Posts from — April 2009

The construction value of building permits declined 45 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. Here is the latest bulletin from the city’s chief building official, W. M. Johnston, who notes that the value of mercanitile and commercial construction has actually increased.

Just after dawn Tuesday, April 28, a solemn procession wound its way around the Vancouver Art Gallery bearing coffins. It was the BC Federation of Labour’s annual commemoration of the Day of Mourning, set aside for 24 years to remember those workers who have died on the job as the result of work-related injury or disease.

Jagjeet Sidhu, whose wife died in the crash of a farm contractor's van on Hwy. 1 in 2007, addresses the BC Federation of Labour Day of Mourning ceremony in Vancouver, April 28. J0sh Berson photo.

A keynote speaker this year was Jagjeet Sidhu, whose wife Sarbjeet was one of three killed and 14 injured in the 2007 crash of a contractor’s van on Highway 1 near Abbotsford. Hundreds of farmworkers demonstrated earlier this month demanding action to protect workers in their industry from workplace injury, but Liberal Labour Minister Ian Black refused to meet with them.

“Three young children every day miss their mother,” Sidhu said. “The government has yet to meet with us to ensure conditions for farmworkers are made safer. We have waited long enough for justice.” The driver of the van in which Sidhu’s wife died was fined $2,000 and lost her licence for a year.

Mayor Gregor Robertson and I made our way from Georgia and Hornby to the dusty square at the heart of the Olympic Village, where 1,400 workers stopped work at 10 a.m. for a similar commemoration. Saftey has been a priority at Millennium’s complex site, a tribute to the efforts of all concerned.

Fourteen hundred workers at Millennium's Olympic Village project stop work for a moment of silence in memory of those who died due to work-related injury or disease.

The latest round in the city’s battle over the future of the Burrard St. Bridge began today with the publication of this staff report setting out options for the one or two-lane closure trial promised by Vision Vancouver during last fall’s election campaign.

Here, as a service to loyal readers, is a Burrard Bridge Archive, providing links to the key documents in this lengthy debate.

The City of Vancouver last week released, under a Freedom of Information request, the one and only piece of correspondence the Clerk’s Office can find from former Chief Financial Officer Estelle Lo to anyone on the question of the Olympic Village. You can read it here.

It is a list of very pointed questions about the then still-secret financial crisis unfolding around the Village’s finances. Three of Lo’s 11 concerns were deleted by the city’s privacy officer under Section 13 of the Act, which provides for certain policy advice to remain confidential.

As Frances Bula reported in yesterday’s Globe and Mail, both Raymond Louie and I find the memo “very odd.”

Why odd? NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton summed it up well:  “How could a CFO not know what was going on?”

Good question, but it seems that at the City of Vancouver under the NPA, the CFO was out of the loop on the biggest project in the city’s history. In fact, the memo strongly suggests that Lo, like other residents, was alerted to problems with the Olympic Village by the first story on the topic, which Globe columnist Gary Mason broke on Oct. 6, 2008.

Lo resigned under murky circumstances some days later, as council was learning in camera that it needed to authorize up to $100 million in project advances to keep the Village project afloat. Her term at the city formally ended the day before the civic election.

Many of the questions Lo poses have since been answered by the Vision Vancouver coucil, which has conducted a number of public council debates on the financial plan and its replacement.

The new financial strategy executed by Gregor Robertson’s team should save the city about $90 million. In this regard, Lo’s final question leaps out:  “Is it worth getting someone who specializes in this kind of project/analysis/structuring/financing as a second pair of eyes?”  That was job one when Robertson took the helm.

The Olympic Village debacle leaves taxpayers on the hook for a $1 billion project, a far cry from the  ”all cash, no risk” deal touted by the NPA council in 2006.

Unfortunately, this terrible turnaround was not an anomaly, it was the norm.  A review of the Olympic projects under the NPA reveals a pattern of massive cost overruns:

• The Olympic Village affordable housing project budget was estimated at $65 million in 2006, but that ballooned to $95 million by 2007 and was increased again to $110 million in a report to council earlier this year. That’s just the overrun. Council will need between $30 and $70 million to achieve “affordable” units.
• The community centre and childcare components of the Village also saw costs rise 40 percent to $34.6 million from $24.5 million.
• The Olympic “legacy” developments, which included some contributions from VANOC, went far over budget. In 2005, council believed it could build two rinks, a new aquatic centre and a new curling rink for $35 million in city contributions and $43 million from VANOC. Council learned in 2006 this $78 million project had risen to $105.1 million, leaving Vancouver taxpayers with a $28 million overrun, some of which must be recovered from Park Board revenues in years to come.

There is one contrary example: the neighbourhood energy utility, which council recently learned will be completed on time and on budget for $29.3 million.

Does the city need another “set of eyes?” No doubt.

Lo’s successor, Patrice Impey, assumed her duties last week and attended council for the first time Thursday. Raymond Louie’s plan for a comprehensive review of the city budget is proceeding. But questions remain about how the Olympic overruns unfolded and why the city’s CFO seems to have been watching from afar during this time.