[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by just_tim

Long time lurker whose always enjoyed the discussions. First post. 20 years a season ticket holder but now retired and they’ve been passed to my son. What I have to add is pretty simple. In any partnership, once trust is lost, there is very little hope of that relationship being successful long term, at least with all the same players at the table. I don’t care if CSEC is the bad guy, the good guy or whatever. Fact is, the deal was negotiated to be 50/50. The July renegotiation pegged the City’s contribution, upped CSEC’s percentage and pinned all the design and construction cost increases on CSEC. These are not insignificant concessions to keep the build moving. However, when your partner is also in charge of issuing permits and they change the requirements after they protected themselves, the outcome was inevitable. Add to that, the deadline was Dec 31, so there was zero reason for Madame Mayor to go to Twitter when she did. It was a BS grandstanding stunt. And it worked! Even here on a decidedly pro-Flames forum, the owners are being vilified. Had she kept quiet, worked to find common ground in the background like a servant leader should, there *might* have been a possibility to solve it prior to the deadline. This might eventually get solved, but all parties will likely end up spending more, and the parties negotiating will probably have to change. The last deal didn’t get any traction until Jeff Davidson and some private citizens stepped in. This isn’t about money. It’s about ever-shifting goalposts.

You omit the fact that CSEC was effectively buying CMLC off the deal...something that may have had a lot to do with the recent "confusion" over these red herring costs.