Raise the Hammer

@ try again. I don't believe I said or suggested that White Star planned on building anything with all of their own money. I simply referenced their concepts and proposals as a rebuttal to another poster who suggested no one had tried to sell the TiCats on the site.

@just sayin

I have to disagree. Staff and council proceeded with a site that had been selected for years. Until the TiCats tried their powerplay at no point whatsoever had there been ANY suggestion that the team would be contributing ANY capital at all to the project to the best of my knowledge.

I find it interesting that HostCo has only tied a legacy tenant to Hamilton and not any of the contingency municipalities even though the dollar amount is not changing. I have argued from the begining that The City of Hamilton is the legacy tenant and not the Tiger Cats. That fact being derived from the principle of leaving high level sports infrastructure for community use as a legacy of the games. In my opinion the TiCats are a major but supplementary tenant. This fact would not change even if they formed a management company to run the facility for the city. I don't see the city believing Bob Young as a rookie mistake. I believed him too. Why wouldn't they? Mr Young's team was about to be handed the keys to a brand new facility without having to fork over hardly anything. The "revitalization horse" was the only one living in the barn. All parties knew it and the Future Fund money and access to it was contingent on the stadium playing a major role in that initiative.

So we agree that the product on the field is the key to success both on it and off of it. It's only Mr Mitchell and Mr Young that don't seem to get it. My disappointment in the stadium not going into WH is tempered by the fact that 60 or 45 million $ of our money won't be going to build "Bob World" at a highway exit ramp near you. I also would not totally right off WH. Ottawa has already said that they are not interested in relocating the Cats. QC and Moncton have no stadium and no money to build one. Milton? Burlington? Nope, neither of those municipalities have the cash or would borrow the cash to fund an enterprise such as this. Same with Hazel's automobile paradise. The lease at Ivor Wynne runs to the end of next year. Mr Young's choices are these. Play in and agree to a renovated IWS (not really palatable to him), agree to participate in a stadium at WH and make it work which is entirely doable. Or.... play out the season and move to where?...... NOWHERE. Sell the team to someone who believes in WH (and do it fast.......ie) Katz group) and get out of Dodge.

So yeah with either of those resolutions I think the taxpayers in this city win. I can live with that.

Comment edited by Shempatolla on 2010-12-26 14:12:02