An Expensive Party: Victoria Employee flew to Nashville and back, to hang out with developers at their “Social Event”. Cost to the taxpayer: almost $2000

An Expensive Party: Victoria Employee flew to Nashville and back, to hang out with developers at their “Social Event”. Cost to the taxpayer: almost $2000

By Sasha Izard
Nov 19, 2025

Earlier, I wrote the following article: Plane Flights and Helijets, where taxpayer dollars go from the City of Victoria, for Development Lobby Events – CRD Watch Homepage

The article documented what I received from a Freedom of Information response from the City of Victoria. Did you ever wonder where the money went for the hanging baskets? Quite a bit of the City’s budget has been going to the development lobby, over $12,000 over the last 3 years.

If the costs weren’t already questionable, a considerable amount of that total number went to pay for city staff to jet off to development lobby events, makes a self-mockery of the City of Victoria’s 2019 declaration of a climate crisis, putting their taxpayer fueled climate hypocrisy on full parade.

Yes, in less than half a decade, the City of Victoria with the skyline filled with high-rises, is looking a lot more like the Jetsons than a sustainable vision of the future.

Or how about The Sellouts, that was actually a band formed by UDI developers that played at a UDI event prior to another UDI event that a City of Victoria employee flew a Helijet ride back and forth from Vancouver to attend that costs the taxpayers a sliver under $500 for airfare, and almost certainly money in addition to that for the event itself.

The Sellouts, were followed by The Approvals.

If Trudeau’s free Carribean helicopter flight on the Agha Khan’s private island was controversial, with much discussion ‘potential conflict of interest’, what is it when a City of Victoria Employee takes a taxpayer paid helijet to and fro a development lobby event in Vancouver?

The costs for that however, even pale in comparison, to the cost the City of Victoria paid to send an employee to and from Nashville Tennessee for a development lobby “Social Event”.

See below:

Airfare paid by the City of Victoria for employee Brent Molnar to fly to and from Nashville Tennessee (4 flights in total, to a cost of $1,231.61):

This was the cost ($735.00) to the City of Victoria for the employee, Brent Molnar to attend the event itself:

Molnar’s total expenses paid for the trip by the City based on these documents, came to, $1,966.61 in total, just shy of the $2000 mark.

Even that is not the whole story of the whole cost of how much money the City spent on the Tennessee trip.

Another receipt included in the FOI response shows the City employee Michael Angrove, (a Senior Planner), also had his cost of attending the event covered by the City of Victoria ($735.00). The difference is that there is not evidence of airfare covered by the City for his trip to and from Nashville. Did Angrove pay for his own airfare? Or, did the City not include payment information in the FOI response that should have been included in it?

Here are the somewhat confusing line items in the FOI response:

With Angrove’s event cost added to that of Molnar, the total amount included in the documentation of the FOI response for this event including airfare amounts to: $2,701.61

So what was this event? The UDI in BC pulled down its previous websites 2 months after this event, and replaced them with a new centralized website in Vancouver UDI.org, and much information has been lost from the earlier websites.

However the answer can be found in the UDI’s 2023-2024 Annual Report on page 24:

No, this didn’t fall under “Educational Content” that was a separate category below. It fell rather under the category “SOCIAL EVENTS”, which included “Karaoke Night”, Lawn Bowling, Golfing etc. It was a way to pal around with the developers in the town of the Grand Ole Opry itself. Yeehawww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nashville could make an excellent setting for a fourth Hangover film.

Easy jokes aside, why were City employees Molnar and Angrove, having costs for this event paid by the City at all?

According to CivicInfoBC, Molnar is a a Professional Engineer and Supervisor – Land Development for the City.

Molnar’s LinkedIn profile at the time of writing describes him as “Approving Officer, Land Development and Engineering” and currently “Manager – Land Development” for the City of Victoria. At the time of the event, he was “Supervisor of Land Development” for the City. He previously, worked in the City of Langford, and the City of Colwood in similar positions.

Did Molnar consider any possibility of potential conflict of interest before jetting off to hang out with the developers in Nashville through their lobby, and using public funds to do so?

Here is the link to the UDI’s very active registry on the BC Lobbyists Registry.

Urban Development Institute / Anne McMullin, President & CEO – 12-Month Lobbying Summary – Lobbyists Registry – Office of the Registrar or Lobbying of BC

Just to the right of the events listed in the UDI’s 2023-2024 Annual Report on page 24, is the following description of its Municipal Liaison Efforts:

The UDI’s Liaison Committees with Municipalities (municipal staffers) have been the subject of considerable controversy. In the District of Saanich for example, the general public are forbidden from attending such meetings, begging the question of whether such meetings are in the spirit of the legislation through which committee meetings at the municipal level are supposed to be open to the public, and not closed as these are.

Just above these two sections in the Annual Report was the UDI Capital Region’s “Advocacy Initiatives” on page 23:

What’s the difference between Advocacy and Lobbying? Not much, the UDI has filed much of its lobbying registrations with the word “advocating” to describe their lobbying activities.

Excerpt: the UDI’s Advocacy Initiatives regarding the City of Victoria, its paying member:

The UDI’s Advocacy Initiatives are glaring. The 2024-2025 Annual Report however, didn’t include them at all this time; leaving a much thinner report than previous years which had included such initiatives in them previously.

There was a description of the tour as part of a summary of 2023, sent out by the UDI Capital Region’s Executive Director at the time, from BC Housing FOI 292-30-9925 (p.237 of 266).

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Conclusion:

There is a difference between a wood splitter and airfare. A missing wood splitter, can reappear miraculously in the City of Victoria, but airfare after a couple years, is most likely never going to return to the public coffers.

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Appendix 1: Screen captures of Molnar’s LinkedIn Profile (Accessed Nov 19, 2025)