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Patronizing boosterism

In their Nov. 16 opinion piece, CFL stadium promoters Bruce Bowser, Gary Drummond and Anthony LeBlanc claim to offer candid information about “your” CFL team. And really, when did their Schooners become our team? Indeed, their transparent ploy in the repeated use of the word “your” to foist their scheme onto HRM residents is just one of the issues crying out for response. What about the labyrinthine financing they offer as such a good deal? And then there’s the choice of a hard-to-access location with no established business or other infrastructure.

If this CFL team/stadium is the gem the promoters purport it to be, then let them finance it. If there are actually tens of thousands of regional CFL fans excited at the prospect of saving the costs of travel to Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, etc., to see games, then offer them shares in Schooners Sports and Entertainment. Let them show potential shareholders a real business plan. Give numbers that include site purchase, stadium construction and operation, Nova Scotia Power infrastructure costs, Halifax Transit bus and ferry subsidies to get fans to the remote stadium site, Halifax Water costs for sewage, water and precipitation runoff drainage costs, highway/road construction infrastructure costs — the list goes on. To get investors to buy shares, they'd have to include realistic projected revenues from reasonable rental demand, not pie-in-the-sky hopes. That would be candid information, not the patronizing boosterism and financial gibberish of their so-called “straight talk."

Mr. Bowser, Mr. Drummond and Mr. LeBlanc are promoters, but theirs is a scheme based on HRM taxpayers’ money and risk, along with surcharges on existing businesses. If they are truly convinced about the viability of this CFL stadium, let them come up with the money and crow if it succeeds. (By the way: who owns the team and pays those costs?)

Kathryn & Ross Haynes, Halifax

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Save Shannon Park for housing

The poorly conceived proposal for a football stadium in Shannon Park deserves a prompt rejection. Apart from the capital costs for a stadium, HRM will be on the hook for providing infrastructure, including heated locker rooms and toilet facilities, parking space, transit service and 365-24-7 security to prevent vandalism.

Continuing costs will end up with the project having the "Yarmouth Ferry Syndrome," namely endless expenses with little return. The proposal that financing also includes an extra tax on already highly taxed hotel rooms, as well as on rental vehicles, is simply preposterous. Very few people renting these will benefit from seeing a football game.

As a much better alternative, we urge that HRM develop this land for affordable housing, along with green and recreational space. A football stadium will be bad for the environment as a result of extra greenhouse gases from people travelling to the site and from land covered with artificial turf, concrete and asphalt. Housing will, of course, have some impact, but this location is one of the very few open spaces in HRM that has employment options within a short commuting distance. It is close to Burnside, and an expanded ferry service could link Shannon Park with the dockyard/shipyard, as well as the Halifax ferry terminal.

The other advantage of a planned housing development is the option to provide district heating from the nearby Nova Scotia Power station, or heating/cooling from a heat exchanger using seawater. Developing this land for housing, including a seawall to protect it from rising sea levels, will show the world that HRM is actually doing something that will allow growth, but at a reduced environmental cost and overall cost to taxpayers.

Hilda and Stuart Grossert, HRM

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