45 people are signed up to testify at this morning's Major League Soccer hearing, which means a decision is at least an hour away, possibly two. So far, there's no indication of which way the vote may go, although my money is on a 4-1 yes vote, but not without a fight...

SALTZMAN: Faced some remarkably Johnsonian body language from Randy Leonard when he probed the deal...

Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman, the two "undecided" commissioners, have been grilling the proponents of the deal on its details for the last two hours. Fish asked Steve Maser, the chairman of the Major League Soccer Taskforce, whether it had considered any alternatives to the $15m in urban renewal funding that is to be drawn from a yet-to-be created urban renewal district including PGE park, for example.

"Of all the pieces of the financing, that seems to be the most vulnerable," said Fish. "In that it's in a district yet to be created with potential legal challenges to be faced."

"How do we have a good faith discussion with the county and the school district," asked Commissioner Saltzman, "When you've already allotted $15m of that money? We've sort of jumped ahead of them, haven't we?"

Mayor Sam Adams said that it's not unusual for city council to "have a desire" to influence the formation of urban renewal districts.

Fish also asked whether the task force had learned anything from the recent decisions of Miami, Montreal and Atlanta to pass on Major League soccer, and whether there was a market research study done into the viability of the sport in Portland. Maser conceded that he didn't know whether a market research study had been done, but that he had seen some "persuasive" numbers suggesting soccer attendance would triple or quadruple if MLS came to town.

"The question of projected attendances is interesting, but fortunately quite irrelevant," interrupted Leonard. "[Paulson]'ll make the payments to PGE whether there's one attendee or 25,000. Our economic interests are met."

"These urban renewal decisions aren't strictly the council's any more," said Saltzman. "We've been litigated twice, and Salem is looking at this. We don't have total control over our destiny, now."

"But we do have control of the process we set up as we consider this," said Adams.

Amanda Fritz bought some soccer scarves into the council chamber. I'm not sure why. She hasn't pulled them out yet. County Chair Ted Wheeler is also in the audience, and yet to testify, along with a lot of people with Timbers scarves. More later...if you can't wait, you can always watch the hearings live at the city's website here.