Lakeside Resort and Casino

twobits
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by twobits »

smoky500 wrote:I guess not so original, I see by Jake Kimberly's letter to the editor he had the same thought!


It's easy for anyone to posture when they have no skin in the game. Personally, I think his suggestion about the convention center while sounding plausible on the surface is fraught with many Issues. The fact that the building itself is getting rather long in the tooth and essentially a rectangular box with zero view to the outside besides the lobby for the most part would make design and renovations to meet their planned vision of expanding into food and entertainment every bit or more expensive than building a new structure from the foundation up.
Besides that, the square footage removed from the convention center for the Casino requirements would reduce the area for conventions and thus size that could be hosted in an already difficult market. Without a solid plan to repurpose the entire building, the City would just be slitting it's own throat.
The only thing that Kimberly said that made any kind of plausible sense was purchasing the El Rancho property and leasing a portion of that to the Casino to cover the mortgage. It would leave a large enough chunk of land to market for a Hotel across the street from the Convention Center. That would be a savvy business move that would add to the City's assets, increase property tax revenues, and provide for a significant revenue stream for many decades after debt retirement.
Unfortunately, savvy has been devoid in Council Chambers of late. They seem rather preoccupied with the "fun stuff" like water slides and blinking lights over main st downtown.
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pentona
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by pentona »

twobits wrote:It's easy for anyone to posture when they have no skin in the game. Personally, I think his suggestion about the convention center while sounding plausible on the surface is fraught with many Issues. The fact that the building itself is getting rather long in the tooth and essentially a rectangular box with zero view to the outside besides the lobby for the most part would make design and renovations to meet their planned vision of expanding into food and entertainment every bit or more expensive than building a new structure from the foundation up.
Besides that, the square footage removed from the convention center for the Casino requirements would reduce the area for conventions and thus size that could be hosted in an already difficult market. Without a solid plan to repurpose the entire building, the City would just be slitting it's own throat.
The only thing that Kimberly said that made any kind of plausible sense was purchasing the El Rancho property and leasing a portion of that to the Casino to cover the mortgage. It would leave a large enough chunk of land to market for a Hotel across the street from the Convention Center. That would be a savvy business move that would add to the City's assets, increase property tax revenues, and provide for a significant revenue stream for many decades after debt retirement.
Unfortunately, savvy has been devoid in Council Chambers of late. They seem rather preoccupied with the "fun stuff" like water slides and blinking lights over main st downtown.


What about Jake's point that the city subsidizes the Convention Centre to the tune of 1 million per year? If it can't stand on it own and make money why bother keeping it? Let Prystay take the convention business. I thought you were against a city competing against private enterprises?
twobits
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by twobits »

pentona wrote:
What about Jake's point that the city subsidizes the Convention Centre to the tune of 1 million per year? If it can't stand on it own and make money why bother keeping it? Let Prystay take the convention business. I thought you were against a city competing against private enterprises?


Jakes point is wrong. He often falls back on poetic licence. The City subsidy for the "SOEC" bundle includes the SOEC building, Memorial Arena, and the Convention Center. The total deficit (subsidy) last fiscal year was just under 1.2 million for all three facilities. The SOEC itself was 800k and the remaining was attributable to the Convention Center and Memorial Arena. From memory, I think the actual subsidy to the Convention Center was around 200k. Not 1 mill as Jake would have you believe.

So as far as subsidies go, what would you get rid of first to save 200K......the Convention Center or Memorial Arena that needs 6 million to repair. If you really want to save on subsidies, you should lobby for the pool to be shut down. It cost us 1.2 million and brings zero business to town. Then H2O could open a center here and charge the actual 10 or 12 bucks it costs to go for a swim.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

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Dawnland
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Dawnland »

Stay tuned for tomorrow's edition for more of the story.

http://www.pentictonherald.ca/news/arti ... a4fb0.html
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Rosemary1
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Rosemary1 »

Actually why would pib bother. The City in spirit of 'partnership' has since offered them 10% of annual profits from casino because some day in the future there may be some businesses across the now infamous bridge that may conrtribute to the City's economy . Nice 'partnership'.
twobits
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by twobits »

