Daphne Bramham
Sun
Richmond‘s leaders have megaprojectitis that has infected B.C. politicians forever.
The current economic boom (which everybody agrees is completely unsustainable) seems to have brought out the inner Wacky Bennett in all of them.
They are forging ahead with a $178-million Olympic oval on a site so soggy and unstable that its probable lifespan as an international venue is little more than a decade.
“In some places it takes a mob in the streets to stop government in its tracks. Elsewhere, the army does the honours. B.C. must be the only jurisdiction where administrations are periodically shaken up by accountants.”
That’s what my perceptive colleague Vaughn Palmer wrote back in 1998, which ironically was about the time that the first twinges of Olympic lust were awakening in the province.
The point he was making is that too often governments — especially in B.C. — plunge in with little concern for the consequences.
Politicians sweep the public along with them and their dreams. But when the bills come in, forensic accountants are called in to sort out the mess and taxpayers end up a little poorer.
The list is long. Suffice it to mention only fast ferries, the Expo land sale and the Coquihalla Highway.
Richmond‘s road to the Olympics is paved with the familiar hyperbolic flourish and few details.
City manager George Duncan has called the oval project “Times Square on the Fraser”. Communications manager Ted Townsend described it as a signature building more grandiose than B.C. Place and on par with Sydney, Australia’s opera house.
What they avoid saying is that the oval was the single most expensive Olympic venue even before Richmond decided to double the size and triple the cost.
The oval is also the only project that if it goes over budget, the provincial government will not pay for the overruns.
At this point, Richmond taxpayers are on the hook for $118 million for a facility that appears to have more risks associated with it than many, if not all, of the others.
Geotechnical engineers told the city in September that there is “considerable risk” that the 400-metre track could have enough wobble in it by 2018 that it won’t meet the International Skating Union’s rigid standard.
That standard is that the track cannot vary by more than 20 millimetres over its length or by three millimetres in a distance of three metres.
Those geotechnical challenges help explain why the Richmond oval is estimated at $178 million, while Turin built its oval for $100 million.
But what’s hard to understand is why Richmond council — knowing the extent of those challenges — agreed to go ahead with such an expensive facility that might quickly be obsolete.
Of course, nobody bothered to tell taxpayers the risks. Nobody bothered to tell them that council, the city manager, the project manager or whoever had accepted those risks and forged on anyway.
Just last week Coun. Bill McNulty, all flushed with enthusiasm after his trip to the Turin Olympics, wrote in the Richmond News that “post-2010 [it] will be a world-class venue available for use for elite-level sports competition and training.”
The only reason people know is because the geotechnical report was given to me in response to a request under B.C.’s Freedom of Information Act.
Maybe residents are happy spending $3,000 per household on a big, barn-like structure that won’t be up to its principal use in a decade.
But maybe had they known the cost and the risks in September when council did, they might have demanded that since its use as an international venue may be limited, the venue should be scaled back to the size required by the Olympics rather than being twice what’s needed.
They might even have voted differently in the November civic election.
But keeping the geotechnical details quiet is just part of the pattern.
Richmond devised its gold-plated offer behind closed doors. It didn’t even mention it to citizens until the deal was signed, sealed and delivered.
It was an offer Vanoc couldn’t refuse since it allowed Vanoc to cap its cost at $60 million (in 2002 dollars).
The city worked it out so that taxpayers would never get a chance to vote on the oval. With no plan to borrow money, no plebiscite was required.
The money was initially to come from casino revenue, sale of adjacent land, the development fund and sponsorship revenue.
However, it was just a few months ago that the city admitted that because of the rigid International Olympic Committee rules on sponsorships, no sponsorship or naming rights can be sold until after 2010.
When the $23-million underground parkade was added to help stabilize the oval and bumped the oval’s cost to $178 million, taxpayers were told it wasn’t an additional cost. They were told it was a cost-saving because more of the adjacent land would be freed up for sale to the private sector.
Ask city officials anything about the oval and what they’ll tell you is that it is on-time and on-budget.
They’re, of course, not counting the two recent decisions made in camera to spend $14.2 million to buy the Canadian Pacific Railway spur line for road construction around the oval and $2 million to hire several employees to work on projects including the oval.
It’s also hard to not be on-budget when construction hasn’t started and major contracts haven’t yet to be tendered.
As for being on-time, Richmond signed a contract guaranteeing completion in time for the Olympics regardless of what it costs.
Maybe we’re damned for all time to repeat our history of megaprojects.
But the whole point of knowing history is to not repeat the mistakes.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
