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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63241 Medium No Blank Cheque for the New Arena

Read the following editorial from a website.

The owners of our city’s hockey team want a new downtown arena, and they want taxpayers to help pay for it. The pitch is familiar: construction jobs, busy restaurants on game nights, and a skyline that tells visitors we have arrived. We take that pitch seriously, but our view is plain. Council should not commit a single public dollar until the deal protects residents as firmly as it protects the owners.

Urban economist Diana Sandhar told the finance committee that public money can be justified if the agreement guarantees ice hours for community groups and returns a share of profits to the city once they pass a published level. “A roof paid for by the public should come with a door the public can open,” she said. Her idea of measuring the public return in rink time strikes us as both fair and easy to check. Taxpayer advocate Zeke Wexford argues that the city should stay out entirely. In his view, residents would carry the construction risk while the owners keep the naming rights and the broadcast income. He wants private financing, with user fees shown openly. We share his worry about who pays when things go wrong, although a flat refusal may simply push the team to a suburb that offers more.

City manager Sofia Dragomir warns that the real danger lies in the numbers. Glossy consultant forecasts, she notes, have already led two nearby cities to cover operating losses they were promised would never come. Dragomir would support limited municipal bonds, but only if independent attendance forecasts and a floor of affordable seats are made public before council votes. Minor-hockey organizer Alma Emenike argues for a parent’s test: yearly audits of the arena’s books and ice quotas that families can check for themselves.

A single contract could hold nearly every one of these demands, and none of them asks the owners for the impossible. Council’s answer to the owners should be simple: public money comes only with Sandhar’s conditions, Dragomir’s published forecasts and Emenike’s audits written into the agreement. If the owners refuse those terms, Wexford’s instinct is the right one, and our city should walk away from the table.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This editorial is mainly about 1.
.

Diana Sandhar’s position would most likely be supported by 2.
.

Who most clearly suggests that the public would bear the risk while the owners keep the income? 3.
.

What outcome does Sofia Dragomir’s condition call for? 4.
.

The overall tone of the editorial is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

I spent thirty years in a city finance office, and I watched more than one arena deal turn into a bill that ordinary taxpayers quietly paid off for a decade. That is why the city manager has the strongest point in the whole piece: 6.
 is exactly what fooled the two nearby cities, and I have seen it happen here too. I am also glad the board sides with Sandhar that 7.
, and I only wish the owners had offered that much without being asked. Emenike wants yearly audits along with 8.
, and frankly I would trade every jobs estimate in the owners’ brochure for that pairing. Where I part ways with the board is over the taxpayer advocate: the board fears a flat refusal could 9.
, but I have sat across from owners like these, and a club that leaves over fair terms was never a good partner. So if the owners refuse every condition, why not do as your last paragraph says and 10.
?

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