This out from Peter and Shahram Malek, after the city’s news conference saying yesterday their company failed to pay the full amount on their first loan instalment and that the city is going after their assets.
STATEMENT FROM MILLENNIUM
September 30, 2010
We have heard the City’s concerns today about the taxpayers investment in this community, and share the City’s interest in protecting the value of the asset for the public and Millennium. We care passionately about this project and what we have accomplished here.
Not everything in an accountant’s report describes how we arrived at this place. There have been many hurdles to get over – including delivering the Olympic and Paralympic Village on time, which we did. We created the Olympic Village – now called Millennium Water – for Vancouver, for British Columbia and for Canada. That commitment has never changed.
We are in active negotiations with the City.
While we are in negotiations with the City, we understandably will not have a lot to say publicly. However, in the weeks to come, we will continue to work tirelessly with the City to develop a mutually acceptable plan that protects the value of the asset for all stakeholders.
We will make ourselves available to the media for further comment next week.
Shahram Malek, Director, Millennium
Peter Malek, President, Millennium
16 responses so far ↓
1 Roger Kemble // Oct 1, 2010 at 9:43 am
The syntax says high paid flak . . .
2 Shane // Oct 1, 2010 at 12:50 pm
It sure does. And, it says HIRED high paid flak – not an internal Millennium one. That is not cheap.
3 Booge // Oct 1, 2010 at 1:46 pm
“HIRED high paid flak”
Maybe they paid enough so said flack could buy a condo in the Millennium Water complex. Which is a good thing.
4 Tom // Oct 1, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Does it make a difference or not if its pr speak?
With all the politics being played, why shouldn’t they hire a communications firm?
Finally, what makes you think they’d don’t have the skill to produce this themselves?
It is after all a very simple statement. Show me the calculus that makes this pap difficult to come up with for any business person who hafd the ability to get a loan for a billion in the first place.
5 Roger Kemble // Oct 1, 2010 at 6:14 pm
@ Tom . . .
“Does it make a difference or not if its pr speak?”
Yes, it matters because it tells us the principals are not engaged.
Perhaps they are harassed and distracted: who would not be facing such potential losses. Especially since the current negative market is not of their making.
World wide all markets are in chaos tracking downward because of massive corruption in high places.
It will be a while before we see the end of this one.
The calculus is, the city deserves Millenium’s full attention and it is not getting it.
Instead it is getting boiler plate flak.
And kindly address me with more civility . . .
6 Jaymac // Oct 1, 2010 at 6:35 pm
@ Roger.
Not sure what kind of civility you require from @Tom.
How can you determine that the City is not getting Millennium’s full time attention? [Yes, it is a double “n”]
I don’t know how you are able to deduce that the “principals are not engaged.” I’d say that is an uncivil comment.
Then again, you may have knowledge of something that has not been shared and this would justify your statement.
I do not know the Malek’s. I understand that they have been involved in some successful development projects. So I assume that they have some business sense. I think it is very reasonable to assume that any business types facing the potential losses and humiliation that surround the O.V would be highly engaged.
Perhaps, the City was not fully engaged at the outset of this project. Now we are paying for the consequences.
7 Roger Kemble // Oct 1, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Tom to speak for yourself . . .
Millennium missed a payment . . .
Anyway The Mayor announced, today, the social component is go . . . QED
8 Sean Bickerton // Oct 2, 2010 at 11:49 am
The problem here is that the Mayor violated the city’s charter by making a back-room deal with Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals to allow him to take on hundreds of millions of dollars in new debt without the permission of the city’s taxpayers.
But what Mr. Robertson in his my-way or the highway approach to government forgot is that he isn’t going to be repaying that loan he recklessly took out on his own signature. We will.
9 eleanor // Oct 2, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Millennium missed 1.5% of their payment. ($197M paid of $200M due) Terrible optics, not a way to do business and rightly makes city, bankers & taxpayers very nervous. However, it is disingenuous to say they ‘missed’ a payment.
The press release Friday simply buys the Malek’s a breather this weekend from incessant press calls while they check the couch cushions for loose change!
10 Roger Kemble // Oct 2, 2010 at 12:59 pm
“But what Mr. Robertson in his my-way or the highway approach to government forgot is that he isn’t going to be repaying that loan he recklessly took out on his own signature. We will.”
Our problems, Sean, go way beyond small town petty politics.
One day, probably sooner than we realise, we will be compelled to face the real debt . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B_SxGmSJP0&feature=player_embedded#!
In the meantime we must stand by those who are most vulnerable because one day it may be us . . .
11 RossK // Oct 2, 2010 at 1:34 pm
eleanor makes a very good point re: the small shortfall.
And if was the first time that the Maleks had gotten into trouble with municipally-backed project I would be in full agreement with her conclusion.
However, there is that (notso) small matter of what already happened in Nanaimo……
.
12 Roger Kemble // Oct 2, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@ Sean . . . PS
Yes, Ross, Nanaimo! Millennium is in default for C$3M+ and is being sued by the local council . . .
Michael, quoting from his vast CMHC experience, cites various elements in the conversational merits of housing availability and affordability: yunno, Moen Faucets, polished concrete, exotic finishes etc.
All that is irrelevant . . .
What is relevant is that we must borrow money from a bank that creates cash out of nothing and lends it to us at interest.
We are constantly treading the mill of usury: a ponzi scheme that keep us constantly behind in our payments.
By the time you have paid off your mortgage you have doubled the bank’s money while, essentially, contributing to another country’s wealth.
This is the huge, Brobdingnagian elephant in the room that is constricting real development.
This discussion is of course in its infancy in Canada: although not so in other countries. Since we Canadians are so trusting and naive it will take a while yet for the penny to drop on us.
In the meantime, Sean please do not make petty politics out of what Mayor Robertson had to do.
13 landlord // Oct 2, 2010 at 2:38 pm
@ Roger : :…the real debt…”. You spoke the forbidden words. Debt as a result of deficit budgeting (i.e.borrowing) can only be repaid in two ways : cutting spending and raising taxes.
I just walked past the Premier’s constituency office on W. 4th and saw Bill Tieleman running a “Fight HST” demo. He said hi and I asked, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for getting into bed with Holocaust deniers and Zalmoids?”.
Apparently he is not. He had a lot of nice things to say about Mr. Vander Zalm and his allegedly sound political judgement.
Will Mr. Tieleman or his party make a “no new taxes” pledge? They can’t and if they do they’ll be telling the same lie of which they accuse Mr. Campbell. In the meantime it’s a sunny weekend. Break out the placards and bullhorns and pander, pander, pander.
14 Roger Kemble // Oct 2, 2010 at 2:49 pm
@ landlord . . .
“In the meantime it’s a sunny weekend.”
Yes, yes indeed: I put my 31 year old girl friend to bed way too soon . . . LOL
15 eleanor // Oct 4, 2010 at 9:17 pm
@Kemble
Odd for an older man to be using “LOL” and odder still that you need to offer up the age of your woman friend. As the kids say…”TMI”!
16 Jaymac // Oct 5, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@Eleanor
quoting Roger
“odder still that you need to offer up the age of your woman friend.”
FWIW
He said “girlfriend” not “woman friend.” That would be she who has a relatively flat top and a not too slender beam, is wet below the waist and likely has a very dry bilge. She is known to cavort in the Straits of Georgia with Roger astride her resplendent in his Full Nanaimo.
A man’s mistress can assume many metaphorical forms.
BFN