Raise the Hammer

@saywhat, I agree, Mitchell states support for BID only, no mention of WH.

Important too, Mitchell was part of " 7. Public delegations" component of the COW on Feb 23/09. Next up was " 8. Discussion Items. " Mitchell supports bids BEFORE COW agrees to WH as preferred location.

Equally important, examine what else COW approved (save for McCarthy and?)...today it's rather clear, to me anyway, that the Discussion Items lay bare the reasons why we are where we are today.

Please know I live in the North End and have been involved, as a resident volunteer, in the "stadium" issues since it first reared its head as New Business at a COW on June 4 of 2002. This COW report is instrumental in understanding how WH, Confed Park and St Creek mountain were the first top three choices that were to be "analyzed" as the future site of the stadium.

A few nuggets from the '02 COW report: (a) That City Council approve a joint bid by the City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Spectator for submission to Commonwealth Games (Canada) to host the 2012 Commonwealth Games. (g) That a Commonwealth Games Bid Sub-Committee be established consisting of members of Council, staff, key volunteers in the community and corporate partners.

As for the Spec, a partner in the Games, does anyone recall the Spec, again as a partner, write about the indepth analysis of the 3 stadium locale sites? How about the community involvement (the initial screening portion of an Environmental Assessment)that took place in the WH, Confed Park, and St Creek mountain neighbourhoods? Community involvement, as far as I know, happened in the North End, Bart/Tiff and Central areas. Anyone in the Confed Park area and St Creek recall Public Information Centres for 'potential' stadium in their neighbourhood? I'll wager they never happened because Confed Park and St creek mount were never taken as serious options from the start. As well, the stadium was part of Setting Sail planning and never took a "planning" life of its own; the latter would have ensured that the other 2 sites were being considered by the public as much as WH was. The fix was in; in hindsight, the omission of a stadium plan outside of Setting Sail was not something I thought of at the time but it was obvious we were getting hoodwinked because Confed Park and St Creek are not part of the WH neighbourhoods which were the only neighbourhoods in Setting Sail. Oh, I can kick myself now for missing it.

Moving on, on April 14, 2003 Setting Sail Panels at a Public Information Centre (community involvement City-style) shows the Tiger Cats & Commonwealth Games Stadium...in WH. I never did see an indepth analysis of Confed Park or St Cr mountain, OR WH. Has anyone seen the detailed analysis that was first spoken of in June of 2002 that resulted in the City/community/Tiger Cats et al joint decision to choose WH as the preferred stadium locale?

Alas, no. Instead, the detailed analysis of the Original 3 locations never say the light of day in my neighbourhood. Someone, somewhere made the decision that WH was "IT" and off we all went on what was, and still is, a wild and not-so-wooly ride.

Yes, it was only killed because we lost the bid for the games; however, staff, in the end, 2005, agreed with the WH neighbourhoods - Stadium was a poor fit, no stadium, thank goodness because it was taking a toll on the neighbourhoods who were in the midst of a huge planning process and Official Plan Amendment called Setting Sail. I, for one, was relieved the stadium was off the table for it's frustrating as hell to go through a public participation process but denied so many details along the way, ie, City strategies and decisions that were made long before any public participation takes place.

Enter Hamilton Tourism. COW, April 11/05. City of Hamilton supports the Hamilton Sport Tourism Action Plan. Reports cited are ECO 05002 and P&ED report of April 11, 2005. Hamilton Tourism is now the lead partner with the City and will handle the Sports Hamilton file and more Games bids. Soon, the pretty pictures of the WH stadium are floating around again. Confed Park now becomes one of 8-10, I can't remember there were so many, sites for the new Pan Am stadium. @&$#%, the WH neighbourhoods were heading back to 2002-05 to fight the whole thing over again.

@RenaissanceWatcher...please, get your facts straight, don't take out of context, goodness sakes that's why we're still in this mess.

I am not a football fan but I love the Cats because their our Cats. I love the idea of us receiving the last infrastructure monies from the feds and prov that will keep a lot of people in Hamilton working, building.

Hamilton Council messed up big time because they never demanded that Staff give them all that they agreed to from '02 through to now.

In the future it would be lovely to see if we can do what Berlin does when building important legacies...the public is invited to each stage and the City does periodic unveilings of stages of the structure being built, residents are invited to come see and marvel at what's going on...wouldn't it be lovely if our planning and building processes were truly transparent and community involvement was real and meaningful? When a City tells its residents that they're going to do a full and proper analysis of 3 original sites, find corporate sponsors, and work with the Cats from the get-go (at least use their name for the WH stadium pics during Setting Sail), and then the City drops the ball (the Hamilton Tourism lead was a disaster from the get go) at almost every turn...and we are where we are because of all the promises we believed from reading City reports and then had to bear witness that the talk was all rubbish and the City was going to do what they had wanted to do since showing the first picture of the WH stadium back in '02/03...

@Paul Shaker....the picture you include here is of a WH stadium (and track and velodrome?) and you've taken all the rail tracks out and replaced with luscious green grass. Akin to RenaissanceWAtcher in that you only present what you want us to see, but in reality there is so much more to see a real and clear picture.