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CLT UPDATE
Thursday, January 15, 2015

Boston 2024 Olympics = Big Dig v2.0

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A little civic pride can be excused after the news that Boston was selected Thursday to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Always good to be picked ahead of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, for anything. Yay, us. Got that out of your system? Good. Now root like hell for Boston to ultimately lose out as host to such expected contenders as Berlin; Rome; Paris; Johannesburg, South Africa; Casablanca, Morocco; Melbourne, Australia; or, my personal favorite, Baku in Azerbaijan. We don't need the taxes, the aggravation, the crowds, the traffic, the overstuffed subways, the movie-facade stadiums -- did I mention the taxes -- to stage the Games. ESPN Boston Friday, January 9, 2015 COMMENTARY Boston Olympics a terrible idea U.S. bid city for '24 doesn't need Games and — more importantly — can't afford them By Gordon Edes The Summer Olympics in Boston in 2024 — can you imagine anything more hideous and unbearable … and expensive? If you liked the Big Dig, you’ll love the 2024 Summer Olympics. We’re already sick of the spin about how this boondoogle’s boondoggle will be a real boon for the “hospitality industry.” But I’m not in the “hospitality industry.” I’m a taxpayer. Of course, the organizers have “pledged” that no public money will be squandered on this white elephant. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The only public funds will go to the traditional “infrastructure improvements.” Oh sure, you can trust these guys, they’re not like the others. And I believe them, just like I believe that the Turnpike tolls will come down once the bonds are paid off … in 1988.... On Tuesday, they opened a time capsule at the State House. It was full of cool stuff — coins from the days of Oliver Cromwell, and newspapers from 1855. I hope they’re planning to rebury it soon, with some new mementoes, like copies of all the sponsors’ sworn statements about how this won’t cost the taxpayers a dime. The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Chill of victory, agony of the feat By Howie Carr In San Francisco, Chris Daly led the public fight for San Francisco No 2024 Olympics. He sees a built-out city in a small geographic space that's experiencing what he calls an affordability crisis. Daly is a sports fan and loves to watch the Olympics, but he sees the Games as potentially devastating to his community. Now that the decision has come down from the U.S. Olympic Committee, he says it saves the hassle of trying to kill his city's chances before the IOC makes its ultimate decision. "Political oppositions don't tend to have fireworks displays when we win something," Daly said Thursday, just before the USOC decision became official. "There's no pomp or circumstance, but there will be a sigh of relief." Like many Olympics-host opponents, Daly cites the price tag as one of his chief concerns. In all four U.S. 2024 bids, organizers presented budgets hovering around $5 billion—far less than the $51 billion spent in Sochi for the last Winter Games and the $40 billion Beijing spent in 2008. But a promised budget does not always mean cities will follow through. The $5 billion mark was also promised in London, but its Games wound up costing nearly $15 billion. So, while the proposed budget may say one thing, opponents contend it is completely divorced from financial reality.... But there was no victory for Chris Dempsey, the co-chair of No Boston Olympics. His group of young professionals has, for more than year, spoken out against the efforts of that city's leadership to bring the games to Beantown. He scoffs at the Nikes, McDonald's, and NBC Sports of the world who stand to benefit from bringing the Games to the U.S. but don't actually pay for the facilities or preparations. "You spend a whole lot of money on stuff you don't really need, and you're left with venues and facilities that are expensive to maintain," says Dempsey, a consultant in his day job. "Essentially, you've got this massive redirection of resources and attention away from the things that will actually help people on a broad level and instead focus on this one-time sporting event." The National Journal Friday, January 9, 2015 While local leaders celebrate hosting the Winter and Summer Games, some groups fight bids they say are too expensive and damaging. By Matt Vasilogambros Should Boston ultimately be tapped to host the 2024 Summer Games, the use of eminent domain will be a tempting option to help clear prized land for Olympic venues, but deploying it, warns a legal expert, could cause disastrous ripple effects with lasting economic harm. “There is a long history of using eminent domain to try to promote economic development. Most of the time what happens is it tends to destroy more development than it actually creates,” said Ilya Somin, a George Mason University property law professor. “It destroys existing businesses and homes. It undermines the security of property rights and it tends to destroy people’s social ties in their neighborhoods.” The Boston Herald Sunday, January 11, 2015 Eminent domain use for possible Olympic site feared ‘This keeps us awake at night’ If the International Olympic Committee chooses Boston as the host city for the 2024 Summer Games, it’ll mean we’ll be spending nearly a decade getting the place cleaned up and tricked out. And while we keep reading about how the Olympic experience will bring us lots of dollars and leave with the city in better shape when the circus pulls out of town, can you imagine what it’s going to be like around here as everything is getting built and put in place? Are any of you worried that basic services might be taking a back seat to the Olympics? ... But does the IOC have Greater Boston’s best interests at heart? Does the USOC? They don’t and they shouldn’t. That’s our job. And if we’re going to band together for the common good, don’t you think we’re capable of finding a better project than the Olympics? The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Olympic-sized mistake; Boston a great place without 2024 fiasco By Steve Buckley Boston Olympics officials