Quote:
Originally Posted by canucklehead2
I tend to give the general public a bit more credit than that and frankly I find your attitudes anti-democratic... These so-called "ignorant voters" are also the ones who put these people on council, so...
With a decision as big as the closing of Canada's oldest airport and potentially selling the land to private interests, it seems to me that the "ignorant" public should be able to have a direct and final say on the matter...
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You honestly think Joe Public is going to actually research the pros and cons or keeping it open or closing it down? You honestly think people will read through the hundreds of pages of reports to make an informed and intelligent decision? I don't think so, they will watch the news and see poor old Cal crying about how it is the only way to link the north. Guess what, I am very thankful that City council finally decided to close that 536 acres of wasteland.
Here are a few facts:
- $900,000 is the amount of money earned in property and business taxes per year for the city from ECCA. This equates to $1679 per acre. In order to break even, you would need 500 houses placed on this land. I am pretty sure we won't be putting 500 acreages on it.
- For the 4 main destinations of the ECCA (Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, High Level and Peace River), 17,578 passengers out of 65,520 allowable seats were used. If this is such an important airport, why are there only 27% loads on each plane, shouldn't they be full? In perspective, EIA handled 778,000 landed seats from the North.
- 41% of ECCA flights start and end from the ECCA without landing at another airport with 27% of ECCA flights being charters to the North and 3 % scheduled air service. In total, 73% of the flights at the ECCA are not going to or from the North.
Sorry but this land will be used for 25,000+ people, expansion for NAIT/NLRT, improvements to Yellowhead Trail, etc and will benefit all of us. Once full built, it will provide $20 million+ per year just in residential property taxes!! Please tell me what business in their right mind would waste 536 acres of land to only get $900,000 in return and be used by a minute amount of the city's population? Answer is no one would, this decision will benefit exponentially more people and am glad the city council had the intelligence and courage to do it.