Comment 43353

By highwater (registered)
Posted July 15, 2010 at 10:35:03

You would be much better off turning your attention and energies to helping ensure a stadium is built that contributes to the future tax base of Hamilton in some viable location. Rather than insisting on building it in the one place in Hamilton that will require subsidies from the City to operate for decades to come.

Merciful heavens, good man! Can't you see that's what I'm doing? As numerous other commenters have rightly pointed out, the cost of building, servicing, and maintaining a car-dependent sprawl stadium will be far higher than the cost of building in the WH location, even with the required remediation. And unless council is as bankrupt morally as they are intellectually, we will have to do it without the Future Fund.

The WH may not be a silver bullet for downtown revitalization, but there will at least be some economic benefit, and there will be considerable social and cultural benefit to compensate taxpayers for our enormous investment. The EM will only provide economic benefit for a few big box developers like the ones who are advising you, and a car-dependent sprawl stadium will have all the social, cultural, and environmental benefit of a giant sucking wound.

You might have a case if you were offering up the required $50m, but you're not. You are expecting us to pay virtually all the bills while receiving none of the benefits. Would you propose such a lopsided business deal to a private company? As a citizen of this city, I feel abused and disrespected by the deal you are proposing.

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Two-way IS the compromise.

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