ruled out the idea of giving Bay Staters a chance to vote on whether the Hub should host the 17-day sports spectacle — even as they promoted the concept of hosting the 2024 Summer Games as a “once-in-a-lifetime” planning and economic opportunity and vowed a transparent process. “After people in Boston have the opportunity to understand every aspect of the Olympic conversation, they will fully be excited about it,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said at a press conference with the U.S. Olympic Committee in South Boston today, adding the group has no plans for a referendum.... “We are not going to be using taxpayers’ money to be building venues in the city of Boston or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said Walsh. However, the mayor said public dollars would likely be spent on land use and infrastructure upgrades, including transit and roadways — improvements, he said, that would be needed whether the Games come to Boston or not. The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Mayor Walsh: No referendum on Boston Olympics bid A day after Baker laid out broad strokes of his plans for the Corner Office in his inaugural speech, it’s unclear how the emergence of Boston’s Olympic bid could impact them, including his promises not to raise taxes and fees. But Baker said he did emphasize to his secretaries what it “really tells us all ... is that outside events will certainly factor into the best-laid plans.” “We should all be mindful of the fact that we should be able to adapt as we go,” Baker said. The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Charlie Baker declines to endorse Olympics bid: ‘There’s a lot to learn’ Over the next two years, the city will face off against bidders from around the world for the right to host an event of immense global interest, but also one that research has shown costs billions of dollars, does little to increase tourism, and can leave behind massive stadiums and other big projects with little long-term use.... What we learned Thursday is that Boston beat out San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., to become the official US nominee. However, the toughest competition may still lie ahead. Rome has already submitted a bid for the 2024 Olympics, and many other cities have expressed a similar interest, including Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Melbourne, St. Petersburg, and Istanbul. If even a fraction of these bids get submitted by the initial deadline this September, it could make for a rather crowded field.... How much will this cost? Without seeing the bid, it’s impossible to say for sure how much a Boston Olympics would cost. Estimates from “Boston 2024 Partnership” suggest about $5 billion to run the games and another $13 billion in already-approved public transit improvements. Recent Olympic games have tended to cost at least $15 billion, and sometimes far more. Cost of recent Olympics Athens2004 - $16b Beijing2008 - $40b London2012 - $15-20b Sochi2014 - $50b+ Rio 2016 (est.) - $20b Source: Zimbalist, 'Circus Maximus' And in virtually every case, final costs vastly exceed the initial estimates. Who pays? While the Olympic Games do generate some revenue — from ticket sales, advertising, and TV rights — it’s not usually enough to cover the full cost. “Boston 2024 partnership” has said that Massachusetts taxpayers would not have to make up the difference, but for now there’s no plan to ensure that. The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 Boston is the US choice for the Olympic bid. Now what? By Evan Horowitz John Fish, head of the Boston 2024 Olympic campaign, said Friday he is recusing himself and his company, Suffolk Construction, from any Olympic-related building. A number of sports venues and a temporary Olympic stadium would have to be built, if Boston is named Olympic host city. The US Olympic Committee on Thursday chose Boston as the US nominee in the worldwide competition for the 2024 Summer Games, picking Boston over competing bids from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Fish’s company is one of the city’s most prominent building firms. Some critics have suggested that he may be pushing an Olympic bid to benefit his firm. The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 John Fish recuses construction company from Olympic projects [Boston Mayor Martin J.] Walsh vowed transparency and promised that Boston residents — “in every corner of this city” — will be given a chance to voice their concerns during the planning process that was being launched in earnest Friday. “We are going to answer every question asked of us over the next nine months until every Bostonian and probably everybody in the Commonwealth will understand what the impacts of the Olympics will be on the community, what the benefits will be, and what it means to be an Olympic city," Walsh said. Walsh added, “I promise that this will be the most transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history. ... We’re not here to ram this down people’s throats." ... A reporter asked Walsh if the Olympics should be put to a vote, noting that the mayor had been pushing for the neighborhood of Charlestown to have the opportunity to vote on the casino planned for neighboring Everett. “This is very different,” Walsh said. “The Olympics we would bring to Boston is not just going to be in the city of Boston." Walsh was asked if there would be a referendum on the Olympics in Boston. “No referendum,” Walsh said. The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 Walsh, officials vow cost-effective Olympics To hear backers of the 2024 Boston Olympics tell it, the projects necessary to pull off the event have already been approved and are ready to go: a nearly $1 billion expansion of South Station, new trains to run from the Back Bay to South Boston, an upgraded JFK/UMass Station in Dorchester. All that is needed now, they say, is a kick from the Olympics to make them a reality.... But some observers say that, even with an Olympic push, the projects could require additional public money and thwart road and rail construction outside the Boston area. Many have been talked about for years and are still in the planning stages, with legal, environmental, and financial