If you’ve been reading this site for any length of time, you’ll know that Calgary Flames owner Murray Edwards’ battle for a new publicly funded hockey arena is one of the most important flashpoints in the sports subsidy world. It features a mayor (Naheed Nenshi) who has insisted on not putting public money into any project that wouldn’t result in a public benefit, a team management that tried to kick Nenshi out of office so they could negotiate with someone more team-friendly, and a city council whose most vocal members is a former employee of Edwards’ oil company who has loudly proclaimed that public debate is a bad idea when you can instead have deals made behind closed doors.
After the last round of arena plans fell apart when it turned out taxpayers would lose more than a billion dollars on the project, Davison got himself, but not Nenshi, appointed to the negotiating committee for the next round of talks. And that round has apparently resulted in something that both the council committee and the team owners have tentatively agreed on, though in Davisonian style, we still may not get to learn much about what the agreement says:
City council will meet Monday to get the first look at a tentative deal reached between the city and the Calgary Flames for a new arena to replace the Scotiabank Saddledome.
The proposed agreement will be discussed at 3:45 p.m. behind closed doors, though details could be made public following the in camera briefing.
And:
“It’s not a deal at this particular point, there’s still lots of steps to go through. It’s really a proposal and we’ll be giving an update,” said [Councillor Ward] Sutherland, who is vice-chair of council’s event centre committee.
“Negotiations, as we mentioned a few weeks ago, had been ongoing. It’s a multi-party deal, so it’s very complex. It deals with the Stampede board, the Flames organization, CMLC [Calgary Municipal Land Corporation] and also the city.”
The important thing to remember, whatever gets announced — or not announced — is that even a “deal” would just be a deal between the Flames owners and the negotiating committee, and it will take a vote of the full council to make it a reality. The council has been split on whether or how to move forward on a Flames arena involving public money, and Nenshi will undoubtedly be vocal about reminding everyone that it’d be dumb to give Edwards a pile of cash if the city doesn’t see any return on its investment, and it’ll be hard to come up with a plan that provides positive cash flow to both Edwards and the city when you’re talking about spending $600 million just to move a hockey team from one part of town to another, and all this will take place against an inevitable backdrop of elected officials feeling pressured into getting something done just to make the issue finally go away.
All of which is to say: This is going to be an interesting day in Calgary, and likely an interesting week and interesting next few months. Whether or not you’re a hockey fan or a Canadian, it’ll be worth tuning in — at least, tuning in to whatever the council lets slip from its closed session.
The city councilors has to think about the future of this great city with the new arena.
Our city is losing ground since Olypmic bid now we need to work on the potential future for our city.
Losing ground to what? Calgary is still growing and economically vibrant? Its not growing as quickly as Vancouver? But what is?
The City doesn’t *need* anything, the Flames do, which is why they should be the ones paying.
So, they voted to release info on the deal to the taxpayers at least… which is something.
More here:
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-proposed-arena-deal-1.5220867
Releasing it in late July isn’t quite “take out the trash day” operating, but I’ll give the city council credit for at least making this public.
The bad news is that taxpayers in Calgary have just one week to make their feelings known to council (the vote is next Monday, though some councillors seem not at all keen on holding it that quickly).