The Stadium Debacle
By: Lisa Marques
Anyone who lived in Hamilton in the summer of 2010 and watched or listened to the news, went to work, spoke to family or friends or even got into a cab with an informed driver heard the whispers, stories and drama of the juicy gossip surrounding the decision of what to do about our beloved Ivor Wynne Stadium in preparation of the upcoming 2015 Pan-American games, some of which were to be played here on our turf. Unfortunately, that which is not news to most folks living in Hamilton, our City Council members engaged in the usual bickering and tug-roping antics, and basically ended up fumbling an opportunity for free money from both the Federal and Provincial government to build a shiny, brand-spanking new stadium. One that would in the long run have grown Hamilton’s downtown economy by building excitement, attracting new businesses to the area, and eventually maybe even (dare I say it?) lead to hosting the Grey Cup in Hamilton, a long awaited victory. The thing that was reinforced for those residing in the Hamilton area at that time was that our municipal government is broken and ineffective at making important decisions for the good of the city. Unfortunately, as a result of watching our local municipal government hard at work mucking up a good thing, the dream that most Hamiltonians had high hopes for eventually faded into a nightmare of disgust, with most people wanting to forget a new stadium was even mentioned. Sadly, it did not come to pass- Council ended up just deciding to slap come brick and mortar onto the old Ivor Wynne and pretend that we didn’t need another 5000-10000 seats for viable future financial profits. There is a valuable lesson that can be learned from this "teaching moment”- a dysfunctional government can fail at working together to make important decisions, and look bad while doing it, but ultimately their failure affects the city the serve, and the people residing in it negatively.
Our own City Council members truly did make what was supposed to be a nice gift from the provincial and federal government turn into an incredibly messy, even nasty situation. My knowledge on this subject mostly comes from closely following news reports at that time, however I was also very interested in politics, and was lucky to be working for someone who ran multiple federal along with a couple of municipal campaigns. Needless to say, he kept me well-informed with his own daily news report. What was most interesting was seeing the issues reported to the public, and then having some insight on what was actually happening internally as well. But to begin, a brief overview of the situation and atmosphere in Hamilton during that summer is in order. The news that Hamilton succeeded in the bid to host part of the Pan-American Games at first elicited feelings of excitement from most citizens, but very quickly that air of happiness fizzled into one of competition, then dwindled into an aura of despair. Not surprisingly, that summer of 2010 was also an election year for the City Council members in Hamilton, so you can imagine the comprehensiveness of the situation; half of the members were afraid to take a risk, another quarter kept flip-flopping and changing their minds almost daily, and the last portion were just plain stupid. However, in fairness, there were many other factors in play here. For an informative up-to-date summary of what happened, read this short article.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/618488-new-hamilton-stadium-lose-lose-lose
The three “teams” involved in this tug-of-war were City Council, Bob Young (the Tiger-Cats team owner), and the CFL. Each entity wanted the stadium at a different location, for different reasons, the prime of all being money. Bob Young and the CFL originally wanted the top locations that would bring in the most money once the Pan-Am games had up and left Hamilton, and Council was afraid to go over budget and wanted the cheapest possible site, without regard for future profit. At one point as a bargaining tool Bob Young went so far as to offer a large sum of money to the city to help rebuild the Hamilton Harbor, which was City Councils first choice to build the stadium (according to Young and the CFL it was one of the last out of 10 financially viable choices). Actually, in truth, Council members couldn’t even agree on their own choice. Apparently, thoughts of coming together to do what was best for the city were absent from most of their minds, and they began fighting internally about different locations (mostly ones that Young and the CFL would not agree to). Multiple rallies were held for each of the sides, involving citizens who were vested in the final decision. But, in the end after seemingly endless months of bickering and deadlock, what ended up happening? No new stadium, no renewed harbor, just a facelift to a facility in what most people consider to be a horrible location. The depth of the mess City Council ended up getting us into was huge, however most disturbing was that they just could not come together to do what was right for the city. Thomas Edison once said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won`t work.” This sums up the antics of our local politicians that summer- they fought and argued about everything, and in the end to no avail, and what started out as a positive for the city quickly morphed into a negative.
