After reviewing documents, Here is a list of apparent omissions from LVEC cost estimates.

In summary:

• Sound barrier system
• Sidewalks
• Post-event traffic control
• Illumination
• Traffic management at garages/lots
• Winter road and sidewalk maintenance
• Provision for bicycles
• Public Transit
• Traffic monitoring and implementation of improvements
• City Hall administration

Read the whole thing.

Read it.

Now compare that with this 1 minute and 52 second clip taken from around the 23-minute mark of the recording of Councillor Vicki Schmolka, Queen's Professor Ken Wong, and KROC's Shadoe Davis (30 Min 25 sec).

Shadoe Davis never let Councillor Vicki Schmolka answer the question, neither did he press his frankly pretentious claim to personally raise millions of dollars (the equivalent of several full United Way campaigns), and it was professor Ken Wong who changed the subject.

But don't take it from KCAL. Read it and hear it for yourself.

What's telling is: Mr Davis apparently sees LVEC fundraising by the Downtown business, which includes KROCK, as an optional activity. Actually, the project has nearly always had a $2M fundraising REQUIREMENT, and that's before we discuss the money that needs raising to meet part of the ever increasing shortfalls.

It's pretty clear today that Downtown Kingston isn't going to do anything unless it's forced to. The question is, will council supinely concede the only taxpayer-protecting hammer it's ever going to get?

Here are links to the materials KROCK 105 FM had online for their "LVEC rally".

• MP3: LVEC DEBATE - Vicki Schmolka (Kingston City Council), Ken Wong (Queen's University, School of Business), and Shadoe Davis
• MP3: G talking with Rob Baker about the LVEC Debate
• MP3: Coach's (Tim Cunningham) LVEC Comment. It might be helpful to know that the transcript of this is available in Coach Cunningham's new blog.

We've preserved copies.

We encourage all KCAL readers to download and listen to these MP3 audio files. Share them with friends.

And you do want to listen to these now, especially the recording of Councillor Vicki Schmolka, Queen's Professor Ken Wong, and KROC's Shadoe Davis.

The recording with Rob Baker is good too.

Listen to what is said, the numbers thrown about, the rationales espoused, what the arena will supposedly deliver to our community, where it really stands amid priorities, and who would be paying for it.

Listen carefully. Listen twice.

Also, here is a link to the KROCK online petition on iPetitions.com. At last glance there are 1,953 signatures, not all of them unique, and not all of them in support. But that's not bad as LVEC petitions go, real signatures or not.

To put the KROCK petition into perspective, the Marine Museum collected some 1,100 names in just 4 days in January '07 with essentially zero media coverage. Today the Marine Museun petition effort stands at over 1,300 signatures, which tells you, and hopefully tells Council, where simple quiet dignified waterfront things like the Marine Museum stand relative to the LVEC in our collective civic heart.

We can all agree on this: Currently far more people have long been mobilized to try and inject some sanity to the LVEC project than there are people mobilized and raising real money in support of it. Which is curious because not even the $2M "Donations" ante, which is a long-known REQUIREMENT, is being raised yet, nevermind millions more to cover the escallating shortfall.

The kicker: Shadoe seems to think raising millions of dollars is optional. Is Downtown Kingston caught pantless? Ad space again bought in lieu of stepping up to overdue and growing responsibilities?

Downtown Kingston! We're "mailing it in" because, so far, we still can.

The Whig published several LVEC-related letters on Saturday, of which we've clipped two, both from project boosters.

Carl Holmberg apparently doesn't like the way this multi-million dollar boondoggle is now being publicly discussed by Council.

The second letter is from Dave Morris, who apparently witnessed a wow-invoking display of raw competence by city staff last Tuesday evening.

Do you think we could make this stuff up? Decide for yourself.

KCAL has talked of premature bookings before. Here are some of the problem that come with premature bookings:

• Premature bookings can lead to rushed construction and death-march project management and execution, meaning that everything is more rushed, prone to error, prone to overtime charges, all of which is invariably more expensive.
• Premature bookings can reduce the negotiating power of the City. Suppliers know the city has limited time to source and negotiate for this project's needs. Time is clearly of the essence, and the city just cannot walk away. That's usually a terrible place from which to bargain.
• Premature bookings greatly increases the relative power of both trades relative to the contractors that employ them, and of contractors relative to the general contractor, and of the general contractor relative to the city.

