Raise the Hammer

I love that this discussion is still going and that it's stayed pretty respectful. On that note, I'm surprised at how eager some people are to defend BY, despite his disgusting display of bad faith negotiating throughout this process. I think the native RTH posters have done a pretty good job of highlighting the gap between what he's said in the past, and how quickly he's bitten the hand that feeds his Tiger-Beast.

Why anyone cares if the Cats stay in Hamilton is completely beyond me. I used to attend a couple of games a year up until this Stadium fiasco, and I've vowed that my family will never attend another one unless it's down the street from us, at WH. For the city to have a stakeholder or partner to act in such contempt of local democratic decision making only illuminates why our "leaders" must not cave to BY and his team. Over the past year the City has been beaten black and blue by "partners", like US Steel, Siemens and now our sports team. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Worst of all, as details emerge, we're beginning to see that this stadium plan is going to turn into a massive case of corporate welfare: a huge transfer of public money to serve a private interest who feels emboldened enough to issue diktats in order to hijack local decision-making. This "plan" may serve to further impoverish the city while offering precious few tangible benefits (as if we need another box-store precinct).

I'm a little dismayed by the relative quiet surrounding the stadium plan as candidates canvas their neighbourhoods for support, but I would dearly love for Hamiltonians to send a message to BY and the Ti-Cats by electing a mayor and council who can rise above the rhetoric that the Ti-Cats should be supported at any cost.

What we need more than a losing football team is a group of responsible fiscal stewards who won't mortgage our future for the sake of a private interest that has claimed it can't reliably make money in its only real line of business: not parking, not box-store development, but playing football and selling tickets.