Raise the Hammer

There is no viable location for the Tiger Cats. So I guess the 500,000 citizens of Hamilton don't deserve a true community use stadium in a central location? This is wearing me down and I am losing my faith. I am tired of this City not living up to it's potential.

Have the Cats made any donations to city councilors? Because electing not to take government money to build a community stadium with an amateur athletic legacy sounds like political suicide. Unless of course, you want to make sure your friendly TiCats (thanks for the donation) still can get money to go to Aldershot. A velodrome, amphitheatre, 6K stadium connected by parks and then connected with walkways over the rail yards to bayfront. That would be a wonderful place to raise a family and have a business and to build an active community legacy.

Great vision Brad!

I am tired of this City not living up to it's potential.

Well, this malaise (not living up to its potential) is legacy...it's deeply-embedded...and wide-spread. In fact, there are some intriguing thought-paths to do down regarding how 'new' residents see the City as opposed to those who are 'lifers'.

I could yammer on about this because of how I see it being affected by my prime passion, civic engagement, but I'll limit myself to this: In order for better results to unfold regarding its potential, the City's potential has to be defined and the resources at hand need to be marshalled properly. And to me, we've been in this state of malaise so long that, though we pay lip-service to the notion, we've not even managed to define our possibilities.

Because of this, because of this 'unformed state', often when something appears, a bona fide opportunity...we get all desperate...and invariably things go all 'Pete Tong'.

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2011-01-07 12:19:51

Well I'm a Hamilton 'lifer' with a young family and depending on how this goes down it may be time to look elsewhere to bring up my family where a sense of community and place trumps private business interests. It would be sad to go but I can't continue to keep giving Hamilton yet 'another chance'. Build the scaleable stadium and velodrome. Make downtown a people place again. Make people want to live in Hamilton and be proud of that. I guess Brad forgets what the goals of this City are! Shame

Ludicrous. Call or e-mail your councilliors and tell them that you want them to vote down the Confederation Park option, vote down Brad Clark's motion, and introduce a motion to inform HostCo that Hamilton will build a scalable stadium at WH for the Pan-Am Games.

Should we be planning to attend the committee of the whole meeting on Monday then?

You can make a 5 minute presentation to the GIC meeting on Monday morning but presentations are not allowed at the Council meeting on Wednesday night.

Wait...what? Does this mean he's suggesting we opt out of the velodrome as well?

Does anyone have any sense of where various Councillors on the issue of this motion?

Cutoff is 12pm business day prior for delegations at the GIC. I thought the meeting was on the 12th with that date being thrown around everywhere.

I suggest that we attend the meeting on Monday if at all possible. Clearly, Mr. Clark is hoping to catch us by surprise and we cannot let him get away with his shameless politiking for the Ti-Cats.

The TiCats know they have to get Hamilton out of the picture before Aldershot can get into the mix. This is their way of doing it.

The location has not been decided for the Veledrome, so a Veledrome in the Harbour can do what a scalable stadium would do there.

A small-scale stadium plan at IWS does two things:

1. Preserves the sports legacy at 75 Balsam.
2. Propose to HostCo to build a non-scalable 6,000 seat stadium at the IWS grounds. The cost would seemingly be way less than a harbour stadium and would also address the removal costs of the old stadium. If the Cats somehow chose to play ball with us after we secure our $70M form the feds which I assume would nix the Aldershot plan, the money can go to upgrades to Ivor Wynne instead of a 6,000 seat stadium. Make sure our propsal states that should the Cats decide to swat at our ball of yarn, we would excercise the option to extend their lease beyond 2011.

In the meantime, once the deal is final, we remove Brian Timmis and even just gravel it over for now, to let the Cats see how perhaps even just a 1,000+ extra parking spots, changes the dynamics at 75 Balsam. Then, if the Board of Ed chooses to close Parkview, put a hold on a sale as an option for a multi-level parking garage, to further show what can be done to improve the business case of Ivor Wynne as the future home of a CFL franchise.

Ivor Wynne is 5 minutes from 403/QEW/Red Hill access. Make Sherman Avenue two way and you have two major city thoroughways (Gage Ave as well), that divert traffic to and from Burlington St, which in itself is a smaller scale freeway.

If the powers that be don't see Ivor Wynne as a future home of professional sports, IWS is the most centrallly accessible stadium for a community venue. It already serves this purpose very well. This map (once again), shows how transit wise, there are few locations in this city like it. I didn't know about the GO plans when I did this map. Put the interchange at Gage instead of Centennial.

Ask the community that currently uses IWS, what they think.

Comment edited by lawrence on 2011-01-07 13:49:11

@HamiltonFan: I give you this: 1. Clark strongly supported the motion for the East Mountain location even though many of his constituents did not. 2. The Tiger Cats are the only group who would benefit from this proposal.

The point being that the Tiger-Cats told Burlington City council that a large portion of the money could come from HostCo - and Ian Troop has stated that Hamilton has first call on those funds. Thus, the only way that The Tiger-Cats can hold true to that promise to Burlington is to scuttle (out of spite perhaps?) Hamilton's decision to access them. I am not suggesting that Brad Clark is 'In their Pocket" but the Cats need to screw up the works one more time if they intend to get what they want - and Brad Clark has supported a number of their arguments pretty much from the beginning, so approaching Clark and asking him to file the motion would be one way to try and do in the Hamilton bid IF they did approach him - I don't know if they did or did not. Conversely it would make sense to BY's consortium to try and get Hamilton out of the picture regarding the HostCo funds.

