COPE and Vision councillors took aim at the previous NPA-led council today for a June 2007 in-camera decision they said laid the groundwork for the current Olympic Village fiasco.
Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs said that when Sam Sullivan’s council selected Millennium Development to build the project in 2006, it assured taxpayers that the city would not assume any marketing or financing risk.
“That’s a long way from the situation we find ourselves today, where in my judgement, the city may face the largest financial loss in its history,” Meggs told a special council meeting on the athletes’ village.
In June 2007, council voted behind closed doors to provide a “completion guarantee” to Fortress Investment, the New York-based hedge fund that has promised a $750 million construction loan to Millennium but stopped making payments in September.
That decision essentially made the city financially responsible for the project.
“This is a fundamental change and completely at variance with the commitments that were made public to taxpayers in the spring of 2006,” Meggs said.
Meggs added that the “completion guarantee” wasn’t the only option available to council and called for a “fact-finding” mission to determine how and why the decision unfolded.
Coalition of Progressive Electors councillor David Cadman also took aim at the June 2007 decision, stating that COPE and Vision had both opposed the move at the time.
“We went from developing an Olympic Village to taking on the responsibility for the development of a development project,” he told council, referring to Millennium’s plan to sell 80 percent of the condo units as high-end housing after the games.
Meanwhile, Non-Partisan Association councillor Suzanne Anton defended the previous council’s decision, pointing out that is was made in an “era of high housing prices.”
“We are in a tough spot that is due to the collapse of the financial market and also the decrease in the value of housing prices,” Anton said. She added: “It’s wrong to engage in finger pointing.”
Today’s special meeting was called to give details to the public about the Olympic Village. Council also voted to approve Mayor Gregor Robertson’s motion to ask the provincial government to amend the Vancouver Charter so the city can seek outside financing for the project.
Geoff Dembicki is a staff reporter for The Hook.
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zalm
3 years ago
Suzanne Anton, genius
"“We are in a tough spot that is due to the collapse of the financial market and also the decrease in the value of housing prices,” Anton said."
Youj're right, Suzanne. We should have waited for a tough spot due to the collapse of the financial market and increasing housing prices. Or maybe the obverse.
How's your investment porfolio, Suzanne? Doing all right? Got into cash or gold in 2007?
Why didn't you show the same level of responsibility with City funds that you did with your own?
Name
3 years ago
Suzanne Anton, genuis II
Hear, hear, Zalm!
In the heat of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2006/07, with the media breathlessly reporting how venerable Wall Street investment banks were writing off billions in worthless paper and the US real estate market was very clearly collapsing, our geniuses at City Hall couldn't figure out why Fortress wouldn't touch the deal without a 100% guarantee from the city????!!!!
Puhhllleeeeezzze!!!!!!!
Our only consolation is the likelihood that the "geniuses" were drinking their own Koolaid and are probably just starting to count their own private losses right around now.
How many of them put deposits on those condos? I hope the mayor and the media report on every one of them who defaults and walks away to cut their private losses, leaving the city holding the bag.
Name
3 years ago
And what about Estelle Lo?
...and not to forget that if the geniuses had listened to the staff expert who was paid to advise them on financial risk instead of gagging and firing her, they may not have been facing the lynch mobs today.
The question that will need to be answered is what did Estelle Lo tell them and why did they choose to ignore her.
G West
3 years ago
Maybe have a look at this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090113.BCMASON13/TPStory/TPComment/BritishColumbia/