Residents in favour of a new arena; residents opposed to a new arena

On Wednesday, September 22, I blogged about my thoughts on a new spectator facility for St. Catharines (in response to a request from The Standard for their weekly "Hot Topics" article leading up to the election). Here is my blog post from that date: http://lauraip.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-spectator-facility-for-st.html

In the last couple of weeks, I have heard from voters (at their door, on the phone and through e-mail) their varying thoughts on whether or not a new arena is needed and who should pay for it.

One thing is consistent, taxpayers would like to see a more creative way to finance any such project. These statements have come in the form of, "I don't think we need a new arena, and I won't ever use it, so if it's going to be built, someone else better pay for it" and, "In order to move this city forward, we need to invest in a project like and there must be a way to partner with the federal or provincial governments or private enterprise to get this going."

So, while people that I've spoken or corresponded with don't seem to be able to agree on whether or not they want a new arena, they do all agree that taxpayers can't pay for it. I'm not even crazy about the provincial or federal funding options, as that's still our money...just from a different pot.

I am in favour of a building a new arena if we do it right and if we can find a way to not burden the taxpayers with the initial or on-going costs of it.

To do it right, we have to make sure it's in the right location, with the right seating capacity and has the other resources in place that are necessary to make it a success throughout the year and not just when the Ice Dogs are playing. We must be able to attract performances to it and hold other events that draw in revenue on non-game nights and during the off-season.

To not burden the taxpayers with the initial or on-going costs of it, we are going to have to be very aggressive about attracting the support of a private investor. While few and far between, there are families in the area who appear to have the means to make very significant donations to such a project and that capacity coupled with the investment of a private firm could make this project fly.

We cannot build a new arena on the backs of taxpayers. We must be more creative.