Apparently I know nothing about the arena

According to the wizard Wade (aka w_izzard) I've been told that I know nothing about the #yegarena deal and that I don't have the intelligence to make a smart come-back to his childish comments.

More like I don't have the time to deal with a closed minded fool but... here I am wasting my time just so that I can prove my point. I hope Wizzy enjoys the read, because after this I have no need to waste any more time on his insane cat calls and insults.

So Wade, here are some simple facts for you. You can start reading here, which is the basics of the arena timeline, researched in depth by Mimi... Once you read through all of those posts, you should be able to notice a pattern of deception by several members of city council. Like the promises of a plebiscite being called, and how no taxpayer money will ever be spent, and how nothing will happen until all of the money is in place. The list of lies and deceptions are huge. If you can't see that, then maybe someone else can explain it to you.

With that said, lets note how around 700 million dollars of our money will be used to create this arena, and the required infrastructure that it will need to support it.

Lets keep in mind that within that 700 million dollars is the money that Katz is putting in, around 100 million dollars. But wait!!.. That's really our money he is borrowing from us (reducing the amount we have available to borrow from) at an extremely low interest rate. Why is he using out money instead of his, like we were lead to believe? Well, the tax advantages to him are huge... and the poor billionaire doesn't have to use his money.

So now that we understand that literally every penny being used to create the Katz Palace is really all taxpayer money in one form or another, lets get on to the other issues.

We are told this will be OUR building, not his. Yet with OUR building, we get no money for any naming rights. We also get no income from him, or any tenants that may move into the complex. We get no money from any events held, no matter what they are. So concerts or Oilers games or anything else, we get nothing. We also get nothing from any parking revenues, and we will get nothing from any form of food or beverage sales. Pretty much anything that generates a penny of revenue, we get nothing. Speaking of concerts, they generally come with large convoys of semi-trailer trucks. Those concert folks LOVE going to Rexall because they come in right off the Yellowhead, and they have the designed moving room within the parking lot to do their thing. Course, the arena downtown will have none of that, and the traffic tie ups in the area will be extreme. But hey, who cares if traffic downtown is all fucked up. It really can't get any worse than it is now, right? (rolls eyes)

We do pay him a huge amount for the privilege of advertising our city in our building.

OH WAIT!! Lets not forget that WE have the right to use OUR building for FOUR WEEKS out of the year! How awesome is that!!! But what can we do with that time. WE can't have a concert... WE can't host any event that would involve charging people a fee... Hmmm... maybe we can use it to offer free face painting lessons to kids. That would be cool. Just as long as we don't charge the kids anything, or the parents that will bring them in.

And then we have the glorious CRL side. Where the property AND education taxes will be diverted so that we can pay for OUR building. Meh... who cares a rats ass about the loss of 80 million dollars for education. Sure as hell the kids don't need it and those grossly over paid teachers don't deserve it. They have some nerve now bitching about huge classroom sizes and kids not getting the attention they deserve. Piss on that, our billionaire friend MUST have that money. (rolls eyes again)

BUT WAIT! We have a 35 year deal!!! WooHOO!!!.. oh.. the CRL thing? The law says that the money borrowed must be paid back totally within 20 years. Not 35. Any balance owing is due and payable immediately. But we have 20 years to do that, no big deal right? Well, I do believe the city has said that it generally takes 10 years before the proper funds start coming in so we really are stuck with the hope and prayer that the next 10 years will pay for it. Historically speaking, all over North America, this never happens. But hey, we can do it when no one else has.

The city also says that the dollars from the CRL will pay for it all. But if those tax dollars are being diverted to the arena, where will the tax dollars come to provide the required services to the area? Blah... no one in the CRL zone will ever need the cops or fire department or anything else. Right? Yeah, sure Wade, dream on. This means that the loss of those taxes will have to be made up by everyone else in the city. Screw the seniors and others on fixed incomes that won't be able to afford the increases... After all, they are all just scum sucking low lifes that don't deserve to be here anyway, since they can't pay their own way. Run the suckers all out of town... that's gotta be the answer for sure! ... *coughs

And then we have that glorious ticket tax. Normally when a tax is imposed to pay for something, once its all paid off then the tax should be removed. But no, not in this case. Not only will it NOT be removed, but there is also a sweetheart deal in place where Katz only has to pay a FIXED amount of dollars from things collected. So if he has to pay say 5 million a year, but collects 8 million a year, he gets to directly pocket the difference, instead of it being applied towards paying down the debt. And remember, this tax does not expire.

