Moose Jaw Forum

Nearly 33,000 track users, over 2000 hours of turf rentals for the year at the fieldhouse and in the 110 days of operation at Moasic Place, 165 different events were hosted. 2011 was a positive year for the two newest facilities in Moose Jaw. Both showing growth and drawing more people than first thought.

General Manager Scott Clark presented his budget to City Council this week and was asking for less money than they did last year. Their budget is down by 20% but will there come a time when there is no need for a subsidy?

"That's the goal." responded Clark following his presentation to councillors Monday night. "Is it possible and can you get there? That's a tough one. These are community buildings and they don't normally get to a (100%) recovery rate. They are there as a service to the community but we are on the right track and it's something that we want to try to accomplish here."

In 2011, the city gave the facilities a $1.2 million budget and for 2012, the board is requesting $976,000 dollars.

SOURCE - http://www.discovermoosejaw.com/index.p ... Itemid=681

So all of these numbers sound great on paper, perhaps it is time we put them all into greater perspective.

First off we have the figures of 33,000 track users at the Field House.
So lets break that down into average usership over the entire year.
If we take that 33,000 and divide it by 365 days it averages out to only 90.41 users each day.
I am all for giving the Fieldhouse the benefit of the doubt on this one and move the majority of users into a six month period which would be 90.41 users or 180.82 users per day of the track on a daily basis if everyone just used it in the six month seasonally busy period.

What these figures do tell me and Doc and others have conceded to it in the past is that the walking track is used by about 200 people - mostly seniors - on a daily basis.
So is the glass half empty or is it half full????

The big question is, was it worth the millions spent on it to allow less than 200 people a day - on average - to go for a walk in comfort???

When it comes to the playing fields Clark says that they rented over 2,000 hours of turf time.
Now lets break this down into what is offered at the Field House.
The turf is not one homogenous unit but most often it is divided into quarter fields.
I will take the same sixth month window 183 days or about 27 weeks.
Going off of the Field House's hours of operations http://www.moosejaw.ca/dt_fh_facilities ... mphlet.pdf I have found that they are open for 94 hours on a weekly basis.
Taking the 27 weeks I multiply it by the 94 hours of operation per week where I end up with 2538 hours that the Field House is open in a 27 week period.
Then I take this 2538 hours and multiply it by 4 (for the number of fields available) and come up with 10152 hours of rentable turf during normal operations at the fieldhouse.

If I divide this 10,152 hours by the 2000 hours of turf time rented I come up with about a 20 percent utilization record over a 27 week period.
What this tells me is that - and I am only ballparking it - that the turf rentals at the Fieldhouse throughout the year when they are open for business is about 10 percent.

So I now ask is the glass 10 (or 20) percent full or empty???

I took a look at the 165 events in the 110 days of operation and it works out to about one and a half events per day.
It sounds great but when I went and called the local Kinsmen rink they tell me events are not bigger things like hockey tournamets, but individual games and even practices.
I was told the Kinsmen Arena has dozens of events a month.

I think when you put this into the equation is what Clark is saying impressive or in reality is it not that great???
Remember even things like the media coming to open up the new Warriors office or people lined up for their season ticket pickup are seen as events for Clark.
Did they generate any revenue for the Multi-Plex???

A person has to remember what Scott Clark's expertise is and it is promotion and media relations.

I think that a break down of the numbers really give a much better perspective of what Clark is out there spinning for council and the local media.

In the end the only thing Mr Clark and I agree on is that the Multi-Plex needs to be independent of the taxpayers when it comes to an operating subsidy.
We just disagree about the analysis of what has happened so far to reach that goal.

Another number that might be very telling, regardless of what Clark spins, is the fact that if they have $400K left over from last years budget allotment of $1,200,000.00 than they used roughly $800,000 for the SHORT time that the Multi-mess operated!! It'll be very interesting to see what all the numbers are like for the upcoming year!!! And I bet they are kept quiet until after the election.

Thank you T.D. I would sooner read a truth than a half baked lie any day of the week...and that is all you get from Clarke and the ilk...half baked lies.

Sledge wrote:Another number that might be very telling, regardless of what Clark spins, is the fact that if they have $400K left over from last years budget allotment of $1,200,000.00 than they used roughly $800,000 for the SHORT time that the Multi-mess operated!! It'll be very interesting to see what all the numbers are like for the upcoming year!!! And I bet they are kept quiet until after the election.

That is a good point Sledge.
If you look at teh fact that the operating subsidy spent last year was $1.2 million and they managed to bank $400,000 that tells me one other thing that this year's subsidy request might be less than what they recieved last year, but at the same time it also shows that by requesting $976,000 in reality their operating expenses are projected to climb by close to 20 percent.
What they have done in my opinion is to spin this so that it actually looks like a decrease of 20 percent; which is true because they are requesting less than last year but the reality of the situation is that their operational costs are going up 20 percent according to this budget request. That is assuming all of this money requested this year is going to be used for operations right now and they do not bank a bunch of it again.

truth defender wrote:

Sledge wrote:Another number that might be very telling, regardless of what Clark spins, is the fact that if they have $400K left over from last years budget allotment of $1,200,000.00 than they used roughly $800,000 for the SHORT time that the Multi-mess operated!! It'll be very interesting to see what all the numbers are like for the upcoming year!!! And I bet they are kept quiet until after the election.

