[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I said 1/3 public, 1/3 ticket tax, 1/3 owner - and that's what's reported.

And that would be fair, and probably have the deal already agreed upon, but that was not the deal reported. If they were to deem this area a CRL zone, they would have stated that. Instead they suggested they would parcel the money out with the expectation this would be paid back, which doesn't sound like a CRL, but sounds more like a long term government secured mortgage.

With respect to the "public portion to be paid back" we can speculate about what that means. If it's a CRL - which seems to be the most oft discussed option that is taxpayer money. I don't know what the quarrel is here.

Speculate all you want, but if this were the case why wouldn't they just identify it as such? City Council would have to zone this area as such, so this would be a process already under discussion. Unless they are doing this really quietly, this hasn't been proposed.

On the site area, I said there was some commercial use lands, if you had read further you would have seen I said if they wanted something more substantial, they should maybe discuss the other side of Olympic Way as well.

And when you said some, you obviously didn't consider the scope of the land available. An 80' wide space on the one side of the proposed arena footprint is not suitable for anything. On the other side of Olympic Way is land dedicated to the BMO Centre. It should be mentioned that Nenshi suggests expansion of the BMO, on the tax payer's dime. So there really isn't any space there. Again, this space is barely adequate for an arena. It is about 60% the size of the land used for Edmonton's arena. So unless they are spilling over into the Rundle Ruins, other development opportunities are greatly limited.

Why are you so hostile?

Not hostile at all. Why are you so defensive?

I think Nenshi saw this playing out, as part of his September 11th announcement on his website he states, "The City will never walk away from the table and I will work hard to reach the right deal." He obviously knew the Flames had a drop dead offer on the table and made sure to make it public that he would never walk away from the negotiation table. He never said he would not force the other parties to walk away, which it appears he successfully did. If it is true that the Flames submitted a proposal on July 31st, and Nenshi refused to acknowledge it, then it is clear this has been part of his strategy.