Something light to start 2012:

I had a lot of fun playing a bit role in the collaboration between ETS and Colleen Brown for the ‘Happy Love Song’ video. That bus was literally bouncing, and the acoustics were surprisingly good. Wonderful Edmonton talent on display – also promoting the new-and-improved ETS Trip Planner.

And the City recently put up a charming ‘behind the scenes’ video as well:

Enjoy!

[Update December 28, 2011: links to City's infrastructure budget page repaired. Also, City's full summary can be found here. Also, I had 5.38% but the increase was in fact 5.39% because of a rounding error on my end.]

Inclusive of drainage, waste and the tax increases, it will cost $178 more annually for an average household next year. I do realize this is a significant increase on a percentage basis, and is above the Consumer Price Index.

Information of the Utility rates can be found here. As Chair of Council’s Utility Committee I can speak to the year of work that went into understanding the elements driving these rates and rest assured they are justified. However, we are looking at whether there is a fairer way to charge for Waste than the current flat fee.

The tax increase itself was 5.39% in the final budget. 2.25% of this is specifically for priority infrastructure projects, such as financing the new Walterdale Bridge, land acquisition for Southeast to West LRT, and a new police station in the Northwest. The balance (3.14%) covers inflationary impacts plus a modest amount of new spending mainly for policing and crime prevention.

I do think the city can be more efficient with existing resources and I continue to work constructively with the City Manager and City Auditor to identify ways to streamline our business; most people don’t realize that our City Manager has helped trim over $100 million from a $1.88 billion dollar budget over the last three years through improved efficiencies.

I realize that we cannot continue to increase taxes beyond the rate of inflation indefinitely, but I also do not hear a lot of public support for reducing levels of civic service, nor do I hear support for deferring infrastructure investment.

Fundamentally, however, Edmonton has transitioned from a low cost place to do business 10 years ago to one of the most expensive places to do business in North America, mainly because of the higher cost of labour, but also because of higher material and energy costs. The City does business in this same market and that drives cost, which in turn drives fees and taxes.

The answer, of course, is not higher property taxes.

Rather, we need a new deal for municipalities. The City has roughly 5% of a typical family’s tax dollars, but we have well more than 5% of the responsibilities for services and infrastructure. We will continue to struggle until the existing tax dollars are reapportioned and/or until cities are given fairer tax tools.

In fact, I would like to see us move away from property tax, and instead focus on other revenue streams that grow with the economy and respond to income rather than taxing theoretical wealth via property tax, which is often highly regressive for those on fixed incomes.

Nevertheless, the City must move ahead, as we have with the 2012-2014 infrastructure budget. However, the $2.7 billion of planned infrastructure investment in 2012-2014 is down significantly from the $3.6 billion 2009-2011 budget, though it still accelerates work on neighbourhood street and sidewalk renewal and keeps moving on LRT.

We’ve been able to do more in recent years through borrowing (debt) and thanks to increased grants like the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI).

However, MSI was initially to be $1.4 billion annually province-wide, Edmonton’s rightful share of which would be close to $400 million per year, even under a disadvantageous funding formula. However, the most we’ve ever been allocated is $260 million.

Unfourtunately, because of the provincial deficit, the MSI program has been scaled back, with our share falling to around $180 million per year. The provincial government did promise to restore the funds in future years and make up the shortfall down the road.

The province did allow us to ‘fast track’ that money by borrowing against it, so we’re still spending $260 million on MSI-funded projects, on the hope that we’ll be paid back later. This is some of the City’s borrowing I’m more nervous about.

The 2009-2011 budget saw significant borrowing approved, mainly for new rec centres. In the budget before that, borrowing was authorized for the South LRT. Debt, as in these noted cases, makes sense (just like a mortgage) to pay for certain projects that are of city-wide impact, when rates are low, and while costs are down. And we’ve needed it to keep building the city.

There absolutely are limits to how much the city can borrow, but we’re still a way from those limits, even with the 2012-2014 borrowing.

