Let’s leave party politics out of this for a moment and ask ourselves the following:

Should we, the people ponying up the cash (ie. even if it comes back later it is not now coming from the property endowment fund), know that we are making $100 million dollar loans (ie. this is not a real estate transaction) to a developer that is in trouble that is backed by a hedge fund that is in just as much, if not more, trouble?

My answer is yes – especially given that the hedge fund is the major backer ($750 million to our ~$300 million) which suggests to me that if, indeed, things were to go sideways that we might be in for a real fight to get back even 1/2 of what the developer has promised us.

Speaking of which, what, exactly, has the developer promised us?

Isn’t that something else we should know?

.

.

As for the CASTaway Cash……

Is it possible that Maximum Lobbyist, Big Johnny R. failed to deliver, bigtime?

.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that PR people make the conscious choice to go in front of the public to offer purportedly informed opinions on subjects that they do not fully understand due to a wilful lack of knowledge about said subjects.

(truth be told, this ‘common practice’ is actually one of the major reasons why I never believe anything a spokesmodel has to say on any subject, real or imagined)

Regardless, that is not the issue here.

Why?

Because Mr. Huford is also the current Mayor’s ‘Chief of Staff’.

And if, as Chief of Staff, Mr. Huford deliberately kept himself in the dark on matters of import involving the current Mayor and/or the current Mayor’s decisions….

Well.

That probably explains a lot.

About the performance of the current Mayor’s administration I mean.

OK?

.

We’re still waiting for that $10 million dollars for CAST from the federal Conservative government that’s been “on it’s way” for the last year…

Both Hurford and The (also) Nutty One assured us that the money was not only earmarked or a just a guarantee, but that it was almost in the hands of George Abbott, ready for distribution..(never happened, total fabrication)

And while we’re at it, how ’bout the 2000 members the Sir Spamalot had signed up well-before any race for the NPA nomination…(yet another shovel full..and then some)

Oh, and, silly me, I almost forgot, while 90% of the city’s hardworking labour force was on strike, and Shammy’s horsemen were ridiculing them behind closed NPA doors, to the disgust of at least two members of caucus, “that never happened, Mr. Tsakumis is misinformed”. Two days later both in my column and in Miro Cernetig’s of the Sun, the same info for all to see…oh, but it never happened…

Gosh, and how ’bout “Peter Ladner has never told the Mayor that the party’s chances fro re-election are weaker with him (Sam)” (next day…the revelations of a meeting between Sam and Peter with precisely that on the agenda, with Sam half admitting that re-election might be “a challenge”)

Pathetic.

The list of Sir Hurlforth’s “communications” efforts is endless…

People half expect some spin. Meggs was the best Chief of Staff a Mayor ever had. He gave you the straight goods. If there was a little bit of gin in the mix, okay, we can live with that…but outright bullshit is all that we’ll remember of the Sham’s reign of error.

God help us if Gregor and Vision can’t make a difference. If they can’t, that’ll make it not since Philip Owen that we had a council that moved Vancouver forward.

Pray that it won’t be more taxes, in a down economy, and more shooting galleries, that will extend the suffering of Vancouverites across the board, of all strata.

I did find, however, the following comment from the purported person perhaps even more interesting than the denial that is not deniable:

“As Chief of Staff I am able to attend but because I am also Director of Communications and dealing regularly with reporters, there are many confidential things that frankly -I do not want to know..

So.

Does that not mean that there are very likely known knowns that the purported Mr. Hurford does not know, and/or unknowns that he cannot possibly know about unknown, or known, activities of his boss that he should know as Chief of Staff, but doesn’t want to know beause if he did he might be forced to actually answer a direct question from an enquiring reporter?

Sheesh.

.

.

Götterdämmerung