Dawnland wrote:Stay tuned for tomorrow's edition for more of the story.

http://www.pentictonherald.ca/news/arti ... a4fb0.html



Ya, we'll all wait with baited breath for this mini series to unfold. Right out of the gate it looks like the City chose to keep taxpayers in the dark like mushrooms just as they did with Skaha Park. Definite MO developing with this Administration. What's even more disturbing to me was the City essentially being threatened with lawsuits by the PIB. It borders on being ransomed actually. And for what? More claimed traditional territory even though it is well within very well and long established City lands. And well outside very well and long established reserve lands.
Casino funds seem to have brought out the true meaning of "spirit of co-operation". Since not a word was heard from the PIB when the Info center was built on these lands it is puzzling why the lands are now such a hotbed area of artifacts. The PIB has also determined what the price is for these artifacts. If they get 10% of revenue, they are not so important anymore.
We'll have to wait and see what the rest of the Herald mini series brings to light about what happened behind closed doors.
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Rosemary1
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Rosemary1 »

Very interesting new development. Speechless but not surprised.
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Rosemary1
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Rosemary1 »

As per part 2 in Herald, according to PIB lawyer Jeanie Lanine, Nov 19/2015 letter "In 1997 as now, the band was actively seeking ways to improve conditions on reserve through economic development...The casino was viewed as a very significant opportunity that could alleviate some of the extreme poverty of the community"

Find it hard to understand why the community is allegedly "suffering from extreme povertyl

Looking at data from the AANC site
- PIB Band Registered pop. in 2016 is 1059 with a little over 400 of those off reserve
-Last available audited annual report in 2012/2013 alone, the annual Federal Transfer Payment was 9 million. ( I believe it was around $11m last year) . That does not include any own source, provincial or any other municipal fund in whatever form.

-Unknown is amount of own source funds from any business, lease payments (e.g. Red Wing, recently skaha hills letc., own reserve tax collection etc)
- As well, PIB reserve covers about 47.6 thousand acres.
Static
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Static »

The PIB can create their own businesses.
pentona
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by pentona »

Rosemary1 wrote:Actually why would pib bother. The City in spirit of 'partnership' has since offered them 10% of annual profits from casino because some day in the future there may be some businesses across the now infamous bridge that may conrtribute to the City's economy . Nice 'partnership'.


Although the city would miss the tax revenues, I personally think that the land across from the "Bridge to Nowhere" would have made a far better site for the Casino. The city could still benefit from it (perhaps the Natives would offer a 50/50 split if the city let it go).

It would then be a perfect spot to put the highly UN-popular Water slide and other businesses that might jump on board. Too late now but that's what I would have liked to have seen occur.

I recall a few months back that a major tenant on those locatee lands was going to be announced within a month. What happened to that?
Static
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by Static »

pentona wrote:Although the city would miss the tax revenues, I personally think that the land across from the "Bridge to Nowhere" would have made a far better site for the Casino. The city could still benefit from it (perhaps the Natives would offer a 50/50 split if the city let it go).

It would then be a perfect spot to put the highly UN-popular Water slide and other businesses that might jump on board. Too late now but that's what I would have liked to have seen occur.


Great idea. Makes perfect sense.
twobits
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Re: Lakeside Resort and Casino

Post by twobits »

pentona wrote:

Although the city would miss the tax revenues, I personally think that the land across from the "Bridge to Nowhere" would have made a far better site for the Casino. The city could still benefit from it (perhaps the Natives would offer a 50/50 split if the city let it go).



Perhaps you should think like the owners of the Casino did. Would you rather locate in a well developed area next to a Convention Center and a major recreation/concert facility or be the first "anchor" tenant on an out of the way unserviced chunk of land with no way of knowing when or what box store might be your neighbor. With the way commercial real estate is going these days, the Casino on those PIB lands could find themselves in the center of an industrial park that would do squat to compliment their business model.
That is why the Casino paid the 750k ransom to make the PIB go away. You would too if it was your skin in the game.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
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