However, new arena construction and related projects will take us closer to those debt limits.

Ultimately, debt capacity won’t always be available, and the conditions won’t always be right to use it. In the long term, building our infrastructure will require more ongoing cash from provincial and federal partners. The upcoming provincial election is a good time to ask candidates for their views on predictable and sustained infrastructure support for cities.

[Update Nov 23, 2012: The public hearing on the budget started today with a thorough presentation from city administration chock full of historical information about trends driving the operating budget. A pdf of the presentation can be accessed here.]

Distribution of an average home's monthly municipal property tax.

Yesterday Council received its first look at the proposed 2012 operating budget (full documentation available here). To achieve Council’s previous objective of 1.5% for neighbourhood reconstruction and 3% for, well, everything else, means some significant cuts that Council will weigh against substitute cuts and/or increases in revenues.

See how average monthly household expenditures in Edmonton compare to municipal property taxes. Click on image to enlarge.

One of the main things driving our costs is is our infrastructure agenda: e.g. borrowing for all the new things we’re building like Meadows and Clareview rec centres, and then the cost of operations that hit when these new facilities open up. Some of the other things are cost of labour, which continues to rise briskly in recession-proof Alberta, and things like diesel fuel costs, which are way up. I’ll be spending the next few days getting acquainted with the 450 pages of the budget but if you want a handy overview, start with the executive summary.

2012-2014 planned neighbourhood renewal work. Still significant but less than previously committed to. Click to enlarge.

One of the things this budget (together with its companion 3-year infrastructure budget) will test is our commitment to keeping up with renewal needs. Repair and replacement of existing infrastructure is substantially underfunded in the capital budget, and even neighbourhood renewal has been slowed down in the draft. I am hopeful that we can get neighbourhood renewal back on track and increase our investment in existing infrastructure. My position going into our last budget three years ago was we shouldn’t be building new infrastructure without a companion commitment to fix our existing infrastructure. We’re short there with this infrastructure budget but I am hopeful that can be addressed.

Over the last several weeks I’ve heard significant concerns from residents of the Greenfield neighbourhood about a Cell Phone tower proposed to be located on the northeast corner of the Greenfield Baptist Church site at 3712 – 114 Street.

Many of the issues are site-specific concerns or process concerns with the way this application and consultation process has unfolded.

More broadly, these residents do share many of the same overarching concerns expressed by citizens in Cllr. Diotte’s and Cllr. Leibovici’s areas arising from similar applications for cell phone towers in residential parts of their wards.

The three of us jointly submitted a formal inquiry through Council’s Executive Committee yesterday, the full text of which can be found here. 

The inquiry focuses on opportunities to improve the consultation process and more strongly deter site selection in residential areas. I believe improvements can be made both to the city’s existing “Policy for Siting Telecommunications Facilities” (Policy C471B, accessible here) and Industry Canada’s overarching process for dealing with these applications.

In fact, I think it’s imperative given cell phone proliferation in general coupled with more demand for data over cellular networks. Match that up with the fact that most of the low-impact tower sites are already used up and we’re going to see many more of these kinds of challenging applications in urban areas across Canada. Our end of the problem, in my view, is the City’s policy really isn’t geared to dealing with these new trends.

It’s important to understand, however, that while the City plays a role in the cell phone tower approval process, it does not make the final approval on location. The decision ultimately rests with Industry Canada. The City has the opportunity to issue a statement of concurrence or non-concurrence with the application, which Industry Canada considers when they make their final determination. As background, you may download a pdf of a City brochure with more details on the City’s role in this process here.

To be clear, I do not have control over this decision at the City (it rests with City administration per Policy C471B) but I do have some influence on the evaluation and I do hope that this proposal will receive non-concurrence from the City.

I should note that I have been receiving a lot of health-related concerns about telecommunications radio waves from similarly concerned Greenfield residents. I know feelings are very strong on this but the City will not take a position on the health questions. The City’s position, as I understand it, is that those questions are addressed by the Federal Government, specifically Health Canada which governs the relevant safety standards.

