Most of us figure that the only reason why Grand Forks HAD to build the Alerus is because Fargo had built their dome and we had to keep up or be shamed.

Today’s Grand Forks Herald has a story on an idea to ditch the Alerus Commission (because they do a crappy job) and run the event cener as a city department.  I agree with that.  The ONLY reason why they set up the Alerus commission is to remove accountability from the City Council.

The City Beat Reporter even admitted that the Alerus Commission is cozier with Venuworks than with the City Council which is why we see them favoring Venuworks at the expense of the people of Grand Forks .  He also related on his blog how the Chairman of the Alerus Commission went to the Venuworks group to help him understand the Alerus Commissions contract with Venuworks rather than go to the City Attorney.  Who are they working for? 

It was this whine in the story that made me laugh. 

Council member Curt Kreun, who chairs the commission, said the landscape has changed since the building was envisioned back in the late 1990s. There’s a Ralph Engelstad Arena at UND, for example, he said, so the Alerus Center never got a chance to host hockey. It’s adapted by strengthening its convention business, he said.

Revisionist history indeed. 

The Alerus was never conceived to host hockey.  They never any serious talk about the Alerus having hockey.  There was never a plan to build in an ice plant and the proper piping in the floor.  Between the first and second votes on the Alerus the Alerus Gang had decided that they were going to be a football stadium. 

I suppose you could do a crappy job in setting up a hockey configeration, but I can’t imagine a successful configuration of a hockey rink inside of a football stadium.  Considering the size of the playing surface makes it clear that it wouldn’t work.  A hockey rink is 200 feet by 85 feet.  The football surface is 360 feet by 150 feet.  Add in the sidelines (which you don’t have in hockey) and you’re talking about four times the area on the floor of a football stadium than a hockey rink has.

When they decided to have football they all but ruled out the possibility of hockey.  (And of course it also led to the massive cost overruns building the Alerus.  Lie number 412 was when they said that changing it to a football stadium didn’t lead to their cost overruns.)

And of course it’s not so easy to go from hockey to another sport or convention.  It can be done, but it’s not something that you want to be doing often. 

The other thing is that Ralph Englestad announced his intention to build me the nicest hockey arena in the world in 1997.  This gave the Alerus Gang plenty of time to reconfigure their plans or even cancel them.  In fact the city council even ignored a lengthy petition to put the matter up to a vote after the flood and Englestad had announced his plans.)

So bottom line the Ralph Englestad Arena has nothing to do with the financial ruin that is the Alerus.  So why does the Alerus Gang keep bringing up the Ralph.  It’s because of their Arena envy.  The Ralph is a beautiful, well run facility and the Alerus is not.  The Ralph packs the town every hockey weekend for not one but two nights.  The Alerus seldom does. 

So it’s no wonder that the Alerus gang has to blame the Ralph for their own failings.  After all if they didn’t blame the Ralph then they’d have to look at the crappy job they did in conceiving, designing and running the dead white elephant on the prairie. 

We’ve now got another lie concerning whether or not losses in the concert fund counted towards Venuworks guarantee:

Basically, he’s [Venuworks President is] saying whatever the city attorney’s office says about the contract is wrong. The contract never included the concert fund in the first place so losses from the concert fund doesn’t affect the concert fee calculation.

Last week the story was that there was a secret meeting where some members of the Alerus told them that they wouldn’t hold those losses against them even though the contract was written that way.  Then this week it was that it was a long standing tradition not to count those losses.  (it’s a brand new situation).  Now it’s that the contract didn’t include it even though our attorney says that’s not at all the case. 

Venuworks has done nothing but lose money for the city of Grand Forks.  They need to be fired and then sue them to recover our $175,000 that they owe use.