So lets see... we have a cost to taxpayers of around the 700 million dollar mark. Now its been estimated that dear Mr. Katz will bring in around 700 million dollars of profits from everything. OUR building, with OUR money, and we don't get a single dime of those profits.

In essence, this deal covers ONE POINT FOUR BILLION DOLLARS. All of it lost to taxpayers.

Meh... not like 1.4 billion dollars is worth anything anyway... won't do a damn thing to fix potholes, or neighborhood needs, or anything else such as anything LRT related.

Now I know you will sit back and quote all kinds of city reports that suggest otherwise. Those clever reports that were specifically designed to be biased and to mislead people with false and/or unrealistic facts. But hey, don't bitch to me and say I don't know what I'm talking about with respect to those reports. The pros that know that area, have already stated the reports are out to lunch. So lets screw the pros too, because they clearly don't know their ass from a hole in the ground either.

Yes dear Wade... you are 100% correct. I know nothing about the arena deal. You win... Oh, by the way. Do you have kids? Tell me, how happy are you knowing their future is screwed. Because its people like YOU that will be doing it, not people like me.

Have a good life.

For Kikki.. some thoughts

I've been taking a bit of a twitter and #yegvote break, while enjoying the company of some American friends. I did peek from time to time (in the tag) and I do admit, it did "irk" me to see nasty comment after comment after comment coming from Ms. Kikki..

I remember (not that long ago) when I was like that in twitter. Just being upset, and bashing a lot... and I remember getting shit for being so negative. I have been trying to change, and when I do get into that 'attack' mode, I try to drive that with facts that are balanced. I'm getting better but of course, I am still a long ways away from being politically perfectly correct..

On Sept 13th just before 8 pm... (Oh oh.. a Friday the 13th day... sonofa....) I sent Kikki a tweet that read "Round 3 of 'how stupid I was'? Last 2 rounds you were out to lunch. This is no different. Used to think you cared. Egocentric."

A note of explanation... Kikki and I have this weird love/hate/curiosity type of friendship.. Sometimes we love to love, sometimes we love to hate (paraphrased of course, I'm pretty sure we don't really "hate" each other) and sometimes we make each other curious. We have had in the past, two really semi-major disagreements on politics... One over the Wild Rose, and one over Mandel. The bottom line in both of these was (no offense) I was right... and it created some 'awakenings' with Kikki... we had talks about both of these "after" and apologies were made. Best leave it at that I think.

And now we are into Round 3 of political ... words...

Kikki has made it clear she has a love for Karen, and picks and bashes at Kerry (it seems like every chance she gets) . She responded to my tweet with "I care that candidates tell the truth .. .. Dont lie to me..."

Seems fair, right? Ok Kikki... Lets look at Karen. But perhaps we should look at the truth. The whole truth... not just a slanted version of it. WE KNOW politicians will make a statement that is partially true. At least in their mind, based on twisted facts they choose to believe in, while ignoring the bad facts. You and I both know this is true, just look at all of the twisted and biased and INCOMPLETE facts the City AND council has been misleading the citizens of Edmonton over the Arena deal. And its the same bullshit they did with the airport as well. ..

So if you demand the truth, lets demand the FULL truth, not just a biased portion that fits within your agenda. Karen has clearly supported every ugly detail on the arena, and has supported misleading citizens on the terms and end results of the deal. Lets also not forget her HUSBAND had an association with the Katz Group at the time. Yeah yeah, the part he was involved with was sold... but to think that Katz has no involvement and no influence over him or her... I mean really...

