More news from Calgary, where Mayor Naheed Nenshi was last heard from insisting that he wouldn’t provide any funding for a new Flames arena unless there was an equal public benefit. Now Mayor Nenshi says he’d need to negotiate any arena deal not just with the Flames owners, but with — get this — his constituents:
“It’s not going to be a deal that gets presented to the public with a ribbon on it,” Nenshi said Monday in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters. “We will actually engage the public in discussions about what they think is right.”
Bonus points to Nenshi for that subtle use of “actually.” Clearly somebody understands that in the sports subsidy business, democracy is seen as crazy talk.