hurdles remaining. And at the very least, they will require Governor Charlie Baker to make them a top priority and speed their progress.... Boston 2024 officials have said all the public projects were approved as part of a $13 billion bond bill that Patrick signed last April. But that bill is more like a wish list from lawmakers, not a financing plan. It merely authorizes the state to borrow money to pay for a smorgasbord of rail, road, and bridge projects from the Berkshires to Cape Cod. It is now up to Baker to decide which projects to undertake. Then the administration needs to borrow money to pay for the work and figure out how to cover the debt, all without breaking Baker’s pledge not to raise taxes.... “Bond bills are stuffed to the gills with wish lists and much of what’s in a bond bill doesn’t get funded,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank. “A lot of it will be based on what the state can pay for and what’s possible, and that’s not purely up to Charlie [Baker], but also about the economy.” ... Stergios said it was ultimately impossible to assess how to pay for transit upgrades since Boston 2024 has refused to make available to the public the bid it submitted to the US Olympic Committee. “What is maddening thus far is the lack of information,” he said. Walsh has said the bid will be made available in coming days. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Revenue to dictate difficult choices on Olympic transit projects The possible downside -- that the Olympics could become a money-hemorrhaging clone of the Big Dig -- did not concern O’Hara. In his mind, that financially traumatic experience will serve as a template for how not to stage the Games. “I think they’ll be better and clever about the whole thing,” O’Hara said. Others believe that the Games, like many of its predecessors, will shatter budget projections and leave little behind except short-term euphoria. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Across Mass., the cheering and carping gets underway Hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics in an age of terrorism would require a security effort unprecedented in Boston’s history, requiring the efforts of tens of thousands of police officers, soldiers, spies, and private security firms. Some of the city’s neighborhoods would be transformed into something approaching armed camps with security personnel carrying automatic weapons — and possibly even anti-aircraft batteries, according to security specialists familiar with security precautions at recent Olympic games in London and Sochi, Russia. While Boston has successfully hosted its share of high-profile events in the past — including the 2004 Democratic National Convention — it hasn’t had to organize anything of this magnitude, said Representative William Keating, the Bourne Democrat and member of the Homeland Security Committee.... And extraordinarily costly — although precise estimates are difficult to come by. When preparations began for the last summer Olympics, held in London in 2012, officials estimated security would cost $361 million. In the end, the price tag came in at more than four times that, or $1.6 billion.... The demands in Boston are unknown, nearly a decade before the event. But the security costs would likely be paid for with federal tax dollars.... Boston also would be seeking federal help, according to several officials. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Olympics in Boston would require unprecedented security The question is not whether Boston is capable of hosting the Olympics. It is. The question is whether it’s worth it. Does the benefit outweigh the potential logistical and financial pratfalls of hosting gym class for the world? Based on recent Olympic Games, the answer is probably not. The Olympics rarely have a lasting, transformative impact on a city, unless you’re talking about the financial ramifications of the event and the planned obsolescence of venues with a 17-day lifespan.... Hosting the Olympics is usually rife with cost overruns, tattered promises, and inflated egos and budgets.... On Friday, Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, personally echoed Boston 2024’s promise that cost overruns won’t be left at the feet of the taxpayers.... Boston 2024 has set the budget at an optimistic $4.5 billion. Organizers of the last Summer Games, held in London in 2012, set their initial budget at basically the same level. They ended up spending $15 billion-$20 billion, according to Zimbalist, who has written a book on the cost of hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, “Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.” “They’ve said it will cost $4.5 billion. I think that’s ludicrous,” said Zimbalist. “London’s price was $4 billion, and it ended up being $15 billion-$20 billion. Those kinds of costs are common.... A cabal of corporate titans and political heavyweights nursed the idea to life. Now, there are vows of nine public meetings in the city of Boston and “the most open, transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history,” according to Mayor Walsh’s remarks Friday. Yet, concrete details of the bid are scant. Zimbalist has written that private interests tend to be the compass for Olympic bids. “In practice, host cities tend to be captured by private interests who end up promising much more than the city can afford,” Zimbalist wrote in The Atlantic magazine in 2012. