Raise the Hammer

when's the next election?

For the first time in my life, I was actually proud of council, most but not all of them, through out the debate. Voted 7 times for WH and even tried to look at several other sites. Even though that was their biggest error, they tried. The whole IWS2 just made me turn on them. They were right, Fred was right, Bratina blinked.

Totally agree. They blinked.

The fix was in as soon as Queen's Park told Bob to talk to Bob, the rest was just details.

It is very difficult to stay positive about this whole mess. How will IWS2 fix all the TC problems going forward. They will get the bounce in attendance for the first couple of years, then what. We took a great opportunity and fizzled it into a questionable compromise. Oskee wee wtf

Check out this follow up story from the spec especially this comment. Ignore the fact that BY is the owner, I mean caretaker. no I was right the first time, owner.

In a statement, Ticats president Bob Young offered his congratulations to city council for “successfully landing this important investment in our city.

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/articl...

New parking facilities will mean more revenue for the team and will bring more affluent fans to the stadium who previously would not have attended due to parking facilities. Sure, it's only 1500 spots, but it'll help.

Not enough to justify the massive price tag, but there will be improvement.

Does anyone know what locations are being considered for the velodrome?

The usual suspects- West Harbour, Dundas olympic Park and East Mountain. Anybody's guess at this point

There seems to be some potential investment at least in the national cycling centre from CHCH TV. A good start at least!

http://www.channelcanada.com/Article5503...

Disagree with the Fred comment, he was right, cats were bluffing they had no where to go and obviously all that BS about parking visibility etc. was just that BS. I do agree with the the Bratina comment and we have 4 years to watch the disaster unfold.

So what is your point. I agree he lost his job over this. Does that mean he was wrong? Bratina won his job over this amybe his ill informed notion of de-amalgamation. Does that make him right. Please tell us what they (council and mayor) should have done.

comment from banned user deleted

Has Bratina released his campaign accounts ... When he does how much you wanna bet the whole thing was funded by employees of the tiecats ?

The deadline is sometime in March.

Council should have convinced the tiger cats about the west harbour. Fred should not have been part of the negotiations. they should have allowed the city manager to do it from day one. fred boxed in his council and didnt tell them that the province was there to help. So what do you expect? See he couldn't organize it and brattina was there for the ride and he didn't help because he had political ambitions too. Obviously so why should he help?

Also confederation park should have at least been looked at.

But you know all this is ancient history now. The point is Fred wasn't right at all. He let an opportunity slip.

Some good points, but I believe the Cats were so positive about getting their way because of the influence they had with the province and Feds that no one could get them at the WH, at least in the early stages. I agree CP should have been looked at if only for the fact it at least would have been eliminated with cause. It is what is now and IWS2 is it. What really bothers me , is when the call came from the province to get in touch with the Cats, Bratina could have and should have pushed WH. Cats had no where to go. Not only did we blink, we bent over and took it.

This is a good day for the Hammer. Celebrate that we got the Games and come city sports amenities.

I guess that's the right attitude but for the life of me, I just can't muster a smile.

I've got the same sinking feeling. It is my ward, but it feels like we just gave tax money to Walmart.

Here he goes again:

http://mayorbobsblogsite.wordpress.com/

Haha! Thanks for that. It's genius. Who's writing it? It should be developed into a screen play. Kudos!

Oh geeze, that is funny. I thought for a minute it was for real. It isn't that far off the mark, is it?

As much as I wanted to go see the Cats play at a new stadium at WH, reality is that there was never going to be enough money avaiable to fianance a shiney brand new stadium anywhere, nevermind at WH.

So half of a new stadium in an old site is all we've got, and I can't for the life of me think of any other alternative given what we know now.

If the Cats would have been upfront that they really could not contribute any substatial money to this nor would any of their investors, sponsors etc. We always knew the province was going help out in the end, in fact if the province would have given the needed money for WH on vote 5 6 or 7, we would be building there. What they wanted was a site agreed upon by the parties involved. In effect there was enough money if the TC's would have come along at WH. In the end it is what it is, a really bad compromise for all involved.

Au contraire, I think the Ticats were upfront.

They indicated last summer they would put no money into West Harbour. At East Mountain and Longwood they indicated that they help bring in additional investors.

Let's pretend for a second that the province would have kicked in the additional $50 million it would have cost for WH. The remaining barrier was convincing the Ticats they could make money there. The city was unable or unwilling to -- and my bet is a bit of both.

I will give credit to the council for trying to do the right thing. In hindsight their voting patterns make perfect sense based on the information available at the time. And we've ended up at a site we can afford, the Ticats can be happy with. And it gives us an "infrastructure legacy that promotes healthy, active communities and high performance amateur athletic development."

Let's pack the house when PanAm soccer finally gets here!

I'm not so sure. There's only enough money for 15,000 seats and $10m for reno of the north side.

A brand new stadium of 24,000 seats or so would have cost around $200m I believe.

Do you think the province would have contributed that much more if the Tiger-Cats agreed to WH?

I think it would of played out just like the IWS2 scenario. The estimate is too high etc. So the 200M + price tag may have been reduced. We will never know unfortunately. What is incredible is that the TC's did not anounce sponsors until IWS2 was in the works. You have to believe the sponsors would also be at WH? WH is if not better at least equal to IWS2 by any measurement. The idea of private investment is nil at IWS2, there would have been a better chance if any at WH.

The idea of private investment is nil at IWS2, there would have been a better chance if any at WH.

Do we have any proof to back this up? The city has never proven this. I doubt the Ticats believe this -- and given their concern about the bottom line I am sure they have spent lots of time thinking about it.

And if private investment was a primary requirement, we'd be building at Aldershot, East Mountain or Longwood over IWS2 and WH.

By any rational comparison between his previous and current position, Eisenberger got promoted and was right when it came to the facts. Even with coming in third, he was supported by a sizeable chuck of the electorate. The fact that he dared to stand up to certain elements of Hamilton and do the right thing, lost him the election, says way more about a certain side of Hamilton than it says about Eisenberger.

Mayor Bob is the Hamilton of yesterday that thinks the future is somewhere between a new Walmart and Vranich. Well-intentioned, but not that bright. That's why we are spending millions to prop-up the status quo with IWS2 against ALL rational assessment of the situation - even by the Ticat's and Bob's Young's own "standards".

"Mayor Bob is the Hamilton of yesterday that thinks the future is somewhere between a new Walmart and Vranich."

Ha, too funny, like a lot of discussion on this site ie. is a new Giant Tiger moving in where the old bingo hall was? ha,ha

So a brand new stadium (1/2 new) for soccer. So whatvare the odds of us getting an actual game in the up coming womans world cup?? I bet it's only a training ground if that.

Women's World conflict too much with the Pan Am so at this point neither Toronto nor Hamilton are in.

Could change though....