Your opinion piece in response to the Mayor's column and a recent opinion poll on the subject was welcome. Yet, the issues confronting the arena project are more straight-forward than trying to decipher what a Delphic oracle may have said.
The dilemma that continues to confront many Westmounters and, should certainly, the City Council is whether the majority of residents support two professional hockey rinks to be buried underground together with a large parking space and one outdoor pool. The project continues to raise deep and legitimate concerns about traffic, pollution, safety, etc., and its impact on the peace and serenity of Westmount Park and the immediate residential neighbourhood. People worry also about a further build-up in debt and rising taxes.
The Mayor in his preface to the April survey stated that the "Council would like to proceed with this project, but only if a majority of tax payers is behind it."
The recent informal survey by two Westmount residents - Bossen and Hooja -suggests that 67 percent of Westmounters are either opposed to the project or undecided. This puts the Mayor's claim of 83 percent support for the project in serious doubt. The largest group of residents, the undecided, as the authors of the survey point out were "effectively disenfranchised" by an incomplete poll in April.
Indeed, there is much to question about the April survey. Just look at the basic question itself : "Are you generally in favour of the City proceeding with the Arena/pool project as described in this mailing ?"
One might as well ask if you are "generally" in favour of motherhood !
Moreover, we need not any more debate Westmount's ability to secure grants with a scaled-down project - despite a full page of contrary arguments on page 6 of the April information circular. The protocole d'entente and the Mayor when questioned about it at the recent Council meeting settled that issue once and for all. Westmount would not lose all the grants if it scaled back the project. Grants would decline on a pro-rata basis with respect to any reduction in "admissible" expenses, and not at all, for example, if additional underground parking was eliminated altogether. Indeed, the tax payer would benefit as the amount of debt required for the project would decline.
The dilemma that continues to confront many Westmounters and, should certainly, the City Council is whether the majority of residents support two professional hockey rinks to be buried underground together with a large parking space and one outdoor pool. -
To put further pressure for a "generally" yes answer to the survey question, the April information package on page 8 states : "If we don't formally accept the infrastructure grants soon, we will lose them. And we need to get a shovel in the ground pretty quickly for another reason: both interest rates and construction costs are for the moment low. With the economy turning around and the possibility of two superhospitals being built in Montreal, construction costs will soon rise rapidly - as will interest rates".
This is nothing less than scare-mongering, plain and simple.
The Council should remember that Westmount is a wonderful, inter-generational community. There are many of us who aspire to stay fit by active participation in a variety of sports - others by bicycling or taking a walk or doing tai-chi or by simply sitting quietly in the park. Let us not risk spoiling all this. Indeed, there is still time to address the legitimate interests and concerns of all people of Westmount instead of being transfixed by the size of government grants.
Fred Girvan, Victoria Avenue
Carol Pass, de Maisonneuve Blvd.
