Sure enough, the Cincinnati city council voted 5-4 to approve spending $34.8 million on a new MLS stadium in the West End (it will also get $15 million in county money plus around $14 million in discounted property-tax payments), clearing the way for F.C. Cincinnati‘s expansion bid. If that’s approved today, as expected — and it’s hard to see MLS turning down all this stadium cash for a team that has been wildly successful in attendance in the USL — Cincinnati will become the 517th MLS franchise (more or less, I’ve stopped counting) and Sacramento and Detroit will have to wait until the next round of expansion in a few hours (estimated).

That’s a whole bunch of money from a city that’s already poured even more than that into poorly received stadium deals for the Reds and Bengals — the latter of which famously required selling a public hospital to pay off — and it only took place after team owners arm-twisted a final vote by hashing out a last-second community benefits agreement to provide $100,000 a year for local organizations and provide some community oversight of elements like lighting, parking, and traffic. But at least West End residents got some say in what they’d get out of having their local high school football stadium torn down and rebuilt to make way for an MLS stadium, right?

The fight over the benefits agreement will continue on Tuesday, when the West End Community Council meets. Some members are calling for council president Keith Blake, who signed the agreement on Monday, to be impeached.

Ah, democracy.