Raise the Hammer

What is it with everyone else thinking they know where a stadium should go?

Longwood Aberdeen has been studied even less than the East Mountain site, which has been studied less than the West Harbour site. Nevermind the fact that we shouldn't be opening up the site selection issue again, we definitely should not be talking about new unstudied sites.

Accessibility is my number one concern for this supposed site. My second concern is the fact that it's location will allow virtually not opportunities for mixed use. It will be a stadium, and it will be empty when there are no events. There's no opportunity to mix in walkable street level commercial, or hotel development. We just fought a battle last year over a big box retailer trying to buy up those lands for shopping, now we're going to put a stadium surrounded by parking there instead? How is this even an option that deserves to be discussed?

With any team working together it is inevitable that there will be conflict, it is a healthy part of any good team debate, but once a decision has been made, if a team wants to move forward everyone needs to move forward together and be satisfied with the decision the team made. Holdouts dragging their feet, or being contrary merely because their side was not selected contribute nothing useful, and hold back the entire team.

If circumstances change, and plans need to be re-evaluated, debate may have to be reopened, but "I told you so" and reopening debates about what should have been done are not productive. I for one have seen nor heard anything that would warrant re-opening this debate. Nothing has changed between the date of the original decision and today.

The only person I'm interested in hearing from right now, is our Pan Am liason, who apparently has "important information" to present to council at their emergency meeting Thursday. Let's see what he has to say.