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City’s Olympic village manager has resigned

January 15th, 2009 · 13 Comments

City councillors have just received a message from city manager Penny Ballem that Jody Andrews, the young deputy city manager in charge of Southeast False Creek development, has resigned. There has been rumbling for the last couple of days that he would be fired so it’s very unclear how voluntary this resignation is.

A bit surprising that Andrews was being targeted or felt targeted or whatever is going on, as he was the one more in charge of overseeing the construction at the Olympic village as opposed to coming up with or monitoring complex financial arrangements.

This has to be sending shock ripples through city hall. More to come, we’re sure

Categories: Uncategorized

  • City Hall Insider

    There are some highly paid people in the Hall who deserve to go. Jody is not one of these. He is a talented leader who will be snapped up in no time flat. He is taking the fall for this and I hope the real characters get their marching orders as well. A purge is a long time coming. Regardless of what the pundits say.

  • spartikus

    I’m not sure if Mr. Andrews is one and the same as the “Project Manager, Southeast False Creek and Olympic Village” who is author of this report on the City’s website, but I found it most illuminative regarding the process by which Millennium was selected.

  • LP

    Can we get a city org chart posted somewhere so we can start putting giant red x’s over the fallen?

  • not running for mayor

    Wow I have to admit this is now going to get very ugly very quickly. Jody was very liked and was a bright lite at city hall. He had a lot of potential to move up quickly and was going places. I expect we are about to see a mass exodus soon. Our city planning dept has been one of the best run depts and the envy of most cities. I’m sure Jody will land on his feet as he’s had many great offers attempting to leach him in the past. I wish I could say the same about the dept they will have a hard time replacing him. Have to assume that my friend BT is now examining his options.

  • serpico

    For having authored that report, Mr. Andrews should lose more than just his job. Some highlights (brace yourself):

    – Millennium’s proposal provides a “guaranteed, unconditional price of approximately $193,000,000 that does not ask the
    City to assume any of the marketing or financing risk in the development”

    – Millennium’s proposal includes “a project financing plan that is independent of pre-sales or market conditions”

    – “Millennium has the experience, capacity and expertise to complete major projects and
    staff believes Millennium can complete the Olympic Village on time and meet or
    exceed VANOC’s needs”

  • foo

    I tell you, “Vancouver – the soap opera”, is a can’t miss TV series. We’ll easily make back the money lost on the Olympics. And don’t forget the tax credits. Where’s condohype to start doing the casting?

  • gasp

    Quoting not running for mayor:

    “Our city planning dept has been one of the best run depts and the envy of most cities.”

    It may be the envy of most cities, but it is the biggest irritant and waste of money in the eyes of many long-time residents and taxpayers. In case those at City Hall forgot, they have a LEGAL duty to act in the PUBLIC INTEREST, which means in the interest of those whose legal rights or [financial] obligations are affected. Reading Serpico’s comments, it’s obvious they don’t take that requirement very seriously – they’re more interested in selling their own perspective, without concern for the accuracy of their statements.

  • T W

    The items outlined by Serpico are a superb example of optimism bias. This factor, well known among project planners, can be minimised by using independent third party experts who, presumably, are not beholden to the same internal dynamics.

    What an expensive lesson

  • RossK

    TW–

    Optimism bias is one one thing.

    But serpico’s #2…..

    Millennium’s proposal includes “a project financing plan that is independent of pre-sales or market conditions….”

    ….would appear to be flat-out self-bamboozilification.

    .

  • Andrews should go

    The senior staff including all the so-called expert staff who advise City Council on project design and real estate strategies need the additional heat of public accountability – this starts with the two remaining deputy city managers and the project manager Andrews – the public and those of who work at the city need to see a clean out of this team of incompetent administrators who have overreached their skills into the private sector domain.

  • A. G. Tsakumis

    TW and Serpico are bang on!

    And Ross…that isn’t self-bamboozling you read, that’s called delusion.

    I spent almost ten years as a developer, on my own, and I can tell you that such words are NEVER written about any financing because contrary to popular belief, in real estate in particular, the ground can shift on you pretty quickly, unless you have fathoms deep pockets–enough to make it look like nothing’s wrong and can wait it out.

    I remember Jimmy Pattison once telling me that he too suffers bad deals, but no hears about them because he can afford to hang on…there’s a message there for any entrepreneur.

    Mr. Andrews’ report is, frankly, embarrassing on a number of fronts. Chief amoung them, that he apparently paid no attention to the fact that a deal with Millennium required massive amts of hand holding. The proposals by Wall and certainly by Terry did not. Terry’s family could have done this deal in their sleep using half of one pocket.

    If anything, this is yet another example of how the Rogers regime had the chain of command at Silly Hall, backwards…we elect politicians to bring expertise to the table, not Ken Dobell galpals and their groupies running the asylum, er, so to speak…

    And as for Suzanne Anton running her mouth…she is in no small part responsible for bolstering The Nutty One, who was a prime promoter of this as a good deal for Vancouver.

    Further evidence, that she wanted the NPA to fail so that she can remake it in her own image.

    Don;t believe me? She meets with Reputations, Sam’s former shield bearers, and Allen Langdon, former Reputations underboss,,,plus her closerthanthis relationship with Danny Boy over at citycockus.dumb, shows that she just lives to make the best possible decisions.

    Yeah, msging gurus…..shameless…all she’s missing is Elizabeth Ball…

  • tommi

    Alex, just because all of your friends aren’t getting the deals, or not making the decisions, or not getting the appointments you feel they should be getting, doesn’t mean everyone else is involved in some conspiracy theory or cockamamy scheme that you dream up. It makes your comments seem a little, well…Nutty.

    You also keep failing to realize that it was the Vision/COPE council a few years ago who decided to bring these lovely Olympics to Vancouver. Do you question the soundness of their decisions, or just the ones made by NPA councillors?

    There is plenty of blame to go around here, including Louie and Meggs, who are out there spouting the most partisan, divisive drivel I’ve ever heard from Vancouver politicians. The hypocrisy is astounding.

    It’s worrying that alarm bells aren’t going off when Gregor announced his intention to change the Vancouver Charter so that he and his Vision/COPE councillors could borrow and spend whatever they want without public consent. That is a SHOCKING statement coming from a Mayor who promised to do the exact opposite.

    Now back to our regularly scheduled Blame Game…

  • A. G. Tsakumis

    tommi:

    Bringing the Olympics here and cutting a very bad real estate deal are two very different things.

    My friends (not) getting contracts?? You don’t know my friends, obviously….none of them need to bullshit a politican to get a job since they all have long careers, for the most part.

    I’m simply stating the obvious. you don’t agree.

    Yawn….

    Scratch…