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 All that glitters about Boston’s Olympic bid isn’t gold By Christopher L. Gasper Backers of a Boston 2024 Olympics have downplayed the need for public money but, based on past budgets and security needs, the city would likely need at least a billion dollars in federal taxpayer support — and perhaps far more. Supporters acknowledge they will have to mount a significant lobbying effort to persuade Congress, wary of government spending, to support the price tag. Early reaction in Congress is mixed, and some fiscal conservatives appear to be skeptical. “They made their bid. They should pay for it,” said Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican.... Dan O’Connell, president of Boston 2024, the nonprofit spearheading the effort to win the Games, said organizers have modest expectations for federal dollars but will try to secure as much as they can.... Over the years the total cost of the Olympics has grown, as governments poured billions into new buildings or overhauled parts of their municipalities. Beijing spent around $40 billion on its 2008 Olympic production and Russia tossed out $50 billion for its splendor last February.... Even some in the Massachusetts delegation are unsure how much Congress will offer up. “I don’t anticipate there is going to be any federal bonanza coming out of this,” said Representative William Keating, a Bourne Democrat. The Boston Globe Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Boston will need taxpayer help in Olympic bid Cost may be $1b more; lobbying push expected Even as he pledged to hold “the most transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history,” with a series of nine community meetings, Mayor Marty Walsh dismissed the idea of holding a referendum. Which raises this question: Why was it appropriate to hold a referendum on the effects of building a casino, but not on the wisdom of launching a massive infrastructural transformation of the city and metropolitan area? That doesn’t make any sense. But then, when you realize how little polling has been done on the matter, it does. The first thing a good trial attorney learns is to never ask a question if you don’t know the answer. The same goes for politicians and referenda. Olympic skeptics point, with some credibility, to the elite insider dominance of the initial bid to the USOC. The prominence of so many downtown bigshots feeds neighborhood cynicism.... Chris Dempsey, cochairman of No Boston Olympics, told me his group is seriously considering taking the question to voters. He said there are issues to work out: how to pay for getting a referendum on the ballot, and whether to push for a citywide or statewide question. “We’re more inclined to be democratic about this,” he said. “At the least, we’d encourage more discussion of a referendum.” Me, too. What better way to impress the swells at the IOC than with a popular mandate. Besides, this is the new Boston, and we don’t do bribes anymore. Much. The Boston Globe Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Boston’s Olympic conundrum By Kevin Cullen Critics of Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympics bid said they’ve experienced an outpouring of support for opposing the games since the Hub was selected as the nation’s choice last week. “We had over 1,000 sign-ups on our website in the 72 hours since the USOC announcement,” said Chris Dempsey of No Boston Olympics, an opposition group trying to stop the games from coming to the city. “Our message got out there. We feel like we were part of the debate and part of the news, and people responded by coming to us and saying, ‘How can I help? How can I support you guys?’ ” Dempsey said the group hasn’t decided its next move, which could include trying to sponsor a referendum at the polls, directly lobbying International Olympics Committee members or trying to convince Beacon Hill lawmakers to pass legislation. The Boston Herald Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Support grows for foes of 2024 Olympics in Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s opposition to holding a referendum on Boston’s 2024 Olympics bid is the height of hypocrisy.... That stands in stark contrast to the way Walsh views another high-profile project that will affect the city in the coming years — Wynn Resorts’ Everett casino. In his suit against the state Gaming Commission, Walsh says Boston residents have a right to vote on the casino as a “host community,” because the majority of its visitors will have to drive through Charlestown to get to it. “My number one concern is making sure the people of Charlestown have an opportunity to vote on something in their backyard,” Walsh said. But for whatever reason, the mayor doesn’t apply that same line of thinking to the Olympics, which will be in everybody’s backyard. Apparently Boston residents should just be happy that their city has a chance to be on the world stage, or something corny like that. Or maybe the real reason Walsh and members of the Boston 2024 Committee don’t want a vote is because they might lose.... The $51 billion price tag associated with last winter’s Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has scared several potential hosting cities for the 2022 Winter Games away. Voters in Munich, Germany, Davos and St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Krakow, Poland, all rejected the bid in referendums. Only two cities — Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan — still have bids alive. Citizens and politicians in the European communities that voted no must think that it’s possible to improve their roads, bridges and transit systems without bringing on a likely Olympics boondoggle. Imagine that. There’s a debate to be had here — a free-flowing exchange of ideas. But the backers of Boston’s Summer Games bid just want to have a one-way conversation. If Walsh is serious about having the most transparent process in Olympics history, he’d do more than schedule nine community meetings over the next several months. He would put the Hub’s Olympics bid up for a vote. The Boston Herald Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Marty Walsh tries to have it both ways on games, gaming By Alex Reimer Boston’s Summer Games organizers last night said they will make all the bid documents they submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee available for reporters to look at during a media event next week — but won’t release them, allow copies to be made or even let the public take a look. Boston 2024 executive vice president Erin Murphy Rafferty said in a statement yesterday the group will be “reviewing all the bid documents with media” next Wednesday. And while reporters will be able to “inspect” the documents for as long as they want, the group won’t let them have copies or issue them to the public because the documents “are subject to change,” a Boston 2024 official told the Herald. They also won’t be on display later that day during a citizens advisory group meeting, which is open to the public, the official