Would it be that premature bookings make a more expensive building start losing money sooner?

The KCAL website is understandably seeing sharply increased volumes due to recent LVEC-related activities, and also because of last night's City Council meeting in which KCAL had a 10-minute delegation presentation.

If you are a new visitor, then welcome!

Once you are done, see also K7Waterfront.org which is dedicated to celebrating and watchdogging Kingston's waterfront. "K7" was created after the misguided attempt by Mayor Harvey Rosen to clobber a vibrant 70-employee boatbuilder and marina to put his taxpayer-subsidized family-occupied OHL arena on our waterfront. That almost succeeded, partly because Kingston's water-lovers were, at the time, mostly disorganized and unable to respond cohesively. Hopefully that's changing.

It's notable that there is no correction in Today's whig for yesterdays article by Brock Harrison and Steve Ladurantaye that wildly understated current LVEC costs and misrepresented the state of OHL franchise movements as part of its overtly partisan pro-project coverage.

Would Harvey Rosen be Mayor today had Staff, presumably pro-Harvey partisan staff, not buried this document until recently?

We know this for sure: Most of Council, with the notable exception of Ed Smith as usual, is rightfully upset about this. Stay tuned.

Here's a Kingston Chamber of Commerce email that's been circulating today.

Is the venerable Kingston Chamber of Commerce insinuating that municipal reserves aren't taxpayer or commonwealth assets? See also other Chamber LVEC shenanegans.

--- LVEC Update from the Chamber of Commerce ---

Kingston City Council meets tonight; councilors will discuss a motion By Vicki Schmolka and Bill Glover to cancel the LVEC already under construction. The public meeting starts at 7:15 pm at Kingston City Hall.

The project is expected to run about $4.3 million over the original budget. However, taxpayers will not be footing the bill for the additional costs if the project goes ahead. $4.3 million can be raised through municipal reserves, through operational revenue once the centre is running, and this money can also be debentured over the life of the project.

Cancelling the centre will cost, conservatively, $13.4 million, plus the $17 million that has already been spent on the project, plus anticipated law suits against the City of Kingston for reneging on the project. Costs for a scrapped project could be from $25 to $60 million. Any penalties levied on the city for cancellation would be payable by the taxpayer immediately. These costs could not be debentured over the life of the LVEC, since there would be no LVEC. A 1% increase in Kingstonians' taxes would only yield $1.5 million.

If you own a $200,000 home, your taxes would rise 16.6% to cover a $25 million debt; to cover a $60 million debt, your property taxes would rise 40%.

Without a new sports and entertainment centre, Kingston will also lose its OHL team, the Frontenacs, the chance to host the Memorial Cup, and numerous other opportunities that benefit the community and its quality of life.

As of 11:00 am this morning, there were over 1095 signatures at the K-Rock petition to city council to save the Entertainment Centre. You can sign the petition, and read the comments made by other people by following this link. www.krock1057.ca/station_info/morning_show.jsp

Email addresses for city councilors are also available on the K-Rock site. Let your councilors know how you feel about cancelling the LVEC.

There are several LVEC-related stories (here, here, and here) in The Whig today, and most of them appear riddled with grievous errors that really serve to cloud and skew the issue. For example:

• The Whig says the project involves $23 million of debt. In fact, it's now $30 Million.
• The Whig presents this as a $4.3M increase. It's $10M since September 2005, and $20M since the project's inception in 2004, and the project is expanding at a rate of $500,000 per month, not counting all that is omitted. And this is only the beginning.
• The Whig says $3.5 million is to come from reserves. In fact, it's just shy of $10 Million.
• The Whig says Niagara tried and failed to attract the Mississauga Ice Dogs. In fact, Eugene Melnyk (Ice Dogs Owner) bought the team and is currently looking for a city. Niagara turned him down, and Melnyk is still searching.

Memo to The Whig: Do your homework, okay? You're an embarassment to yourselves, and to this city.

