Vision Vancouver councillors are playing a game of pin-the-Olympic-Village-on-the-NPA.

On January 12, Vision Coun. Heather Deal told reporters she  voted against an  in-camera motion in 2007 to guarantee that the athletes’ village will be built to the specifications of developer, Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties Ltd.

“I felt that gambling on the housing market with public dollars is not appropriate,” Deal told reporters.

Vision councillors Tim Stevenson and Raymond Louie have echoed her comments.

They’re making it appear as though the taxpayers' problems began with this 2007 in-camera vote, which persuaded New York-based Fortress Investment Group to finance the billion-dollar project. The city agreed to cough up $200 million to Fortress if Millennium couldn't repay its loan.

The reality, however, is that the city agreed on November 14, 2002 to take on full responsibility for the Olympic Village.

In clause 3.5 of the Games Facility Agreement,  the city agreed to “construct or cause to be constructed” 612,000 square feet of residential accommodation for an athletes’ village.

The 2002 contract with the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation was signed by Francie Connell, the city’s director of legal services.

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog posting suggesting that the city put this contract on its Web site.

City officials chose to ignore that suggestion, so the Georgia Straight created a PDF of this document.

Yesterday, city manager Penny Ballem revealed that the deputy city manager in charge of the Olympic Village, Jody Andrews, has resigned. He was paid $178,595 in 2007, the last year for which figures are available.

This came after the ouster of city manager Judy Rogers and the departure of the city's finance director, Estelle Lo.

The Vision Vancouver narrative is becoming clear: the NPA and two senior city officials, Rogers and Andrews, got taxpayers into this mess. And Vision will ride to the rescue to address the problems.

If city officials posted a copy of the Games Facility Agreement on  its Web site, this would  undermine the Vision Vancouver  narrative. This might explain why it isn’t included in the city’s Olympic Village Public Information Update.

Anyone who takes the time to read clause 3.5 and then reads clause 1.9 for a definition of “permanent facilities” will realize that the city took on responsibility for the development  back 2002—and not in 2007, as Vision Vancouver politicians have suggested.

Two of those same Vision Vancouver politicians—Louie and Stevenson—failed to warn the public about taxpayers' liability on the Olympic Village  prior to the city’s plebiscite in 2003 on hosting the Games.

Once the public gets wind of this, are Vision Vancouver politicians going to try to blame Connell, who signed the agreement? Or will the director of business planning and services, Ken Bayne, be blamed for being the city's front man in public meetings prior to the plebiscite?

One thing is certain: Vision Vancouver politicians will never get in front of a microphone and say, "Hey, we're sorry for  fucking things up and probably causing your taxes to increase by not reading the fine print in the Games Facility Agreement before the 2003 plebiscite."