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Originally Posted by Regorium
I don't think people do. It was very clear to me that the particular funding slide was trying to spin it such that it shows that the ticket tax is somehow funded by the users of the facility - making it far more palpable to the general public than just "City of Calgary - to be repaid with Ticket Levy".
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Granted. I was speaking more about those of us in this thread rather than the public at large.
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Same with the CRL portion. Much better to say that the developers of the community will pay for it, rather than "City of Calgary - to be repaid with CRL". And even then, it's very clear that the public's understanding of what CRL actually is is really shoddy.
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Also true. I suspect we will be learning a lot more about CRLs and what they entail.
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Then you have all the people that believe a "city asset" is a good thing. It's an AWFUL thing for an asset like this. Imagine possible repairs, possible liabilities. These massive facilities generally only break even (the saddledome earned 1.5M in 2010, for example), and are generally worthless upon their decommissioning.
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On this point, I am very curious to see what the ultimate agreement would be. If it is something like the current one for the Saddledome, then I have no concerns on this front.
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Basically, I suspect that you understand the implications, but don't be so quick to assume the general public does.
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As I said, I meant to refer to we in this thread alone. But you are right of course. Politics, at its heart, is the manipulation of ignorance.
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I also understand that the presentation was a starting point for negotiations, but it was actually quite insulting to me that they would open with such a lowball.
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Ehh, I'm a pragmatist. I'm not surprised that the Flames asked what they did, and I won't be surprised when the final deal involves less city money and more private money.
My personal bet is that the CSE and the city will negotiate something that sees the city not be responsible for fronting the ticket tax money or the CRL money (the more I think about it, removing that CRL portion would make more sense for the Flames), and that cost going back to CSE. So in the end, the politicians stand up and say "we negotiated a saving of $240 million for you tax payers" and the Flames stand up and say "we're taking on more of our own costs", and both come out looking relatively good, all things considered.
The reality, of course, is just a shell game.