Snow is a 4 letter word

Today is Friday, September 28th... just after 7 am and I am sipping away at my morning coffee, pondering when the pears on the tree in the backyard will start falling in batches. Pears are a pretty awesome fruit, but it's not like you can pick them and freeze them for later. But if you have the right equipment, you could can them for later use.

And of course, that must all be done before the snow arrives. The question is... when will that happen?

But wait... maybe we need to define what "snow" is first. So here is my definition...

SNOW is... what many members of the Edmonton City Council pray for. They pray for it to come sooner rather than later, because they want the weather to be as miserable as possible. I mean, after all, they have been trying for years to snow you over with marketing propaganda over the proposed Downtown Arena.. er, I mean palace... built for the only person capable of saving Edmonton, King Katz.

It was almost a year ago when Mimi Williams (@willmimi on twitter) started supplying information on the trail of lies, deception, and broken promises by many of our elected officials, in a 3 part series. It was supposed to be 4 parts, but it just got overwhelming.

Edmonton is at a place now in this "process", where Katz wants to change the rules, and I think that if he thinks that it is okay for him to do that, then I think it should be okay for us to do the same. Considering the recent events, more so now than ever before... the people of Edmonton are speaking up quite loudly to Council, saying this deal sucks. And for taxpayers in Edmonton, and indeed the entire Province, this is very true.

Council needs to tell Katz that the public is not happy. They need to tell him that the current proposal is null and void, and Katz must come back to the table with something that works for taxpayers. So with that said, what would be a reasonable deal?

1) The City owns the building. All tenants in the building will pay rent and taxes to the City.

2) No CRL will exist, since it just robs taxpayers of that money. And that money has to be collected again from all residents to replace the missing funds that would have gone into revenues, so taxpayers are being double dipped.

3) Full profit sharing, based on the percentage of the project dollars invested. In the past I have suggested that Katz gets 10% more of the share. For example, if he puts in 30% of the costs, then he gets 40% of the revenues. ... ... albeit he is allowed to keep all of the revenues for Oilers games.

4) If a "ticket tax" must be collected on Rexall events (stupid equal competition clause) then those revenues must be given to NorthLands for facility improvements and NOT be directed towards general revenues or be applied to the City portion of the costs.

There should probably be many more points, but the bottom line is this deal must be good for the taxpayers FIRST, with the Katz Group as a "second". Unless of course, KG wants to fund the entire project in which case it would be his building, his revenue, his tenants, etc.

So where does the SNOW come into place? Well, many think Council has been carefully crafting this project so that when it does come time to vote on a bylaw to borrow the funds, the citizens of Edmonton will be in a nasty weather situation in order to inhibit as much as possible, a citizen created plebiscite.

And why do we know this? Well, in the past... Mayor Mandel has made it very clear that the citizens of this city are simply not allowed to speak out. Our voices do not count. Only the voice of King Katz is allowed.

And with that said... election 2013 is just around the corner, where everyone will most certainly have their opportunity to speak... loud... and clear.

Perhaps after the 2013 election, the RCMP can be called in to investigate the breach of trust of many of the current members of Council. Because for sure, if this current deal actually gets put through... well... you decide.

70,000th tweet of mine to post this. And I bet the people of this city have spoken many times more, to say this deal sucks. Did I mention? Election 2013 is just around the corner...