Matt Stickland

I'm starting to suspect that the city's learned helplessness (dependency on other levels of government for funding) is about to start fucking with us in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.

in case you've never seen it, this is Roger Ebert on The Mummy

Left handed note writing

Yeah I'm gonna pretend council is actually happening tomorrow and use this beautiful weather to take the long way home and hit 5000km on the bike today.

I may fuck off instead of covering this council meeting in person

We have a budget

Is there any consideration to extending it to create a second egress?

Staff: I don't think so, but I can take a look after this?

Nope, Young's got a question about Rockcliff Cresent.

Final budget vote?

She did not get a second and can't speak to it. RIP.

Hinch is putting forward a motion for Needham? I think? Her mic is off.

Vote time, ties, and fails. Fillmore loses again. This time in public.

Purdy, so, we gotta punch ourselves in the dick for a chance of private investment? This is a risk? This is a risk!

I still don't know what to do tho.

Cleary is up, we doing transperncy? Show me the money! If you have an idea that this is going to be cheaper show me the numbers.

"trust me, it'll be cheaper, trust me, it'll be cheaper. Show me the numbers and I'll vote with you right now" "this is a pipe dream"

Fillmore, presenting no details of his plan: This is why we need transparency. Moving ahead on the forum is basically the sunk cost fallacy, we should walk away from the Forum redevelopment.

Fillmore is back, closing, again, for realsies this time?

Hinch, we don't need to defer to have these discussions that the mayor wants to have.

Oh man, Fillmore's arguments really are the greatest hits of the past 14 years of Forum debates. If he wins this motion I suspect Halifax continues to lose money on the forum forever.

Fillmore's still going like he's closing but Hinch is on the list, so this will be fun.

*awkwardly puts on lawyer wig*

Objection!

The municipality actually does have to turn a profit. We can call it a surplus if we want, but that surplus aboce opex is where our capital projects come from.

We aren't and shouldn't seek to maximize profits, but we do need a surplus.

I'm getting lost in all of these red herrings that Fillmore is throwing up.

Finishing the design is $14 million cheaper than deferring. Building the Forum will cost about $75 million. Now Fillmore's talking like he just did a slam dunk, but, uh...

Fillmore is not going in-camera to share details on his plan. (Suggesting he does not have details to share) He's asking staff questions about how his deferral motion will increase the tax bill.

Austin: What is 16 million on the tax bill?

Staff: about 2%

Austin: Has anyone (staff) gotten anything from anyone (developers) on the Forum?

Staff: Some discussions that did not move beyond discussions

Austin: Yo, Fillmore, go incamera and give us details on this $16 million budget hole

Morse: I object to [Fillmore] calling our residents shareholders. We are not a for profit company.

Purdy: Wait, I thought we could look a new plan without deferring?

Staff: I mean... we could look at options while we were finalizing the council approved design process.

Morse is back on the list RIP Fillmore's closing.

Fillmore is saying the private sector will build the forum which will tax it off the tax bill (CITATION NEEDED)

Fillmore is saying that there's been so much development that people want to develop the forum now (not us tho)

Fillmore is up and closing. He's re-hashing talking points from the scrum. We are in a chicken and egg scenario. We can't look at options unless we defer, council doesn't want to defer because they committed to an option. So the egg has been laid so going back to the chicken will be... challenging

St-Amand: is private sector a realistic option

Staff: can't say really

St-Amand is up, how many resources can y'all commit to looking at other options if we don't defer but also want to look at other options?

Staff: Looking at options would span a lot of business groups and that is not in our work plan. So we don't have resources to look at options, really.