There were two interesting LVEC-related stories in last Saturday's Whig Standard (January 28 2006). Paul Schliesmann's editorial titled Arena debate shut down and an unattributed piece on page 12 titled Selling our children - and other council antics.

The Whig today reports on Councillor Downe's referendum motion. A council closure motion means that they didn't even debate the matter, and it was defeated 9-4. Read the whole thing.

CKWS-TV reports on the Chamber of Commerce breakfast on Wednesday January 24, 2006, featuring Mayor Rosen and city businessmen pitching the LVEC to our Liberal MP Peter Milliken and to our Liberal MPP John Gerretsen. The proceedings didn't go according to plan.

The LVEC home page on the City's website has finally been stripped of its dated and misleading Anglin Bay material. Those materials are now more properly found in a new Anglin Bay Document Archives section.

The agenda for Tuesday night's Council meeting has finally been posted. Councillor Downes' LVEC referendum motion is on page 50.

Today the Whig Standard published this story about how the list of private firms that want to design and build the LVEC has shrunk from 10 to 4. There's no mention of who the four firms are.

The article alludes to the reawakening of the LVEC's somnolent and ineffectual steering committee, and eventually another round of public input, which we all hope will be above the window-dressing level of last April's public input sideshow.

Here's what Google tells us about the show -- There's really only one source for info on the show, it's not COGECO, but the City itself, and the city's schedule is a month out of date.

Where is the average person in Kingston who watches television supposed to get their Multiplex and LVEC information?

For those who, like us, are on the Internet, the City's LVEC strategy page is woefully out of date, and mentions the word "debt" exactlty zero times, and the word "tax" twice, both times in the context of the LVEC "creating new jobs, incomes and tax revenues" even though history everywhere teaches us that LVECs do the opposite.

Dubious and otherwise incorrect, dated, or irrelevent information occupies well over 50% of the area of the city's LVEC home page.

the KEDCO person who's ultimately responsible for the project-anchoring claim that each LVEC ticket sold will generate $73 in economic benefits¹ recently quit.

The last LVEC Steering Committee meeting was on July 5th. A mere 28 weeks ago.

Spot the pattern?

The Whig reports on a recent meeting between local Federal election candidates and the Whig's editorial board. By and large the candidates don't seem impressed with the process behind Mayor Rosen's LVEC plan. Read the whole thing.

Though there is no specific mention of the LVEC, apparently Paul Martin has $350 million for "community centres and sports facilities" as reported in this Whig story today.

We've started a new tally of Whig LVEC referendum letters. These are letters related to Councillor Downes' referendum motion which will be debated at the January 24th Council meeting.

At the moment the letters are running 11 to 4 in favour of the referendum motion, a proportion that, so far, closely mirrors the overall level of public discontent with the project.

Also: we're only counting letters since early December 2005 when the Whig first reported that Councillor Downes was considering a referendum motion. Since April 2004 when the LVEC project was first announced there have been dozens of other letters from Whig readers alluding to a referendum or a plebescite on the matter.

Since our last update on September 17 2005, nearly four months ago, The Whig has published 47 new letters to the Editor about the LVEC, 33 of which are from authors whose views we haven't tallied before. Of these 33 new authors, nine appear to support the LVEC, 22 are against, and two letters could not be interpreted either way.

Despite the change in the proposed location from Anglin Bay to the North Block, the most recent letters, like all letters tallied since the April 2004 LVEC announcement, continue to run at better than 2:1 against. It's notable that a significant if not large proportion of the 75 letters supportive of the LVEC come from BIA members or members of their immediate families.

There can be no pretense that the LVEC project is supported by a "silent majority" of Kingstonians as suggested by Carl Holmberg and Bill Crowe. If they have any evidence of this, we'd sure love to see it.

It's notable thet the so-called Friends of the Entertainment Centre haven't updated their website in months, continue to collect "signatures" for an LVEC on Anglin Bay and a surprising proportion of their 800+ members are minor children.

Given that crucial federal and provincial funding looks dodgy, then referendum question or not, the next municipal election will be about the Mayor and some councillor's handling of the LVEC file, which could turn into a real backlash against the influence of the BIA in city matters since the BIA has clearly overplayed its hand in this matter.

It's also notable that ALL the Whig letters supportive of the LVEC since early December, when Councillor Rick Downes indicated he might call for a referendum, have been critical of a referendum, and seething with personal criticism of Mr Downes. Despite clear pretenses otherwise, LVEC supporters know that the project, as conceived and rammed-through with the BIA as sole beneficiary, has no chance at the ballot box.

Finally Kingston's mainstream media has reported on the startling information about consultant Ron Bidulka and Guelph which we first documented back in September 2005.

Here is the text of Councillor Downes' Notice of Motion on the LVEC referendum that will be presented at the January 10th Council meeting. The actual motion will be discussed by Council at the January 24th Council meeting, after the federal election.

The text of Mayor Rosen's Rotary Club speech is posted by the city. Therein he mentions the LVEC several times.