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McNeil must weigh in

Maybe it’s time Premier Stephen McNeil said something about the stadium. Oddly enough, it’s the province that has the biggest stake in this undertaking. Under the deal, the province must pay $4 million a year for 30 years, a total of $120 million, while the city only pays half of that.

The province’s contribution would come from doubling the hotel bed tax, and adding a new tax on car rentals. Preying on travellers is nothing new. We’ve all had the experience of getting gouged when travelling, simply because there is no way to avoid it. If the province has to stoop to such predatory practices, shouldn’t it be for something better than a football franchise?

It gets worse. The TIF financing calls for the province to change the law so that the property taxes for the Shannon Park development can be passed on to the stadium venture, a private business. This would be a gross abuse of the powers of taxation. There is no reasonable argument for cutting in private companies on property taxes. Shannon Park is a prime waterfront location and an invaluable asset; it won’t need the CFL to make it an economic success.

In spite of Sam Austin’s attempts to bring some common sense to this process, too many HRM councillors see their role as impartial adjudicators between the promoters and the taxpayers. They have forgotten that their duty is to advocate for us, and only for us. They were duped by the Halifax convention centre deal, which is turning out to be a worse money loser than predicted. Clearly, this is not a group that should be given the power to grant TIFs.

The football crowd has convinced itself that they are owed a stadium, and someone else can pay for it. After all, they think, we’re a rich country. But Nova Scotia is not really that rich. Premier McNeil has made a great effort to bring the province’s finances in order. It hasn't been easy. Now the Halifax establishment has to be brought back to reality, and it won’t be pleasant.

Then premier Rodney MacDonald did just that some years back, when he refused to fund the city’s plans for the Commonwealth Games. We should all be grateful to him for that.

Mark Porter, Dartmouth

Stadium case strong

Re: “Save Shannon for housing” Nov. 23 letter. I don’t understand why your paper continuously rejects the stadium proposal. If you carefully look at all details and consider the benefits (see the Nov. 16 opinion piece, "Some straight talk on the stadium for HRM”), there is a strong case to be made for supporting it.

C. Stewart Brown, Wolfville

Stadium = money pit

The proposed football stadium for Shannon Park will be a money pit and a complete white elephant for HRM. Recently the developers, represented by Anthony LeBlanc, have made adjustments to make the deal “better” for HRM taxpayers. After so many months of negotiating, why this last-minute effort to put forward so many changes? Perhaps it is because it is a bad deal for HRM and the developers are reaching to grab whatever monies they can from municipal coffers.

City staff should look around and see there are lots of vacant time slots available on already existing fields, especially on the Dartmouth side of the harbour. This is a bad deal for HRM, and we should tell the developers to go away.

Paul R. McKiel, Lawrencetown