'The way I see it.'

(Sorry, I couldn't help but use this photo featuring Olympian Alexandra Orlando. Sue me.)

The goal: building a Pan Am Stadium that addresses the needs of Hamilton's participation in the event.

Secondary elements that became contributing factors: The Hamilton Tiger Cats, the West Harbour location, the East Mountain location.

The Ti-Cats

-Partnership with the Ti-Cats in building a facility they can be the legacy tenant of.

West Harbour

-Revitalization of the downtown

-Conversion of brownfields

East Mountain

-Parking revenue for Ti-Cats for ALL events

For me, this has been a really fascinating study of how seemingly complementary goals end up not being so complementary at all, as well as how public needs don't always align with private business concerns...as well as how there's a philosophical split between urban and sub-urban activities, as well as how people become desperate to see movement where development is concerned, desperate to see progress, generate hope...and everything gets conflated and then righteous indignation rears its ugly head, and failure looms, and then damnation creeps up behind it...

All the more fascinating to me has been watching people unable to separate the issues, and use the 'by extension' rule of blame-drenched engagement, which almost never accomplishes much, save to allow the user to let off some steam...but the discussion's general tone has sucked, big-time stylee. Quite undignified, quite ungraceful, and infused with misinformation, misapprehension and slovenly bias.

I'm not intimately familiar with the timeline of all this, not the specifics, the salient points, but I'd sure love to take a gander, and maybe have someone interpret.

You know, I'm all for 'killing two birds with one stone'. (Cleaning up brownfields while building a facility.) I'm all for there being a synergistic effect. (The not-entirely-proven notion of spillover from an urban stadium into an area of downtown revitalization.) And I'm all for there being partnerships that benefit both parties. (The participation of the Ti-Cats.)

What I am not for is the gambit of psychological holding for ransom.

-"If we don't address the brownfields with this opportunity, then we will never see them corrected. West Harbour is our chance!"

-"Downtown has been neglected for too long; now is the time we do something about it! West Harbour is our chance!"

-"Unless we do what Bob Young et al want, we're gonna lose the Ti-Cats and 140 years of tradition! WAAAAUUUGGHHH!"

Oi-figgin'-vey.

Contributing arguments are fine...but really, it reminds me of that old bit about ten blind men assessing an elephant.

Here's how I see things:

-If there can't be a sound proposal for a Pan Am Stadium...then we need to pull out of the commitment. Period. I'm a little tired of people saying 'We must do this!' or 'We can't back away now!'. This is more psychological holding for ransom. And, excuse my French, it's bullshit. No mature entity, especially a city, makes decisions from a standpoint of desperation...no matter how earnest and sincere the voices demanding action are. If we're not ready to contribute...then we're not ready to contribute. But to say that backing out would be a death-knell for the city... Pulease...

-The West Harbour needs to be developed as per the 'Setting Sail' manifesto. And deserves its own energies to be applied appropriately. Again, desperation is so undignified.

-Downtown redevelopment needs to be pushed, bringing in private businesses, developers who will work with involved parties (Downtown BIA, the various arts communities, City Council) to create some manner of impetus. But downtown revitalization is not the same as the above, developing the West Harbour. Yes, there can be some lovely synergistic, synchronous stuff going on between the two areas, but please, let's not conflate until black is white.

-Brownfields need to be addressed. We need to reconcile our industrial heritage with where we want to do. What has to be done is unavoidable. But dealing with it is the mature -and necessary- thing to do. Let's get to it.

-The Ti-Cats and their home-field facility woes need to be addressed. If the West Harbour location does not pan out stadium-wise, then I'd like to see my firm belief brought to life, that the IWS/Scott Park superproperty be developed as the new Ti-Cat stadium. (No parking revenue for the club, Mr. Young? Tough. Create a new business model. Or sell the team.) But my bottom-line here is that I've never understood why you would entirely ignore an extant facility, especially with a history going back to the 1930 Empire Games, and place all the emphasis on 'newer, better, elsewhere', effectively labelling Ivor Wynne Stadium as a future mothballed area by extension. I'm very curious as to how this has been rationalized by those pushing West Harbour, especially as two I can think of, two of the 'main names' consistently take far more reasonable -and reasoned- stances on issues pertaining to living spaces.