Just The Facts, Mayor, On The Arena: THE VOTER

I’m fascinated by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s claim that LeBreton isn’t “downtown” as well as his suggestion that, somewhere within what he sees as “downtown”, there is an available space that would accommodate an arena.

I think if he talks to some of his constituents in Navan, Fitzroy or Marvelville and asks them if they see LeBreton as downtown, he might be surprised at their answers. There are certainly a couple of former Marvelville residents who could give him some information on both the location of downtown Ottawa and about NHL arenas. Larry and Moe, the brothers Robinson, grew up there and learned to skate on the local ponds before going off to larger ice pads.

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There is, of course, a large, open piece of land on Wellington Street immediately in front of the Parliament Buildings that would perhaps hold a rink but I doubt it’s available. I also don’t think it would accommodate a full-blown NHL arena.

He does refer to federal government buildings that are being put up for sale. Maybe he thinks he can renovate Esplanade Laurier, hollow it out and insert an arena in its lower floors. It would need to be a very small arena and unlikely to satisfy the Ottawa Senators.

Maybe he’s thinking of solving some of the problems at the Laurier Bunker by demolishing Ottawa City Hall and moving its operations elsewhere so he can put the arena in the Laurier/Lisgar space. He might have been out on the Sens Rink of Dreams and, as he was skating around and around in circles, got to thinking that the Sens could just expand their existing rink there – problem solved. The sad truth, though, is that it would take a lot more than relocating city hall to cure its problems.

Seriously though, if Sutcliffe has a better idea than Kanata, LeBreton or Bayview, he should stop playing cutesy and tell us what he’s talking about. The clock has been ticking for some time on the talk of relocating the Sens and is likely to ramp up with the sale of the team and its arena. Prospective and new Senators owner Michael Andlauer didn’t get where he is by dithering on important business decisions and is unlikely to want to play guessing games with Sutcliffe on possible arena locations.

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Last questions: If Sutcliffe knows of an ideal arena location, why has he waited until this late date to start talking about it? When did he change his mind on Bayview? And when did he discover that Bayview isn’t within his definition of “downtown”? It’s actually further from the centre of the city than LeBreton is.

Your Worship, you have some ‘splainin to do.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

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