The vote was unanimous at Richmond city council on Monday to cap any subsidies for the Richmond Olympic Oval to $2.5 million per year.
At the July 7 general purposes committee meeting, however, the conversation on the cap was long and convoluted, with several council members voting against it in the end.
But after a member of the Oval board addressed city council at Monday's meeting, saying the Oval Corporation could manage operations with only $2.5 million from the city, the nay votes turned to yay votes. The Oval has received on average $3.5 million in subsidies since its inception. In 2024, the city subsidy was $4 million.
Coun. Alexa Loo voted against the cap last week. At Monday’s meeting, she said she felt voting without hearing from the Oval board would have been putting the “cart before the horse.”
"Now that we’ve heard that the funding is what they need, then I’m willing to support it,” she said. “I wasn’t willing to support it before we’d heard from the board and understood what we’re going to make them do instead of just have them ‘make do.’”
Call to change Oval Corporation governance supported
At the July 7 committee meeting, city council also approved a referral to its staff to look into the governance model and what it would mean to dismantle the Oval Corporation and integrate its services under the city.
Coun. Kash Heed had put forward a motion with specific language asking for a plan to dismantle the Oval Corporation. But after amendments to the motion, city council asked its staff to examine an “updated process” to move operations from under the Oval Corporation governance to operate under the City of Richmond.
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie cautioned that the “Olympic” moniker and the Olympic rings on the side of the building could be under threat if the corporation that governs the facility were dismantled. He also questioned whether the corporation would lose the Games Operating Trust (GOT) subsidy it receives.
Coun. Bill McNulty countered the mayor's points, saying it was “fearmongering.”
He added he’s been a proponent of the city running the Oval “from day one.”
Heed, for his part, also countered Brodie’s cautioning of losing the “Olympic” name, the rings and the Games Operating Trust funding. He said the Oval would continue to be the “jewel of Richmond” and have high-performance sports.
“Because we’re dissolving a corp, that all of a sudden poof, the building’s gone, poof the GOT money’s gone, the rings are gone, the name’s gone — no, absolutely not, it’s all there,” Heed said.
Coun. Carol Day said she’s been complaining about the reports city council receives about the Oval for 10 years, noting expenses seem high with what appeared to her to be “a lot of waste.”
She said over the past two years, changes in governance have resulted in two high-level positions being eliminated, saving $500,000.
“That tells me there is room for improvement, so that's why we should support this (motion),” Day said.
Coun. Andy Hobbs said it’s “timely” to have a review of the governance structure, but he noted the current board has made some good decision; for example, eliminating the CEO position, starting to work on a strategic plan and putting in financial controls.
However, he said he didn’t have any “preconceptions” whether, moving forward, it would be a corporation or whether it’s under the city’s operations.
“I do have some hesitation to think that a government is more capable of running something more financially prudently than a private business in a way, but maybe we can if it comes to that,” Hobbs said.
An external forensic audit of the Richmond Olympic Oval is currently underway.
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