2026 Olympics- Calgary votes no- 56%

[jeffporfirio]

I barely watch the Olympics on TV, much less so after the NHL dumped them. The World Cup, well, that would be another story...

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I'm not surprised people in Calgary are more opposed to it than the rest of the province. With the high unemployment rate, and the downtown vacancy rates, people in the city are already facing ever increasing property and business taxes. To ask Calgarians to tack on even more taxes for a 2 week party probably doesn't sit well with Joe who saw his business taxes go up double digits over the past few years.

And even more salient to this point was what was presented to council yesterday.

This city is in for a very very rough ride in regards to existing and lost tax revenues.

City officials say they don’t have an easy answer for how to address plummeting downtown office building values that have left a lingering property tax gap that isn’t going away and could see other Calgary businesses picking up at least part of the tab.

City manager Jeff Fielding said Tuesday that the past three years have seen more than $12.5 billion in lost property value from highly valued downtown office space, amounting to a $192-million tax burden that has to be shared between 13,815 commercial properties in Calgary.

“This is our hot potato. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Fielding said. “It’s unique to Calgary.”

In 2017 and 2018, the city pulled a total of nearly $90 million from its fiscal reserve fund in an effort to cap non-residential property tax increases at 5 per cent. Mayor Naheed Nenshi said it’s unlikely that the city will be able to shield businesses in the same way in the coming year.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what to do here,” Fielding said. “This is one of the interesting things about this problem: people are saying, ‘You had this problem for two years. Why the hell aren’t you doing anything with it?’

“It’s a very simple problem and it’s very specific to a select number of buildings and it’s going to persist for a while.”

https://www.thestar.com/calgary/2018...tax-shift.html

So spending hundreds of millions of the dollars they do have that doesn't really address any of the tax revenue issues downtown without raising business taxes even further.....may not get a lot of support.

[chemgear]

LOL, people saw through the fraud of the Bidco on the City of Calgary website days ago.

How many more instances of fraud do people need?


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...bots-1.4894767

The 2016 U.S. election may be the most famous instance of bots being used to sway public opinion on a vote, but it looks like savvy programmers were also attempting to change perceptions of Calgary's Olympic bid.

City council's Olympic assessment committee heard Tuesday that nearly half the responses to an online poll on whether Calgary should bid to host the 2026 Winter Games had to be scrubbed from the results due to "bot activity."



https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/com...orship_on_the/

I am alleging voting fraud and censorship on the Calgary Bid Engagement website

If that is already hard to believe, consider that my numbers are from comparing October 17 to October 31, when even as of October 26, according to CTV News, 82 per cent of respondents were disagreeing with a hosting bid. All that "Agree" magic happened in five days.

Let me put this in perspective using an example. Let’s say the “Agree” and “Disagree” sides are cyclists, and we count their votes as the distance they travel. From October 2 to October 17, “Agree” went 45 kilometers each day. “Disagree” went 223 kilometers each day. Then from October 18 to October 31, “Disagree” slowed down a bit to 198 kilometers each day, but “Agree” managed to go nine times faster than it was going – now pedaling 398 kilometers each day.

[Flamenspiel]

Originally Posted by Travis Munroe

I think the yes side knows and accepts that the numbers are soft. We believe the no side is also too hard on them given the nature of renovating vs building new. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Calgary is not headed in the right direction and the 4th place rank is irrelevant when looking at opportunity and economy. Canada continues to slide on rankings of places to do business and this is while most of Canada is enjoying great times.

People have already explained that not only is 2030 out of the question but 2034 would also be. I'm not sure how true it is but I think they mentioned salt Lake city as ready to roll out the red carpet for 2030 and then they would be due for a shift outside of North American for 2034.

Everyone wants to look at property tax hikes as the main driver for the no side. How about looking at property values. Even a 1% gain due to short term economic benefit has you break even. The path we are on right now, no Olympics, no injection of capital, no major temporary job growth, no office space being leases and you will see more than 1% in losses on your he value.

