Logic Trip concerning a caller about the Civic Arena

He said he worked for 31 years at the Civic Arena. He said he loves hockey.

The City and County has been acting like a slum landlord in its handling of the Arena in recent years.

So, he feels it makes sense to tear down the arena and build a new one.

Hold the phone, pal.

If the arena has not been managed well, who is to blame? Is that the Stadium and Exibition Authority? Is that the city and county? Is that the managers of the civic arena? Who manages the arena now?

If the arena was run down -- do you think the poor treatment should be rewarded? Run things down and trash things -- then it gets an upgrade??? That's churn. That's not healthy.

The city starved many things in the past. They city starved Fifth & Forbes district without washing the streets, without fixing sidewalks, without allowing for facade fix-up funds to building owners -- as provided to all the other sections of the city.

And if the city and county is a slum landlord, whey not fix this concept. Let's make sure that the new arena is owned and operated by another entity other than the public. The public agency has proven to be a slum landlord then we don't want to allow that to continue. Don't build a new arena and put it into the hands of these slum landlords. Put the new venue into the hands of those who are going to care. Put the team in an ownership role, not the city.

A big downfall of the IOC plan was the building of the facility with the windfall of the cheap slots license and then the giving of the facility to the public agency.