Mayor seeks Vancouver Charter amendment for Olympic Village financing
Vision Vancouver councillor Heather Deal has blamed a June 2007 decision reached by the previous council in an in-camera meeting for the troubles the city is having ensuring the completion of the Olympic Village.
Deal, who was a member of the previous council, said today (January 12) that the then-NPA-dominated council voted to guarantee that the athletes’ village will be built to the specifications of developer Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties Ltd.
That decision, according to Deal, effectively made the city the developer of the billion-dollar Olympic project.
Although this decision was reached in-camera, Deal revealed in a scrum with reporters that she voted against it.
“I felt that gambling on the housing market with public dollars is not appropriate,” she said.
Her Vision Vancouver colleague Tim Stevenson, who was also a part of the previous council, volunteered during the same scrum that he also did not support the decision.
Deal and Stevenson briefly addressed journalists after a press briefing by Vision mayor Gregor Robertson on the issue.
Robertson told reporters that he is filing in this afternoon’s special council meeting a motion for the city to ask the B.C. government to amend the Vancouver Charter.
The amendment, according to Robertson, would authorize the city to borrow $400 million-plus to ensure that the Olympic Village is completed by November.
The Vancouver Charter requires council to get taxpayers’ approval, through a referendum, to borrow such significant amounts of money.
“Our reputation internationally is at stake here,” Robertson told reporters. “We’ve got to do everything to deliver.”
Comments
4 Comments
montyvan
Jan 12, 2009 at 2:50pm
You know, it's a really pathetic display of partisanship to hear how Deal, Stevenson and this council and mayor are dealing with the financing issue. I guess this is how Vision/COPE plans to deal with all problems in the future: blame someone else. It's juvenile, divisive and not at all productive.
soupie
Jan 13, 2009 at 3:12pm
Rather than borrow money to complete this project as an athlete's village, borrow to complete and sell this project. It would save having to refurbish this village for resale once the athletes have left. It would put the property on the market much sooner which in turn will relieve any burden to your taxpayers. What better way for children and adults both to learn about other cultures and countries than to billet the athletes. When we host our Northern BC Winter Games we billet up to 2500 athletes in a town with 6000 households. This way there would be a reduction in secutiry costs and no fear of violence in an athletes village as has happened in the past. If warranted you could use a portion of the saved security money and pass it on to the family households who would take in these athletes. For most, they may be billetted by people of their own culture and would feel more relaxed while here for the competition. Transportaion could be easily coordinated. Just an old fashioned concept which has worked for many years.
David Wong
Jan 14, 2009 at 11:53am
This is a best case scenario for Fortress - the NY based finance house who is playing hardball with our greenhorn council.
Gawd, Fortress must be wet dreaming on how good it has become with a city council full of finger pointing newbies...
Think about what a real business person would do in a panicked market. Talk about fabulous opportunities for those who can read the Chicken Littles scurrying about of late.
I remember a very important life lesson my late grandpa used to remind me of: "Real leaders do not find blame and real leaders do not point fingers... ".
And I am sort of puzzled in that, wasn't it the precursor of the now Vision Vancouver party who helped usher in the Olympic effort? Hmmm
Divisiveness and partisanship is the wrong message being broadcast to all the starry eyed pollyannas who had hoped for change in our City.
Curious Guy
Jan 15, 2009 at 11:14pm
Here is a link to an interesting report from Estelle Lo on the City’s website:
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20080722/documents/a15.pdf
In it, she writes that the City wasn’t able to borrow $125 million it wanted, on acceptable terms, between Feb. and July 2008. But she hopes things are improving after July. I wonder if the City ended up borrowing this money or not?
The report also says that “An issue of $125 million will incur approximately $15.6 million in annual debt charges beginning in 2009”.
And now they want to borrow $458 million!!!