Of course, it is widely known that politicians working together is becoming a rare phenomenon these days, especially when there is an election in the near future. Political posturing is a norm all over the world, including right here at home. In this era, more often we are seeing the ineffectiveness of countless governments, whether it be overseas in a non-democratic country, in the United States where their democratic government has all but come to a standstill, or here in Hamilton when every time there is a significant decision to make City Council basically falls apart under the pressure. In the stadium debacle, politicians were worried about the opinions of their different constituents, mostly because they did not want to get voted out of their cushy jobs. This problem is particularly bad in Hamilton because of the fact that Council doesn’t have term limits; the result, as former Mayor Fred Eisenberger put it, is “Too many councilors are focused on their wards only and don’t keep an eye on the greater interest of the city… if you grade councilors on getting re-elected, their doing great.” Most of the members on Hamilton City Council have served for over 5 or 10 years, and many have been there for 20-30 years! This is an astounding number, and the result is that we have a dysfunctional City Council that is not effective. Sadly, most Hamiltonians are aware of this, but feel helpless. Every time there is an election, other knowledgeable, viable candidates do run, but there are usually more than one in each riding, and the result is that the vote is split, allowing the same member to be re-elected year after year. If this was changed by enforcing time limits, politicians would not be so concerned with their political careers and the paycheck and perks it comes with, and ultimately there could be no reason to not work together for the good of the city.
Unfortunately, when the government fails to work cohesively and effectively, we the people ended up losing. Any positive that could have been gained is lost, and the city itself suffers. The Pan-Am stadium debate was not the first case where this happened in Hamilton in relatively recent years. There are many examples, but one that was quite significant happened around 20 years back; the provincial/federal government had a plan to build new casinos in a few cities, and again had grant money available to do so- all that the eligible cities had to do was provide a business plan. Not surprisingly, Hamilton City Council- some of the very same members involved in the more recent crisis- could not come to a conclusion regarding various aspects of the issue, including a location. As a result, when the list of cities chosen to build a new casino was complete, of course, Hamilton was missing from that list. The result was a lost potential financial opportunity, a lost chance to have a new facility to attract tourists to the city, and a lost chance to a chance to be recognized on the map for something other than Steel-city- a loss all around. It all goes back to the fact that our Municipal government did not work, and our city and its people lost out.
In short, our municipal government is at a truly dysfunctional state, and the stadium debacle is just one example where this is portrayed. Hamiltonians repeatedly keep bearing the brunt of Councils failed cohesiveness and plain ability to do the job they were meant to. According to Sir Winston Churchill “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” This cynical statement must have rung true in his time, and surely does for a majority of people in the modern day. However, all hope is not lost. During the well-known Gettysburg address in the United States in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln stated that democracy is a government “of the people, for the people, by the people.” This definition is still the one used worldwide in the present day, and Hamiltonians need to remember it. If the city as a whole is suffering due to a long time dysfunctional government, then the people in it need to stand up and do something about it. Hamilton needs its citizens to become interested in politics, and the issues surrounding it. Similarly, the city needs candidates to fun for City Council who care about the people they would potentially serve. If there are only a scarce few available, then maybe forcefulness is in order- people need to get together and put pressure on the government to enforce term limits. Most of all, the city needs its people to never let another “stadium debacle” happen again in the near future.
Our own City Council members truly did make what was supposed to be a nice gift from the provincial and federal government turn into an incredibly messy, even nasty situation. My knowledge on this subject mostly comes from closely following news reports at that time, however I was also very interested in politics, and was lucky to be working for someone who ran multiple federal along with a couple of municipal campaigns. Needless to say, he kept me well-informed with his own daily news report. What was most interesting was seeing the issues reported to the public, and then having some insight on what was actually happening internally as well. But to begin, a brief overview of the situation and atmosphere in Hamilton during that summer is in order. The news that Hamilton succeeded in the bid to host part of the Pan-American Games at first elicited feelings of excitement from most citizens, but very quickly that air of happiness fizzled into one of competition, then dwindled into an aura of despair. Not surprisingly, that summer of 2010 was also an election year for the City Council members in Hamilton, so you can imagine the comprehensiveness of the situation; half of the members were afraid to take a risk, another quarter kept flip-flopping and changing their minds almost daily, and the last portion were just plain stupid. However, in fairness, there were many other factors in play here. For an informative up-to-date summary of what happened, read this short article.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/618488-new-hamilton-stadium-lose-lose-lose
The three “teams” involved in this tug-of-war were City Council, Bob Young (the Tiger-Cats team owner), and the CFL. Each entity wanted the stadium at a different location, for different reasons, the prime of all being money. Bob Young and the CFL originally wanted the top locations that would bring in the most money once the Pan-Am games had up and left Hamilton, and Council was afraid to go over budget and wanted the cheapest possible site, without regard for future profit. At one point as a bargaining tool Bob Young went so far as to offer a large sum of money to the city to help rebuild the Hamilton Harbor, which was City Councils first choice to build the stadium (according to Young and the CFL it was one of the last out of 10 financially viable choices). Actually, in truth, Council members couldn’t even agree on their own choice. Apparently, thoughts of coming together to do what was best for the city were absent from most of their minds, and they began fighting internally about different locations (mostly ones that Young and the CFL would not agree to). Multiple rallies were held for each of the sides, involving citizens who were vested in the final decision. But, in the end after seemingly endless months of bickering and deadlock, what ended up happening? No new stadium, no renewed harbor, just a facelift to a facility in what most people consider to be a horrible location. The depth of the mess City Council ended up getting us into was huge, however most disturbing was that they just could not come together to do what was right for the city. Thomas Edison once said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won`t work.” This sums up the antics of our local politicians that summer- they fought and argued about everything, and in the end to no avail, and what started out as a positive for the city quickly morphed into a negative.
