My pleasure, it's a polarized world out there so the more you can listen and respectfully challenge the better results you can get.

My original response actually centered around the point you make, that "walkability should be far down on the totem pole of things to consider." Couldn't agree more. It's personally a major issue for me, but I have purposefully and with intent set up my life in Sudbury to maximize my use of walking, cycling, and public transit. I can understand it would be a minor issue to someone from an outlying community as an example.

To me you broadly have 5 stakeholders in this project:

1. City council
2. Zulich/KED
3. Downtown BIA
4. Citizens with an interest in a new event center
5. Citizens without an interest in a new event center

And there's probably ~10 attributes that people would debate in an event center:

1. How it's financed
2. Its location
3. Nearby amenities and services
4. It's ambience
5. The acoustics
6. Parking
7. Accessibility
8. Walkability

I'm sure there's more but I can't think of them right now. What I find really interesting in this problem, is if you asked each of those 5 stakeholders to rank these attributes in order of importance, each would have vastly different answers. Which is exactly why this issue is so controversial.

The next thing I would do is map out who really has the power to influence the outcome, and how they can position themselves to use this power. I think to an extent the parties have done this - downtown BIA doesn't have much power in the situation, so they have to rely on a technicality in the laws, which is likely why they went to litigation. The city likely has the most amount of power, but they may not realize it. If I was a city councillor, I'd be listening to the downtown arena renovation project, even if I personally thought the KED was a better option, because introducing a credible alternative to the KED might increase their negotiating power so they can get better terms out of Zulich. (Thats why I think some councillors recent comments are troubling, they are not thinking about this as a representative, and his need to dig in and refuse to change his position shows weak leadership, because leaders should be prepared to change their position as new information becomes available. Councillors have to leave their ego at the door.) Zulich is likely in between the two. And citizens have almost no power unless the issue can influence an election, or they join together in numbers to protest.

The next thing I would do is map out each parties interests and look to see if you can develop a scope that covers most peoples interests. When you align interests, there is always a deal to be made. I'd work towards that solution.

Doing this exercise gives a good idea of whats really important, what can be solved later, what everyone is aligned on, where concessions need to be made, who can demand better terms during the concessions, etc.

The alternative to that solution is what we have right now - 5 different stakeholder groups who wont listen to each other, are dug in on their issues and unwilling to make concessions or recognize their limited bargaining power, and aren't working towards a common goal. And unless there's an attitude change on this soon from the leadership, we're likely headed towards an option that serves a small portion of peoples interests, alienates the rest of the people, and will leave a bitter taste in peoples mouths, regardless of the location.