Police to investigate disappearance of confidential Olympic Village documents

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has asked Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu to investigate how a confidential document disappeared from a closed-door council meeting.

Sullivan called for the investigation into what he called a case of internal theft after details of a $100-million loan to bail out the developer of the Olympic athletes village were leaked to the media following an in-camera session of city council on Oct. 14.

Earlier this week it was revealed a single copy of a confidential city report on the development mysteriously disappeared following the closed meeting attended only by the mayor, city council and senior staff members.

Those attending the meeting were reportedly sworn to secrecy, and all copies of the report on the negotiations prepared by the staff were numbered to prevent leaks.

The missing copy was the one assigned to councillor and mayoral candidate Peter Ladner, who said he left his copy of the report on a pile with others after the meeting, and left the room empty-handed.

Staff said they noticed the numbered report was missing shortly after the meeting. It later turned up on the desk of Coun. B.C. Lee, who said he found it after noticing the papers on his desk had been disturbed after he left his office unlocked.

Newspaper published details

Details about the negotiations and the loan were later published in a Globe and Mail newspaper column by Gary Mason on Nov. 6.

With the civic election less than a week away, rumours and accusations began swirling almost immediately about who might be the source of the information published in the report.

On Monday news of the misplaced or stolen document became public. Then on Wednesday, Mason wrote that Ladner was unjustifiably suggesting the missing documents were leaked to the Globe and Mail and were the source of his report.

"Mr. Ladner has no evidence, near as I can tell, that the information in the initial Globe story about the loan came from his copy of the minutes," wrote Mason in his column.

Police confirm investigation

Meanwhile, Vancouver police confirmed Chief Jim Chu has been asked by Sullivan to investigate the disappearance of the document.

The police investigation will no doubt increase the controversy around the bailout of the Olympic Village development, which has become the main issue in the upcoming Nov. 15 civic election.

The billion-dollar residential development on the shores of Vancouver's False Creek will serve as the Olympic Village during the 2010 Winter Games before being sold off as condominium units.

But the project by the Millennium Development, which is owned by troubled New York-based hedge fund Fortress Group, has landed in a storm of cost overruns, credit problems related to the global financial crisis, and political intrigue.

The hedge fund recently struggled to secure financing to keep one of its other assets afloat, Intrawest, the operators of Whistler-Blackcomb and other North American ski and holiday resorts.