Finally, I want to give credit to the Greenfield Stewardship Committee that has taken up this matter with very strong organization. I understand they are planning a community meeting this Saturday morning (November 5) at the Greenfield Community Hall from 10am-12pm. Unfourtunately I cannot attend but have provided this blog post by way of written update to interested residents.

I welcome any comments below and will update this post when I have an ETA for the inquiry to come back before Executive Committee of Council.

[What follows below are my remarks from today's vote on the revised negotiated framework to design and build a downtown arena.]

I’m sold on what a new arena could do for our downtown and our city. But I also believe there’s a better deal to be had than the one before us. I think the responsible thing to do is continue to work toward improving the funding and financing terms.

Make no mistake: I believe in Edmonton and I believe in Downtown.

I believe in it so much that I spend a good portion of my time and disposable income here. And I do this because our Downtown is making great strides today.

The arena could well be a bonus, but I do worry that — after the rhetoric of this debate — history will one day be written as if the arena district single-handedly transformed downtown, rather than giving due to the many businesses, the patrons, and the residents of downtown, who are already here, building a better downtown today.

As I said, I do agree that an arena development could be positive for downtown: it’s why I had no objection to the zoning, and why I think a CRL to fund some of the connective infrastructure, and other catalyst projects, is appropriate.

I don’t think we’re that far from a deal I could support, but I have not yet seen a compelling argument specifically justifying the particular funding formula before us.

Normally, a deal negotiated in a competitive environment is constrained by each party knowing that they can walk away and do business with someone else. That’s more or less the functional definition of competition, and that would be a good footing for negotiation. This deal, in contrast, flows from our weak negotiating position, weakened by the fear of losing the team – a fear I think is irrational, and a bluff I might call – but it is a fear which nonetheless powerfully grips many Edmontonians.

Many of the arguments supporting the funding and financing are framed as if this deal were negotiated in a competitive context, but this isn’t the case. When there is no competition — and there is only one hockey team, and only one league —we really need a different kind of negotiation, with more transparent justifications.

Instead, most of the arguments offered yesterday, and throughout the debate, boil down to a leap of faith. All these arguments speak, often elegantly, to why a downtown arena might be a good idea, but not one of them provides sufficient justification for the funding and financing deal.

So what would a better justification look like?

One method of justifying this funding and financing deal would be to open up the Oilers’ business model and explain for all to see what exactly is required for the team to be sustainable in Edmonton. In other words, offer a real and transparent business case as justification. Instead we’ve simply been told, over and over again, that the Oilers won’t be sustainable without this deal. This remains an unsubstantiated claim, without hard evidence to support it.

Another, and I suspect more practical, course would be to offer justification by way of comparison.

Let’s start with the oft-mentioned Columbus, OH, which had no public money up front, just relief from property tax. Meanwhile, LA’s Staples Centre, the other revitalization case, had 17.6% public funding. Winnipeg’s MTS Centre has about 30% public funding in it. Even Glendale, AZ was only 42% up front public funding (at least to begin with).

The Pittsburg deal has also been invoked, and my understanding is it’s largely publicly financed, but not necessarily publicly funded. The Sports and Entertainment Authority (a State and City joint venture) is doing the borrowing through a bond issue — that’s the financing. The main sources of funding are an amusement tax, which is something like a 5% ticket tax, so let’s call it a user fee, [NB: it's applied to all amusement across the city, but mainly from Sports and Entertainment events — here are the details of the tax], payments from an associated casino license, and rent payments from the Penguins make up the balance. Other cost overruns were split among the parties.

In contrast – at this point our deal is 57% public funding if you include the land and infrastructure on top of the building, and 81% public financing. That will go to 100% public financing if we have to borrow against future provincial dollars to close the $100 million gap. So I will argue that this deal is out of line with the comparators. We should be working to bring it in line winch the comparators at the very least before approving it.

So what might a supportable deal look like?