Of course, it is widely known that politicians working together is becoming a rare phenomenon these days, especially when there is an election in the near future. Political posturing is a norm all over the world, including right here at home. In this era, more often we are seeing the ineffectiveness of countless governments, whether it be overseas in a non-democratic country, in the United States where their democratic government has all but come to a standstill, or here in Hamilton when every time there is a significant decision to make City Council basically falls apart under the pressure. In the stadium debacle, politicians were worried about the opinions of their different constituents, mostly because they did not want to get voted out of their cushy jobs. This problem is particularly bad in Hamilton because of the fact that Council doesn’t have term limits; the result, as former Mayor Fred Eisenberger put it, is “Too many councilors are focused on their wards only and don’t keep an eye on the greater interest of the city… if you grade councilors on getting re-elected, their doing great.” Most of the members on Hamilton City Council have served for over 5 or 10 years, and many have been there for 20-30 years! This is an astounding number, and the result is that we have a dysfunctional City Council that is not effective. Sadly, most Hamiltonians are aware of this, but feel helpless. Every time there is an election, other knowledgeable, viable candidates do run, but there are usually more than one in each riding, and the result is that the vote is split, allowing the same member to be re-elected year after year. If this was changed by enforcing time limits, politicians would not be so concerned with their political careers and the paycheck and perks it comes with, and ultimately there could be no reason to not work together for the good of the city.
Unfortunately, when the government fails to work cohesively and effectively, we the people ended up losing. Any positive that could have been gained is lost, and the city itself suffers. The Pan-Am stadium debate was not the first case where this happened in Hamilton in relatively recent years. There are many examples, but one that was quite significant happened around 20 years back; the provincial/federal government had a plan to build new casinos in a few cities, and again had grant money available to do so- all that the eligible cities had to do was provide a business plan. Not surprisingly, Hamilton City Council- some of the very same members involved in the more recent crisis- could not come to a conclusion regarding various aspects of the issue, including a location. As a result, when the list of cities chosen to build a new casino was complete, of course, Hamilton was missing from that list. The result was a lost potential financial opportunity, a lost chance to have a new facility to attract tourists to the city, and a lost chance to a chance to be recognized on the map for something other than Steel-city- a loss all around. It all goes back to the fact that our Municipal government did not work, and our city and its people lost out.
In short, our municipal government is at a truly dysfunctional state, and the stadium debacle is just one example where this is portrayed. Hamiltonians repeatedly keep bearing the brunt of Councils failed cohesiveness and plain ability to do the job they were meant to. According to Sir Winston Churchill “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” This cynical statement must have rung true in his time, and surely does for a majority of people in the modern day. However, all hope is not lost. During the well-known Gettysburg address in the United States in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln stated that democracy is a government “of the people, for the people, by the people.” This definition is still the one used worldwide in the present day, and Hamiltonians need to remember it. If the city as a whole is suffering due to a long time dysfunctional government, then the people in it need to stand up and do something about it. Hamilton needs its citizens to become interested in politics, and the issues surrounding it. Similarly, the city needs candidates to fun for City Council who care about the people they would potentially serve. If there are only a scarce few available, then maybe forcefulness is in order- people need to get together and put pressure on the government to enforce term limits. Most of all, the city needs its people to never let another “stadium debacle” happen again in the near future.