Councillor Bill Glover shares his thoughts about tonight's meeting on his website.

Doug Springer apparently believes the taxpayers of Kingston owe him.

Eugene Melnyk's Mississauga Ice Dogs are shopping for a new home, and they've been a far better team than Mr Springers' in four out of the past five years, logging 34 playoff games, compared to Kingston's 11 playoff games in the same 5-year period.

In all respects, we can do way better than what Mr Springer currently brings.

Here's the latest scuttlebutt:

• Tuesday's Council Agenda has three strong and unequivocal motions:
  1. Councillor MacLeod-Kane, seconded by Councillor Garrison, puts the smelly fish squarely on the table.
  2. Councillor Schmolka, seconded by Councillor Glover, to bring the hammer down.
  3. Councillor Glover, seconded by Councillor Schmolka, to tighten the screws on staff.
• Today The Whig Standard publishes three items:
  1. Motion seeks to kill arena by Jordan Press.
  2. A very solid article by Ian Elliot, 'Spend at the beginning, save at the end', and
  3. Editorial: Cost over-run was predictable which is, um, perplexing and quite misses the whole point of all of the above.
• Yesterday CKWS-TV had two different segments, both only on the LVEC, missing the heart of the story.
• As the project gets larger, the risk falls disproportionately on taxpayers and commonwealth, and nearly not on the sole direct beneficiaries of LVEC, a story told in charts yesterday. Click for larger versions.

  

• Earlier this week the City released all these documents, which are also attached to Tuesday's Council Agenda. All this was to be openly discussed at a budget meeting which, unfortunately, had to be cancelled because of snowy weather.
  • Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre Risk Management Budget Update
  • KPMG Report (Exhibit A)
  • Summary Table: Risk Management (Exhibit B)
  • Risk Management Plan (Exhibit C)
  • Budget Update (Exhibit D)
  • January Progress Report. (Exhibit E)
  • Project Schedules (Exhibit F)
  • Project Charter (Exhibit G)
  • Credentials of Consultants (Exhibit H)
  • Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre Financial Summary
  • Financing With Federal Grant Funding (Sched A)
  • Financing Without Federal Grant Funding. (Sched B)
  • Capital Costs Relating To The Downtown Action Plan (North Block Area) And Kingston Regional Sports And Entertainment Centre
  • Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre Downtown Action Plan (North Block Area) Capital Costs Analysis (Exhibit A)
• On Tuesday KCAL posted Finding scratch for LVEC, suggesting modest resets in project burn and burn rate, all of which appears to be well outside the current plan's capability to adapt.
• Other recommended reading, were all the above not enough:

  The sweetheart deal with the Kingston Frontenacs
  City of Kingston's statement of taxpayer immunity
  KPMG exposes City staff weaknesses
  Bogus artificial deadlines
  Inadequate contingency
  The accessibility disgrace
  Deceitful project accounting
  Project documentation
  The Downtown Kingston power network
  The shrinking Downtown Kingston BIA
  Don Gedge's firing kept secret for 2 months (!)
  A glance at government funding
  Sarnia: not pretty
  Sault Ste Marie - 5,000 seats, $25M
  

There, now you're up to speed.

Judge for yourself.

Some other aspects of LVEC financing that, though they appear to not vary much with project cost, are nonetheless telling:

Updated: Download the data

It looks like there may be questionable tallies in the documents titled KRSEC Cash Flow Continuity - With Federal Grant Funding $4.0M (Schedule A) and KRSEC Cash Flow Continuity - Without Federal Grant Funding -$4.0M (Schedule B).

In these documents, present-value amounts in excess of $200,000 per year are supposedly forthcoming from the BIA levy over 32 years, and KAP each year over 33 years.

Yet, in the deal the BIA cut for itself for the LVEC, we're reading present-value amounts closer to $80,000 per year for the first 10 years, then $140,000 (in 2017 dollars) for the years 10 to 30. The same generally applies to the KAP numbers -- the flows are nominally different -- but nowhere near $200,000 per year for 30 years.

It should be interesting to hear how these numbers end up reading like they do, with the clearly wonky 32 and 33 year terms, in the latest (and so far only) cash flow projections we've seen in the nearly three years since day one.