It would require less public funding, perhaps offset by a higher city-administered ticket tax, and ideally we would see a return to the upfront $100 million payment from the Katz Group to reduce the public financing required. That could at least bring us in line with some of the comparators.

I’m also not wild about this $2 million/ marketing and sponsorship deal and don’t think we should commit to this as part of the deal without seeing exactly what we are supposed to get for it.

I want to thank Cllr. Caterina for the shrewd changes proposed today. Let’s continue to work toward the better deal that I still have to assume is out there. That doesn’t need to take years, I think it could be worked out pretty quickly in fact – it would be in everyone’s interest to do so.

However, if this is going ahead anyway, and if $450 million is going to buy us a ’damn good arena’, then we should make sure to build a 100 year building because nothing will anger me more in my old age than to see this debate play out again in my lifetime.

This stranded VW from last January is what we're trying to avoid. Notice the snow on the roof.

Last week Council debated several amendments to the already heavily revised Snow Policy. The revised policy as approved by Council is here.

There was significant debate about whether the City should be plowing residential roads down to bare pavement after every snowfall. In the end Council decided that we should aim for maintaining a 5cm snow pack through blading with truck plows to minimize windrows and increase the speed and efficiency of City response after snowfalls.

Council made a decision this past spring to add 20 more truck plows to the fleet for this winter to improve response times. The new policy sets a target of 5 days from end of snowfall for a full residential cycle of blading with the truck plows.

If the City falls behind or mother nature dumps a record snowfall and it’s not possible to achieve a 5cm snowpack with one round of blading then the City will trigger full plowing to bare pavement with plows and graders as occurred last winter.

The other big item of discussion was how to deal with parking along bus routes. Installation of signs indicating “Seasonal Parking Ban: Nov 15 – Mar 15″ was met with strong response from folks living along these roads, who thought a blanket ban was onerous.

In the end Council supported amendments to the Traffic Bylaw (see below) to shift away from Snow Routes which have to be declared, to a Seasonal Parking Ban which can be relaxed. Administration argued, and Council agreed, that many of the old Snow Route signs needed replacing, and so the replacement of these signs will continue this fall.

To be clear, the Seasonal Parking Ban is NOT intended to be a blanket ban as many initially feared. Rather, it can be ‘designated in effect’ when needed to facilitate plowing and windrow removal. The city will issue at least eight hours of notice that the Seasonal Parking Ban will come in effect, and will also announce when it’s no longer needed. Conventional media and social media will both be employed to carry these notices city-wide.

Cars remaining parked on these routes when the ban is in effect will be subject to towing. This is important to keeping our plows and windrow removal equipment moving efficiently.

One change Council made to the policy based on feedback about this Seasonal Ban is that alleys adjacent to streets subject to these parking restrictions will get priority attention to ensure residents are able to access on-site parking from the rear.

One thing is clear: whatever kind of winter we have, the policy and implementation will be reviewed again next year.

Bylaw 5590, the Traffic Bylaw, is amended by this bylaw. 2 Section 36 is repealed and replaced with the following:

SEASONAL PARKING BAN

36 (1)

A vehicle shall not be parked on a highway in any location identified as a seasonal parking ban route.

(2) This section only applies when the location identified as a seasonal parking ban route has been designated in effect by the City Manager.

(3) A vehicle parked on a highway in a location identified as a seasonal parking ban route must be removed from the location identified as a seasonal parking ban route within 8 hours of a seasonal parking route ban having been declared in effect.

3 Section 107(j) is amended by striking out “snow routes” and inserting “seasonal parking ban routes” after “truck routes, or”.

The offending new blanket parking ban signs.

Following up to last week’s post on the latest round of Snow Policy work, I can confirm that Council intervened and, as you may have read in the media, the blanket seasonal parking ban on bus routes has been suspended.

At the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee meeting on September 6, I proposed that all we need to do is re-define what we mean by Snow Route. Then we can continue to use the existing signage, rather than spend more money on new signs. (Although in newer areas signage for snow routes would need to be added along bus routes).

