Halifax Stadium Discussion

[elly63]

Originally Posted by spaustin

I'm back because I'm a sucker for punishment

It's not $2 million a year. It's $2 million, plus ongoing capital, plus taking on the risk (loan guarantees, risk the team fails), plus giving up a portion of tax revenue from Shannon Park to the Schooners for 30 years, plus many millions to fix the offsite transportation infrastructure. My take away from Tuesday below.

http://www.samaustin.ca/council-update-s...clNBlmUcO906D01sW5UsfebL4C_6LUrikcoBAwSQ

Your stance reminds me so much of the modern leftists who if they don't like something try to stifle debate or negotiation or shut it down. If it's a bad deal tell them to piss off and come back with something better, if they can't or won't I'll be more than happy to see this project die.

[Querce]

Originally Posted by spaustin

I'm back because I'm a sucker for punishment

It's not $2 million a year. It's $2 million, plus ongoing capital, plus taking on the risk (loan guarantees, risk the team fails), plus giving up a portion of tax revenue from Shannon Park to the Schooners for 30 years, plus many millions to fix the offsite transportation infrastructure. My take away from Tuesday below.

http://www.samaustin.ca/council-update-s...clNBlmUcO906D01sW5UsfebL4C_6LUrikcoBAwSQ

For what it's worth, I think you're doing the right thing

[TheNovaScotian]

Originally Posted by spaustin

I'm back because I'm a sucker for punishment

It's not $2 million a year. It's $2 million, plus ongoing capital, plus taking on the risk (loan guarantees, risk the team fails), plus giving up a portion of tax revenue from Shannon Park to the Schooners for 30 years, plus many millions to fix the offsite transportation infrastructure. My take away from Tuesday below.

http://www.samaustin.ca/council-update-s...clNBlmUcO906D01sW5UsfebL4C_6LUrikcoBAwSQ

"Completing an analysis of the stadium proposal is going to take skilled staff in Parks and Rec, Transportation, Planning, Transit, Legal, and Finance off of other projects, which means other things on the to do list are going to be delayed. Why pull staff off of other priorities to work on something that appears to have so little chance of success? It just doesn’t make any sense to me if you’ve already concluded that it’s likely going nowhere."

http://www.samaustin.ca/council-update-s...clNBlmUcO906D01sW5UsfebL4C_6LUrikcoBAwSQ

“To buy out a 16-storey hotel development, the cost would be extreme, so I didn’t think that was going to work,”

https://www.thestar.com/halifax/2019/08/...ntroversial-dartmouth-hotel-project.html


I had high hopes for you, Sam. You had my households vote and talked to my friends and family when the election came around. Through years on this site, I felt I understood your position on how a city should run.

Sadly I was wrong. You've proven in short order, you'll apply planning dogma when it suits you, then discard it when it doesn't. Not that some of your efforts have not been without merit but I feel that's the worst part. You should know better when your doing some of these things.

Diligence is the hallmark of a good council, to try and circumvent the process and deny the chance for compromise for the betterment of the city, is not right. If your request for a frivolous report was fine but this a bridge too far, you need to check yourself and make your one vote when this is tabled like the rest of council instead of trying to hijack the democratic process. Hopefully other councilors will have the sense to know that this boom we're experiencing won't last if we don't start investing in the necessary infrastructure for the future, now.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by TheNovaScotian

I had high hopes for you, Sam. You had my households vote and talked to my friends and family when the election came around. Through years on this site, I felt I understood your position on how a city should run.

Sadly I was wrong. You've proven in short order, you'll apply planning dogma when it suits you, then discard it when it doesn't. Not that some of your efforts have not been without merit but I feel that's the worst part. You should know better when your doing some of these things.

Diligence is the hallmark of a good council, to try and circumvent the process and deny the chance for compromise for the betterment of the city, is not right. If your request for a frivolous report was fine but this a bridge too far, you need to check yourself and make your one vote when this is tabled like the rest of council instead of trying to hijack the democratic process. Hopefully other councilors will have the sense to know that this boom we're experiencing won't last if we don't start investing in the necessary infrastructure for the future, now.

Outstanding post. I could not have said it better.

On a similar note, I notice Mason has largely gone to ground lately and is suddenly far less active offering his own "progressive" opinions online, likely in an attempt to whitewash his own history as a prelude to him running for mayor. Hopefully he will be exposed for what he is and be forced to go back to other ways of living off the public dime other than through our municipal tax dollars.

[Querce]

democracy is the worst form of Government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

-Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947

.

[ns_kid]

Originally Posted by elly63

Your stance reminds me so much of the modern leftists who if they don't like something try to stifle debate or negotiation or shut it down. If it's a bad deal tell them to piss off and come back with something better, if they can't or won't I'll be more than happy to see this project die.

