular stream of money that they don't pay now. There haven't been any real, meaningful talks, as far as anyone can tell, for months, and if a deal doesn't get worked out soon, the parties could conceivably lose state money that would be necesary to make any financing plan work. The price tag for the building makeover is vague, but the number $600 million continues to be tossed around.

Anyway, so Dundon and Lee reportedly sat down face to face last week to talk turkey. And guess where they did it. 

Ready?

Dallas, Texas! Ha! Ha!

And why would that be? Well, for one thing Dundon lives in Texas. But more amusingly, that's where Lee's wife and kids apparently live, too. And according to the story on KGW, Lee happened to be in Dallas "visiting family" when the meetup was arranged. A conjugal visit, I presume.

For Lee, this is just perfect. First, he can say whatever he wants to Dundon with no one else in Portland government, not even the mayor, listening in. But more importantly, he's now got a business reason to be in Dallas. Given Lee's track record at his last job in Colorado, where he traveled and dined like royalty at public expense, I wouldn't be surprised if he bills the City of Portland for part or all of his travel expenses.

Nobody in the local media seems the least bit interested in this angle, of course. In contrast, imagine how the facts would be portrayed if, say, the police chief was commuting back and forth to a spouse and children 1600 miles away. But somehow the highest-paid guy on the city payroll can do it, and nobody says boo about the details.

Speaking of Lee and arena deals, the mess he left behind in his previous gig in Greeley, Colorado continues to get messier. That one involves a boondoggle hockey rink project. The city's residents voted it down at the ballot box, but a judge now says that election was null and void, and the City Council is trying to jack up the local sales tax rate to pay for the ice palace. There's a strong, strong odor coming off that whole scene, and Lee was in the thick of it before he left to, as they say, "pursue other opportunities."

Meanwhile, buried down in some of the local coverage of the ongoing impasse in Portland is the real lead of the story: Dundon has been lobbying other NBA owners to reverse course and vote against placing expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas. That is extremely significant, because if expansion is ruled out, both those markets would be highly suitable places to which Dundon could move the Blazers. And given the way he's behaving, it seems like that's what he's already decided to do, if he can pull it off.

I wish I had been a fly on the wall to observe the tête-à-tête between Dundon and Lee. Or even better, to hear what Dundon said to his colleagues when it was over and Lee was out of earshot. As readers here know, I love comedy.