Can somebody please explain this? comments@kcal.ca.

There's a lot to digest, and there will be a lot more to say, but in sumary here's what's striking in reading so far:

• $4.3M is the shortfall currently being admitted to.
• The many downtown infrastructure upgrades are not included in this number.
• We have ANOTHER damning KPMG report on City project management.
• So far no sign anywhere of the name belonging to the Teflon Man, City CEO Glen Laubenstein. Two women, Cynthia Beach and Lanie Hurdle, appear to be set-up for to take the fall.
• Cutting fat is, in reading so far, not presented as an option.

In a word: the city is in way over its head.

The Project Schedules (Exhibit F) is actually not a Project Schedule, but rather it's Arcturus SMG's work plan. It's a great document, and Arcturus sends all sorts of signals of flexibility -- no fixed dates anywhere -- but it's not a Project Schedule. It's Arcturus' Project Schedule. One quibble: it's clearly labeled "FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY - SUBJECT TO CHANGE BASED ON ACTUAL CONDITIONS" and none of the materials sports a date nor a revision number. In other words, we're looking at a first-pass general template here.

The Risk Management Plan (Exhibit C) is atrocious. For one thing, it's a scanned image, so none of the text therein is selectable, nor searchable. When this project is officially investigated, this document won't be found by search methods. What's more, get this:

This says that, on a scale of 1-3, the risk of shortfall in fundraising and grants are as follows:
Likelihood (A): 2
Impact (B): 2
Risk Score: (C): A * B = 4
Control (D): 2
Residual Risk: C / D = 2

That's just dumb. Ridiculous. Who are they trying to kid? Moreover the control strategy they cite has mostly nothing to do with fundraising (donations) and grants.

All city projects in recent history suggest differently about "donations"
Likelihood (A): 3
Impact (B): 3
Risk Score: (C): A * B = 9
Control (D): 1
Residual Risk: C / D = 9

Really, heads should roll for the way LVEC risks have been overtly soft-pedalled and biased since day one.

Stay tuned. Last updated at 4:20 PM Feb 14th.

This diagram is from last September's IBI Transportation Study. That's *before* the current accessibility concerns, namely reserved bus and drop-off areas adjacent to the building, among others.

• User Pay
  • Additional ticket surcharges, including putting surcharges on the 300 tickets allocated to the Frontenacs that are currently surcharge-free for every OHL/CHL event for the next 30 years. Currently ticket surcharges for OHL games are planned at $1.50 per ticket, and $2.00 for other events. ; FYI, total attendance for all events is expected to be about 300,000 per year.

    Can you imagine a $2 surcharge on an $80 concert ticket? Who would be subsidizing whom, in this case?

  • Get way more from the luxury suites that supposedly attracted deposits like hotcakes.
• The Downtown Kingston BIA
  • Downtown Kingston's contribution is a paltry $85,000 per annum now and for the next few years.
  • Note: The BIA's "$3M" contribution is only so if you assume a discount rate at or below 4.57%. But the projects' debenture rate is 5.391%. Which makes the present value of the debt-supporting BIA LVEC Levy worth $340,672 less than the $3M credit commonly cited and officially tallied. That's a $340,672 shortfall, right there, before Downtown Kingston additionally steps forward for its fair share of this affair.
  • The BIA should be in for some extra millions right about now, because the BIA has a lot to answer for.
• The Kingston Frontenacs. ;
  • The agreement with the Frontenacs does not scale equitably with the cost of the project.
  • Currently the Frontenacs aren't due to pay any direct rent on the street-level retail store they are supposed to occupy for the next 30 years.
  • The Frontenacs 30-year complimentary luxury suite should be financed 100% by the Frontenacs. ; Moreover doing so should not, incidentally, be viewed as a "donation", which is a separate $2M figment of LVEC financing imagination.

    The agreement with the Frontenacs is outrageous. ; Read it.

