Quote:
Originally Posted by Beatle17
My, and your, property taxes are not increased because of financing of this project. The financing is covered by payments from the Flames and development in the area. Our property taxes are increased by pet projects that add no real value to anyone, i.e. the Blue Ring, the Fish Art on the walls of the underpass below Macleod Trail at Glenmore, the $25M bridge that could have been bid on and built for 25% of the cost.
I understand that you hate this project but let's not distort the facts. The City is being asked to "lend" their ability to get financing at a cheaper rate than the Flames. The only direct money they are being asked to contribute, which I believe is a throw away in this whole project, is for a fieldhouse that the City Council has stated for years is needed but has never been budgeted for. I also believe that the city has no intention of ever building this fieldhouse but are using it for political purposes come election time, i.e. "we need this for our citizens and we will get the funding included", then once in office they never discuss it again.
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Understand that it's not just me that hates the project, the vast majority
of Flames fans hate the project. This thing is like Trumpcare, it's true popularity is probably around 20%. Using public works as some kind of "well we waste money on that, why not CalgaryNEXT" continues to ignore the extremely important reality: Public works can be accessed at little to no cost to the taxpayer (none in the examples you used), while CalgaryNEXT will be a closed access facility for the arena that will increase prices (at a minimum by 20%) and decrease capacity, while the fieldhouse will not be a 100% pubic access facility like it should be. Flames can build their own arena, city can build its own fieldhouse. Sounds like everyone wins in that scenario, except the Stamps who don't deserve a new stadium no matter how much people want them to have one (nevermind that an indoor one could badly backfire).
As far as the fieldhouse as some kind of political pawn....I mean really? The amateur athlete vote is ummmm....yeah a really small voting block. A borderline irrelevant voting block actually. Thinking a fieldhouse is actually a serious driver of votes is hilarious. It's just not, people aren't going to be on the fence come election time and decide "Well they wanna build a fieldhouse so I'm in". Don't be disingenuous, most people wouldn't even know they wanna do a fieldhouse without CalgaryNEXT coming to light.