Next stop, mediation. The rough ride for VANOC and its Florida-headquartered bus contractor is well into overtime. The two sides will meet in sessions November 8-10 brokered by Fitzpatrick and Co. of West Vancouver. Gameday Management CEO Tony Vitrano says his company is owed $10 million.
Vitrano’s Las Vegas law firm Patti, Sgro and Lewis (which defended convicted Sin City racketeer Rick Rizzolo) referred him to Vancouver-based Burns Fitzpatrick Rogers and Schwartz for the mediation.
“My understanding is everyone wants to work it out,” Vitrano said. “It’s non-binding, yet a requirement of the contract.”
To say time is of the essence for both parties would be an understatement. Dozens of companies on either side of the border are waiting for Gameday to pay the final instalments for work performed at February’s Olympics and March’s Paralympics. In the only substantial comment on the contract, VANOC executive vice-president Terry Wright claimed in August that Gameday misled VANOC in its billing and by introducing subcontractors to the mix that weren’t previously contemplated.
The irony of the whole story of the big bucks bus bickering?
Vitrano is now transportation operations lead for the London 2012 Olympic organizing committee. A bigger event with fewer complications. The public-owned Transport for London will be loaning its vehicles and drivers to the Olympic transport network in 2012. No need for Vitrano to muster resources across a continent, as happened for Vancouver.
VANOC, meanwhile, could have to delay its post-Games financial report, unless the parties can quickly resolve their problems in mediation. VANOC has not reported financial results since December 2009, despite the 2002 Multiparty Agreement that said it must do so quarterly. A planned October release for the year, which was to end July 31, 2010, was pushed back to November. Now December is within the realm of possibilities.
“While we are still working toward releasing a financial report before the end of the year and possibly in November, it would be premature to confirm dates,” said vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade.
The early October prospectus for Whistler Blackcomb’s imminent $300 million public share offering said VANOC paid $32.1 million compensation for use of Creekside for alpine skiing and Blackcomb for the Whistler Sliding Centre. Both venues cost taxpayers $135.5 million, but VANOC was bound by a make-whole agreement. Parent Intrawest thought it should’ve received $6.2 million more.
Intrawest also estimated a non-Olympic season would’ve brought 2.15 million skier visits. Instead, 1.67 million was the lowest attendance since the mountains’ 1997-98 merger.
VANOC CEO John Furlong was revealed as a board member, appointed October 6.
Thank goodness for those disclaimers to warn investors to do their homework before investing. Intrawest cited the mythical 3.5 billion-viewer figure. The International Olympic Committee’s Vancouver 2010 marketing report, issued in July, said the total estimated viewership of the Games was 1.8 billion. Big? Yes. Gigantic? No.
Evidence that Vancouver hosted the 2010 Games is slowly disappearing from downtown.
The Omega countdown clock was removed in mid-October from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s north plaza. The Paralympic half is destined for the Callaghan Valley’s day lodge; the Olympic side for the BC Sports Hall of Fame at BC Place Stadium.
That leaves the Terasen-sponsored Olympic cauldron at Jack Poole Plaza beside the Vancouver Convention Centre as the most accessible relic.
It’s a tribute to Poole, whose October 23, 2009, cancer death in Vancouver came hours after the Olympic flame was lit in ancient Olympia, Greece. But it’s hardly a monument to a Games that VANOC wanted us all to believe were “green.”
The cauldron uses an average 7.6 gigajoules of natural gas per hour. When lit, it uses more energy in one day than the average natural gas-powered B.C. house does in two years.