The no gal on the fan yesterday had a interesting comment...
As a no person, she knows we need something to kick-start the local economy but her suggestion was a new arena... This is incredibly hypocritical imo asking for tax payers to fund a smaller project with no outside capital joining in but not wanting to contribute 14% municipal taxes for 86% fed/prov taxes and IOC money.

Great points!

[Flamenspiel]

That poll on the CBC was a bit ludicrous. Only 243 people were polled, people should maybe read the fine print. Not that its significant but there is actually more people in CP poll on this website.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Can anyone vote in the advance polls? Did it require registration or something? Can I just stop by an advance poll after work and vote?

[chemgear]

The Bidco Olympic "Budget" presented to City Council from the City video feed. I can't think of a more "back of a napkin" kind of professional sales pitch that a summer student slapped together to instill confidence.


Book1.xlsx

[Hockeyguy15]

Anyone can vote in the advanced polls. Show up, show your ID and away you go.

[CPK80]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Can anyone vote in the advance polls? Did it require registration or something? Can I just stop by an advance poll after work and vote?

Doesn't require advance registration;

Show up bring valid ID, you will fill out a document with your name, address, and then sign that you are eligible voter.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Can anyone vote in the advance polls? Did it require registration or something? Can I just stop by an advance poll after work and vote?

https://thecityofcalgary.maps.arcgis...69b6bd1d839d9e

[chemgear]

https://calgarysun.com/opinion/colum...ougher-to-sell

This is what Calgarians weren’t supposed to hear until after they voted Yes or No to the Olympics.

This is what caused councillors days ago to tell us what they heard was downright devastating.

The business properties outside the downtown where taxes could be hiked as high as 29%. Yikes.

Over the past two years, the city has thrown taxpayer dough at the problem. One year it was $45 million, the next year $41 million, trying to cap the yearly tax hike to 5%.

This time spending the same sort of cash would just keep the tax increases below 25%.

Things are so nasty, Fielding says even cutting $200 million out of the city budget would make a headline but wouldn’t solve anything

“To somehow imagine an event eight years in the future is going to solve this really hairy problem … you’re dreaming.”

[JBR]

Your comment is a bit of a cheap shot.

Surely you realize that this slide is a very simplified summary of the actual BidCo budget.. which contains just under 40,000 line items.

Originally Posted by chemgear

The Bidco Olympic "Budget" presented to City Council from the City video feed. I can't think of a more "back of a napkin" kind of professional sales pitch that a summer student slapped together to instill confidence.


Book1.xlsx

[Otto-matic]

The misinformation carousel is a perfect way to describe this bid.

I will be voting No, unfortunately nothing has come out and swayed my vote to the yes side.

[OMG!WTF!]

I haven't been following our flood mitigation plan that closely but remember that the number was around 366 million to get a system in place (coincidentally about the same as our Olympic tag). The province would cover some, the feds a tiny bit, but the city would pay the most. I know we have some flood benches in Eau Claire now but I don't think we've accomplished any of the larger damns, reservoirs or flood tunnels we were talking about.



I know for sure I would vote to spend that money on the biggest, baddest flood prevention model we could get. I don't think this is a case of "this money isn't meant for that and that money can come from somewhere else blah blah". I think it's 300 million and we're spending it on sports instead. Even if we get a bunch of cool stuff, we still need 300 million for future flood mitigation to protect our cool stuff. I would highly suspect that getting Olympic funding would preclude us from more federal/provincial money.



I'm asking more of a question than stating any facts. Do we still need flood mitigation? And do we still get money for that?

[CaptainCrunch]

Over the last few days, I've been waiting for something to come along to swing my vote to the yes side.


I'm not anti-Olympics, that seems clear.


The the nebulous information and just the wackiest ship in the navy approach to this whole bid has me doubting the competency of turning this whole process into an actual Olympics.


to me, a vote for no is in effect the same as a teacher getting a crappy assignment from a student. Take it back, do the work, show your work and don't copy it from Donny, that creepy smart kid in the back row, bring it to me and I'll evaluate it again. If that means an Olympics thats 20 years away, then so be it.

