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Back to Square One should entail a full, transparent and publicly accessible audit and historical accounting of annual costs to taxpayers before the CCIDA makes any more decisions......and before any further funds are paid by the Legislature/Exec (including a hold on any currently approved ARP funds that have not been disbursed yet). There have been a lot of costs over the years – some more widely publicized than others. Here are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head: It was in the news in 1999 when the County Legislature forked over more than $1 million. Later, the CCIDA purchased the building for $3.5 million (including $1M allocated from Casella grant contributions). A large chunk of the County Room tax goes straight to the IDA for Arena operations every year ($103k for at least the past 10 years - so more than $1 million - and still counting). The nearly $1 million ($375k + $500k) approved from the County ARP funds were a little less public and listed on Minutes/Agendas as “budget transfers” to the CCIDA. None of the Arena owners have ever paid Property taxes (only sewer and special taxes, when they aren’t in arrears). This was even when it was assessed at a $17 million Market Value. That assessment has dropped dramatically over the years (to a low of $1.1 M in 2014, and now back “up” to $2.4M). At the new “depreciated” values of $1-2M....the County, City and School taxes on comparably assessed commercial add up to something like $40-60,000 in lost tax revenue every year, for over two decades. And I’d wager a guess that a full accounting would reveal a few more (hidden costs and expenses) that I’m not even aware have taken place year after year.

I'm not too optimistic. They have that ARP money burning a hole in their pocket, and history is proven they love to throw good money after bad. They can't help themselves when it comes to this place. I don't mean to sound so pessimistic, but I'm sick and tired of this place failing over and over and over.

The IDA is nothing but a public mafia operation at this juncture. The arena has always been a hilarious operation to me. Every politician associated with this place always got out at just the right time. Whether it be the two original kingpins Hughes and Iraci or Tom Santulli to even that clown Mike Krusen. He was better off losing the county executive race but had he wn they probably would have found a way to sweep this place under the rug. I always laughed at the public hate they forced on the Afrs. I'm not saying the Afrs were saints by any juncture but it's funny to me that ever since itcame under local control its no different then when they ran the show. Except at least the Afrs gave us hockey and usually good hockey at that. Now you're lucky if in a given year there will be hockey. I always fund it puzzling how Tom Freeman got a pass from the community. People said that guy was a billionaire. If that's true he's no different than any other billionaire nationally orglobally. Surewecould blame Afr but you have to blame the politicians and IDA. They all made the deal. It wasn't until this joint ended up in court that anybody found out who actually owned it. The IDA has always owned it and never paid a dime. I remember when Freeman got it and they decided to have the hockey team be a community entity only it was pure bullshit. The community responsible was nothing more than 20 "business" people who were nothing more than buddies of the chamber of commerce. Dudes who had no business running a hockey team and knew very little about it. Ask me how I know...let's just say I was related to one. It was never really revealed how Freeman got rid of it all other then everything ended up with the county. The dog and pony show later like 2 or 3 years. Then it was the spring of the year emperor Santuli was retiring. Allegedly they had a buyer. To the point of a press conference and a name drop and media attention. Then a month or so later it's like it never happened and we never found out why. Back to square one. They kept telling us they didn't want to be in the arena business. Yet here's are they don't wanna sell it and they want whoever buys it to buy it with sll the debt racked up by every other owner. I remember when they were first touting selling this joint. They said they had quite a few offers even with those who have NHL experience yet it's like 6 or 7 years later and no sales even close. They had someone running it. They just can't be happy. These guys were doing better than Robbie but it didn't even matter. This place us a classic example of your local government claiming they care about you yet they do the same thing the non local guy was doing from day one. Once all the local politicians were on the let's get rid of Afr train I knew the jig was up and I jumped sides on that. If you were a fan back in the day I think you would share the sentiment of I would take the years of Afr running the building back in a heartbeat. Yes the arena was in ruins but let's not act like with local care they've ever improved shot. Classic case of we were all better off not knowing the inside info on this place.

Turns out 125 reed tubes isn’t a whole lot. Didn’t even fill one box, so I improvised and added natural materials: Im gonna hit Hobby Lobby and see if they have something similar, perhaps made of cardboard and cheaper.