Hey, maybe it's just me, but I find it hilarious whenever elly63 rails against evil socialists and lefties, with no sense of irony in arguing at the same time for millions of dollars of public spending.

[Colin May]

Leblanc has not asked HRM to keep his proposal secret and has said it is up to HRM to decide if they want the documents to be made public. Dube was instructed by Council to review the documents; he was not told to enter into negotiations. Dube knows the fiscal challenges HRM faces, but for some strange reason he wan't say in public what he and senior staff have written in internal documents.

[spaustin]

Originally Posted by TheNovaScotian

"Completing an analysis of the stadium proposal is going to take skilled staff in Parks and Rec, Transportation, Planning, Transit, Legal, and Finance off of other projects, which means other things on the to do list are going to be delayed. Why pull staff off of other priorities to work on something that appears to have so little chance of success? It just doesn’t make any sense to me if you’ve already concluded that it’s likely going nowhere."

http://www.samaustin.ca/council-update-s...clNBlmUcO906D01sW5UsfebL4C_6LUrikcoBAwSQ

“To buy out a 16-storey hotel development, the cost would be extreme, so I didn’t think that was going to work,”

https://www.thestar.com/halifax/2019/08/...ntroversial-dartmouth-hotel-project.html


I had high hopes for you, Sam. You had my households vote and talked to my friends and family when the election came around. Through years on this site, I felt I understood your position on how a city should run.

Sadly I was wrong. You've proven in short order, you'll apply planning dogma when it suits you, then discard it when it doesn't. Not that some of your efforts have not been without merit but I feel that's the worst part. You should know better when your doing some of these things.

Diligence is the hallmark of a good council, to try and circumvent the process and deny the chance for compromise for the betterment of the city, is not right. If your request for a frivolous report was fine but this a bridge too far, you need to check yourself and make your one vote when this is tabled like the rest of council instead of trying to hijack the democratic process. Hopefully other councilors will have the sense to know that this boom we're experiencing won't last if we don't start investing in the necessary infrastructure for the future, now.

Without getting into too much of a back and forth since we clearly disagree and that's not likely to change, but the two situations are very different. I wouldn't have requested a report on Prince Albert/Glenwood if it was entirely frivolous. My hope on it was the potential for swapping sites. There were some discussions, but it ended up not going anywhere. The work involved on Prince Albert/Glenwood was a tiny, tiny, fraction of what reviewing the stadium proposal is. If you think having staff review something that Council is almost certainly going to turn down is a good use of time... well we'll have to agree to disagree.

No one in the political world is 100% pure. Politics involves compromising. My goal is always to drag good politics and good policy into the same space. Sometimes they land perfectly, sometimes they don't. I believe my record shows that I'm more than prepared to take my lumps and make and defend hard decisions, from transit fares to development (I supported the residential vision for Prince Albert/Glenwood). My stomach for taking on the tough parts of politics is probably more than most on Council and if I felt Schooner's proposal was a good one, I wouldn't have put forward my motion to rescind. I'm not afraid to make motions or to try and lead Council. I don't go in to hear myself speak.

I then turn around and lay it all out on my website for people to judge. I don't think anyone in politics is doing what I am with my Council blogs in terms of engagement and transparency.

Anyway, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm sure they'll be other candidates to choose from in 2020 if you review my record and decide it doesn't reflect what you're looking for. That's democracy.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by spaustin

If you think having staff review something that Council is almost certainly going to turn down is a good use of time... well we'll have to agree to disagree.

This is the part I find to be problematic. You are attempting to prevent due process from moving through - based on some sort of anecdotal belief that Council is going to turn down a proposal that hasn't yet been tested through said process.

I don't think any one councilor should be attempting to bypass the system because he believes the proposal is a bad idea. The decision should be examined and studied by all of council when all the information is available.

Yes, it uses staff's time, but that is why they are there... otherwise why have them? If it takes their time from other higher priority items... it shouldn't - that's why priorities are set.

Just my 2¢...

[spaustin]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

This is the part I find to be problematic. You are attempting to prevent due process from moving through - based on some sort of anecdotal belief that Council is going to turn down a proposal that hasn't yet been tested through said process.

I don't think any one councilor should be attempting to bypass the system because he believes the proposal is a bad idea. The decision should be examined and studied by all of council when all the information is available.

Yes, it uses staff's time, but that is why they are there... otherwise why have them? If it takes their time from other higher priority items... it shouldn't - that's why priorities are set.

Just my 2¢...

