October 25, 2010

Edmonton to hold informationless sessions on Oilers arena

"Public gets say on downtown arena" reads the headline in yesterday's Edmonton Sun. You mean, like, a public referendum? Get real:

Run by city officials, a consultation campaign will launch Oct. 28 with a website, www.edmonton.ca/downtownarena. That will be followed with four open house meetings.

Each three-and-a-half hour meeting will feature information presentations followed by facilitated discussion groups involving attendees.

City officials hope to gather citizens' concerns and ideas for the form, function and financing of a downtown arena.

As to whether to build a downtown arena at all will be on the table don't hold your breath. Also, it's hard to know what those discussion groups will be discussing, as the Oilers management says it won't have financial details of its arena plan ready by then:

"Discussions (with City Council) have not reached the point where we can offer definitive details on how that framework may be structured," said Bob Black, executive vice-president of the Katz Group. "However, we remain confident that we can put a funding framework in place where the city's contribution results in neither a need for an increase in property tax rates nor a reallocation of existing infrastructure dollars."

So, let's see, discuss first, provide information later? This is likely to work out just as well as in the mother country.