Aging, this boils down to a simple action - contact your councillors and ask them to vote the motion to explore Confed. Park down, then vote down Clark's motion, and vote to inform HostCo that a scalable stadium at West Harbour is a go, and can be started pronto.

Comment edited by HamiltonFan on 2011-01-07 14:04:09

I hope Michael Buble is playing in Toronto on the 10th.

Comment edited by jason on 2011-01-07 14:04:21

I wrote this at 10:15 today on a different thread...

-Can Hamilton 'transfer' it's HostCo money to Burlington. I believe this is the next part of the propaganda campaign. The Ti-Cats and their agents will push that Hamilton should do the noble thing and fall on our sword to give the HostCo funding for Aldershot, but only do that if the funding is secured.

Looks like it has already started.

Comment edited by mrjanitor on 2011-01-07 14:05:19

Let me address another item - the ideas that have been expressed regarding IWS are interesting and have their merits - but as I understand it, HostCo would not extend funding to upgrade IWS - although that might be different in regards to tearing IWS down and replacing it with a scalable stadium at the IWS site. Sam Merulla might just like that as an alternative, and do I correctly recall that he wanted to bring forward a motion on December 22nd to drop the idea of building a stadium in favour of upgrading Ivor Wynne? If so, and it is on the agenda for this week, then the council has the option of pursuing that if it votes to do so.

As for IWS as a scalable stadium instead, again I can see merits in it - but I do not think that such and idea has been given sufficient study to prepare a proposal for HostCo that they would be happy with.

Informed by phone from the Clerks Office that the GIC Jan 10 Agenda item 9.2 Notice to Hostco http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/888B... has been withdrawn from the Agenda which will be confirmed at 1. Changes to the Agenda at the start of the Monday morning GIC meeting.

Comment edited by HamiltonFan on 2011-01-07 14:35:07

@HamiltonFan:

Clark's motion was to withdraw from the Pan Am process completely. So No Velodrome.

Can someone else confirm if Clark's motion has been withdrawn. I can't do it myself right now.

how do we check that?

Lester,

I have to challenge your post by asking what is there to study at IWS? A stadium has existed there for 80 years, what surprise issues are going to suddenly 'pop-up'? The location has been a proven entity for almost a century, what does the city staff have to recommend? Whether a stadium at Balsam is viable? What the infrastructure costs will be to service the site? What is the cost of the land? Will there be a community backlash due to the usage being changed ala Confed Park? Whether there are synergies for the community with the ball parks, pool and rink all beside? Is there public transit available? Will it be close to the LRT node for Scott Park? If IWS is being replaced, I really don't understand what has to be studied or recommended other than the design.

Comment edited by mrjanitor on 2011-01-07 14:55:38

I believe you would just have to call the city clerk and ask.

There is a report that shows the cost to demolish much of IWS and replace/updgrade it. That $93M dollar amount that keeps popping up. Add 3% for each year after 2009 I believe to that cost. That was of course the cost to upgrade a 30,000 seat stadium. You are right @mrjanitor. The land is ours, it's already serviced with hydro/water.

It's not an approved location like the Harbor. Approved, voted on 7 times, etc, but the game has changed. If we send that quote back and have it ammended to show total demolision and an approximate cost for a 6,000 seater, I don't see how we could not do that in 3 weeks time.

Never forget that Clark is a Harris Tory.

The one underlying, common thread of that government was that its actions always had the effect of putting more money in the hands of fewer people; eliminating rent control, reducing income tax for the rich, slashing welfare rates for those who couldn't or didn't work and freezing minimum wage for those who could and did, to mention but a few.

The West Harbour versus Bob Young and/or the Paletta's is a reflection of that age old "some for all versus all for some" struggle. Do we use public money to build a public stadium on public land in a working class area of town that will be accessable to everyone and will draw people to our waterfront and the numerous small businesses in the area or do we take that same money and basically give it to two multi-millionaires so they can build an essentially private, car-centric, restricted access, personal cashbox where all the "spinoffs" spin off to those same multi-millionaires?

The only way that Clark can help the latter happen is to turn down the Pan-Am games and the money, our money, that comes with them.

Comment edited by realfreeenterpriser on 2011-01-07 15:20:11

Brad Clark is nothing more than a puppet for Dave Braley. He knows that if he has any ambitions towards higher office he has to please Dave Braley who controls the Conservative party pursestrings. Anything that Clark does should be seen in that light.

Quote from Burlington Post “I really hope Hamilton figures out a way to have a Pan Am stadium in Hamilton, because it would save us all a lot of time and aggravation.” - Mayor Rick Goldring

I just got an email from Mr. Clark's office; as he had been ruled 'out of order', he will not be pursuing it.

I am very glad to hear that.

Councillors say the change back to west harbour is being led by Brad Clark

Which councillors? How many councillors?

Clark leading the West Harbour push? He's never voted for West Harbour. If true - and that's a big if -, this is an interesting development, especially in light of his motion to walk away from the Pan Am process.

Hmmm, so apparently the Ticats will play at Ivor Wynne until 2014 and then move to another city if West Harbour goes ahead? I say the city should tell 'em to get the hell out once their lease expires at the end of 2012...knowing the club is moving will do wonders for ticket sales, I would imagine!!

Scott Mitchell's 'sour grapes.' He overplayed his cards.

Malex,

Scott Mitchel has been reported several time stating that the lease ended at the conclusion of the 2011 season, not 2012. The key to the lease is whether there is a re-signing clause for the tenant. If a re-signing clause exists the terms of it must be known, usually the tenant can exercise the option to stay for a pre-determined amount of time. If there is no re-signing clause once the lease is up, the lease is up.