I would agree on due diligence, except for one thing: we already have the proposal. This isn't a situation where we're dealing with a whole bunch of complete unknowns and need staff to dig into it further. We know what the broad outline is. We know the request is for a lot of public money and we know the location. Checkout the News 95.7 interview with the Mayor and LeBlanc and the comments from HRM staff, which indicates the proposal isn't going to change much. There might be details that switch, but it's not going to be a redo (https://www.halifaxtoday.ca/local-news/n...f-cfl-stadium-says-halifax-mayor-1768568). Based on that, Councillors are capable of reading and exercising their judgement as to whether we want to take this onto the next step and where this ranks in terms of current priorities, which is really what Tuesday's discussion was. Getting that clarity is good. Drifting into a major staff undertaking and review if there isn't interest wouldn't be a good use of anyone's time. Ultimately, we decided 9-8 that seeing more was a good idea. There is no bypassing of any system here. There is no system for someone coming in with an unsolicited proposal and asking us to consider it.

[Colin May]

Dube can release the documents and then allow a thorough airing of all the aspects of the proposal. Council didn't tell him to enter into 'negotiations' and he has no authority to enter into 'negotiations'. He needs to be reined in, but that won't happen as long as the city solicitor offers substance free opinions. Leblanc isn't keeping the details secret.
Too much secrecy in Nova Scotia and the next provincial government needs to adopt a much more open governance model, although I don't hear the Tories or the NDP making any promises to run a more open administration; all puff and no substance.

[Keith P.]

Let's reform Council by rationing staff reports per council member. Each member gets "X" number of tokens good for one staff report over the course of a year, where X is a small number. Then maybe they won't be so quick to ask for frivolous reports.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Let's reform Council by rationing staff reports per council member. Each member gets "X" number of tokens good for one staff report over the course of a year, where X is a small number. Then maybe they won't be so quick to ask for frivolous reports.

The legislation requires the council to ask for a staff report, a councillor has no ability to request and obtain a report. Every staff report is a result of a legislative provision or a decision by the council or a decision of the CAO. The Auditor General reports directly to council and is not answerable to the CAO.
The Chief of Police is not answerable to the CAO, he reports to the Board of Police Commissioners and the Minister of Justice. The HRM Charter contains no reference to policing and where there is a conflict between any Act of the legislature the Police Act prevails.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by spaustin

I would agree on due diligence, except for one thing: we already have the proposal. This isn't a situation where we're dealing with a whole bunch of complete unknowns and need staff to dig into it further. We know what the broad outline is. We know the request is for a lot of public money and we know the location. Checkout the News 95.7 interview with the Mayor and LeBlanc and the comments from HRM staff, which indicates the proposal isn't going to change much. There might be details that switch, but it's not going to be a redo (https://www.halifaxtoday.ca/local-news/n...f-cfl-stadium-says-halifax-mayor-1768568). Based on that, Councillors are capable of reading and exercising their judgement as to whether we want to take this onto the next step and where this ranks in terms of current priorities, which is really what Tuesday's discussion was. Getting that clarity is good. Drifting into a major staff undertaking and review if there isn't interest wouldn't be a good use of anyone's time. Ultimately, we decided 9-8 that seeing more was a good idea. There is no bypassing of any system here. There is no system for someone coming in with an unsolicited proposal and asking us to consider it.

Thanks for the explanation. Muchly appreciated.

Still a little uncertain as to the purpose of Tuesday's discussion.

On the surface it appeared that it was a vote aimed to torpedo the stadium, without examining it closely enough for it to be an informed decision. The vote ended up that Council wanted to see more, which seems like the most reasonable outcome.

So, logically one would assume that Tuesday was a vote on whether to make an uninformed vs an informed decision. I could be missing something here... wouldn't be the first time.... but is there an actual process, or is it just something that everybody makes up as they go along? Shouldn't council be demanding sufficient information before deciding to toss out a proposal which has literally been years in the making?

In the end, the quote from the article from Mayor Savage seemed to make the most sense, and in my mind should be the bare minimum level of education that needs to happen before arbitrarily deciding to throw the whole thing in the garbage:

The mayor said it's important to have staff do what staff does best, and look at the costs associated with the stadium that go beyond what's in the SSE proposal.

"We need to look at planning implications and transit implications," said Savage. "I do believe that we can get some basic, rudimentary analysis done. We don't need to go deep, deep into all of this to determine whether it's worth pursuing or not."

Not trying to be disrespectful here. Maybe I expected the process to be a little more thorough and methodical than it really is.

Another thing that I find a little disturbing are the comments from councilors expressing their personal opinions on whether they should support the stadium or not. Some seem to be quite cavalier about it, in fact.

While I respect that councilors are human and will have their own opinions, they are representatives of the people, and should not presume to know what the people want or don't want without due process. In this case it seems that council is being a little disrespectful to the citizens that they are working for, by apparently making arbitrary decisions for which the optics indicate are based on personal feelings and opinions. Perhaps a vote is in order?