Snow Routes as currently defined in the Transportation Bylaw can be declared in effect after a snowfall, which then bans parking for 72 hours to facilitate snow removal. They haven’t been declared since 1994. Part of the challenge is that we really need cars out of the way when it starts snowing so we can get the plows through quickly and push windrows against the curb. It then can take several weeks to remove those windrows, so the parking restriction would need to remain in place until the windrows have been removed and then and only then would parking be restored.

Most of the feedback I’ve received understands this kind of tradeoff; people were really concerned about losing the parking for the whole winter, but I believe most can accept losing it for short periods to facilitate quicker and cost effective plowing and removal.

The other main concern I, and others, heard was that if those residents on Snow Routes were going to be forced to use their alleys for a period of time they should get some priority to ensure continued access to their on-site parking at the rear of their properties. Transportation Services agreed with that.

Others are opposed to losing parking at all but we all learned last year that it’s futile to manage snow around parked cars on busy roads.

Other cities made different (probably better) decisions and have wide boulevards where they can push that snow but regrettably Edmonton only has boulevards on about a third of our streets. I wish we could change that but all we can do now is push to have boulevards again on bus routes in new neighbourhoods being built, and perhaps make some retrofits over time, which the city is looking at.

The other parking change that was discussed, but somewhat overshadowed, was for narrow local roads (less than 8.8 metres). This will go ahead year-round for safety reasons, mainly to ensure access for emergency vehicles; however, this will only restrict parking to one side of the street. On-street parking will still be available for residents, it might just be across the street now. And yes there will be half as much, but this move is long overdue.

The other major discussion was about moving to bare pavement rather than a 5cm snow pack on local roads. This will mean bigger windrows, and perhaps a tradeoff that people will be responsible for clearing larger windrows from their own driveways. Discussion on this will continue at Council tomorrow, Sept 14.

Route map - click to enlarge.

[Update: Sept. 29, 2011: The City announced yesterday that the pilot will run in January of next year. It means the pilot will have a full university term to be evaulated, and gives more time for neighbourhood input into how the program will be evaluated - one of the major questions that came up in the Sept. 7 public meeting and survey feedback. I support the pilot proceeding however I do not see this type of service as the ultimate format for late night transit. My first comment to the press yesterday was that in my opinion proper late night transit should be the the core routes like the 1, 2, 4, 8, and 9 running later, not a service like this tailored around the hospitality industry. Nevertheless, I can support the pilot going ahead as it will help us understand some of the issues and opportunities of running transit later into the night, and will inform Council's eventual debate about what late-night transit should look like. Part of that debate will occur when the Late Night Transit Service Inquiry Cllr. Henderson and I submitted comes back to the Transportation Committee in November.]

At my request the City’s Responsible Hospitality Edmonton group held a public meeting last night on the Night Ride pilot originally slated to begin the first week of September.

I had intervened to postpone the project in light of the confusion and uncertainty about what was being proposed. This uncertainly led to fear on the part of the communities near Southgate, and the lack of consultation led to mistrust of the initiative, which I fully understand.

To be upfront, I support the general concept of late night transit, not just from hospitality zones but along key corridors in the city. This pilot could tell us some key things about actual demand and also how to deal with patrons at that time of night. However, if the pilot is a disaster in terms of negative impacts on adjacent residents, I will be the first person calling for its early termination.

I do believe last night’s meeting and the information now posted on-line have reassured some neighbours that many of their worst fears have been anticipated by the pilot’s designers. For example:

• It’s not an express bus to Southgate – people will be getting off along the route and the buses are expected to be three-quarters empty by the time they get to Southgate.
• Normal fares will apply – many people had reservations about it being a ‘free ride’.
• Riders will not be unattended at Southgate – there will be security at Southgate transit centre.
• The pedway from the transit centre across to the neighbourhood will not be open – it will not serve as a gangplank for strangers into the community to the west.

An FAQ is downloadable here as well with further details of what’s proposed.

