I’m weird! After 38 years of reporting … much of it covering politics … I’m actually enjoying watching Vancouver’s top aspiring municipal leaders tapdance, exploit, defend, and/or trying to manipulate to their own political advantage the $100 Million loan guarantee to private developers of the Olympic Athletes’ Village.
I don’t buy NPA Mayoral hopeful Peter Ladner’s refusal to make public all the details behind the decision and the reasoning, rationale and projections behind the ALL-PARTY in-camera agreement to bolster the project.
As I stated in my previous Blog, I can understand why such discussions, considering confidential financial figures, property evaluations, credit reports or land/building purchases etc must often be held behind closed doors. However, once the decision has been made, I believe the public IS entitled to know exactly what their elected officials decided, what they are doing with taxpayers’ money and why?
In this case … they revealed nothing … until the details leaked out in a story by Gary Mason, ironically writing for a Toronto-based newspaper.
But while I disagree with Ladner’s excessive penchant for secrecy … I have been getting the most lauighs from what I see as Vision’s Mayor hopeful Gregor Roberston’s phoney indignation and attempt to profit from it it all.
Robertson, of course, is not a member of the current council, so he has been snorting out great indignation over the decision … oft condemning the role played by his NPA mayoral rival, Ladner, and calling for the deal to be now debated in public.
But wait a minute! True, Ladner is chairman of council’s finance committee. But isn’t Vision Councillor Raymond Louie deputy chairman???? And didn’t council approve the loan UNANIMOUSLY on Oct. 14 … in other words, without ANY Vision, COPE or NPA council members voting against it??
Where is Robertson’s indignation and condemnation of his own VISION councillors’ action and secrecy? He has been given a very easy ride by his seeming media admirers on this … and so have the Vision (and COPE) culprits who actually did the voting along with the NPA … but who now mostly seem to be hiding behind their leader’s political pant leg.
As far as I can tell, only Vision Councillor Tim Stevenson, to his credit, called for an open council discussion/debate on the topic immediately after the original in camera vote …. but lost. Where have the other Vision and COPE voices and deal-approving councillors been? In hiding since they voted? Or just ignored?
The media should really be hunting them down and forcing them to explain their actions and their votes behind those closed doors. And why did almost all of them say nothing … and only suddenly develop public angst over it all after the media got hold of the deal?
The only effort I have seen so far in tracking this down was on CTV’s Saturday night news, when their reporter asked Robertson, who was once more questionning Ladner’s handling of the matter, about Vision’s own councillors’ role.
“Why now, if Vision was in favor of it then, are they against it now?,” asked CTV reporter Shannon Patterson.
“The Vision councillors didn’t know that the city’s director of finance had real concerns about this,” was Robertson’s reply.
Frankly, in my view, this is absolutely incredible. Were Vision councillors so out to lunch, they did not ask questions about the director finance’s view of a $100 Million loan guarantee??? Or is Robertson saying that Vision councillors actually voted for this $100 million loan guarantee without asking adequate questions??? Where was their “vision” … or did they really, as Robertson seems to suggest, approve it blindly??
And were was COPE? Isn’t it hilarious to think that these great ultra left wing social activists supported a $100 Million loan guarantee to a private developer … apparently without asking adequate questions or demanding full public disclosure!
So it’s not just Ladner who should be grilled on this deal. All the NPA, Vision and COPE councillors who voted for it should be front and center … not just playing for political points before the cameras and microphones … but explaining why they voted for the deal the way they did, and what they believe should by DONE now, apart from just “discussing” the deal once again … most importantly, exactly why?
8 responses so far ↓
1 Westcoast Indie News // Nov 9, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Hey Harvey, I’ve also posted on this building story, putting additional details together:
Something Stinks in Vancouver: Follow the Money Trail for Olympic Venues
I agree with you, it is in the public interest to know much, much more about how all of this has been happening right under our noses.
2 RossK // Nov 9, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Mr. O……
Not that I entirely disagree with you re: the need for a grilling en masse (especially given some of the pols involved, including a former one who once worked for the Senator from DaVinci who is currently a candidate), but…..
Frances Bula reported yesterday, in that same paper from Vancouver that employs Mr. Mason, that the City’s CFO, Ms Lo, was NOT at the Oct 14th meeting.
And while we’re discussing the officially ‘on holiday’ CFO, one thing that I find somewhat baffling about the local pro-media types is why they haven’t just gone down the organizational chart of folks working (worked?) under her and asked them what’s up.
