Ladner is Finished

Peter Ladner's bid for the Mayor's chair is finished.

It is over.

Buried irrevocably by the Olympic Village story.

Gregor Robertson and the Vision team will hanmer this story until it loooks like ground round.

Gregor Robertson will win and we will have a new City Council that will rival the outgoing council for "Worst in Living Memory."

I voted for Peter, and his friends and family and NPA die-hards will vote for him and that's it.

Sayonara, auf veiderzein, ciao, baby, ciao.

Ladner will shoulder all the blame for this very, very bad act by a sitting government, but he shouldn't.

Sam Sullivan and Gordon Campbell and the federal government and all the councillors who were there at the scene of the crime should take the blame as well.

If there were any justice in the world, Raymond Louie and Tim Stevenson and Elizabeth Ball and all other Council participants in the October 14th in-camera session that gave away the store to American hedge fund crooks would be gone too.

But they won't be.

Raymond will be re-elected and so will a few other incumbents.

Given what has come to light in the last 48 hours - thanks to Gary Mason, a Globe & Mail national reporter, and not one local scribe - the current Council ought to resign en masse.

A few weeks ago, in a closed meeting, city councillors unanimously agreed to "help" Millennium Development Corp., which is building the Olympic village. The city will lend up to $100 million to Fortress Investment Group, a Wall Street hedge fund manager, which in turn will be lending about $700 million to build the athletes' village on the south shore of False Creek.

Fortress, its stock price now trading at under $4 from its 52-week high of $19.50 -- it dropped 12 per cent Thursday -- has also been given $190 million in loan guarantees from Vancouver taxpayers. Two taxpayer-funded entities -- which like to see themselves as corporations, but are in essence supposed to represent the public interest -- refuse to say how high the financial risk is for taxpayers.

The nearly $300 million in loan guarantees, if fully drawn down and reneged upon, would represent about 30 per cent of the city's annual budget.

The above in italics are taken from Miro Cernetig's column in this morning's Sun.

Nobody at City Hall is willing to utter Word One on this story. Not Ladner, not Louie, not the City Manager, Judy Rogers.

Louie, by the way, is vice-chairman of the city's finance committee.

So let me by absolutely clear about this...and I am confident that I speak for taxpayers and home owners all across the City of Vancouver:

I DO NOT WANT ONE PENNY OF MY MONEY BEING LOANED OR GIVEN TO A WALL STREET HEDGE FUND CRIMINAL!!!

For any spurious purpose, including the Olympics or the Special Olympics or the Western Surrey Regional Fly Fishing Tourney.

To Make matters worse, everyone concerned is dummying up. Won't say a word. Covering the poo in secrecy, claiming the privilege of "being in negotiations."

Yes, but in negotiations with my money and yours.

These fools have hit the absolute Zero Sum base of Irresponsibility.

This morning, as I write this, I am in a hotel room in Whistler.

God willing, I'll get back safely to town this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, as I steered through the dodge-em, hodge-podge of the relentless construction on the Sea-to-Sky Boondoggle Highway, I found myself despising Gordon Campbell even more than ever.

Half of Vancouver's roads and city streets are an unholy mess. The transit system is easily the worst in the known world. We have the unremitting, growing problems of addictions, homelessness, wait-times for medical attention and so on into the dark Liberal night.

But millions have been found and allocated for this stupid road - on which there were about 12 people travelling mid-day yesterday - to aid and abet the glory of a two-week event so that Wee Gordie can have his emotional wet dream in public. I can't wait for his teary moments. And when they come, I will count each tear drop at a Million or So Dollars per.

Thus, follows the South East False Olympic Village site.

Thus follows VillageGate.

Thus follows the end of Peter Ladner, the anointing of Gregor Robertson, the beginning of a dreadful new City Council and the indebtedness of Vancouver taxpayers to some creep in New York who's laughing all the way to his several banks.

This the Sucker Play for The Ages.