I respect the three councillors who held their ground on their original position, but I suppose now we should be grateful to our mayor for saving the world so to speak. I can't wait to hear him pat himself on the back for a job well done.
I have completely lost faith in the administration that can't get their act together enough to address such a monumental decision in the best possible fashion. Whether the motions were "flawed" or not is of no consequence.
The mayor was opposed to this from the start and it would not have mattered in the least what the outcome had been. He didn't get his way the first time so he orchestrated the dog and pony show that we had to witness Monday night.
The whole thing reeked of manipulation and quite frankly was embarrassing. There is so much wrong with this decision.
All the people wanted was a solid set of numbers that could be understood; the city has $16 million dollars to spend, why wouldn't it occur to them from the beginning to build an additional facility?
"Flawed motions" aside... this process has been flawed, the numbers are flawed, and there are so many unanswered questions.
And to the question about plans for accommodating users while waiting for Kin 1 to be rebuilt, their response included reducing the number of events held in CN Centre "...we believe it's 'do-able'."
The mayor practically patted us on the head implying "you be good and help us put on the best Games ever and maybe we'll see about that new facility."
This decision has nothing to do with the wants and needs of other organizations; it has to do with the funds that they've already committed to ice facilities and how to get the most efficient use out of them.
And talk about kicking "the people" when they're down... now he's suggesting scaling back the Kin Centre upgrades by $1 million! And they've buried the possibility of a new facility so deep it may be 20 years before we see anything.
There are many people who are going to be frustrated about this for a long time. I don't think the mayor realizes how many lives arena user groups touch.
I wonder if they'll consider that when discussing the 2015 Canada Winter Games fundraising and volunteer recruitment plans.
Dawn Bursey
Prince George
