Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - [News Roundup] CSEC/City arena deal UPDATED: Third Party Facilitator

GhostCookie · 01-10-2022, 10:38 AM

My view on it is that is that with Nenshi gone, CSEC figured they could begin the death by a thousand cuts process on the new council, and start to force concessions on the agreement shifting costs back to the city. As mentioned earlier in the thread, CSEC basically bought the right to take over the role of project manager. The cost of this was owning the construction overruns.

CSEC never wanted to accept anything less than Edmonton's deal. Nenshi's ambivalence to their scare tactics basically broke their leverage which forced them back to the table to accept the agreed upon 50/50 deal. As others have pointed out, none of these increased costs were "foisted" on CSEC in bad faith, rather it was all part of the agreement and now those line items were getting price tags. The previous renegotiating cost CSEC the right to get those increases subsidized by the city, which means CSEC's best option is to call up the new inexperienced mayor, and hold her feet to the flame. At best she panics, gets council involved and they all pony up a new agreement benefitting the Flames. At worst, the deal is dead and they can begin the process anew.

My guess is they pretty much told her something along the lines of we get a better deal or we walk, and rather than wait for them to go through the process she got out in front and basically threw it out there. Whether that play works out to the city's benefit won't be realized for a while, however as a taxpayer, I would be pretty frustrated to find out that council called an emergency session and now we are on the hook for another 100mil. And if they get it once, they will do it again and again, and eventually you end up in the position of a sunk cost fallacy where you just keep upping the contribution since you've already invested so much.

I think at the end of the day, the mayor has read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and knew exactly what would happen if she ceded more money to the Flames. At the end of the day, we are all Flames fans and want a new arena, but it can't be "at any cost".

One question to anyone more familiar with the deal (with the blowup of news pieces about the cancellation my google search is struggling to get the exact details of the deal), was the final signed deal they made including a bunch of land being given (or optioned for cheap) to the flames for this deal?

01-10-2022, 10:38 AM	#1411
GhostCookie Crash and Bang Winger Join Date: Oct 2014 Exp:	My view on it is that is that with Nenshi gone, CSEC figured they could begin the death by a thousand cuts process on the new council, and start to force concessions on the agreement shifting costs back to the city. As mentioned earlier in the thread, CSEC basically bought the right to take over the role of project manager. The cost of this was owning the construction overruns. CSEC never wanted to accept anything less than Edmonton's deal. Nenshi's ambivalence to their scare tactics basically broke their leverage which forced them back to the table to accept the agreed upon 50/50 deal. As others have pointed out, none of these increased costs were "foisted" on CSEC in bad faith, rather it was all part of the agreement and now those line items were getting price tags. The previous renegotiating cost CSEC the right to get those increases subsidized by the city, which means CSEC's best option is to call up the new inexperienced mayor, and hold her feet to the flame. At best she panics, gets council involved and they all pony up a new agreement benefitting the Flames. At worst, the deal is dead and they can begin the process anew. My guess is they pretty much told her something along the lines of we get a better deal or we walk, and rather than wait for them to go through the process she got out in front and basically threw it out there. Whether that play works out to the city's benefit won't be realized for a while, however as a taxpayer, I would be pretty frustrated to find out that council called an emergency session and now we are on the hook for another 100mil. And if they get it once, they will do it again and again, and eventually you end up in the position of a sunk cost fallacy where you just keep upping the contribution since you've already invested so much. I think at the end of the day, the mayor has read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and knew exactly what would happen if she ceded more money to the Flames. At the end of the day, we are all Flames fans and want a new arena, but it can't be "at any cost". One question to anyone more familiar with the deal (with the blowup of news pieces about the cancellation my google search is struggling to get the exact details of the deal), was the final signed deal they made including a bunch of land being given (or optioned for cheap) to the flames for this deal?