said. The Boston Herald Wednesday, January 14, 2015 Media getting peek at Boston’s Olympic plans ... but public can’t take a look Suffolk Construction chief John Fish, who spearheaded the bid to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston, said he’s giving up billions in business by recusing himself from bidding on any projects specifically designated for the Summer Games. But he told the Herald yesterday he still plans to pursue contracts with state transportation and college building agencies that will likely oversee construction and upgrades ahead of the potential arrival of the world’s Olympians.... Fish said he would recuse himself from some — but not all — projects for colleges and transportation, two sectors which have been central to the bid that won the nod of the U.S. Olympic Committee.... Fish’s construction company received nearly $146 million from Massport last fiscal year alone, records show, and another $37 million from the MBTA, the Massachusetts State College Building Authority and the University of Massachusetts Building Authority. These quasi-public state agencies would likely oversee any transportation or university construction and upgrades ahead of the Olympics. “I’m in the building business. I build buildings for a living. It would be suicide if I put myself in the situation where I couldn’t work with existing clients,” Fish said. “I can’t take myself out of the game.” The Boston Herald Thursday, January 15, 2015 John Fish: I’m giving up billions for Olympic bid But will still do related work The private group pushing to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston, under pressure to be more transparent, said Wednesday it will release more information to the public than it had previously planned. On Tuesday, Boston 2024 officials had said the bid they submitted to the United States Olympic Committee would be shown to the media, but not to the public. Late Wednesday, the group changed course, saying the media and public would both have access to as much information as possible.... Rafferty did not elaborate on what details would be in the documents that are being released or withheld.... The group No Boston Olympics has said the complete, unedited bid is a public record and should be made public. “We are hearing too much ‘the USOC wants,’ and not enough ‘the people want.’ It’s telling that it took Freedom of Information Act filings and repeated demands by the media for Boston 2024 to decide to share these documents with the people who will be impacted by them,” said Chris Dempsey, co-chair of No Boston Olympics, before Boston 2024 announced it was releasing more records than previously planned. The Boston Globe Thursday, January 15, 2015 Olympic backers to make more bid information public Backers of the 2024 Boston Olympics now want to build something similar, only much grander and more complex: a temporary 60,000-seat Olympic stadium in South Boston. The vast arena — with all the hallmarks, safety systems, and design details of a permanent structure — would host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and field events. And then it would be removed, down to the last bolt. The plan — audacious in its scope and complexity — has no precedent, according to independent architects, and would pose a steep design, engineering, and financial challenge, all for a giant structure that would stand for about six to eight months.... Benjamin Flowers, an associate professor of architecture at Georgia Tech, said a 60,000-seat stadium would be so large and complex that calling it a temporary structure would be inaccurate. “What they are really saying is, build a full-on stadium and then demolish it,” said Flowers, who studies stadiums around the world. “It strikes me as a curious proposition to suggest investing the many hundreds of millions it would take to do that to then demolish it and take it down.” ... Some architects cast doubt on the claims of cost savings, however. “No one should think it’s cheaper than building a stadium; the requirements are the same for life safety, fireproofing, egress — everything has to work and be to code, meaning the way you build it is not going to be that much different from a permanent stadium,” said Marc Schulitz, a German architect who helped design the 55,000-seat Arena Fonte Nova in Brazil, which was used for the 2014 World Cup. Any cost savings, Schulitz said, would come from simply removing the stadium after the Olympics, eliminating maintenance and operating costs.... In addition to planning the temporary Olympic stadium in South Boston, backers of the city’s bid also want to build a partially removable 16,000-person Olympic Village in Dorchester, an aquatics center with 15,000 removable seats in Allston, and a temporary 5,000-seat velodrome in Somerville.... “A removable stadium is a good idea,” [Schulitz] said. “It’s just that it’s really hard to do, and I think there’s this misconception where people think temporary means cheap.” The Boston Globe Thursday, January 15, 2015 Architects caution about costs of temporary Boston Olympic stadium Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the Olympic bidding group Boston 2024 have said they believe the majority of the public supports holding the 2024 Summer Games in the Hub. With little public polling on the issue to this point, it’s hard to judge whether that’s the case. But if No Boston Olympics, the group leading the opposition to the city’s bid, does represent a minority, it showed that it plans to be a vocal one at a public meeting it held in the Back Bay Tuesday night. More than 100 people attended the meeting at the First Church in Boston.... The meeting featured a talk by sports economist and Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist. Zimbalist, who has written extensively on the lack of economic benefits sporting events like the Olympics bring to cities and countries, scoffed at the idea that Boston’s bid can be done on a $4.5 billion budget for operating expenses, and said he was skeptical that the budget can be entirely privately financed (as is proposed by Boston 2024). Boston 2024 also says public money would go toward infrastructure and security.... The meeting included some discussion of the group’s plans moving forward. No