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by chemgear

https://calgarysun.com/opinion/colum...ougher-to-sell

This is what Calgarians weren’t supposed to hear until after they voted Yes or No to the Olympics.

This is what caused councillors days ago to tell us what they heard was downright devastating.

The business properties outside the downtown where taxes could be hiked as high as 29%. Yikes.

Over the past two years, the city has thrown taxpayer dough at the problem. One year it was $45 million, the next year $41 million, trying to cap the yearly tax hike to 5%.

This time spending the same sort of cash would just keep the tax increases below 25%.

Things are so nasty, Fielding says even cutting $200 million out of the city budget would make a headline but wouldn’t solve anything

“To somehow imagine an event eight years in the future is going to solve this really hairy problem … you’re dreaming.”

This is what I have been preaching since I started into this debate. People have no clue how hard taxes are about to get hit, especially those with the belief Calgary is doing just fine right now.

My argument is not that the event in 8 years solves to the problem as I am hoping Trans Mtn or something similar has already solved the problem by then. My hope is that the job creation as well as general stimulation of the local economy (temporary) that would happen almost immediately helps get us through the next few years. The games themselves are not part of my argument to host the games (as odd as that sounds).

[CPK80]

Originally Posted by Travis Munroe

This is what I have been preaching since I started into this debate. People have no clue how hard taxes are about to get hit, especially those with the belief Calgary is doing just fine right now.

My argument is not that the event in 8 years solves to the problem as I am hoping Trans Mtn or something similar has already solved the problem by then. My hope is that the job creation as well as general stimulation of the local economy (temporary) that would happen almost immediately helps get us through the next few years. The games themselves are not part of my argument to host the games (as odd as that sounds).

Not a solution but I do think an Olympic bid could help this problem... During the lead-up to Vancouver I believe there were three hotels built... Having an upcoming Olympics could convince some private investment not into maybe building a new hotel, but what about some Office to Hotel conversions.

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by CPK80

Not a solution but I do think an Olympic bid could help this problem... During the lead-up to Vancouver I believe there were three hotels built... Having an upcoming Olympics could convince some private investment not into maybe building a new hotel, but what about some Office to Hotel conversions.

Agreed... I don't think it fixes the root problem but I do think it helps.

Burning the money that was going to be used for the Olympics to keep property taxes low does nothing to help solve the real problem and is just a bandaid. That money will be needed the following year and so on until we get good news of a pipeline and this is when it will hit taxpayers just as hard.

Using that money for the games is going to tilt the scale towards growth for a few years which in turn will help with the cities collection of taxes and help offset the costs of the games.

Other cities are not lined up to host because they do not need the defibulator right now. Their citizens are not facing incredible tax hikes (without even hosting the games). They have business pushing forward.

I know these examples are driving some people mad so for fun, here is another...
If I had $10 to my name and I knew I owed someone $10 in a few months, would I hold onto the $10, pay my debt and then be left with nothing or would I spend thant $10 on a snow shovel and try to make it back + some by shovelling walks for the next few months.

[undercoverbrother]

I can't get behind a corrupt event or organization such as IOC.

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/t...ency-1.4825469

Canadian Beckie Scott, chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency's athlete committee, told the BBC that members at the organization's senior level tried to bully her after she criticized the decision to reinstate Russia's anti-doping organization.
Scott, a former Olympic champion in cross-country skiing, resigned from WADA's Compliance Review Committee last month after a six-person panel recommended the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) be reinstated after serving a suspension resulting from the country's scheme to circumvent rules and win Olympic medals.

I have no interest in this and wonder if the Olympics haven't run their course.

[Knut]

I am a soft yes. Not a fan of the process so far, but My Kids will be 15 and 12 for these Games. That is a perfect age for them to soak up the experience. It is worth it to me pay extra taxes for that.