Ring Road To Nowhere

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

Yeah, there is yet another terrible bar in the main floor of the Bo Ho. If there are any prospective pub owners out there in CP land, Bowness is a prime underserved spot. The neighbourhood is getting younger quickly because of all the entry level houses so you are getting pretty prime pub-goers (20-30 something professionals and tradespeople) with nowhere to go but some seedy hole where you have to pay by the beer.

I'm pretty sure that a nice-enough-to-bring-the-girlfriend canadian or irish style pub with good food and the hockey game on good monitors would be packed. The river-side part of Bowness is crammed with scores of really affluent families who have to drive up to Westhills or towards downtown to get a decent pint. It's silly.

My friend lives near the river in Bowness. At the Bo Ho he has to pay for his food before they will bring it to the table. There must be lots of dine and dash there. The food comes on paper plates with plastic cutlery.

Bowness could use a proper pub - not sure people there have to go all the way to Westhills or downtown.

Crowfoot is closer? Pazzers?

[jammies]

Originally Posted by ken0042

The city spent 4 years- years that could have been spent building the road down 37th street; negotiating with people who in the end said "OK- well we really don't have a say in this; so we will let you know."

Oh, I agree that this was poorly handled by the band - but the city/province knew all along that this was the way things were going to be done, , so they've no one to blame but themselves. If I had been negotiating, I would have specified from the beginning that a deal had to be worked out within a reasonable amount of time - say 18 months - including the vote for acceptance. Then I would have ensured that simultaneous with the negotiations, there were engineers working on alternatives and that those alternatives were publicized, so that the band knew we were serious about either an agreement or the end of this farce.

The problem all along has been that the band assumed they were negotiating from a position where they could dictate terms; if they had really thought about it, they would have realized that just because negotiations had gone on for decades it didn't necessarily mean they could go on for decades more. Back in the 80s such a road would have been useful but not necessary; now it has gone from wanted to needed to way overdue, and measures that might not have been possible even 5 years ago are in play.

[ken0042]

The one other thing that was mentioned on the radio last night; the band has received about 6 million dollars from the feds to fund these negotiations over the last 4 years. Obviously a chunk of that money would have gone into land surveys and so forth, but it makes me wonder if the band's negotiators were trying to make sure they didn't negotiate themselves out of a job, and now see that job is gone anyways.

[Kjesse]

Anyone been following the fallout from the Tsuu T'ina nation voting 'no' to the Ring Road deal?

Lots of Calgarians are mad at the Tsuu T'ina apparently.

I think we should thank them.

For the first time, and at the suggestion of a colleague, I actually downloaded what was being voted on, and read it-- not in great detail (yet), and maybe I never will do that.

Going through it, I find it absolutely stunning what we will do all for the sake of building a road. The traffic problem is all about bad planning, and has nothing to do with the Tsuu T'ina.

Anyway, there is so much wrong with this agreement--- and most of you won't care--- but for those who do, the most glaring problem is, it actually is not a transfer of any of the Tsuu T'ina lands.... it is more like a perpetual lease... which could only cause massive problems in the future. (There are provisions for the land reverting back to the Tsuu T'ina.)

Not only that, there was never any actual clarity to which lands would be transferred to the Tsuu T'ina in addition to the $250 million they were getting.... by the way, they were getting land at a 5-1 ratio if the agreement were implemented in full in addition to the money... any lands not transferred resulted in cash compensation.

Were this ratified, the taxpayers would potentially have crushing monetary obligations to the Nation. We wouldn't know until a future date, however.

I suppose there was no possibility for the Crown to guarantee the transfer of privately owned lands to the Nation, but still, the idea of such a significant agreement being subjected to the future whims of private land owners puts those owners in a position to profit immensely at the expense of taxpayers, and would have resulted in lots of future negotiations and multiple lawsuits if the Crown didn't pay a massive premium for private lands to transfer to the Nation.

Here's a link to the webpage where the Government of Alberta claims the Tsuu T'ina would 'transfer' land as consideration (technically, that is misleading):

http://www.transportation.alberta.ca/2480.htm

And here is a link to the agreement itself:

http://www.transportation.alberta.ca..._Schedules.pdf

[Ducay]

Im still surprised the tribe voted no to it; they were getting such a great deal.

Glad to see the province is playing hardball with them, hopefully they stick with their guns and don't re-open the deal. Go ahead and axe the Casino temp road while they build the new 37th St interchange.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Glad to see the province is playing hardball with them, hopefully they stick with their guns and don't re-open the deal. Go ahead and axe the Casino temp road while they build the new 37th St interchange.