• Cut or deferred features: For example:
  • Defer the installation of some, or all, the luxury suites. See Sault Ste-Marie.
  • Finance suite construction 100% privately.
  • At least cutback on the velour in the private suites.
  • The video scoreboard: plan to leapfrog current display technology, which is in flux and evolving rapidly. Bonus points if it is engineered and built it in Kingston. Install in, say, 2010.
  • Defer the flygrid, itemized since day one,
  • defer the construction of the Frontenacs' retail space, which they pay no direct rent on anyway,
  • defer the hall of fame,
  • defer the "cafe",
  • fewer finished, or more basic, concession stands,
  • accept living with lots of unfinished surfaces,
  • and so on.

  Since the outset there has been a fuzzily-guided LVEC "jewel" mentality, and that fat still hasn't been shed. The fat is just now being itemized, which is one reason why the project needs money.
   ;

• A delay in the opening date. The LVEC could be built over 18 or 24 months instead of 12 months. Consider this:
  • this reduces schedule pressure
  • no forced mad crush of downtown construction at the Causeway this summer, including the creation of an intersection at Ontario and Place D'Armes.
  • the interior can be built-out slowly,
    • with nobody tripping over anyone else,
    • with plenty of planning and oversight,
    • no panic,
    • with deals with suppliers negotiated over months, maybe several months, or years -- not like now, within weeks, with no exits, no possibility of walking away from anything. Ripe for the pickings.
    • and with an emphasis on using local labour, and local suppliers.
  • This time can be used to figure out
    • building accessibility,
    • the intersections and the real impact of the narrowed streets on event-day operational expenses.
    • the downtown sidewalk upgrades,
    • traffic flow, and the parking wayfinding story,
    • and the event-day traffic and transit control measures
    all given some thought before the opening.

  The building could open in July 2008 or 2009, and kinks worked out before a layer of sleet and snow is thrown into the whole situation. Bogus artificial deadlines are hurting this project, which is much larger in scope than anyone has been letting on.

More on the first of many LVEC cost overrun reports today in The Whig.

Take note: Today (February 12 2007) marks the first time our local daily, The Whig Standard, mentions the LVEC's inadequate contingency

CKWS-TV reports, wait for it, the first of surely many LVEC cost overruns.

KCAL asked the same thing on November 1, 2005.

Closely related: the Provincial Ministry of Health Promotion still doesn't publicly acknowledge its $4M LVEC association.

See for yourself:

A coincidence?

Maybe the Federal Government did due diligence (took a whiff, as it were) and, just like most Kingstonians, don't buy it. And why would they?

As for the "Ministry of Health Promotion" distancing? That could be damage control, for exactly the same reasons. Face it: the Downtown Kingston LVEC just doesn't pass the stink test.

The field is six: Kingston, Kitchener, London, Oshawa, Saginaw MI, and Sarnia.

Since the Memorial Cup is foremostly about bringing game, and (usually) the host city can expect a bye into the tournament, here's how they currently rank:

The the Memorial Cup is also about money. Here's how the six rank in terms of venue capacity:

Other factors:

• Three of the six cities have never hosted the Memorial Cup: Kingston, Sarnia, and Saginaw Michigan. Neither of these cities has ever qualified a contender for the Memorial Cup tournament.
• Oshawa has hosted the Memorial Cup just once, in 1987. Oshawa has qualified for the Memorial Cup tournament 11 times.
• Kitchener has hosted the Memorial Cup four times, most recently in 1984, and has participated in the tournament six times since 1923.
• London has hosted once in 2005, and doubtless makes a strong case to host it again.

One thing appears sure: Regardless of the winning bid city, the Kingston Frontenacs won't be playing in the tournament.

The selection committee is composed of:

• Paul Beeston, former CEO of major League Baseball,
• Frank Bonello, former Director of Central Scouting for the NHL,
• Brian O'Neill, Consultant for the NHL, and
• Jim Gregory, Senior V.P. of Hockey Operations for the NHL.

Today The Whig is running this LVEC article on the front page.

Read the whole thing.

The denial by Mayor Rosen and Cynthia Beach of deceitful project accounting and inadequate contingency is palpable.