That is a good point Sledge.
If you look at teh fact that the operating subsidy spent last year was $1.2 million and they managed to bank $400,000 that tells me one other thing that this year's subsidy request might be less than what they recieved last year, but at the same time it also shows that by requesting $976,000 in reality their operating expenses are projected to climb by close to 20 percent.
What they have done in my opinion is to spin this so that it actually looks like a decrease of 20 percent; which is true because they are requesting less than last year but the reality of the situation is that their operational costs are going up 20 percent according to this budget request. That is assuming all of this money requested this year is going to be used for operations right now and they do not bank a bunch of it again.

So in manipulating these numbers like you say, they are in essence trying to defraud or manipulate the taxpayer into accepting a bigger tax increase then what is necessary!!! All while under the watchful eye of three councilors on the multimess board. These three councilors should resign, not only from the multimess board but from council as well.

jty wrote:

truth defender wrote:

Sledge wrote:Another number that might be very telling, regardless of what Clark spins, is the fact that if they have $400K left over from last years budget allotment of $1,200,000.00 than they used roughly $800,000 for the SHORT time that the Multi-mess operated!! It'll be very interesting to see what all the numbers are like for the upcoming year!!! And I bet they are kept quiet until after the election.

That is a good point Sledge.
If you look at teh fact that the operating subsidy spent last year was $1.2 million and they managed to bank $400,000 that tells me one other thing that this year's subsidy request might be less than what they recieved last year, but at the same time it also shows that by requesting $976,000 in reality their operating expenses are projected to climb by close to 20 percent.
What they have done in my opinion is to spin this so that it actually looks like a decrease of 20 percent; which is true because they are requesting less than last year but the reality of the situation is that their operational costs are going up 20 percent according to this budget request. That is assuming all of this money requested this year is going to be used for operations right now and they do not bank a bunch of it again.

So in manipulating these numbers like you say, they are in essence trying to defraud or manipulate the taxpayer into accepting a bigger tax increase then what is necessary!!! All while under the watchful eye of three councilors on the multimess board. These three councilors should resign, not only from the multimess board but from council as well.

I have read a lot about Scott Clarke during his tenure with the Regina Pats and he is known for his marketting prowess as well as manipulating the local media into being behind his project.
While with the Pats he worked tirelessly to make people come to see the Pats. He polished the teams image and made the situation at the time look a lot better than it actually really was.
Even the owners of the Regina Pats make mention of it in their history.

"People forget that the Pats had become virtually inconsequential before the Parkers took over the franchise," notes former Leader-Post sports editor Gregg Drinnan, who now holds the same position with the Kamloops Daily News. "People forget that this franchise was on its way to Swift Current (in '85-86), all over a $1 parking charge that was to be implemented (by the Regina Exhibition Association). At Christmas that year, the franchise was as good as gone; games were being rescheduled for Swift Curren

The first challenge was to begin repairing a fractured and somewhat indifferent relationship between the team and its fans. That process began when they hired director of marketing Scott Clark, who was undaunted despite the skepticism he encountered on the street.

"Right off the hop Scottie Clark was outstanding," says Parker. "He had a passion and a drive for the franchise. He was out in the community and started working better with the media, which was important to us. He was trying to find a radio deal. Scottie hit the ground running. Then we hired another sales guy. They were out knocking on doors. We found that a lot of people had never been talked to."

SOURCE - http://www.reginapats.com/article/part-1-of-3

Old Scottie is an expert at schmoozing the press in situations where people have pretty well given up on something. He is trained and has a lot of experience in spinning stories to suit his cause that maybe do not tell the entire story.

All that I did in this was took a very good look with a calculator into what he had said.
I do not doubt that his numbers are correct he just does not point out any of the details that make up those numbers.

http://www.mib.org/~lennier/hockey/leagueatt.cgi

Found a cool link and didn't know which thread to add it to, don't need another mpx thread so I'll post it here. At least the hockey #'s are up considerably. You have to pick a season and league, WHL, to see the current averages.

I think that you will find that there is always a bump in attendance for hockey whenever they build a new facility.
Take a look at two rinks - the Agridome and SaskPlace - when both of these facilities were new there were large attendance increases.
A few years later however there were decreases so serious in Saskatoon that the owners threatened to move the Blades and a $2 charge for parking almost saw the Pats leave town. Scott Clark would be an inside expert on the Regina situation.
I haven't taken a big look at the Swift Current situation, but I did read something about the Premier stating attendance was up with the renovations. Despite that a few years later the team is in well documented deep financial troubles as attendance is dropping.
The same seems true in Raider land as well.
I like the graph and hope for the Warriors and taxpayer's sake (given a revenue sharing contractual agreement) that Moose Jaw bucks the trend however the evidence elsewhere is not too conducive to that happening.
If the Warriors have a few bad years in the near future the evidence points to major attendance drops.