While the 2010 Winter Olympics have more or less faded into fond memories for British Columbians, there’s one expensive hangover that Richmond property taxpayers keep having to deal with: the Richmond Oval and its money-losing Richmond Olympics Experience (abbreviated ROX) museum.

The Richmond News reports that the Oval spent $46,000 to send four Oval and City of Richmond senior managers to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last August. From the story:

The Richmond Olympic Oval Corporation is claiming expenses of close to $46,000 for sending four Oval and/or City of Richmond senior managers to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during the Olympic Games in August to, in part, to market the recently-opened Richmond Olympic Experience (ROX) museum.

The trip came as the City of Richmond-owned Oval approaches the one-year anniversary of opening ROX, its official Olympic Museum Network (OMN) facility built via funding from the Oval, as well as the city.

The Oval, once used for speed skating at the 2010 Olympic Games, is attempting to market ROX to eventually turn a profit.

Currently, the corporation does not pay rent to the city nor property taxes ($1.6 million last year), and also received upwards of $6.3 million of additional external monetary support while recording a $1.1 million operating deficit in 2015.

“Attempting to... eventually turn a profit,” they say. How is that even possible?

This thing is riddled with subsidies from a number of government-run, and taxpayer-funded organizations. More from The News:

In 2015, the Oval had $16.1 million in total revenues, including $7.6 million in membership, admission and program fees. Additionally, 2015 Oval revenues include the city’s $3.8 million of contributions, as well as a $2.5 million grant from the 2010 Games Operating Trust Fund (established by the federal government, the trust fund supports post-Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games facilities. It has a balance of $54 million dedicated to the Oval). As well, the Oval operates with a $1 annual lease and property tax exemptions.

Last year it had expenses of $13.7 million, of which $7.9 million goes to salaries, including Mills’ $227,000 of compensation.

When factoring out the city’s contributions and other expenses and revenues, the Oval actually recorded a $1.1 million operating deficit, according to the city’s 2015 financial statements. Since 2011 (post Games), it has accumulated losses of about $2.2 million even with approximately $16 million of support from the city during that time.

Factoring in the city’s contributions, in 2015, the Oval realized a $2.4 million surplus, put towards a reserve used for facility repairs.

Included in the aforementioned total revenues for 2015 was an additional $500,000 transfer from Tourism Richmond’s hotel tax reserve to purchase assets for ROX. To build ROX, a $10 million facility, $2.5 million of municipal funds, as well as $2.5 million of hotel taxes, were used.

Let’s cut the nonsense: ROX is nothing more than a vanity project designed to give senior Richmond staff expensive junkets to the Olympics every two years.

All this for a targeted 11,590 visitors this year - an average of 32 people per day.