Flames to announce plans to announce arena plans in the... future...

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by shutout

I don't think that the taxpayers should be paying for the construction costs of the building. But I do think that there is a city benefit to having these types of facilities and that there needs to be some sort of give from the city. The easiest way is to go with an escalating property tax structure, where the first few years after the facilities are open there is no property taxes paid. This increases over a period of 10, 15, or 20 years to where the facilities are paying full property taxes on the building. The term can be determined by an estimate on the payback recovery period on building the new facility.

I don't agree with the Bell model in Montreal where they build their own building and then get taxed up the wazoo in property taxes. Only to have the province build one for the group in Quebec City.

Exactly what I wanted to say, only in way better words. Thank you.

[Ozy_Flame]

Flames are a private business with private interests. Why should even a lick of my tax dollars go towards a new arena? Because we like hockey here too? We like Stampede but I don't recall the City giving the Calgary Stampede anything outside of a 100-year land lease. What's wrong with a similar approach with the Flames?

Of course, the big wigs will argue that an institution such as the Calgary Flames needs public support for things like this.

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Oh look, it's Rick Bell.

Call me Rick Bell, but show me where the millions of dollars we have spent on "art" has made anyones life better. The money could be utilized to fund after school programs, shelters etc., way better than any art work is doing.

[The Ditch]

Cities don't recoup the cost of using public funds for arenas. The owner is a billionaire let him pay for his toys the only thing that using public funds would do is make a billionaire even more money.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by The Ditch

Cities don't recoup the cost of using public funds for arenas. The owner is a billionaire let him pay for his toys the only thing that using public funds would do is make a billionaire even more money.

I am rather certain that the fans - music, sports and other - will get a great deal of enjoyment as well. Such a silly misuse of an absolute.

[The Ditch]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

I am rather certain that the fans - music, sports and other - will get a great deal of enjoyment as well. Such a silly misuse of an absolute.

You're right, literally the only place that could happen is a new arena paid for by public funds. Also, if the new arena isn't built people will stop spending their discretionary income, all society will fall.

[Resolute 14]

lol. All I read out of that post was you crying like a two year old after he got his hand slapped.

[Jason14h]

They should allow taxpayers to choose where a % of their tax dollars go:

Art
Music
Sports
etc

I would personally rather my $$ go to an arena then art but that's my personal preference

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

They should allow taxpayers to choose where a % of their tax dollars go

Sounds like a really effective use of time asking 4 million people where a % of their tax dollars should go.

There's a reason you elect representatives to make these decisions on your behalf.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

They should allow taxpayers to choose where a % of their tax dollars go:

Art
Music
Sports
etc

I would personally rather my $$ go to an arena then art but that's my personal preference

Allowing a choice looks that would lead to massive overfunding and underfunding certain areas, bevermind the ridiculous amount of advertising for public expenditures that would occur.
"Roads, we need 'em!" billboards would be everywhere!

[shutout]

The other side to the argument is that they are billionaires because of other business interests. They and their companies (in theory) pay their taxes on the money they make and the wealth they accumulate.

Owning a sports team does not make them billionaires. They spend millions to bring teams into cities for the benefit of the people in those cities. They don't make money owning the team, they do it because they love being an owner, and they want to give something back to their communities.

A new arena is not something that the sports teams are able to pay back in the majority of these ownership models where they spend so much on player salaries. The Flames could continue to play in the Saddledome for another 20 years but as fans that would become an increasingly worse entertainment environment. From this point of view it is not unreasonable for teams to ask the city and their fans to want to share in some of the burden of providing a better entertainment venue. Or to have some sort of user tax added to tickets to payback the public money being spent.

I think that in this sort of model of shared responsibility and payback that the players association should be kicking in a portion of new building costs since they get half of all the revenues, and new building generates more revenue, they get all of the benefit of a new building without any of the cost or risk associated with it.

An entertainment entity is different than regular business. The whole purpose for its existence is the community it is located in. To that degree the community has a certain amount of responsibility for its future.

[shutout]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Sounds like a really effective use of time asking 4 million people where a % of their tax dollars should go.

There's a reason you elect representatives to make these decisions on your behalf.

The other thing is that if you let the people decide decisions of a spending magnitude it robs the politicians ("elected representatives") of their opportunity to make the decisions which best impact their own personal financial futures (lining their pockets).

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by shutout

Owning a sports team does not make them billionaires. They spend millions to bring teams into cities for the benefit of the people in those cities. They don't make money owning the team, they do it because they love being an owner, and they want to give something back to their communities.

Yes they do.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

They should allow taxpayers to choose where a % of their tax dollars go:

Art
Music
Sports
etc

I would personally rather my $$ go to an arena then art but that's my personal preference

This is one of those ideas that appeals to high school students when first learning about how the government works...until they think about it for more than 10 seconds.

[Resolute 14]

The truth is, rich people get and stay rich by not blowing their money unnecessarily. If the owners believe they can get others to fund part or all of the facility, they'd be fools not to try.

Personally, I view an arena as a public good. Not really any different than a museum, zoo, park, etc. As an individual tax payer, I have no problem with some part of the facility being publicly funded. As an individual user of the facility, I also have no problem with paying some of the cost directly through a ticket surcharge. The majority of the arena should be privately funded, however.

[Vulcan]

The new Regina stadium is going to get money from the city and the province and I don't see why some money from the city and province couldn't go towards the Flames plans as well. BC Place got provincial money so I think there is some responsibility there. The fly in the ointment is that the province didn't really kick in for the Edmonton arena so the Flames are probably out of luck there unless by adding the football stadium as well, they can get some provincial support. Yeah I know the owners are rich but with how sports finances are set up, building there own arena is a money losing proposition.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

Call me Rick Bell, but show me where the millions of dollars we have spent on "art" has made anyones life better.

You would have liked Calgary in 1980, a city with no culture or soul.

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

Call me Rick Bell, but show me where the millions of dollars we have spent on "art" has made anyones life better. The money could be utilized to fund after school programs, shelters etc., way better than any art work is doing.

Would you prefer a city with drab, brutalist Soviet-style buildings, buskers and street festivals made illegal, and streets devoid of all landscaping, murals and any even remote signs of life?

City projects devote 1% of their project budget to art. Please tell me how this percentage cut negatively impacts your life and how that same money can revolutionize education, social programs, and homelessness. Those are three areas every province has been dealing with for years.

Believe it or not, people like having some sense of culture and environment in their city. Art funding supports that. As it should.

[Senator Clay Davis]

The NFL is the only sport that has the ability (and they've mastered it) to blackmail taxpayers into paying for stadiums. Since LA is vacant, they are a very viable threat, and cities who give in to being blackmailed generally get a Super Bowl as a reward. Brilliant system, and why the NFL doesn't actually want a team in LA, because the threat of moving someone there is amazing leverage that once gone will make it more difficult.

NHL teams for the most part have no leverage at all to try and get a new arena. Are the Flames owners really going to threaten to move from one of the NHL's top 6 or 7 markets? For a market that could absolutely fail? That seems irresponsible. They could sell it to someone who intends to move, but then they probably will not get full value for selling the team. I think it's going to be an impossible sell to get money for an arena. Flames should be pushing for support infrastructure but nothing more.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Bunk said it best.

I love the since he's rich he should pay. He should donate his money to charity which he does before being a good pal and buying an arena.

We all can agree that the Econ impact from arena et al project is good for community and coffers.

Local govt doesn't have to write a cheque. Could be just no taxes of any kind until owners recoup original investment. Lots of ways to do a PPP deal