Otago Daily Times sports editor Hayden Meikle has the view, unpopular with some, that a city should help pay for a major sporting venue. But he also believes it is time Dunedin accepts it is not big enough to sustain the dream of a covered stadium.
You can't win if you choose to enter the stadium debate.
If you support the Awatea St proposal, you are labelled a pro-rugby moron with a misguided view of the future, a criminally poor grasp of economics and a brain missing several cells.
And should you dare to oppose the idea, you are instantly tagged a Luddite, labelled a whinger and accused of everything from anti-progressivism to subtle insurgency.
Popularity's never been my forte and I have developed a gift for alienating both sides of the stadium argument.
Here is me annoying the anti-stadium group: I think public money should be used for building or redeveloping sports stadiums.
Here is me annoying the supporters: A city this size spending that much on a stadium? You must be joking.
I'm plenty annoyed myself.
I'm annoyed that to raise concerns about the project is to be instantly seen as an immoderate critic. And I'm annoyed the populace has lost the middle ground in a sea of stadium bickering.
You know what else annoys me? Hearing people lean on the "this stadium has to be built for our children and our grandchildren" argument.
Well, I have a child. A beautiful baby boy. And he's more important to me than anything.
It's important to me that he grows up happy and healthy, and he succeeds in his chosen path. I'm not sure what the stadium has to do with it.
And don't even bother telling me Dunedin will disappear if Awatea St doesn't go ahead. That's emotive nonsense.
The funny thing is, about five years ago I wrote a column saying we must do something about Carisbrook or the city was in trouble, and I poked a stick at the complainers who didn't believe public money should be used for the ground.
I received a couple of nasty emails but my view was really ripped to shreds when Dave Witherow, acerbic and vastly more intelligent than me, devoted an entire column - run in my own newspaper - to slating my opinion.
Nazism and genital mutilation were mentioned and I'm still not smart enough to understand why.
But that was then.
That was when we were talking $50 million to $60 million to bring Carisbrook up to scratch.
Now we're talking a sum about four to five times greater, and the most ambitious project in Dunedin's history. And I'm very nervous about it.
I don't think the stadium can be built for its budget - very few around the world are - and I don't think it can possibly be used enough.
Netball or basketball? That ignores the rather salient point that Otago no longer has a top basketball team or a top netball team, and Dunedin already has an ideal indoor stadium in the Lion Foundation Arena.
Entertainment? Few major acts play anywhere other than Auckland. Somebody please convince me I'd get to see U2 or the Rolling Stones if the new stadium goes ahead.
More than once last year, chief executive Richard Reid talked about Otago rugby cutting its cloth to fit, about the Otago union not trying to be something it was not.
It can be applied to the stadium debate.
We're not Melbourne. We're not even Christchurch. We're basically New Plymouth.
Unfortunately, all sense of reason in the stadium issue has been discarded in favour of empty rhetoric, flowery nonsense and malicious misinformation.
Rugby has been used as a crutch by both groups.
The pro-stadium group persists in peddling the misguided argument that the new stadium can help restore Category A test status to Dunedin, while the anti-stadium group loses ground when it rails against rugby like it was some sort of cancerous growth and not our national sport.
The anti-stadium squad comes up with ludicrous suggestions that the new stadium will be a target for terrorism, and makes all sorts of doomsday predictions about global warming affecting the Awatea St site.
Not to be outdone, the pro-stadium zealots tag the dissenters as Nimbys (not in my back yard) or Caves (citizens against virtually everything).
Because, you know, name-calling really helps solve an issue.
Personal attacks have been a constant accompaniment to the stadium debate, which is sad and reflects rather poorly on a city that prides itself on hospitality and robust discussion.
The anti-stadium group became obsessed with Carisbrook Stadium Trust head Malcolm Farry, lobbing a succession of barbs his way, even though Mr Farry was merely doing the job asked of him by the Dunedin City Council.
Members of the Stop The Stadium group, before they turned on each other in a fit of cannibalistic rage, delighted in coining immature words like FarryBrook.
As if that achieved anything.
Online, there's been an outbreak of bickering between members of the Stop The Stadium website and the What If? Stadium Of Dunedin blog.
Great entertainment, but it's another example of how the sensible middle ground has been lost.
What do I think should happen?
Let's go back to Carisbrook and do what needs to be done:
-Ground to be controlled by an independent trust.
-Spend $60 million to $70 million, including some public money, to construct a new main stand along one side of the ground.
-Trust to vigorously work at attracting more sport (including football, one-day international cricket and rugby league) to Carisbrook.
It seems to me the new stadium issue boils down to two questions: Do we need it? Can we afford it?
The answer to both, I have decided, is a quite clear "no".
-Mr Meikle is expressing his personal viewpoint. - Ed.
