Dear Editor,
RE: ROX sees 65 visitors a day: Oval,” News, Feb. 3.
The Richmond Olympic Oval, through ROX (the oval’s Olympic museum) has created another opaque money pit for the taxpayers of Richmond.
Mayor Malcolm Brodie, as chief executive officer of the municipality and the oval’s council liaison, needs to address this money pit.
The amount owed to the City of Richmond by the oval is non-interest bearing with no stated repayment terms.
These municipal corporations, i.e. the oval, are established with the aim to provide a balance between a local government’s broad powers and corporate autonomy, while ensuring transparency and accountability owed to the electorate.
After reading “ROX sees 65 visitors a day: Oval,” it appears the oval is primarily protecting the interests of itself and VROX, a private company that sells the sports simulators featured in ROX.
VROX is 50 per cent owned by the oval. Interestingly, the city’s CAO, who is also the CEO of the oval, is also a director of VROX. He earns $66,000 (2015) from the oval and $302,000 (2015) including benefits from the city.
We don’t know what benefits he gets from VROX as it’s a private company. He’s among a number of city staff members who also work at the oval.
This incestuous relationship between city staff and the oval could be perceived as a conflict of interest, especially when the money trail appears to end in the private companies: VROX and VRX Advanced Simulators, which are not subject to public transparency or accountability.
The oval must produce the Business Plan 3.0 and other information it has been withholding from public scrutiny and queries.
This claim of “proprietary” information obfuscates matters, frustrates the taxpayers and lacks transparency and accountability to the taxpayers who foot the bill for the oval.
In fact, perhaps it is time to dispose of the oval (as it is used by a small number of Richmond taxpayers), and have the taxpayers’ money redirected to other higher-use community centres, the public library and homeless shelters?
Unthinkable, isn’t it! However, it would put an end to this taxpayer money pit.
Donald Flintoff
Richmond
