Anyone else feel like they’re treading water in the harbour? We lose the Utek bowl, our biggest concert promotor goes broke, moncton gets a cfl game, the mooseheads blow, it’s a constant struggle for bike lanes, we’re in a pissing contest over a new convention center while our downtown quietly wheezes. And while our stadiums crumble and our people move away from the city to live in urban sprawl our 368 councillors (small exaggeration) get a raise and my prop. Taxes go up to fund what?
We’re losing focus here Hali, we’re in a rut, and unless we put some pressure on the producers i.e; council/management we’re going to soon be the uncultured, port city of shit. Doom doom doom —Somethin’ smells funny
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.
Doom, doom, doom?
You make this place sound like Balin’s tomb.
Next thing you’ll be telling me is that ‘they’ are coming and that we cannot get out.
I say let them come. There is one taxpayer yet in Halifax who still draws breath!
Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.
hey where’s cartman admiral?
welcome to nova scotia and halisucks.
Look OP …Its time you & all the other assholes who don’t understand what 12 BILLION Dollars in DEBT means.
IT means we can’t fucking afford any more debt !
IT really means we need to get out of debt !
Dumping a shit load of tax payer dollars into a convention centre/office/hotel complex isn’t good value for our money.
IF this project was so damn great, why doesn’t business do it themselves ?
We have never seen a profit for the convention centre we have now.
We have convention space everywhere in the downtown.
The ONLY WAY THIS CONVENTION CENTRE has a snowballs chance in hell to be profitable is for government to pass a LAW that conventions can only be held there ! ! ! !
The Convention Centre we have now competes against the Casino Space, the Marriot space, Every fucking Hotel in town actually has space for conventions. The Cunard Centre with room from 200+ to 4000 maximum is in the Market for & attracting clients …..
So unless your the dumbest MFA out there, Another Convention Centre is only going to compete with EVERYTHING WE ALREADY HAVE & IT’S GOING TO COMPETE WITH THE PRESENT CONVENTION CENTRE WE DO HAVE…..which has never turned a profit !
THe fucking stupidity of those of you who can’t see that ,absolutely blows the minds of us who work in …wait for it…The fucking Convention Business, those of us who rent equipment, who set it up , who work before ,during & after the event… We can all see the STUPIDITY in tax payer dollars going into this !
Please don’t get me wrong in not wanting the new Centre..I do, I and many others I work with/for WOULD LOVE A NEWER VENUE, with better loading facilities, larger shows…we would make more money, from bigger rentals etc.
But we all know the Bread & butter on our tables in this area comes from the much smaller events that are happening mulitple times weekly, which will never use a huge facility, the costs are too high !
We in Nova Scotia are so fucking far in debt right now, that enough is enough. Going further in debt isn’t the right course…one need only to look at the mess in the financial world, the absolute disaster waiting in the US because of their debt to realise that DEBT , DEBT & More Fucking DEBT isn’t the answer.
Its not rocket science OP, not at all !
According tothe latest census data I could find our population is 940,397 which means every man woman & child in this Province is $12,760.57 in debt if we had to pay off the debt tomorrow. Have you got the cash to pay your part of that tomorrow ?
What’s more important than that is the INTEREST we as taxpayers have to pay on this debt year after year after year after year & you & others just IMO are too stund to realise ,this is a major part of why taxes are going up , up ,up !
Woah there More,
I don’t think the OP stated whether or not they were for the convection center.
I mean I’m not so for it either, but calling the OP an asshole on an opinion they never stated seems a bit harsh.
.
The fact that City Hall is located at the end of an embarrassment like Barrington Street pretty much says it all for me. HRM city council couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery.
Admittedly, I haven’t done a lot of reading/listening/watching news re: convention centre debate, so I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not perfectly informed.
However…..in a CBC interview I heard last month, the person speaking said that while he wasn’t 100% for the convention centre right now, he did say that in the long run we probably wouldn’t regret having this nice shiny new convention centre, that we’d likely see some benefits years down the road.
My opinion: just because something might/will be beneficial in the long run does not mean it is a wise thing to do RIGHT NOW.