Boston Olympics has suggested it could take the issue to the ballot booth in some form for the 2016 election, and said that option — either at the state or city — remains on the table. (Walsh said last week that he does not think there will be a referendum on the topic.) Dempsey suggested that a referendum would, at the very least, further bring the public’s concerns into the fold. “If we take a referendum strategy, then all of a sudden they’ve got to convince you,” he said.... One resident at the meeting, Edmond Schluessel, has participated in recent protests against police brutality in Boston, and said Wednesday night that a planned rally on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will “make No Olympics a central demand,” partially out of apprehension for aggressive security measures that could come with hosting the Games. Across the political aisle was a man named George Boag who ran for state representative representing the 36th Middlesex District in 2010. “I ran for office as a Tea Party Republican. Let me tell you, this is an issue that will unite left and right,” Boag said.... On WGBH’s Greater Boston program Wednesday night, Boston 2024 President Dan O’Connell echoed [Mayor Martin] Walsh in saying he can’t foresee a circumstance in which Boston’s bid doesn’t go forward to the International Olympic Committee later this year. Boston.com Thursday, January 15, 2015 Boston’s Olympic Opposition Lays Out Arguments and Plans Chris Dempsey, a No Boston Olympics founder, said he wanted the group to focus not just on opposing the Olympics, but on the ways the resources that would be devoted to the Games could be better spent. "We are not curmudgeons, naysayers, NIMBYs, or trolls. We're not anti-Olympics. We're not Indianapolis Colts fans, especially this week," he said. "We believe that Boston can host an Olympics. It would be safe. It would be exciting. It would be fun. The question is: Should Boston host the Olympics? "It's an immense distraction from other pressing priorities. And I think you come to the conclusion that while it's something you can do, it's something we shouldn't do." ... Costs of recent Summer Olympics have varied, from the London 2012 games'$15 billion to Beijing 2008's reported $40 billion. Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist, whose new book "Circus Maximus" looks into the economic risks of hosting the Olympics, said studies have shown that the Games don't deliver the financial benefits that are often promised. He derided the promise of no public money for the 2024 Games, saying the initial budget is unrealistically low and adding that the Olympics would rely on local police and fire services that are ultimately billed to the taxpayers. "To say that there's going to be no public money is ridiculous on a number of levels," he said. The Lowell Sun Thursday, January 15, 2015 Olympic naysayers light own torch on Boston games Boston has enough hotel rooms, security expertise, and cultural cachet to host the 2024 Summer Olympics but would face a challenge finding space for an 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium and a 100-acre Olympic Village, according to a special commission’s draft report. The panel concluded that Boston could feasibly host the 2024 Olympics but would face a “monumental task” making the densely packed city easy to navigate and ready for the world’s largest sporting event. And that’s even before talking about the price tag.... John Fish, the chief executive of Suffolk Construction and leader of the commission, said the group would also need to conduct an in-depth study of the costs of hosting the Olympics, an issue that was not examined in the draft report. “I am encouraged by the potential opportunities that can be borne out of hosting the Olympics,” he said in an interview Tuesday. But he said, “the next question needs to be asked: is this in our best interests, socially, politically, and economically?” The 11-member commission was created by Governor Deval Patrick and the state Legislature to determine whether Boston could meet the basic requirements for a host city set forth by the USOC. Its members included state lawmakers, the Suffolk County sheriff, and the chief executive of Boston Duck Tours. The Boston Globe February 26, 2014 Boston Olympics in 2024 would be a ‘monumental task’ Panel calls Olympics in city feasible but says space for venues uncertain

Chip Ford's CLT Commentary This update is lengthy, necessarily — to catch us up with and record all the recent news.  As usual, I've condensed the full news reports (below) with clips of the highlights (above).  Consider saving it for future reference, but you'll be able to find it on the CLT website.  We'll need and be referring to it in the days and years ahead as this inevitable fiasco unravels like the Big Dig. Last week the United States Olympic Committee selected Boston to host the 2024 Olympics. The promises made by its supporters, Boston 2024, are not only made to be broken down the road, but already are being broken.  Vaunted "transparency" already is being subverted, crucial details hidden from the paying public behind a heavy curtain of secrecy.  The self-righteous vow to include the public in this major discussion that affects every one of us in so many ways duplicitously has already been broken by denying a referendum on whether or not we citizens and taxpayers want what "The Lords of the Rings" intend to impose. And this is just the first week. Anyone who thinks this major international project is going to done on the cheap — "on time and on budget" — and won't cost us taxpayers a fortune before and if it's done hasn't lived in Massachusetts for very long, or hasn't been paying attention. Since the state has for so long ignored its infrastructure maintenance, last year the Legislature and former-Governor Deval Patrick passed a $13 billion dollar transportation/infrastructure bond bill allegedly to catch up, funded of course by more tax increases.  This bond bill is just authorization to borrow money: Specific projects have not been chosen or authorized.  That $13 billion of our money is like an open checkbook, a Beacon Hill blank check.  