[shutout]

My view of public funds is that it is repaid over a period of time through a user fee tax. Then the people that don't want to go and watch hockey, lacrosse, football, soccer, basketball, or concerts wont be paying for it. If there is a surcharge fee for the restaurants and bars as well as for the parking and the sports venue tickets than it all adds up.

If you had 20K for the Flames, 35K for the Stamps, and 8K for the Hitmen and all you did was charge $1 extra per game you would be generating $1.5M a year. Make it a more realistic tax of $5 per ticket and that is $7M a year. A $5 luxury tax on parking would be about a $1M a year. That is just those main sports. You would be looking at $1.5M in tax for the concerts that would come in.

Over a ten year period that you are looking to have the public money paid back through the luxury tax you would bring in about $1B. That is without charging any sort of luxury tax on the food and alcohol that is served at the games and in the bars and restaurants in the entertainment district.

Getting public money should not be an issue to getting this built. Its just in how you structure it. Along with the fact that non users are going to have to contribute as well. I dont go to the libraries in the city but my taxes pay for them. I dont use the swimming pools in the city but my taxes pay for them. At some point in time there is a public cost for improving your city. Just what is the value of that cost.