Smoking dope before writing an editorial - In Our View: A True Headquarters

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The obvious conflict of the city bailing out the local rag by taking their palace off their hands aside, the editorial here overlooks a wide variety of the issues that made this a bad idea at the time, a bad idea when they failed to make millions off selling this to PeaceHealth, an insurance company that foolishly wanted to move to Vancouver (Given the socialist bent and the self-immolating philosophy of Vancouver's tax and spending kamikaze bridgers/looters, why anyone would even consider moving there... for anything, let along business... is beyond me) and it continues to be a bad idea now, the democratian's spin notwithstanding.

Let's review the bidding, shall we?

The democratian built this state of the art palace across the street from Esther Short Park and just up the street from their first monument to screwing the taxpayer and ignoring the will of the people, the Pollard Hilton, a tax-subsidized White Elephant that could not, on it's BEST day, make a profit without sucking up tax revenues desperately needed somewhere else; but the deal fell apart when prospective support tenants (The ones who would actually pay for the building) started bailing in droves when they wised up about being located in the middle of the region's slum... which helped to contribute to the rag's well-deserved bankruptcy.

The complete lack of leadership of the rag, their inability to understand the reality of the world around them, their failing business plan... all of that combined to force them to move back to the hovel they had moved out of, an additional monument to the incompetence of their management.

Salivating at yet additional ways to screw the taxpayer, Tim "The Liar" Leavitt led the charge to pick up the democratian's palace, and he wasted  $18.5 million of the people's money by buying a building the city did not need, while lying about saving money as the justification.

You've got to waste money to save money?

Please.

At best, it will take 18 years just to break even.

In other words, buying this unneeded building (The city will not be able to do anything as a result of buying the building that they can't do without the building... except keep $18.5 million for other uses that actually serve the people) at this time was, in fact, a massive waste... a criminal waste of the taxpayers money.

And then, to compound this stupidity, a private company comes along, and for God knows what reason, made the city an offer that would have resulted in an instant profit of $3 million or so, money that could have been applied to the unimportant services the city was forced to cut.

Now, according to the rag, it's almost impossible for those toting their water on replacing the bridge and ramming loot rail down our throats to do any wrong.  That the rag was so inept, so incompetent that they couldn't keep their building is more a reflection on their efforts to vilify those who disagree with them, and to continue on in their efforts to injure those who live here and oppose their fascist-type agenda which causes people to avoid buying their kitty litter box liner like it was printed across the street from Fukajima Power and Light.

So, they will do what they always do: spin like a top to try and help protect those they like.  Which brings us to the musings of an individual who obviously failed to step away from the bong before they hit the keyboard.

As the city of Vancouver’s year-long transition to a consolidated city hall gains momentum, the benefits to the public in terms of convenience and to taxpayers in terms of financial gain are becoming more apparent.

This, of course, is a crock.  If they were, in fact, "becoming more apparent," then whoever wrote this tripe wouldn't need to be talking about it.

Given the costs, there is no level of convenience to be gained from this building.  None.  There isn't any such advantage under any circumstances, but particularly when you factor in the horrific local economy.

the city has put up for sale the two-story Esther Short Building, which is diagonally across the Sixth and Esther intersection from the new city hall. Listing price is $5.23 million, which if gained in the sale could not be considered profit because the city still owes $5.75 million on a lease-to-own agreement. But the twin advantages to this sale are that it would eliminate one city debt and likely would return the Esther Short Building to the status of a property taxpayer. And that would partially offset the tax-revenue loss of the new city hall’s shift from the private sector to the public sector.

Figures don't lie... but liar's figure?

First, the city is looking at a half-million dollar loss off the top.... and, of course, there is NO WAY the city will get what they're asking for on this building... they'd be lucky to get a million below that figure.

Second, the city didn't need to sell this building if they hadn't bought the democratian palace to begin with.

Third, this doesn't come close to replacing the revenue from a building valued 4 times more.

The rag goes on to shill downtown as if any of it was worth the powder to blow it to hell.  Any business capable of coming up with the cash to buy this white elephant would be smart enough to avoid our local version of Detroit like the plague.

With an employee head tax, with the absurdity of wasting $100,000,000 plus to date on an unwanted, unneeded and unnecessary project that will screw up transportation to the downtown area for YEARS, who in their right minds would be caught dead in the center of Clark County's slum?

The delusion of whoever wrote this trash is obvious.  It shows more of that same pie-in-the-sky, it's "other people's money" thinking that brought the rag to the humiliation of building this pig only to be forced into moving back out of it a few short months later.

So here, it's not just that whoever wrote this editorial was stoned.  It's that they were stoned enough to expect that those with even a basic awareness of reality would believe it when they read it.
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