Example: my husband & I recently bought a duplex in the north/west end of hfx. It’s an awesome old place and while both units could do with some renovations (new kitchens & bathrooms, etc) we’re only renovating 1 of the units (while living in the other) at this time.
Why?
Because even though it would make logistical sense to do the work on both units consecutively (given that we have no tenants at the moment) AND we could earn significantly more in rental income and more $ when we eventually sell the place – we’ve decided against renovating both units AT THIS TIME.
We’re both aware of the future benefits (we’d more than make up for any $ we’d spend on renos, and realistically it would be “the bank’s money”) but the fact remains that RIGHT NOW we simply have TOO MUCH debt that needs to get sorted out lest shit goes awry and we’re left with bills we cannot pay.
I could go into other examples but I won’t.
It boils down to this: there are loads of “things” that any one of us would love to have at any given moment….but that doesn’t mean that we should fork over some money every time we see something that we want.
Sometimes we need to wait 6 mths/2yrs/6yrs/etc. until we’re in a better position to pay.
Maybe this is a simplistic view but I’d like to think that it’s just common sense.
@Kellis:
I’m pretty sure I know the interview you are referencing and if that’s so it was an interview Joe Ramia (The CEO of Rank Inc(?) ) So perhaps a bit of bias behind this interview.
For the record, I just tried looking up this guy’s official position, and in the quick search that I conducted, their is like no information on him. As for the Rank Inc website, it’s under construction.
Sketchy much?
Ahh, just found the company on a registry of joint stock search.
It’s a family business, how charming.
more you need to get laid….the present convention centre has made money between 2001 and 2008,then something happened called a recession..they never made their “PROJECTIONS OF PROFIT”but still made a small surplus…second,when the new convention centre opens,the old one will CLOSE…but spending millions of money on the canada games is ok???,Shake your head
@ 1fallingangels1:
Yeah it very well might have been him, though for some reason I think/thought it was some politician….
I also just finished reading the 1st 3 of Tim Bousquet’s articles on the convention centre and am blown away at the insanity of the situation.
I’m definitely not opposed to a new centre IF IT MAKES FINANCIAL SENSE but there seems to be so many things done in secret and outright lies that I’m highly skeptical of the viability (or even sense) of the proposal.
Thank God there are reporters like Bousquet out there that actually take the time to do the proper research and analysis that clearly those involved in the proposal have not.
Now will anyone listen or is it too late??
YEah halifaxmentor, the old one will close, and the hope is that the city will buy it out. Not only that, but allow the new center to not have to pay property taxes AND pay any deficit that the center may face over the years.
The Canada Games is something completely different. Something that I’m not going to start in on right now.
The old one will close ????
who told you that bit of bullshit ?
They are planning on building a tunnel from the new one to the old one…why I wonder ?
So they can all walk down there & look around & say HEY look how much nicer the new space is.
The convention centre we presently have will continue to take money from anyone who will pay them. They are not going to close it down !
What will they do with all that banquet/floor space ? store old files ?
Give our head a shake mate !
That rattling sound is the piece of common sense that snapped off long ago & you just don’t realise it .
As for the city buying it out ???? where do you suppose THAT MONEY WILL COME FROM ?
THe brand new gold discovery in the basement of city hall ?!?
No man, it will come out of your, my & everyone else around here’s fucking pocket.
I remember the doom & gloom predictions about what would happen to the Marriot on the Waterfront,when the Casino moved out… well I was in there twice in the last two weeks, both times conventions…place is hopping !
Cunard Centre 3 gigs this week if you count tonights !
3 fucking gig’s happening there & one at the Convention Centre…German Marshalls, at the Westin on Hollis all week ! hundreds of the Worlds top military people all coming together to look at the latest & best ways to kill each other & as many of us as possible!
When you don’t know what your talking about , you might want to listen to those of us who do !
I’m working at multiple venues….Anyone hear about Music Week in Yarmouth , multiple venues there ?
Set a gig up there Thursday,while others were setting up in other small venues, set the gala up Friday morning , left at 3 pm ,came back to Halifax , worked the show & out at the Cunard Centre ,then reset tonights show in the Cunard Centre ! ! ! with a few others who were with me in Yarmouth , because we are short handed at the Conventions around town this weekend ! ! !
