Are In-Camera Approvals Always Needed?

Do Land Transactions Always Require In-Camera Decisions?

The common song that comes from city hall when more openness and transparency is called for, is that when dealing with land transactions (being one of the 3-L's) secrecy is needed to protect the interests of the city.

While I get the need for secrecy if the city is desiring to secure a purchase at the best price, I am not convinced that secrecy is automatically warranted which is the default position of this council.

25 Victoria Road, a shining example of a bad decision

You may recall a number of years ago city council decided to buy the old building at 25 Victoria Road to placate the arts and culture community led by Camila Tang. This is the building that has become a first class money pit which is just a black hole for tax dollars.

The purchase of that building was done in secret, I suspect as much to avoid public scrutiny as to protect the interests of the city. City hall watchers will know how decisions being made to satisfy an organized, noisy minority can result in Councillors making decisions that clearly are not in the interest of the city as a whole. The cynic in me, thinks it is just the promised political clout, and voting support that resulted in this council blowing another $200,000 on that building in a decision of very questionable use of your tax dollars.

Councilor Greves for example went from saying 'tear the building down' to 'I wish we could give you the full $800,000' after a few months of back-room arm bending by the arts group using 25 Victoria Road.

Taxpayers should have been asked before that deal was ever made!

There is no reason that the decision to purchase 25 Victoria Road had to be finalized in secret. Council could have chosen then, and can choose now to make an offer to purchase contingent upon council approval being made in an open council meeting.

That way the public can have a say as to what they think of the deal, rather than having deals being made with YOUR tax dollars. Under that scenario we might have bought Dunsmuir Place for far less than we ended up spending on that shiny new $16 million staff office.

Wellcox property another example of a poor decision?

While city council and in fact most people think the purchase of a prime piece of downtown waterfront which some refer to as the last frontier, is a good idea and a sound investment, I'm not so sure those same folk would agree we needed to take on the liability of the trestle and road to property we don't own was a good idea.

That is a deal I can't imagine someone using their own money would have made, But again we have civil servants making marketplace deals with other people's money and their is no public oversight until the deal is done. By then of course it is too late and we are stuck with what arguably was not the best possible deal.