David Branch, OHL Commissioner and the man who will eventually be announcing the Memorial Cup winning bid (the deadline for which, coincidentally, is today) has this to say about our spectacularly underachieving Kingston Frontenacs:

City of Kingston Staff, at the beheist of the Downtown Kingston power network, and without any public consultation whatsoever, has taxpayers engaged and on-the-hook in a 30-year sweetheart LVEC deal with this outfit.

There are two LVEC-related items on Tuesday's Council agenda.

• Naming Rights Guidelines for the Sports and Entertainment Centre and Multiplex.
• Kingston Regional Sports and Entertainment Centre Financial Summary - Interim Report which is a 5-page document that, incredibly, contains exactly nothing about LVEC financing, summary or otherwise.

In summary, in these two documents the residents of Kingston are being told to buy-in to the following things:

• Numerous upgrades to Downtown Kingston, most of them omitted from the project's budgets and financing, are required to make the building safely accessible to even healthy able adults, nevermind persons with disabilities.
• Parking lots up to 200m away will be upgraded for "barrier-free" access and, despite the distance, deemed "accessible".
• It will take 48 months (yes, 4 years) for some of these "upgrades", inadequate as they are, to be "feasible".

  (This smells like an odious attempt by staff to bury and defer costs that should be directly attributable to the LVEC as demanded by the current Council).

• The proposed lay-by and drop off locations for busses and Persons With Disabilities (PWD), nevermind everyone else, will further congest streets that are already to be significantly narrowed by the building. The narrowing of the LVEC's surrounding streets is omitted by the Kingston Regional Sports And Entertainment Centre transportation study even though this was clear from the design documents and models available at that time.
• Apparently, "The committee will provide direction to staff at a special meeting....Feb 9". There are no alternatives. There are no choices. What possible direction could be given? It's all a fait accompli now. To think that elderly ladies/men, and persons with disabilities, are to amble from across the street, up to a corner, wait for a light, then cross, then amble down the block to the door, all without the driver who brought them, is absolutely amazing.

To think that the City of Kingston not only accepted, but actively "pushed" an arena design that did not accommodate persons with disabilities, in 2006, is an absolute disgrace. Especially considering that this arena project (this "done deal" pushed by narrow Downtown interests) should be viewed as a 30-50 year proposition.

Concerns about accessibility for the Anglin Bay site date back to May 2005, and the North Block site is evidently worse in almost all respects.

The North Block Transportation Study claims 5% of patrons will be "dropped off" even though the data collected by a prior consultant at a Kingston OHL event suggests an 11% drop off rate. Regardless of the proportion of drop-offs, Bruce Todd wrote this in May 2005:

...We are told that 11% of the mode share of attendees would be dropped of and picked up after an event. This percentage was determined by the consultant from information gathered at the Memorial Centre site during an OHL game night.

Eleven percent of 5000 means that 526 people will arrive in 292 cars to be dropped off. After an event 292 cars will be trying to access the site against 5000 pedestrians and vehicles trying to leave the site. Where will these 292 cars stack up to await their passengers? THIS IS A MAJOR TRAFFIC CONCERN AND PLANNING COMMITTEE SHOULD HAVE A CLEAR ANSWER BEFORE ACCEPTING THIS REPORT (Ed: the Anglin Bay site traffic report, it should be noted, as flawed as it was, was deemed usable for the North Block site by those responsible for the LVEC).

292 cars represents a single line of cars about twenty blocks long. It would be almost equivalent to the entire contents of the Anglin Lot (182) and the OHIP Lot (about 160, allowing for reserved spaces, if they let us use it) sitting out on the street somewhere.

I cannot think of a reasonable place to stack up these 292 vehicles along any of the adjacent streets.

Just in time for the 2008 Memorial Cup bid deadline, which is Monday, February 5th.

Yesterday CKWS-TV reported that Kingston's major projects are not benefiting local labour.

WITH ALL THE NEW PROJECTS UNDERWAY IN KINGSTON -- FROM THE POLICE STATION TO THE LVEC -- YOU'D THINK THERE'D BE PLENTY OF JOBS UP FOR GRABS IN THE LOCAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY.

NOT SO -- ACCORDING TO LABOUR GROUPS.

Yeah. When we build it, construction workers will come. From out of town.