Quote:
Originally Posted by kevman
My life was positively impacted by the '88 Olympics despite being too young to go. The legacy infrastructure have made me the person I am today. As a kid I spent countless days at COP. As an adult I still get a Winsport pass every year. Calgary hits above its weight class when it comes to athlete development as a result of the '88 Olympics legacy.
Getting new or additional infrastructure, paid in part by others, is a no brainer. It's like RRSP matching at work, sure you can often get a better return on your investment elsewhere but you'd be silly to leave the matched contributions behind.
This might sound selfish, and I don't care, but I'll happily support infrastructure that will benefit me moving forward. Others do it all the time. For the same cost of the cities contribution we got an airport tunnel and a few interchanges. For the same cost of the entire games we got a SW ring road. Given the choice I know where I'd spend my money. However, I also know that society is give and take. So after I pay my share to ensure your commute is shorter, I'll happily take your share to put in facilities that will help develop future amateur athletes.
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But we don’t get new facilities to develop amateur atheletes. Things like the sliding Center and Windsport have proven they are able to find funding to maintain and upgrade their facilities. The oval and Canmore Nordic Center are no different.
So what do we get for facilities to help develop amateur atheletes for our .5 to 1.5 billion dollars? We get a fieldhouse. That’s it. Everything else has proven itself capable of being funded and maintained. So if it’s amateur athletes you want to support let’s spend 200 million of a field house and 100 million on a legacy fund and call it a day.
The Olympics are a bad value based on what we get for infrastructure even if the federal funding comes from the money fairy. Let’s skip the Olympics and build the infrastructure we need.