What Did Vancouver City Council Know....

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.....And When Did They Know It?

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Update, regarding an actual for real/kinda/maybe statement to come from Ms. Lo at the bottom of the post.
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Well, one thing is for certain.

When Vancouver Council met, in secret, without cameras, on Oct. 14th to vote on the $100 million dollar Olympic Village bailout they did not know the views of the City's Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Estelle Lo.

How do we know that they did not know?

Because Ms. Lo, who it has been reported by Gary Mason had concerns about the the deal, was not actually at the secret meeting.

Frances Bula (who we figured had to be workin' on this one given that she disappeared for a couple of days), has the story in today's Globe:

VANCOUVER -- Vancouver's finance director was not present at the in camera meeting where city councillors approved a $100-million loan to a private developer building the Olympic athletes village.

That absence of chief financial officer Estelle Lo has Vancouver's opposition councillors so concerned that they initiated an emergency motion at a meeting last night to be allowed to have the loan decision reconsidered, now that they have read reports that she had long-standing concerns about the city's financial involvement in the project.

Why does this matter?

Two reasons:

1) As we pointed out yesterday Ms. Lo, who is (was?) in charge of a huge bureaucracy at City Hall, is most certainly someone who would truly understand the deal and all its potential ramifications - good or bad.

2) If Ms. Lo's views and/or concerns (ie. her 'information') were hidden from Council members during the 'In Camera' meeting then a strong case can be made that the secret vote is now null and void. After all, it was the current sitting-duckling-slathered-in-mayonnaise Mayor Sullivan himself who told Robert Matas of The Globe the following: "They all (the councillors) saw in camera information and they all agreed this is the right way to go."



Of course, there is a third reason this really, really matters, particularly if relevant information truly was suppressed before the vote was taken to give all that money (ie. our money) to the private developer (ie. Millenium) to ensure that they could maintain their 'enviable position' in which they would be able to take their time (ie. be able to wait until the market heats up again - ha!) to sell all those the luxury condos that they got to build as part of the project.

And what would that third reason be?

Well, how about this:

Peter Ladner is doomed.

OK?

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Update: I went on over to FABula's place and asked her if she, or anyone else she knows of, has actually spoken to Ms. Lo, who is currently in Hong Kong visiting her Mom, about this thing since it broke earlier this week. Here is Ms. Bula's most gracious, and pseudo-tantalizing, response: "The only person I know of who has spoken to Estelle from the media is Allen Garr. She wasn’t especially forthcoming, I understand, but he will likely have more about that in his Wednesday column in the Courier."
And please note Ms. Bula's most interesting insertional qualifier......'from the media'......does that mean that someone who is 'not from the media' has also spoken to Ms. Lo who has then passed on information to someone who is 'from the media'.....Just askin' (especially given that I have come to understand that Ms. Bula rarely inserts words that don't mean something)....

Double Secret-Probation Update: The Courier's man at City Hall, Mike Howell, has some juicy, on-the-scene takes on, as Peter Ladner apparently called it, "all that kind of stuff", from a crazy, mixed-up, whack-a-doodle-dandy Friday at 12th and Cambie.....



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