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Entries from January 2016

Olympic village fatigue or “Don’t tell us any more”

January 17th, 2009 · 37 Comments

So I think I speak for all of us when I say: Enough. We get it. The Olympic village is a mess. Somebody is to blame, though we’re not completely sure who yet. We’ve now all read more in-camera city-hall minutes than any of us would have ever believed possible, minutes that have way less […]

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Leaking Olympic village documents

January 17th, 2009 · 1 Comment

I’ve put this insert into my recent post about deconstructing the Olympic village and I’m repeating it here to make sure it doesn’t gets missed. Daniel just called me to clarify that he is absolutely not the person who gave in-camera documents and Jeff Lee has posted on his blog that it is not Daniel […]

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Guess which Gregor Robertson campaigner works for James Hoggan

January 17th, 2009 · 6 Comments

Okay, one more bit of news for you to wake up to in the morning. Eyebrows are lifting slightly around town at the news that Mira Oreck, the Vision Vancouver campaigner who was literally welded to Gregor Robertson’s side during three months of the campaign making sure he got from event to event on time, […]

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Deconstructing the in-camera meeting minutes for the Olympic village

January 17th, 2009 · 12 Comments

My pal Jeff Lee over at the Sun had an interesting story in Friday’s Vancouver Sun with details about the in-camera meeting back in June 2007 where the Non-Partisan Association majority voted in favour of the $193-million loan guarantee and completion guarantee for Fortress, so that Millennium could get its financing for the Olympic village. […]

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The Jody Andrews memorial service

January 17th, 2009 · 5 Comments

I’m continuing to hear from inside city hall how bad people feel about the resignation of Jody Andrews, who quit yesterday after apparently weeks of feeling that he was being effectively pushed out of his job as the manager of the Olympic village. For obvious reasons, they’re not going to be talking publicly. But there […]

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Tags: City Hall Talk

Vision insiders question the Olympic village message

January 16th, 2009 · 29 Comments

A little bird called me today and read out an email from a Vision board member that has somehow escaped to a larger audience than intended. The email, from Marcella Munro, went out this morning to the rest of Vision’s tight communications team, which frequently debates how well they are doing on their message. That […]

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Sam Sullivan’s quarterback moves on

January 16th, 2009 · 3 Comments

This just in from the land of former city-hall staffers. David Hurford, who became legendary in this city for his ability to churn out press releases documenting Mayor Sam Sullivan’s every action, has moved on. He’s sent out this email to some: As of this week I have started as director of community and public […]

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It’s time to accept that we are are a world-class disaster zone

January 16th, 2009 · 31 Comments

I think it’s been hard for many of us to deal with the ongoing turmoil at city hall over the Olympic village. It’s so not Vancouver. Everything is so not Vancouver: the crashed housing market, the serial drama being played out with one leaked bit of information after another, the ongoing stories about how one […]

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Olympic project manager felt sidelined, hobbled

January 16th, 2009 · 7 Comments

Sources in city hall tell me that Olympic project manager Jody Andrews tendered his resignation today, effective immediately, after several weeks of being stripped of responsibilities and pretty much ordered not to talk to the public/media about the village. The relatively young 40-something Andrews, who has worked at the city for 18 years, was put […]

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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 […]

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