IOC torpedoes floating media hotel

Vanoc hits yet another snag

IOC sinks plan to house about 1,600 journalists on a luxury cruise ship at Squamish during Games

The Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
By Jeff Lee

The International Olympic Committee handed Vanoc another organizational headache Tuesday when it rejected a proposal from local organizers of the 2010 Olympic Games to use a luxury cruise ship to house 1,600 journalists expected to cover events at Whistler.

Vanoc wanted to moor the ship at Squamish and bus members of the media to the mountain sites each day.

"Let's say the idea was firmly and politely rejected," IOC press commission chairman Kevan Gosper said from Beijing Tuesday.

"We were simply presented with one option, and whilst a cruise ship may be suitable for tourists and corporates, we don't think it was an appropriate option for as important a working group as the press," Gosper said in a telephone interview.

The decision by the IOC advisory group is another blow to plans for the 2010 Olympics, and creates another set of headaches for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, which is facing lack of affordable accommodation at the mountain venues.

Nejat Sarp, Vanoc's vice-president of accommodation and villages, said he is waiting for Vanoc officials who were at the press commission meeting to return with a full report before deciding what to do.

"Once they get back we're going to sit down and look at what their [IOC's] concerns are," Sarp said. "We will be looking at further options and will have further dialogue to try and address their concerns."

But he said a cruise ship may still be used at Squamish for other groups that need accommodation.

Vanoc first proposed the idea of a cruise ship village to the IOC this summer after it became clear it is having trouble finding enough rooms in Whistler. Sarp said Vanoc needs about 3,000 rooms for judges, media, officials and IOC staff and members, and the cruise ship would be of the luxury variety that plies the Alaska and Caribbean tourist routes.

Overall, Vanoc is expecting between 7,000 and 10,000 media and broadcasters -- by far the largest group attending the Olympics -- to require accommodation. Vancouver's hotel stock is adequate for the city-based media, but the real crunch is in the Whistler area.

Originally Vanoc planned to build an athletes' village near the Nordic venues in the Callaghan Valley, and a temporary media village at Whistler's new Cheakamus subdivision. But finances and logistical issues forced Vanoc to move the athletes' village to Cheakamus. It decided to put the idea of a media cruise ship hotel to the IOC.

"Where we really have a tight fit is in Whistler, versus Vancouver. Whistler is going to be an ongoing challenge, not because of the media but because of all user groups requesting additional accommodation," Sarp said.

He said the cruise ship had merit because it would give Squamish some economic benefit.

But Gosper made it clear the IOC press commission didn't think much of the idea.

"The real issue is we were presented with one option, and it is not an option that was acceptable," Gosper said. "Cruise ships aren't normally the vehicle for the sort of hours and nature of work that the press is involved in. They are one of the hardest-working and important groups of the Games."

Sarp said Vanoc is now hoping Whistler will temporarily relax a bylaw that protects its residential zone from short-term rentals. The bylaw currently prohibits housing from being rented for less than 30-day periods, as a way of providing stable housing for the local work force.

"We are having a dialogue with the municipality about that, and they have been very cooperative. If we go down that road we could find ourselves with a fairly large increase in accommodations," Sarp said.

But he said Vanoc may have to assign rooms on a priority basis.

"I think what we have to do is look at each user groups' requirements, and if push comes to shove, look at who would have the first priority of having access to the accommodation," he said.

-30-

Olympic costs story ongoing

North Shore News
Friday, September 22, 2006
By Keith Baldrey

Does it really matter to many people whether the costs for improving the Sea to Sky Highway are part of the true cost of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games?

Does anyone really care whether one of the stations on the new rapid transit line to the Vancouver airport is added to the cost of the Olympics?

I suspect the answers to both questions would be "no," and indeed a recent Mustel poll done for Global TV and News 1130 show a slight majority of British Columbians think such costs should be excluded from the budget for the Olympics.

But whether the "true" budget is $600 million (which the B.C. government insists is the actual cost) or $2.5 billion (the auditor general's figure) obscures a more important point. The bigger issue is whether the anticipated costs actually start to grow beyond what's on the table right now.

The auditor general's figure of $2.5 billion includes spending that we already know about. The Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement project, for example, isn't exactly a secret venture and neither is the construction of the Canada Line to the airport.

Including that kind of spending as part of the Olympic costs is simply moving money from one envelope to another.

But the ominous part of the auditor general's report on the Olympic costs concerns the warning flags about how the current level of costs could easily spin out of control. The report by Arn van Iersel is a sobering document, and one that should give taxpayers pause.

The auditor general has concluded the current management structure of the Games is seriously flawed, and he is calling on the provincial government to become more active in ensuring things don't become unravelled.

According to van Iersel, there is insufficient co-ordination between the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee and the provincial government. The result is that provincial money goes out the door, without the government having a proper oversight role in ensuring that money is being spent wisely.

An unsettling example of that is van Iersel uncovering the news that negotiations over several of the key venue sights aren't even completed yet. That means the budget for any of those venues -- which include the Whistler Athlete's Village -- could easily begin to exceed the original cost estimates, as the price of labour and construction materials continues to climb.

Because the venue designs aren't completed yet, the RCMP has been unable or unwilling to provide specific security cost estimates to the auditor general. Without knowledge of exits, entrances, streets, etc., the RCMP can't state exactly its security plans for that particular venue.

Costs for security are currently estimated to be $175 million, but how that figure was ever arrived at has never been explained (security costs for the Athens Summer Olympics were well over $1 billion).

The auditor general also uncovered a stunning error that shows how easily money can be lost or wasted on a venture such as the Olympic Games. Because much of the broadcast rights payments to VANOC are in U.S. funds, the decline of the American dollar will end up costing it about $150 million in lost revenue.

The provincial government or VANOC could have safeguarded against the fluctuations in currency values by purchasing "hedging" contracts, but they failed to do so. If an error like that can be made once, it is conceivable another one could be made again.

So arguing about whether $2.5 billion is the true cost of the 2010 Olympics is rather pointless since that involves money we already know about. Worrying about the spending going well beyond that figure is more relevant.

And as the auditor general points out in his report, when all is said and done, there is only one entity responsible for budget overruns -- the provincial government, not the International Olympic Committee and not the federal government -- only the B.C. government.

That same Mustel poll found a slight majority of British Columbians (55 per cent) favour spending more money on the Olympics if that's what it takes to make them a success. But at what level of overruns does that support start to slip badly?

A $500-million overrun? A $1-billion overrun? If we ever get to that point, arguing over whether the Sea to Sky Highway is part of the Olympic costs will seem small potatoes indeed.

-30-

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global TV.