Hey, Mr. Ladner!

PlayingTheCitizenryForSaps
VancouverVille

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Update 4:00pm Tues Nov 11/08: The City's current out front-man on the Boondoggle, Mr. Ken Bayne, refuses to divulge where the $100 million for the bailout came from....see bottom of post....
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So, according to FABula's piece, and Peter Ladner's words, in the Globe today, the cash for the $100 million dollar Olympic Village Bailout Boondoggle did not actually come from the oft-offered-up 'Property Endowment Fund':

Vancouver didn't raid the city's much-valued Property Endowment Fund as a source for a potential $100-million loan to the builder of the city's Olympic athletes village.

That's because the fund's almost $200-million in cash reserves have already been depleted to pay for what the city has to build on the site.

Both Non-Partisan Association Councillor Peter Ladner and the city's general manager of business planning, Ken Bayne, say that there's no more cash to go after in the $2.7-billion fund because the rest is held in land and fixed assets, much of it social housing.

"The cash is tapped out," said Mr. Ladner, who, as the head of the city's finance committee, has been embroiled for almost a week in trying to explain to an angry public and media critics the intricacies of the loan.

Council had approved a loan of up to $100-million to Millennium Developments, the private company that is building the $1.1-billion Olympic athletes village, if needed to cover construction-cost overruns.

Which, of course, begs the question.......

Just where, exactly, did the money come from?

Sheesh!

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Oh, ya....and there is a bit of awful irony buried deep within FABula's piece that, if truth really be told, almost makes me (really, truly and honestly) weep*:

"The current Opposition, Vision Vancouver, was attacked repeatedly in the 2005 election for proposing that the fund be used as a subsidy to enable a third of the Olympic village to be sold or rented at lower rates to middle-income residents."

You do remember that 'proposal' don't you?

In fact, if I remember correctly it was actually pretty much a 'done deal' that even the developers had bought into in the dying days of the previous Larry Campbell/Jim Green administration.

And the crux of the done-deal was a truly equitable 33-and-a-third split between 'high-market/affordable/subsidized' housing that would have cost the Property Endowment Fund approximately $50 million.

Imagine that, if you will.

A thing that would have cost half the current Boondoggle that would have actually benefitted the citizens of Vancouver instead of, oh say, a bilious bulge of hedge-fund backers buried in a bunker, errrrrr.....Fortress....., beneath the bitumen-encrusted sands of Bismark North Dakota.

Or some such nebulous place where hedge-fund bamboozlers who back ponzi-schemes go to ground after they've taken everybody else's money.

But I digress (again).

So.

Whatever happened to that done-deal that would have helped so many by spending so (relatively) little, you might be asking?

Well, it was scrapped immediatly after the James Green-assisted Council of Smilin' 'KnoWards' Sammy Sullivan took power because it was deemed 'too expensive' and 'too much of a risk' for the future of Vancouver.

Of course, that scrapping would never have occurred if every single NPA councillor sitting with Sammy's one seat majority had not voted for it.

One of whom, by the way, was none other than the very same Mr. Peter Ladner who is quoted at the top of this post.

OK?



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*And/or quiver with rage.
And yes, one of the great things about hanging about in the bloggodome for awhile is that, like an elephant, it doesn't forget (what you wrote already).
Oh, and just so nobody else forgets, including Lotusland's most Pollyannaishtic Pundits, the current City Manager, who apparently didn't get along with the currently absent CFO, was all in for the scrapping of the 33-and-a-third done-deal too.
Finally, the very fine fellow from the City, Mr. Ken Bayne, who is cited by Ms. Bula above, is apparently one of the staff who, according to Gary Mason's Globe story today, was promoted when current CFO Estelle Lo was shunted off to Buffalo earlier this year by the very same City Manager mentioned above......"In April (2008), Ken Bayne, one of the central architects of the deal with Millennium, was promoted to general manager of the new business planning and services unit. This made him responsible for new corporate business and other services that were formerly part of the Corporate Services Group that had been overseen by Ms. Lo.Responsibility for the Property Endowment Fund and the Capital Financing Group - the two primary funding sources for the city - was also taken away from Ms. Lo by the city manager."....Hmmmmm......sounds like some City Staff, including some at the top of the heap, just might have a little back-dated self-interest built into the bailout decisions being made these days. Don'cha think..... maybe?
Update: Mr. Bayne appears to have been thrust out-front on this one suddenly....He told CKNW (4:00pm Newscast) that this is all business as usual, but most definitely did NOT tell them (or us) where the $100 million came from.


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