The city of gets the millions every year in property taxes for the site, the developers get their share and Ottawa football fans finally get some much needed respect around the league and hopefully a return of the classic Roughrider name and R on the helmet. (Note to Horn Chen...if you hold out for anything more then a reasonable sum for the name, were sending Brian McGrattan to see you)
But with the hopes and dreams of those who can see the big picture, there's ALWAYS the sticks in the mud on city council. The latest is coming from Clive Doucet who maintains he wants an international design competition for the site. Clive, do you honestly think someone from outside Ottawa would understand what we need? I understand he wants more trees and respect the fact they don't want it to become a sea of condos, but what's wrong with the plan in today's paper? He was on the news tonight saying that just looking at one plan doesn't make sense and if the city was buying new buses they wouldn't just look at one offer. Really, Clive...ask anyone who's ever been stuck on one of your city's accordion style buses in a snowstorm if those were a smart buy.
Plenty of numbers have been thrown around this week, and despite my pathetic high school math even I could figure this one out:
1. Lansdowne Park currently losing almost 2 million a year
2. New proposal makes between 12-15 million a year in taxes for the cash strapped city
Now, I know the Sens and 67's are the hottest tickets in town these days but I want a flex pack for the upcoming council meetings when some of the monkeys oppose this.