I know that last night’s meeting didn’t convince everyone that this is a great idea. It wasn’t intended to. It was to hear concerns, take suggestions for how the pilot can be improved, and get community input on how it should be evaluated.

For those who were unable to attend the meeting there is also an on-line survey.

We heard that people are concerned that this pilot is just the thin edge of a wedge, and that the volumes of people could increase over time, so even if the impacts are minimized now they too will increase over time. We heard that the many residents would still like route to terminate elsewhere, and we heard that some would like it or loop back to Whyte somewhere further north and without a cab stand. We heard that some do not support running any form of late night transit under any circumstances.

We also heard from some who think that late night service is overdue in Edmonton and support a pilot to test the need and test what’s needed to make it safe and minimize impacts to neighbours. Representatives from the taxi industry also spoke in favour and suggested that the incentives are there for a good supply of cabs to keep people moving who need to travel further than Southgate.

So once the consultation feedback is in, and once any modifications are incorporated, my sense is that we should probably, with some provisos, give this a try. The provisos are based on what I heard last night and from earlier feedback:

1. Again, if the pilot is a disaster in terms of negative impacts on adjacent residents, I will be the first person calling for its early termination.
2. Just because Southgate is the terminus for the pilot, it doesn’t automatically mean that Southgate is the best place to terminate any future late night transit route that might be put in at some future date.
3. Most importantly, the neighbourhoods adjacent must be included much more meaningfully in evaluating the pilot than they were on the planning of the pilot.

Nobody wants a repeat of last winter’s road conditions, so Council and Transportation Services continue to work toward cost effective policy changes that will improve city response times after major snow storms. We have already purchased more equipment that will allow us to remove windrows faster and more plow trucks to service residential streets.

I’ve had a number of inquiries about the specifics of the proposed changes to the city’s Snow and Ice Control Policy. For those who wish to delve into all the details, the reports were released early and are available for download via the several links below.

The proposed new Snow and Ice Control Policy builds on the recommendations of the peer review and proposes increased service for residential streets after normal snowfalls, as well as new guidance for how to deal with ‘severe snowfalls’ and ‘snow emergencies.’

There are some recommendations about limiting parking to speed up snow removal – some of these the Transportation Department appears to be moving ahead with like seasonal elimination of parking along bus routes. I expect there will be discussion about whether this or a snow route ban around the snowfalls would be more appropriate. I am receiving a lot of concerns about the signs already going up.

There was also significant discussion about both citizens and the city’s obligations to clean sidewalks within 48 hours after a snowfall – this report speaks to that.

There are two other reports: one about the design of newer neigbourhoods and the extent to which they are more costly and difficult to serve; the other is about the capacity of our snow storage sites.

I’m happy to receive your feedback here or by email, or citizens can come to speak at the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee meeting September 6th at 9:30 am at City Hall where these reports will be debated.

I’ll provide another post after the debates.

[UPDATE - October 25, 2011: I guess the April framework wasn't Council's final offer. See here for the October 25 report outlining the post-New York changes to the agreement framework.]

Make no mistake, I’m not anti-arena as some have suggested, I’m just concerned about the public financial contribution that is called for to make it happen, which is why I couldn’t support yesterday’s motion at Council.

I did support the required zoning in January and have supported other parts of this process that would enable the concept to move ahead, where I felt the public interest was served. However, my preference has always been that this arena be funded privately by the Katz Group if they were to operate it.

The more we learn, the more it’s clear that they probably can’t afford to do it alone. But that doesn’t make it right.

So my message yesterday was this probably isn’t a bad deal under the circumstances, it’s just the circumstances I have a problem with.

On that point, I spoke yesterday about my concern that the NHL has a broken business model. Revenues (hockey and concert) that ought to support the arenas are gobbled up to support the costs of hockey. This is because the costs involved in running an NHL franchise have gotten out of hand and the revenues haven’t kept up in many markets. Ideally the league would better control these costs so that teams can be financially sustainable without needing public subsidies in the form of discounted or free rent in public buildings.