I mentioned before on this forum that the windows of opportunity for things like this can close pretty quickly, only to be more difficult and more expensive in the future. Think about the Metro Centre... if it had not been built in the 1970s, when downtown land was available, basically undeveloped, and cheap, we would not have this facility downtown. The land would have been developed and basically unavailable, possibly forever.

Again, just my 2¢, and I thank you for engaging on this forum. I realize you don't have to do it, but it is helpful (I think) for people to understand your reasoning and thinking on the matter.

[Colin May]

Here is your chance to read the nice new glossy HRM Multi Year Priority Outcome document; spot the mistakes : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/regional-council/191029bc03.pdf

Residents are invited to offer their 10 cents opinion at the meeting - you have 5 minutes to speak about anything....

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

Here is your chance to read the nice new glossy HRM Multi Year Priority Outcome document; spot the mistakes : https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/regional-council/191029bc03.pdf

Residents are invited to offer their 10 cents opinion at the meeting - you have 5 minutes to speak about anything....

Well, that was utterly mind-numbing, as most of those type of long-range planning documents are. One can only imagine the resources spent creating that glossy document that actually says very little other than being an excellent illustration of how HRM wastes our tax dollars. If HRM was in the "fostering" business I suppose it would be considered a great success. As an actual useful tool, the document is largely meaningless.

The main takeaway I have is the chart showing the 4 quadrants with services shown as being of high/low importance to survey respondents with an assessment of high/low funding needs for each. Interesting that HRM has focused on mostly those things below the median importance line, which really is not a surprise for anyone who has been paying attention.

Do we really need 5000 employees? That is likely over half the entire HRM budget right there, and the headcount continues to increase.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Well, that was utterly mind-numbing, as most of those type of long-range planning documents are. One can only imagine the resources spent creating that glossy document that actually says very little other than being an excellent illustration of how HRM wastes our tax dollars. If HRM was in the "fostering" business I suppose it would be considered a great success. As an actual useful tool, the document is largely meaningless.

The main takeaway I have is the chart showing the 4 quadrants with services shown as being of high/low importance to survey respondents with an assessment of high/low funding needs for each. Interesting that HRM has focused on mostly those things below the median importance line, which really is not a surprise for anyone who has been paying attention.

Do we really need 5000 employees? That is likely over half the entire HRM budget right there, and the headcount continues to increase.

Or you can read this report from a very successful business. Check out the glossy pages, the fancy diagrams, the photos, the mind numbing cliches ......
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2018ltr.pdf

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

Or you can read this report from a very successful business. Check out the glossy pages, the fancy diagrams, the photos, the mind numbing cliches ......
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2018ltr.pdf

Exactly.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

They are considering dropping $50 million (likely 20% more than that at least actually) on a Forum restoration or replacement to pay homage at the altar of the minor hockey religion.

One strategy in these sort of debates is to enforce a double standard and demand a higher level of rigor for the projects you don't like while letting the ones you do like slide. If you like hockey rinks you talk about how important amateur sport and recreation are and then when some other project you don't like comes along you put on your fiscal responsibility hat.

(Note that I am not saying this is Sam Austin's position specifically. I don't know his voting record on other projects.)

Another problem is that it is easy for people take on an aura of wisdom when they are merely negative about everything. The wisest person isn't the one who sees pitfalls everywhere and does nothing, it's the person who can see the future most accurately and takes calculated risk. Every significant municipal project is an exercise in calculated risk. The major projects are by definition not risk-free. And the optimal path usually includes some failures. If your gambles never fail you're probably missing out on opportunity.

HRM politicians and the media tend to talk about "risk" as if it's something to be minimized. You don't minimize risk, you maximize expected value, the average payoff.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

Every significant municipal project is an exercise in calculated risk. The major projects are by definition not risk-free. And the optimal path usually includes some failures. If your gambles never fail you're probably missing out on opportunity.

HRM politicians and the media tend to talk about "risk" as if it's something to be minimized. You don't minimize risk, you maximize expected value, the average payoff.

HRM staff from the CAO down write and talk about risk, mostly amongst themselves. The risk/s associated with the pension plan has made it onto the council agenda just once in the past 15 years.
The purchase of an Armored Rescue Vehicle was discussed in-house for 3 years and was never brought to the Board of Police Commissioners until 4 months after it was quietly placed on one line in a 200 page Capital Budget document and very few councillors were aware of the proposed purchase until Halifax Examiner ran an article just before the April meeting of the Board.
The Chairman of the Board didn't even know of the proposed purchase until the agenda package was circulated.