I'm no fan of retaliation in these circumstances, but the technical issues might result in loss of access to the casino from Glenmore for a period of time.

To really play hardball, the city could build an interchange which doesn't give any access to the casino. That's dirty pool. Let them have access (after all we're neighbours) but the Nation has to pay for the parts of the interchange giving access, together will all maintenance.

If there's a reason the interchange can't be built to accommodate access, then I'm OK with cutting off access to the casino... the traffic in that area is horrendous. The Nation was only guaranteed access from Anderson Road when they built the casino.

[SebC]

Couldn't this go in the existing thread?

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by SebC

Couldn't this go in the existing thread?

Sorry to mess up your message board. I didn't know there was one.

[CrusaderPi]

Not every topic has to have an epic 2000 response thread. We can break things up into easy to manage threads sometimes.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Sorry to mess up your message board. I didn't know there was one.

This was on the front page up until yesterday:

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ight=ring+road

Then someone decided this was worth a new thread.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ight=ring+road

And both of them turn up in a search for "ring road", which seems to me like the first thing you might search for if you want to find out if there's already an existing thread on it.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by SebC

This was on the front page up until yesterday:

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ight=ring+road

Then someone decided this was worth a new thread.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ight=ring+road

And both of them turn up in a search for "ring road", which seems to me like the first thing you might search for if you want to find out if there's already an existing thread on it.

I visit hear almost daily and don't do a search before I post something I find interesting and new which hasn't been discussed.

And now that I see it, none of that thread discusses the terms of the actual contract, and it devolves into a disussion about some pub.

That's probably why I missed it.

Reading it now, I sure got a kick out of your suggestion that the city build a wall and cut the casino off. That's classy.

"Can't we discuss this in the other thread" posts are about the most annoying thing I see here.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Delgar

Reading it now, I sure got a kick out of your suggestion that the city build a wall and cut the casino off. That's classy.

They're playing hardball with us; we don't need to rebuild an intersection to play hardball with them. They've turned down the really, really big carrot, so time to bring out the stick.

I agree that your idea is a new one, but a new idea is not a new topic - good post, bad thread.

[ken0042]

I watched Big Plume's press conference yesterday, and went to bed thinking "this guy is right- why would they have agreed to a deal that didn't have the land swap spelled out. Why would the contract have contained a bunch of 'maybes.'"

Then this morning I thought about it further- this deal was accepted by the elders before being given to band members to vote on. If the wording was so bad, why did the elders accept it in the first place?

[Resolute 14]

Big Plume is simply inventing an excuse to justify the greed of his people, and to save his own face.

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Big Plume is simply inventing an excuse to justify the greed of his people, and to save his own face.

Linky Linky for those who missed the press conference.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Big Plume is simply inventing an excuse to justify the greed of his people, and to save his own face.

I don't believe this is about greed. I think it is about sticking it to the white man.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

Linky Linky for those who missed the press conference.

So, despite apparently changing the terms of the agreement, he still took it to his people for a vote?

How stupid does he think people are?

He should just shut the hell up. The only thing he is doing is cementing opposition against any sort of deal with his people.

[COGENT]

Big Plume's press conference lead me to believe that they turned down this offer in an attempt to bargain for more. I appreciate that Stelmach and Bronconnier are sticking to their guns and moving on to another plan, especially the part where they aren't providing more access to the casino. In the real world, that's how business is done.

[mykalberta]

Honestly I dont care what Big Plume thinks or his or his bands reasoning. He isnt a citizen of Calgary so his opinion is now worthless to me.

Calgary should divert no more resources or time worrying about Tsu Tina. they rejected it, lets move on and ignore them as they no longer bring anything to the table we need.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I watched Big Plume's press conference yesterday, and went to bed thinking "this guy is right- why would they have agreed to a deal that didn't have the land swap spelled out. Why would the contract have contained a bunch of 'maybes.'"

Then this morning I thought about it further- this deal was accepted by the elders before being given to band members to vote on. If the wording was so bad, why did the elders accept it in the first place?

Just was reading the agreement here right now, there is a clause in there that allows either party to end the agreement if anything less than ALL the additional proposed lands is transferred.

Basically, there was no need to reject the deal at this point because the land transfer wasn't guaranteed. Even if they had approved it now, it could have been rejected when the province determined if they could actually acquire all the land, or not.

That means that the Tsuu T'ina saying that they rejected the deal because the additional land wasn't guaranteed is total BS.