As construction at the Olympic Village continues, more information is emerging about the turmoil within Vancouver City Hall when the project began to tumble.
A memo obtained by The Globe and Mail newspaper reveals the city's former chief financial officer Estelle Lo had serious concerns about the project.
In an October 2008 memo to then-city manager Judy Rogers, Lo was clearly concerned about cost overruns and the financial problems of the project's developer Millennium.
"What will be the risk to the city if they can't come up with a solution, given the deadline to meet our commitment to VANOC?" She asked in the document. "Should the city also have a contingency plan just in case?"
And she worried about the risk to the city.
"If costs continue to escalate, the city would be the party with the exposure to financial risk given that we have a completion deadline. How can we control those risks now?"
Just days after that memo was sent ...city council secretly voted to advance $100-million to millennium to keep the project going. Lo was not at that meeting.
One councilor, Tim Stevenson, says the "degree" of Lo's fears wasn't relayed to him.
"Well, I certainly think that if she had raised the concerns that we're reading today. It would have made a huge difference," he said.
It turns out that Lo's fears were justified.
Now the city is looking for a loan to cover a half-billion-dollar shortfall. And Lo resigned not long after raising the red flag.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Mike Killeen.
