Gateway Is A Bust

[CANVIK]

http://fotball.aftenposten.no/multimedia/archive/00086/Telenor_Arena_86551a.jpg

Instead of spending millions of tax dollars to build an indoor soccer complex in the west end, add some seating, build it downtown, attach it to the casino, the mall, the train station, and use it as an indoor soccer field, conference centre, modern indoor track and field facility and even a facility for the Steelers to play.  Big enough for indoor concerts with a larger capacity than the Essar and a huge floor space for almost anything from motor sports to indoor fairs.  Might bring in a couple people.......even a tourist or two.

[Ron W Schinners C.D. The People's Choice for Mayor]

After watching tonights council meeting and listening to the Gateway Committee People Bill Durnford and Ian McMillan .I say lets see what they have to offer.We have been waiting  20 years  for something  to happen at this Gateway Site.With  Ian McMillan and Bill Durnfords success with the Scotties lets us give them a chance to score a home run with Gateway.
Ian and Bill .Get er done!

[Just Me]

There's the wannabe mayor in the middle of the night talking to himself about a council meeting

It's a shame the old fella has nothing else to do in life

[oscar]

Yet he was able to get you to take notice and write a response...
Oscar G.

[Art Vandelay]

The last time I checked Art we live in Northern Ontario, and not much grows around these parts this time of year except for the snow banks in my yard, and my blood pressure.  What are the farmers going to sell during the winter aside from some preservatives that will no doubt expire in my cantina.  However this is the kind mediocrity citizens of the Sault have grown accustomed to.  If I'm a tourist in the city I'm not going to be interested in doing my own cooking so you can bet I will be driving right by the Farmers market.  No offense to the farmers, I shop at the market, and have no problems with the local, it serves its purpose.  Much like the train station serves its purpose, so why spend a ton of money to fix something that isn't even broken?

Well spoken fred who in there right mind would set up a farmers market in the winter months would not work up here.

Meat, preserves, ready made food, fish, non food merchandise from local artists / crafters.. look at st jacobs for an example, but on a smaller scale.

[captstar]

Art. Well said, from a good business sense. St Jacobs is one fine example.

[IslandGirl1]

I think it would be a great place to have an Assisted Living apartment building for seniors, they would be close to the mall, downtown shopping, casino etc.  This would be revenue generating for the City, plus the seniors would be close to all ammenities.

[CANVIK]

Islandgirl, unfortunately there is no such think as public assisted seniors residences anymore, it's just low income housing and must be open to everybody due to discrimination suits in the past over the availability of housing.  Not a good place for another project in the Soo.  Private sector could do it but not public sector.

[Ron W Schinners C.D. The People's Choice for Mayor]

Now that the Gateway  Committee has  got the go ahead.It was reported that  $15,000 form the Gateway Allocation Fund will be used to  put fencing around it and remove the debris.

The City does not want this land to  be used as  a Park because of the contamination on the site.

The City  paid $2 million for  this toxic waste site that they want to turn into a tourist attraction.
A risk assessment would  cost up to a $175,000 !!!A full cleanup of this 15  acre  site would  $2 million an acre!!
That is 30 million taxpayer's dollars to cleanup a land  purchased for 2 million dollars.That is just plain crazy
This is one project that should have  been shelved  years ago and this site just left alone.The  City Should have never  purchase this property  because of its  contamination.Some one did not do their  homework on this prior  to buying this toxic  waste site .Who was responsible for this purchase?

[Ward1Executive]

Ron, that's the job of the City Planning Dept.
I'm sure they called the Legal Dept. as well. If both Depts. state that it's a good deal, why would anyone on council object? To my understanding, we never had an environmental specialist on council now or in the past.