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City-Millennium bargaining went to deadline on how much developer should hand over besides Oly village

November 17th, 2010 · 57 Comments

Here’s my more complete story in the Globe on what transpired today (and the days leading up to it) related to the Olympic village moving into receivership.

But these 700 words have a hard time capturing everything that has been happening in this incredibly complex deal. (A sample of how badly it’s going to be mangled: As Penny Ballem explained some of the complexities for the umpteenth time to a roomful of reporters late this afternoon, one wanted to know: “But does the city own the village now?” Um, yes, in a word.)

As you can see in my story, the two sides have been bargaining for a few weeks on what it would take to simply have Millennium bow out. The keys plus $3 million, plus $10 million, plus $25 million or plus $60 million from them. Those were some of the numbers being batted around.

Key for you, the taxpayers, is to understand that it will be crucial to find out at some point how much money the city actually gets from Millennium, in addition to taking control of the physical asset. That additional money is what will make the difference in how much of a loss, if any, local taxpayers end up having to cover.

City people seemed to be quite pleased with whatever bargain they ended up striking at the 11th hour with Millennium. While I might normally be tempted to discount that and be wary of any claims that they had done well, those who are close to Millennium were dismayed at how much the developer brothers ended up handing over.

There are so many possible questions to this latest turn of the plot that I can’t think of where to start answering. So how about this? Ask me anything you want and I will answer to the best of my knowledge. And perhaps others can weigh in too.

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  • rf

    Oh I forgot, Chris, they don’t charge any additional taxes on plane tickets, oil, gas, luxury cars etc….

    I, deliberately, did not say that the wealthy pay “more” than their fair share. I think they pay their fair share. I did not bitch about taxes.

    I bitched about people like you who think that other people are an endless trough for how you think the world should be, like you have some sort of moral high ground and monopoly on wisdom.

    You are trying to make a point that they don’t their fair share.

    And you made it with a bunch of left of left rhetoric.

  • Chris Keam

    There was no rhetoric. Just a series of examples of the millions and millions of dollars that go toward programs that are of enormous benefit to wealthy people. Note that I never suggested they don’t pay their fair share either. Just that they get excellent value for the share they do provide, and whingers who are down to their last million don’t elicit much sympathy from me.

    “Oh I forgot, Chris, they don’t charge any additional taxes on plane tickets, oil, gas, luxury cars etc….”

    Everybody pays the same tax for the same products. Be thankful you don’t live in Finland.

    http://www.globalmotors.net/finnish-millionaire-gets-111888-euro-speeding-ticket/

  • Bill

    @rf

    I think they prefer the term “Progressive” to “socialist/communist/marxist” since the latter has a 100 year history of failure. Same product, just a new name.

  • Chris Keam

    Not that I ever indicated support for any particular brand of political system in my comments Bill, but I’ll bet the Quakers would like to point to their centuries of successful living and have a quiet word with you about the success or failure of communal approaches to society.

    I could also point out that most of the time human beings have been on earth we’ve lived communally, but no doubt you’d somehow construe that to mean I want to live in a cave and eat mastodon.

    I might mention that nowhere did I advocate for any form of wealth redistribution, but merely offered an alternative to RF’s narrative of the Wealth Man’s Burden, but why bother?

  • Creek’er

    As far as the Tax Act is concerned, those who certainly pay their fair share are income earners (i.e. income from office or employment) …particularly those at the higher end of the income scale.

    Those who earn income from business or property pay much less, proportionally, as do those who earn capital from investments…even leaving aside the numerous loopholes for deductions, exceptions, losses and preferential treatment of tax shelter investment strategies under those categories. Not to mention the modern trust…

    The middle and upper middle class pay the lion’s share of taxes as they are income earners. The truly rich, the owners and investors, pay much less proportionally.

    As Chris pointed out, the top quintile of income earners receives the most government services (in dollars per capita in Canada).

    We have a progressive tax system, but we should not conflate it as being an undue burden on those of great means.

  • John S.

    Don’t people realize that the so-called “assets” the city is getting from the developers are themselves ALL mortgaged. Folks should understand that other people will be paid first if the assets are sold. Also it doesn’t appear that the assets are worth more then $60 mill. That is just not much cash. How is it this small-ish City of ours has come to be on the hook for this staggering sum? Why did we not avoid the fate of Montreal, when we knew what could happen? this is a disaster for Vancouver! Why is no one being held accountable?

  • Jason king

    1) I don’t think we should turn this into a “class warfare” debate. ALL taxpayers are being affected by this….by moving this off that topic at hand and trying to turn it into “damn the rich” you lose focus on dealing with the issue at hand

    2) While I hate the current council/mayor I hope that all of us can put politics aside and focus on ensuring the current administration does whatevers in the best interest of the taxpayers. Regardless of how we got in the mess we’re in we should focus on the best way to get us out of it and leave the finger pointing until after we have a solution.
    3) Frances please keep providing us with updates, and I appreciate any insight from “experts” that you can provide….we should all be encouraging the city to put any political wrangling, finger pointing or idealogical driven decisions aside and simply do whatever is in the cities financial best interest

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