I realize this is unlikely, and I realize there’s no way to put effective pressure on the NHL to shift its business model to lower costs as long as other municipalities are prepared to offer subsidized public arenas and control of all revenues in those public buildings. That’s the market we’re competing in, but that doesn’t make it right.

I also believe, however, that the NHL will likely have to change its approach in the coming years to respond to these cost pressures to deal with some of the floundering franchises in the US, and I question the likelihood that mid-sized municipalities will be able to continue to build these facilities to accommodate the NHL amidst more pressing basic infrastructure demands and rising interest rates. We may be among the last round of cities to do this kind of deal before the NHL eventually cleans house, and that would be unfourtunate. Though only time will tell.

The good news is that the direct municipal funding has been whittled down a fair bit from prior rounds, and yesterday’s Council motion set a maximum of $125M — formed mainly by redirecting current city spending related to the existing arena plus some fees and savings connected to the new arena that would be used to borrow $105 million, and a smaller $20 million CRL.

The motion at Council did leave open the possibility of implementing a larger overall CRL to fund other projects envisioned in the Downtown Plan, and some of the other costs like land and off-site infrastructure, which are more properly public costs.

To clarify, the other main city role is to collect a ticket surcharge, which would be applied to service another $125 million in city debt on the project. This is the user-pay component, but the debt will be the city’s.

There’s still a $100 million gap in the funding formula, and I expect that this may yet get filled by public dollars from the province, which would take the total public contribution to the building itself to half, which will still seem high to many including myself.

The motion also sets a firm price of $450 million on the building cost, which is governing by round numbers but at least it’s a cap. However, cost overruns may yet occur and responsibility for those is still a bit up in the air, which is concerning.

My sense is that the funding parameters are more or less the final offer to the Katz Group.

We’ll see how they (and the province) respond.

The full text of the motion reads:

That Administration negotiate a financial framework for a downtown City-owned sports and entertainment facility with the Katz Group based on the following terms and conditions:
1.      Maximum Price – $450,000,000 to be set prior to any approval by Council of adequate price guarantees
2.      Confirmation of Katz Group commitment of $100M.
3.      User fee (Ticket Surcharge) to fund capital costs of $125M
4.      Evaluate options for a CRL(s): That administration revise and reframe projected CRL project(s) to support the City’s overall downtown plan with $20 million from the CRL to be directed to arena and the balance of proceeds used to support other priority downtown projects (Quarters, Jasper Avenue, Warehouse District) in conjunction with the overall downtown plan.
5.      a) Evaluation options for further support (potentially $105 million) to be paid for by either direct tax revenues from the arena, or savings from not having to pay current subsidy and parking revenue increase to the City
b) That the total of 4 and 5 in terms of the City’s direct contribution to the arena building would not exceed $125million
6.      City owns the arena and the land for any new facility.
7.      Agreement on fair market value of the arena property.
8.      An agreement is entered into with the Katz Group, with the Katz Group responsible for operating costs and generating necessary revenues for 30 years.
9.      Project cannot proceed until the balance of funds are confirmed.
10.     That Administration continues to work with Northlands to ensure the City understands their financial challenges and how these can be addressed.
11.     Location agreement whereby the necessary agreements are signed to ensure that the Edmonton Oilers operate out of the facility for 30 years.
12.     That the City retain the right to access to facility 4 weeks per year – uses to be determined by the City but may include allocation of uses to Northlands or other bodies, for example, the Canadian Finals Rodeo, Capital EX and other events the City deems of civic importance.
13.     City to negotiate options for potential revenue sharing.
14.     Investigate the opportunities for lottery through establishment of foundation, with proceeds directed towards community benefits in the new facility.
15.     That Administration provide a report on options for the naming rights.
Amendment (LS/SM) Carried
16.     That Administration negotiate the requirement for a Community Benefits Agreement associated with the above framework as part of any negotiated agreement.
Amendment (LS/JB) Carried
17.     That the final negotiated agreement be brought back to Council for ratification.