As the Boston Globe reported ("Revenue to dictate difficult choices on Olympic transit projects"): Boston 2024 officials have said all the public projects were approved as part of a $13 billion bond bill that Patrick signed last April. But that bill is more like a wish list from lawmakers, not a financing plan. It merely authorizes the state to borrow money to pay for a smorgasbord of rail, road, and bridge projects from the Berkshires to Cape Cod. If the politically well-connected "Lords of the Rings" desire to redirect a healthy slice of that $13 billion pie "for infrastructure" over the next decade, who's going to stop them? As we painfully experienced with the Big Dig, once they dig the hole there's no stopping till the project's done, regardless of astronomical cost-overruns. Evan Horowitz noted in the Boston Globe ("Boston is the US choice for the Olympic bid. Now what?"), "Recent Olympic games have tended to cost at least $15 billion, and sometimes far more." Matt Vasilogambros of the National Journal added: In all four U.S. 2024 bids, organizers presented budgets hovering around $5 billion — far less than the $51 billion spent in Sochi for the last Winter Games and the $40 billion Beijing spent in 2008. But a promised budget does not always mean cities will follow through. The $5 billion mark was also promised in London, but its Games wound up costing nearly $15 billion. So, while the proposed budget may say one thing, opponents contend it is completely divorced from financial reality. This is only the beginning, so I'll stop my commentary here to let you digest the gravity of what's barreling at us. The group opposed to Boston hosting the 2024 Olympic Games, No Boston Olympics, held its first organizational meeting last night in Boston's Back Bay. You can learn more about them by clicking their logo below.  I will send them a copy of this Update later today to let them know CLT supports their efforts. Chip Ford

ESPN Boston Friday, January 9, 2015 COMMENTARY Boston Olympics a terrible idea U.S. bid city for '24 doesn't need Games and — more importantly — can't afford them By Gordon Edes A little civic pride can be excused after the news that Boston was selected Thursday to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. Always good to be picked ahead of Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, for anything. Yay, us. Got that out of your system? Good. Now root like hell for Boston to ultimately lose out as host to such expected contenders as Berlin; Rome; Paris; Johannesburg, South Africa; Casablanca, Morocco; Melbourne, Australia; or, my personal favorite, Baku in Azerbaijan. We don't need the taxes, the aggravation, the crowds, the traffic, the overstuffed subways, the movie-facade stadiums -- did I mention the taxes -- to stage the Games. We bought into The Big Dig. We won't buy into The Big Lie, that in order for Boston to be considered a world-class city, it needs the Olympics. Think about that for a second. The tipping point for Boston greatness is another sporting event? Really? There are so many visitors to Fenway Park, hundreds of thousands of them, that tours are conducted in English, Spanish and Japanese. Of the 32,458 runners who started the Boston Marathon last April, 56 U.S. states and territories were represented, along with 79 countries, from Argentina to Zimbabwe. The Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins all have championship pedigrees and are among the most marketed teams globally, regularly playing in front of sellout crowds. And we're supposed to believe that with a new velodrome and aquatics center, more of the world will come calling? Alex, I'll take Tourist Attractions for $2,000: Which venue outdrew Disney World, the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China in visitors. What is Faneuil Hall Marketplace. News item: Northeastern University's International Student and Scholar Institute has 8,500 international students and scholars from 140 different countries, according to its website. The number of international students attending Boston-area colleges and universities spiked by 47 percent in a recent five-year period, according to the Boston Business Journal. None of them discovered Boston because it played host to beach volleyball and synchronized swimming. No less than The New York Times this week repeated the bromide that Boston suffers from an inferiority complex, which the Times claims is fueling the city's desire to hold the Olympics. Why is it that New York looks at Boston and sees an inferiority complex, while Memphis, Miami, Kansas City and Indianapolis view us as insufferably arrogant? The Times referred to Boston being wrapped up in an "existential debate with itself about whether it is a world-class city.'' The only existential debate I hear around here is whether Dunkin' Donuts should have switched its coffee to dark roast. There is also this: Bostonians are notoriously intemperate when they feel something is being shoved down their throats, which is how so much tea ended up in our harbor. Public opinion polls show that we're divided pretty evenly on whether having the Olympics here is such a good idea, yet the power brokers have pushed through this bid without so much as a single public hearing. The politicians love the idea, and so do the big businesses that stand to reap huge profits. The rest of us? Our first inclination is to check for our wallets. The average expenditure for the past four Summer Games was $19 billion, according to Chris Dempsey and Liam Kerr, co-chairmen of the No Boston Olympics committee. Boston's Olympic proponents are claiming it can be done on the cheap -- using existing facilities and private funds and by placing venues near public transportation -- but public monies inevitably factor into the equation and cost overruns are as certain as fireworks on the Esplanade for the Fourth of July. Then there is the matter of needing a new 60,000-seat stadium for the opening ceremonies and such. Have we lost all vestiges of our Yankee common sense that we would actually green-light a plan to build such a facility, only to tear it down or downscale it after the Olympics? The mayor asserts that an Olympic bid would help fast-track much-needed improvements to our infrastructure, especially to public transportation. But how backward is that logic, that we need to spend billions