More dude, I’m with you here. I just figured it would be assumed where the money was coming from when I made the comment about the city buying it out.
Apparently not.
Have some bitter feelings about this one much?
People actually care about university sports?
I cannot support organized sports (especially minor sports where the parents become primal and the kids utlimately become little beasts) when there are people in this city, province, country et al who have to choose between utilities or groceries every month. You have to pay for the privilege of living in tax-laden Nova Scotia. Young people are juggling jobs to live in shitty apartments with five or six other people while trying to get an overpriced education. Sports is a recreation and too much fucking tax dollars go into it in a time where there needs to be restraint. No fucking increases for politicans, cut the goddamn perks, lower the GST and do some classic belt tightening before trying to attempt to bankrupt the province with a convention centre we do not need. Wow, that was a colourless spew.
Halifax needs a vision, and those in office here don’t have that. They are afraid of rocking the boat, so they just go with the flow of doing nothing.
Man, I think that is the first time I have ever agreed with something sebastian said.
My only problem with the Convention Centre, is to use our tax dollars to fund it.
I don’t Care how big it is, how tall it is…or even if the Convention floor space is dug down so deep , Hell is just down the hall !
None of that means fuck all to me…I’m just tired, sick & fucking tired of seeing millions & billions of our hard earned tax dollars wasted by the assholes we elect WHO ARE SUPPOSE TO WORK ON OUR BEHALF, yet what they do is usually assinine, wasteful & purposely deceptive to justify their decissions.
Why would ANY of the present political hacks in office today give a flying rats ass, if they waste billions more of our tax dollars this upcoming year ?
They will all be enjoying their solid gold pensions by the time this white elephant they’re backing continues to suck up money from the public tit !
I love the story in the Coast I read today saying how they (TCL) lost money last year, but they’re paying even more hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars to MacGillvary because he’s retired.
Why can’t they have a damn retirement plan like we in the Working man’s (& womans) world…why does it have to be made of solid Gold …THat we the tax payers have to pay for ?????
much debating… my brain hurts. mr. more and ttfn said it well
During the economic downturn all you heard was stimulus spending, spending, spending, while the politicians were saying restraint out of the other side of their mouths. Now all we hear about is we’re broke, taxes have to go up, inflations on the rise, yadda, yadda. Well, I guess basic corporate greed has swallowed most of our tax dollars and the CEO’s have all ran to the bank laughing with bags of taxpayer money. Why sfould we expect anything different from the politicians who facilitated the spending bonanza? Of course they want to build a large building for their buddies to have conventions in, after all they won’t have to worry about money with their gold plated pensions, and self voted raises.
That sounded like a right-fine political speach. So what party are you running for D?
More, you’re an idiot. Why does the convention centre have to make money if it increases the bottom line of the City / Province after the $10M a year is spent? Fuck $10M a year is not even newsworthy in any other city Halifax would love to be compared to. So tired of the moronic “tea party” style attitudes of “just cut spending!” and ideas that will literally get us nowhere. The $15B will not even get dented without Halifax and the Province stepping up and making some bold decisions to bring in business and new jobs. Without taking a few risks Halifax has exactly zero chance. BTW ($10M a year is 1.4% of the HRM budget and 0.1% of the Provincial. ) We hope to offset the $10M by at least that, and let just say that if by chance we do not cover these costs, which I may add is realistic in some years, at least we would have the capacity to host the biggest and best companies in Canada and the world, something we do not have now.
Halifax needs new commercial/convention space like it needs sewage in the harbour. If it were Sim City, the “C” bar would be bottomed out. Scrap the convention centre idea Rank Inc. and put up a residential building instead. More people downtown means more commerce downtown. And using less electricity means more beer.
Just sayin.
Doom Doom Doom De-doom Doom De-doom Doom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqcn_TPu4qQ…
Kelly has announced he’s re-offering, fuck
If the night stalkers, swarmers and coprophiliac harbor isopods decide to Rock The Vote he’s good for another term.
It was nearly Doom II out there the other day…
crazy fuckers shooting all over the street.