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Pivot: City lacked legal authority for $100m secret meeting
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by mtippett | November 13, 2008 at 01:08 pm
138 views | 0 Recommendations | 3 comments
Pivot Legal, an activist organization who represents the homeless community and others in the DTES has entered into the debate about the city's contraversial 100 million dollar loan. Pivot argues that all parties were at fault in handling the meeting in secret. Here is most of the release they published on their website.
Vancouver – Pivot Legal Society has filed a complaint with the Provincial Ombudsman alleging that the City of Vancouver did not have legal authority to withhold information from the public about a $100m Olympic village loan guarantee.
“This complaint targets all three major municipal parties represented on council right now,” said Laura Track, housing campaigner with Pivot. “To our knowledge, not one councillor stepped up and voted against holding the meeting in secret or insisted on public debate.”
City of Vancouver bylaws allow in camera meetings when discussion of the “acquisition, disposition, or expropriation” of land or improvements would harm the interests of the City. The complaint points out that the $100m loan guarantee raised none of those issues. The complaint also raises concerns about statements made by City staff.
Pivot has long advocated that the Property Endowment Fund of the City of Vancouver (PEF) should be used to support the development of new social and affordable rental housing. However, City officials have consistently held that the PEF could not take into consideration any factor other than financial return on a given real estate investment.
“We’re told that the Property Endowment Fund has now been emptied to support the development of luxury condominiums,” said Track. “If the City can use the PEF to subsidize private Olympic developers then it can certainly use it to finance social housing,” said Track.
The $100m guarantee means that Vancouver has now issued a total of $290 million in PEF-backed loan guarantees for Olympic developments. If those financial resources were directed to the problem of homelessness, at $200,000 per social housing unit, Vancouver’s homeless population of approximately 1,600 people could have been reduced to almost zero.
Track hopes the complaint will ensure that future processes involving the spending of the PEF are accountable and transparent. “We need public debate on how the Property Endowment Fund is spent, not secret meetings and bailouts for Olympic developers.”
To read the text of the Complaint, click here.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 14:11 on November 13th, 2008
PIVOT? Pardon me if I do not place much credibility on the legal rants of this taxpayer funded, pro-criminal lobby group. They should stick to what they do best....improving the lives of those douche bags that break into our homes and cars to get drug money.
at 20:43 on November 13th, 2008
Ray, I actually have a lot of respect for the work these guys do. You don't get rich working for the people they represent. These guys could all be making hefty 6-figure salaries but they choose not to.
at 11:46 on November 14th, 2008
May I presume that you have never lived in the DTES? I did. For 5 years. And the scumbags that PIVOT defends broke into my car (5 times), my dinner guests' cars (twice) and into my condo (once). They pissed in my doorway constantly and they accosted my friends, family and me. I have NO respect for what PIVOT wants to achieve or the way they do it. The fact that they work cheap to forward their wrong-headed agenda does not earn them any kudos from me. I guess we will agree to disagree.