Out of curiousity, Beetlejuice, why do you think it costs $100M to build a stadium, as opposed to, say, 50 cents?
Soil, steel and concrete and the men and women that make, move and mold all three. Real good paying trade jobs by the hundreds or thousands. I'm thinking, in these tough times, the city could use some of those jobs. Forget about fat cats that skim off the top (although someone needs to pay attention to them). Forget what they're building for a minute, and just think about what they're building it with and who's building it - that's what infrastructure spending is all about.
There are lots of good arguments about whether large-scale infrastructure spending actually does any good in the long run, at a macro level, as opposed to, say, giving taxpayers $100M of their tax money back to spend at WalMart. But one thing is certain - the men and woment that make and mold contrete and steel benefit in the short term, and those are the sons and daughters of this struggling city.
As others have said, it’s the format of the show to often be confrontational or press the opposing view.
I get a kick out the people who email or call in response to interviews on the show or especially the faceoff they have near the end.
Mark is usually stuck having to debate the “wrong-headed”, unpopular side of an issue (and becomes the villain), often with wild suggestions or remarks. He then gets lambasted by viewers as if it were really his belief (though sometimes it may be).
Wouldn’t be much of a show if everyone always agreed with each other (aka Air Farce and the “News from Away” when the 2 down-Easteners are to have a heated debate only to have one start with a statement and the other just outright agrees.)
Because once built a stadium does nothing for the area its in except create a few low paying seasonal jobs. The money is coming from taxpayers pockets and not benefitting them except for the jobs to build it. The taxpayers will still have to find money to pay for the infrastructure improvements to roads, sewers, bridges etc, which create jobs also and benefit everyone. A new stadium does not address these issues and only drains public money that is better spent elsewhere while benefitting a select few.
You could put a MLS soccer team have world soccer exibition matches have a womens soccer team and a pro lacrosse team in this new stadium along with the tigercats and guess what? it will still be dark about 300days a year and as far as concerts go with this new venue…thats what they said about bmo field in toronto and guess what? in the first year there was…drumroll please…ONE SHOW. Concerts want amphitheaters now. It doesnt work, thats why they want YOU to build it for them.
Look, the TiCats currently play in a city owned facility and can continue, Mitchell has said this and the TiCats, they aren't demanding a new stadium for pete sakes, they are just saying they will no longer be contributing to upkeep IWS with millions like they have. It's the city's stadium afterall. But has enough headaches without trying to get a consortium to build a new stadium, he doesn't need that at all.
If Hamilton says no to the Pan-Am Games, there are plenty of other communities around southern Ontario Golden Horseshoe who will gladly take a 15,000 seater paid for with no want, necessarily anyways, of a CFL team. Hey, It'll be Hamilton's early Christmas gift to St. Catharines, Guelph, Burlington, Univ. Toronto etc. we'll be the good samaritans, hey beetle? 8)
A lot of what is being said also pertains to our "new"/"refurbished" city hall.
Who really uses it-- some local fat-cat politicians? How much? must be nice to come to work in a paid-for office with carpets and windows and secretaries, everybody with paid-for PC. Where is the oversight committee looking into how often the councilors and all the bureaucrats really use City Hall?
What are the spin-offs from/at City Hall? Will the Rolling Stones, or AC/DC ever play there?
How much is it going to cost, who is going to pay for it, who benefits other than the fat-cats?
Maybe we can hold the PanAm synchronized snoring there, or modify it slightly into a Velodrome.
Well, really, I couldn't care less that much about the Pan-Am Games, I have to admit. Yes, I'll buy a package and go to lots of events because I'm a sporty guy and grew up with track and all that and I have a phys-ed degree so I'm biased. To me, the Pan-Am Games, as others have suggested, is to get some free money for upgrading or getting some new sports/recreation (phys-ed degree remember) facilities for a city I live in and care about - Hamilton. To be honest. It's about facilities for kids and amateur athletes and recreational atheletes like ourselves afterwards.
I love the TiCats and the CFL but pro sports and paid facilities - really I don't have much appetite for with public monies except if there is some gain to the community and city afterwards in some way that can be measured.
I get all that, but in your reply was the other side of the debate, too. You said “except for the jobs to build it” - that’s $100M-$120M worth of jobs, good paying, feed-a-family-of-four-type jobs, too. Then you said something about the taxpayers usibg the money to pay for roads, sewers, bridges, etc., and that creating jobs, too. True enough, but then that’s without the $60M the Pan Am Games Corp. (feds and province) is going to throw in, and without the "millions to tens of millions Mr. Young said he and his consortium with throw in to CFL-size the place. So now you’re talking $60M-$90M less worth of jobs. All othe things being equal, would it be better for the city’s ecomony to have $60M worth of jobs or $120M+ worth of jobs. That extra $60M is going to put some real nice Christmas presents under the tree for the next 5 or 6 years.
And then there’s this: what if the city turns down the stadium idea and doesn’t accept the $60M-$90M from outside. Who says they’re going to spend the $60M they would have spent on the stadium on roads and bridges and sewers, and the jobs that creates. Here’s a more likely scenario in this economic climate - they won’t find the money to fix the roads and bridges and sewers, because they’ll continue to be in the hole because of all the job retraining and welfare they’ll be paying all those people that won’t be employed building a $120M stadium.
And then there’s this: what if we lived in a city where everything didn’t always have to be built by the government - what if we were the kind of city where profitable corporations built a lot of the roads and sewers and bridges in order to secure the right to build their profit-making, job-creating whatsits. (Kind of like a rich dude and his buddies offering to spend “millions to tens of millions” out of their own pockets to double the seating capacity of your new stadium). Wouldn’t that be something. Then we could have the good-paying jobs AND the nice stadiums AND nice sewers and roads like other more successful cities do. Mark my words - people want to build expensive stuff on our waterfront - I’ve seen all kinds of plans. It’s just that the process of getting the right to do so is so damned expensive and frustrating and time-consuming. Once you get past Merulla and company, then you have to deal with Turkstra and company, which means you have to deal with Merulla and company again. So you build in Burlington where they understand that good-paying jobs are what makes a city livable.
If I was a struggling city, and someone offered me $50M-$90M to employ thousands of tradespeople building ANYTHING on land that is otherwise just sitting there seeping toxin into the aquifer, I’d consider it, no matter what I thought of what they wanted me to build.
