According to the Spec, polls suggest that Bratina has a lot of support, followed by Eisenberger and Di Ianni. It is basically a 3 horse race for mayor. If Bratina or Di Ianni got elected, can they, at this stage of the game, scrap the CP railyards site in favor of another more affordable one where the city already owns the land, and no remediation costs would have to be spent? (i.e. Confederation Park or the "speedway" site at highway 20 and Mud street...and on CHML recently, another mayoral candidate also suggested that the soccer field behind Christ The King Cathedral beside the 403 would be ideal, which I agree with). Or are we now locked into the CP site because Infastructure Ontario is already being paid to look at the CP site and how a stadium can be built there? Plus, the CP site is the site HOSTCO has been told is the final site.
Well, we know where Bratina sits (against pretty well everything pro-Hamilton, pro business), but have I missed something about DiIanni's opposition to that site?
Just curious.
I spoke to Di Ianni at the Rockton fair..... he told me that if elected, Confederation Park is back on the table.
Confed Park has always made the most sense plus no remediation costs to the taxpayer. Fast Freddy and Chad should be held accountable by the electorate.
Im in Chads riding, and wont be voting for him but hes a shoe in :thdn:
I would be good to see some sensible individual run the city instead of westharbour freddie. By the way, the site behind Christ The King Cathedral was built on an old dump (loand fill in today’s terms) and might not be suitable (chemical leaching etc.) but not a bad idea. I have always felt that CP or the old Speedway Park site would be great locations. We will have to wait until after the elections to see the outcome.
I always thought that Confed. Park was the best location as well.
I understand that we should not be held responsible for the ‘gap’ of money for the stadium, but I dont think Mr. Young should be totally responsible either for stupid decisions by this council.
Chad Collins and Fred are two of the many councilors that need to be ousted from their seats to create positive change in this city.
If a vote for Dilanni is a vote for Confederation Park, and pro-business sense, he’s got my vote.
I mean October 26th to Feb. 1st is plenty of time to put CP back on the table and go forward with that. Not like their too far along in the process for the rail yard.
Put Bratina in the WH corner as well.
I'm hoping the voting public remember his votes as well...not to mention him voting against the Aerotropolis.
Confederation Park is off the table I think, well just had a potential councillor at my door and we had a nice chat, because of some influential people living in the neighbourhood near there living in multimillion dollar homes. He told me, no word of a lie, these people put up a stink when Barangas went in and it's like a mile or two from the subdivision! So Mr. Collin's is in their back pockets, no question. It is not about green space.
Next time we go for a walk along there, and we do, I'm going to take a leak on one of those expensive front lawns! :lol:
Hey, just thought of a better idea, let's have a bunch of people gather on the street there and start singing oskee wa wa...
That'll piss these rich people off big time. :lol:
Hey don't get me wrong here, I'm good wherever it goes just so long as we get it,BUT isn't there some rule where new council cannot change an existing vote until the Jan. council meeting?
Location based only on cost is a location doomed to fail. I hope CPark is forgotten and a new council goes forward with the best location which hands down is CP/Longwood. There has to be a tie into the core, the CPR site also offers a tie in to the mountain as well as easy access to those from out of town to the east west and any other direction they may be traveling.
There are so many good business reasons to build it at CPR, stop being penny wise and pound foolish.
I have close ties with the manager and staff at Hutch's on the Beach Strip, and they definitely want the stadium to be at CP. It would obviously be a huge boost to their business. I also live in Ward 5 and have to live with the embarrassment of having Chad Collins as my Councillor. He won't be getting my vote either (I didn't vote for him in 2006). That was pretty bad how he virtually took off CP from the table in such a unilateral fashion, as if to suggest that his position on the Waterfront Trust gave him the unique "power" to do so. I wish that the rest of the residents in my ward would see through this power-hungry kid and get rid of him from City Hall. Perhaps after losing the election, Collins and Mayor Fred (along with all of the other incumbents) can go to Tim Horton's together and all cry in their coffees. Having said all that, I have wondered whether it would be feasible (or even possible) for the new Council to change the stadium location. It does bring up a lot of unanswered questions, not to mention whether HostCo would put up with that kind of flip-flopping. Would DiIanni or Bratina have enough persuasiveness to change everyone's mind? Just the money factor alone should be enough to change anyone's mind, if they can figure out the math. I don't want my taxes being overspent on something that could be done a lot cheaper.
I think that has been the problem from the start, trying to tie this facility to "the core", eg: west harbour, M.I.P., and now C.P. Railyards. If the City had been open minded we would have had the site all settled by now instead of embarrasing oursleves with countless delays and extensions. When another site was proposed by M. Fenn, the city quickly found a way to discount that location. They never seriously considered any other site in the process. They have managed to locate all major entertainment facilities in or around the "core", eg: Copps, Art Gallery, Hamilton Place, Convention Centre, and I can understand their thinking on that but, I think it's time to realize that Hamilton is more than just "the core". If we looked for the best location to suit the needs of all concerned, I think we might have decided elsewhere. Just my opinion of course.
Location based only on cost is a location doomed to fail. I hope CPark is forgotten and a new council goes forward with the best location which hands down is CP/Longwood. There has to be a tie into the core, the CPR site also offers a tie in to the mountain as well as easy access to those from out of town to the east west and any other direction they may be traveling.
just. Confed Park is not just based on cost my man. It is based on marketing Hamilton as much as possible from the outside in and getting people to buy into Hamilton so to speak which would eventually, or could, help the core. Getting people from the outside to believe in the core is a huge monumental task, let's get them into the door at Conf Park or CP Longwood and branch into the core from there. That's my thinking. Confed Park has much more traffic than CP Longwood can ever dream of. That's the issue I have with CP Longwood over Confed Park to sell Hamilton overall. If you're going to spend huge millions for a stadium, why choose CP Longwood over Confed Park? Makes no sense to me.
I'd rather not see Larry the Liar get back in and give a whole lot of big development contracts to his buddies in the construction industry. Regardless, whoever gets in, Confederation Park should be stricken from the list. We are never going to improve the city's image by having the primary route to our stadium being the QEW/Skyway Bridge, and without improving the city's image, investors, developers and private sector interests simply don't want to get on board. Building a stadium at a location where a white flag turns brown after being flown for a month, and black metallic fallout has a possibility of falling upon the site is not a place a stadium should be located. The site has no transit access, has no space for new development, is boxed in by the QEW, whose proximity will balloon costs, lacks the proper water drainage/infrastructure and eliminates a prime location to start building another success story like Waterfront Park. The CP rail lands are fine, The WH is fine, even the EM is fine but Confederation Park, or anywhere in the North East End is hands down one of the worse potential locations for the stadium.
Bratina is going to get the older voters vote and this could be a decider because older people are the ones who get out and vote on voting day. A big advantage for Bratina. Just saying!