CFOVille
Depending on who's doing the talking, Ms. Estelle Lo either is, was, or again soon will be, the 'Chief Financial Officer' for the City of Vancouver.
Why all the confusion and interest in Ms. Lo these days?
Well, according to Gary Mason's original Millenium/Olympic Village/CondoKing/Bailout story from yesterday, it is because, as the City of Vancouver's CFO:
"Ms. Lo tendered her resignation recently after months of apparently expressing concerns the city might be assuming too much financial risk in an effort to meet its obligation to get the Olympic housing built on time."
And since then Ms. Lo has become the apple in Gregor Robertson's eye as well.
****
But just what was it, exactly, that Ms. Lo was doing for the City of Vancouver before she did, or did not, resign?
Was she a Palinesque-type figurehead?
.....Hardly.
Was she a low-level staffer who became disenchanted while pushing paper around her desk?
......Not at all.
Was she running a large and vitally important group within the City of Vancouver's elaborate bureaucracy?
......Bingo!
Not to put too fine a point on it, here is Ms. Lo's past, and still present (as of Nov 7/08), job description, straight from the City of Vancouver's website:
Estelle Lo is General Manager, Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. She has overall responsibility for service delivery of the following services.
- Information Technology
- Real Estate and Property Management
- Financial Operations (including Budget Services, Financial Services, Financial Planning and Treasury Services)
- Facilities Design and Management
- Business Support Services
- Risk Management Services
And here is the organizational chart of the fine folks at City Hall who work and/or used to work under Ms. Lo's direct supervision (click on image to enlarge):
My point in providing you with all of this information?
Well, if Ms. Lo was, indeed, voicing concerns about the financial risks of bailing out Millenium with our Millions for 'months' as Mr. Mason mentioned, this is no trivial matter.
Because, according the City's own website, this was THE person who was in the know about all of the financial aspects of the Olympic Village operation.
So, if Ms Lo's voice really was dissenting and really was ignored......
What, exactly, is that telling us about how this thing was really handled, 'In-Camera' or otherwise?
OK?
______
I was going to tag this post at the top with the phrase 'Will She Stay Or Will She Blow?' (as in WhistleBLOW), but decided against it. After all, I am in not in any way attempting to be disrespectful of Ms. Lo here, especially given that, based on the evidence so far, it looks like she could very well turn out to be the people's hero on this one.
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