__
For anyone interested, including pro-media-type readers of Mr. O’s blog (and we know you’re out there), said chart can be found here.
(Response: Right… Ms. Lo was apparently NOT at the meeting… so was there no another official form the finance dept who could answer any and all questions? If not, then why did they ALL approve the deal? Could it not wait for answers? Are they so flippant with our taxpayers dollars that they would hand out $100 million without getting answers? ho)
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3 bob // Nov 10, 2008 at 12:47 am
I cannot find anything in the Vancouver Charter that would prohibit discloser after the decision.
In fact [starting at 210] I cannot see how Council can spend $100m without the approval of the Director of Finance. I also do not see a provision for Council to act in the absence of a Director of Finance.
4 RossK // Nov 10, 2008 at 12:51 am
Mr. O–
Thanks for the response.
Again, I am not in total disagreement with the need to grill everybody…..However, what I would really like now is for someone to ask those ‘other’ officials what’s up so that, at the very least, they will be on the record with their stories which can then be compared with whatever Ms. Lo has to say down the road.
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5 RossK // Nov 10, 2008 at 1:48 am
Thanks bob–
Will be posting the relevant section of the charter, in full, for the record, over at my place soon.
.
6 Gary E // Nov 10, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Can anyone tell me if they have access to the actual vote results? The only person I have seen speak about the “unanimous” result was Peter Ladner.
(Response: Given the heat and political oportunism surrounding the topic now, I have no doubt if the vote was not unanimous, those who did not support it would be shouting so loud and clear.
ho)
7 Geri T // Nov 11, 2008 at 4:08 pm
am one of the Work Less Party’s candidates for City Council, and I am very pleased to see that you are not letting Vision and COPE off the hook for this breach of public trust.
I realize that with our name, we face the serious stigma of not being taken seriously as a political party, but I must assure you, we are dead serious- and now, in light of the facts that are coming to bear, we are exactly the type of officials that are desperately needed at City Hall: those that put the public’s interests FIRST, and those that believe in ACCOUNTABILITY.
If you know anything about the history of the Work Less Party, you will know that we have been sounding the alarm about the back-room dealings, ridiculously low-ball estimates on the true costs and the conflicts of interest associated with the 2010 Games.
Our party executive have produced a documentary, a 300-page book and a multitude of blog entries and media releases on the subject.
For voters in this election, it would seem that if you expect honesty and transparency at City Hall, you would do best to vote in at least a few ‘independent’ candidates. For, although we do call ourselves a ‘party’ – we are not financed by any special-interest groups, and we are all permitted to hold our own opinions (but we obviously agree on the vast majority of issues). This is nothing like the NPA, Vision or COPE.
I hope you will get in touch with me so we can discuss this further, and that you will consider posting on your blog about our candidates and our socially progressive platform.
Sincerely,
Geri Tramutola
8 North Van's Grumps // Nov 11, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Two camps, Vision and NPA, are sparring it out with the help of the news media (sells more papers I suppose) of who will get to sit in the Vancouver Mayor’s chair for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
With so much finger pointing going on in the lead up to the November 15 municipal election, why hasn’t the media included the hard ball tactics that Ladner, and his supporters, used to snatch the “golden laurel wreath” away from Sam Sullivan’s camp?
Is the Mayor’s staff loyal to his worship, or more to the NPA party members, since they have since decided on who was to be the next general?
For Peter Lander to say that he put his numbered document down on the meeting table, without ensuring that it was being cared for, leaves one thinking “Just how many other times has Councillor Ladner left documents unatttended, leaving someone else to pick up after him?”
Pete McMartin, in his Vancouver Sun diatribe today leaves no doubt as to who he believes is the party that Vancouver voters should be blaming.
Its not Millennium, for furthering its bottom line goal of finishing the False Creek Athlete Village with a $100,000,000 lollipop incentive. Millennium is being presented as though it has been dragged, and kicked, onto a lime lit “stage”, not of its own making, but more and more we now learn, as if its a Shakespearean play.
We all know the results of those kinds of plays, for as much as McMartin sits in the audience, nudging his neighbours as to who he believes is the bad guy, he even goes so far as to point his Shakesperean finger to an insider… Brutus.
Problem is Vision is not part of the NPA cast drama.
“Brutus” in this production is being played by an NPA councillor, trusted by Julius Caesar (Sullivan) to play as his second fiddle until the time is ripe for him to take to the stage. As history has shown in the past, it was Nero who watched as Rome burned.
Must be difficult though to have to learn two roles for one night’s performances, Brutus and Nero.
I wonder who the understudies are?
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