I also noted Kikki would pound on the "look at their voting records" line, showing how much Karen voted for and all of the good things she did. .. I suppose if you really wanted to be fair, one would only look at her first term in office, and compare that to Kerry. But then times were different too. She voted for or supported a lot of stupid things that ended up costing taxpayers a huge pile of money. And to be fair, a lot of council members did the same thing because they got biased and slanted information from city administration folks. So I guess one can blame councils ignorance on administration ignorance. Meh... whatever.

Kikki also asked "what did Kerry instigate to make the arena deal better, what motions did HE bring forward" because apparently what you bring forward counts for a lot, even if its going to be shot down. Well, when you are forced to deal with a lot of council that has been (paraphrased here) "bought and paid for and mislead" by the Mayor... (and I have high level sources within the city that have suggested that many times and no, not one of those were from Kerry) ... then I would presume that to bring forward a motion you know most would not support, would be a "why bother" type of thing. Now I don't know for sure if that's what Kerry was thinking, I'm just guessing...

It's funny that the questions Kikki seems to ask and or demand from Kerry, she doesn't also ask those same ones for Karen... And this goes back to the "truth" part... if you want the truth, demand the FULL truth, not just a portion that fits within your biases or the biases of the person you want to support.

Anyway... To the "egotistical" word. We both started in twitter around the same time. Our reasons for being here are different, but we have a lot in common. I had long discussions with you some time back about my being screwed over and how it destroyed my life. You also said you had similar things happen. You've gone a different route than I have, talk a lot of "wine dipped" comments in the Kikki way of making comments. You've gained a massive following compared to me but again, our goals are different. As well, I've blocked thousands of people because they don't fit within what I want.

You've taken the "socialite" route, but I KNOW you have that caring background. And this is why I'm shocked that you support Karen. A person who has had or been influenced by ties with her husband and has chosen to take the "blind eye" approach to what I consider to be an outright theft of public dollars for a billionaire. If you support Karen (or Don for that matter) then you also support the theft of public dollars for education. You literally are supporting the robbing of your children's future. You are supporting not only the theft of (what will amount to) over 700 million taxpayer dollars for the arena and infrastructure costs AND the loss of (what has been estimated) over 700 million dollars in profits that the arena and concerts and parking will place into the PRIVATE pocket of a billionaire. EVERY penny of profit from events, EVERY penny of profit from retail rentals in the arena space, goes directly to Katz.

WE the people, get NOTHING... and pay for everything.

That's ONE POINT FOUR BILLION DOLLARS... down the tubes.

 .. .. And lets not forget that historically every deal of this type has proven over and over the taxes never pay for things the way they were "projected" to have. So while Katz will continue to rake in the profits, he isn't responsible for covering any of the tax losses. And lets also not forget that the taxes going to pay for the arena will HAVE to be made up by all of Edmonton because the arena district will still incur the same tax costs of service that every other area in the city has.

Often, politics is about choosing the lesser of evils. I can not support either Karen OR Don, because both of them think the arena deal rocks. Both of them could care less about taxpayers.

Let me make it clear... I don't think Kerry is the perfect angel by any means. There are things about him that I am not fond of. But he's taken the time to actually sit down and talk with me, and he's listened. Sometimes he comes up with some rather crappy suggestions on things but that has been to open up a dialog of discussions. I've often put forth stupid ideas within twitter. And I've seen some of those stupid ideas turn into some pretty amazing things. This is the part I like the most about Kerry... he's willing to put forward IDEAS to talk about, and see where they grow into. Unlike both Don and Karen, they put forward ideas to implement, and both of them have clearly shown that they, for the most part, don't really care what the public thinks, they just want to twist the words into getting their ideas done.

So yes, Kkiki... I choose to go with the lesser of evils... I choose to read between the lines of what politicians say, and not to be gullible in the words.

So the "egotistical" part for me, is you using your social influence to spread the partial truths. When I was hoping you would choose to be "less blindsided" ... like you were with the Wild Rose and Mandel.

Note to other readers of this post. You are not aware of the private talks Kikki and I have had. You are in no position to judge either me or her, good or bad... Just sayin

And despite anything you all may think, this post was created "with love"...