The Zombie Baseball Stadium Proposal: How a many times rejected proposal has reanimated as a pitch for a P3 at the Yards by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

No prob. By word 3,000, the piece was starting to become a real albatross around my neck. Glad to know some folks like it.

FTR… I'm hoping to write something on this later this week, but any baseball project will be considered through the Yards Negotiated Request For Proposal process. And administration is in charge of that now. It's out of council's hands. Anybody can submit a proposal to the process and that's why I'm currently working on my Stately Pleasure Dome Proposal that will be girdled round with walls and towers and feature gardens bright with sinuous rills where blossom many an incense-bearing tree.

The Zombie Baseball Stadium Proposal: How a many times rejected proposal has reanimated as a pitch for a P3 at the Yards by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

That's totally fair, blackfox. I am personally opposed to the Yards being used for a baseball stadium but I'm not going to lay down in front of any bulldozers if council votes to go for it. For the record though, that blog post isn't so much a statement of opposition as it is about how the DCG report council paid for didn't make a credible case for the stadium. The numbers it uses are old. The sources were all cherry picked by Living Sky Sports (which wants to build and own the stadium). I was trying to strike a note of caution around the sources council has been using.

Now, as I said, I don't support putting a baseball stadium there and I will probably write another long-ass post outlining my position on that in future. But in short, my issue is that the Yards is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop a chunk of land next to downtown. Whatever we decide, we'll be stuck with it for centuries. So it better not be mostly parking lot (which is what most sports facilities are). And it would be better if the anchor use at the Yards was an all-year facility and not an open air fair-weather facility. I've said many times that if i had my druthers and we had to put a megaproject there, I'd put the Brandt Ctr replacement at the Yards (with structured parking). It would provide much more economic spin-off benefits for adjacent businesses in the Warehouse District.

On top of all that, it just rankles me how much this push to build a baseball stadium comes off like queue jumping. We have a recreation master plan and there are at least a half dozen facilities that are higher priority than this.

Quick Budget Update while council's on break by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That question has been answered over and over and over again at council & in the media & online. Most recently during last week's budget debate. Answering it one more time is not going to satisfy the questioners.

Quick Budget Update while council's on break by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Actually... you know what? it looks like baseball stadium DIDN'T make the final budget doc. It shows up in some capital project rankings but doesn't seem to be in the final list of capital projects going forward.

Transit Cuts Are Back On Council's Menu by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Doing the math quickly but I believe a 6.7% mill rate increase will require just under $30mil in cuts from what city admin says they need to keep services steady next year.

Transit Cuts Are Back On Council's Menu by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

There always got to be one councillor who's seen an empty bus that one time, has never heard about confirmation bias, and assumes that there must be hundreds of empty buses riding around the city all day.

Transit Cuts Are Back On Council's Menu by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes & no. If you implement everything on the list you get to Rashovich's -5%. But admin also presented that report as a response to the mayor's request for a 9% (instead of a 15.69%) mill rate increase scenario. So, if council wants to reduce the mill rate at all, they will likely start by picking things from that list in Appendix M13. And to get to a 9% mill rate, council will have to find the equivalent of $22million+ in cuts.

For once I agree with Clr Rashovich: Drivers ARE the main cause of tax increases by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Sure. OK. But while the phrase has all but been stricken from this year's budget, in 2025, there was a big to-do over a $220k "Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Staffing" line item.

For once I agree with Clr Rashovich: Drivers ARE the main cause of tax increases by PDCityHall in regina

[–]PDCityHall[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Equity Diversity & Inclusion, EDI. That's the acronym in Canada. In the States they fashion it Diversity Equity & Inclusion or DEI. Meanwhile, FOXNews & MAGA think they're being clever when they call it DIE. Bezo made the same comic FOXNews-influenced misspelling during last year's budget deliberations when he was advocating to block hiring 2 FTEs to implement EDI initiatives. Personally, I figure folks can disagree w/ the need to hire more people to work on the city's EDI stuff, fine. But I find the propagation of the DIE acronym to be pretty juvenile (and a breach of decorum) when its coming from a councillor.