on an Olympics in order to get a more dependable ride to work? There isn't anything associated with the Olympics that doesn't have a price tag. Chicago, which was tapped by the USOC to bid for the 2016 games, ultimately lost out to Rio de Janeiro, but reportedly spent $100 million just on its unsuccessful bid. For that kind of money, I would have rather seen the Sox re-sign Jon Lester. So let someplace else in the world stand astride Olympus in 2024. For Bostonians, those couple of weeks would be better spent on the Cape. The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Chill of victory, agony of the feat By Howie Carr NOOOOOOOOO!!!! The Summer Olympics in Boston in 2024 — can you imagine anything more hideous and unbearable … and expensive? If you liked the Big Dig, you’ll love the 2024 Summer Olympics. We’re already sick of the spin about how this boondoogle’s boondoggle will be a real boon for the “hospitality industry.” But I’m not in the “hospitality industry.” I’m a taxpayer. Of course, the organizers have “pledged” that no public money will be squandered on this white elephant. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. The only public funds will go to the traditional “infrastructure improvements.” Oh sure, you can trust these guys, they’re not like the others. And I believe them, just like I believe that the Turnpike tolls will come down once the bonds are paid off … in 1988. The brains behind this, and I use the b-word advisedly, is John Fish, of Suffolk Construction. When Thomas Menino Sr. was mayor, Officer Thomas Menino Jr.’s second job was at Suffolk. So you can see that there’s nothing fishy about Fish. Mayor Marty Walsh last night described the designation as an “exceptional honor.” Surely he meant to say “exceptional horror.” Forget the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Think gridlock and thousands of machine gun-wielding federales everywhere, not to mention years of stern admonitions from PC pols not to lash out if some black-clad tourists suddenly begin yelling “Allahu akbar!” as they open fire on some unfortunate stragglers leaving their jobs in the hospitality industry. And then there are all the exciting sports. The only thing I hate worse than track is field — Dan Jenkins wrote that way back when, and let me add, the only thing I hate worse than field is synchronized swimming. What a wretched end to a nice winter day that began with a governor speaking words that no governor had come to close to saying for eight years: “We will hold the line on taxes, we’re already demanding enough from hard-working people.” Those words were uttered about 1 p.m. Five hours later, they started demanding more from hard-working people. “If we’re honest with ourselves,” Charlie Baker told the assembled solons, “then we can’t blame our deficit on a lack of revenue.” True. But in just one short decade, we — or should I say you, because I’m getting the bleep out of here first — will be able to blame the deficit on the monstrous lies these Olympic oligarchs were spewing back in 2015. On Tuesday, they opened a time capsule at the State House. It was full of cool stuff — coins from the days of Oliver Cromwell, and newspapers from 1855. I hope they’re planning to rebury it soon, with some new mementoes, like copies of all the sponsors’ sworn statements about how this won’t cost the taxpayers a dime. Let me say one more time: NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Listen to Howie on WMEX 1510 AM every weekday from 3-7 p.m. The National Journal Friday, January 9, 2015 Meet the People Who Are Stoked About Their City Not Getting the Olympics While local leaders celebrate hosting the Winter and Summer Games, some groups fight bids they say are too expensive and damaging. By Matt Vasilogambros Just over four years ago, walking out to the White House Rose Garden with diminished swagger, a much younger looking President Obama announced with disappointment that his hometown of Chicago was not selected to host the Olympics in 2016. "One of the things that I think is most valuable about sports is that you can play a great game and still not win," Obama said in that October 2009 press conference. For some political, business, and sports leaders, hosting the Games is a crowning achievement, and not getting them is like just missing the medal podium. And the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics may present the best chance for a U.S. city to host in decades. In announcing Thursday that Boston will be the U.S. city put forward to the International Olympic Committee in the contest to host the 2024 Summer Games, leaders of that city were triumphant. "A Boston Games can be one of the most innovative, sustainable, and exciting in history and will inspire the next generation of leaders here and around the world," said John Fish, the Boston2024 chairman and a construction company CEO, after the announcement. But for some in D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco—the other U.S. cities that were in contention for 2024—not making it to the next round of consideration to host the Games feels like winning gold. The ghosts of Athens in 2004 and Sochi in 2012 are heavy on their minds, as old multimillion-dollar Olympic parks lie dormant in former host cities and taxpayers are still footing the monstrous bill. They recognize the need for infrastructure investment and boosts in affordable housing in their cities, but the Games for them are not the answer. In San Francisco, Chris Daly led the public fight for San Francisco No 2024 Olympics. He sees a built-out city in a small geographic space that's experiencing what he calls an affordability crisis. Daly is a sports fan and loves to watch the Olympics, but he sees the Games as potentially devastating to his community. Now that the decision has come down from the U.S. Olympic Committee, he says it saves the hassle of trying to kill his city's chances before the IOC makes its ultimate decision. "Political oppositions don't tend to have fireworks displays when we win something," Daly said Thursday, just before the USOC decision became official. "There's no pomp or circumstance, but there will be a sigh of relief." Like many Olympics-host opponents, Daly cites the price tag as one of his chief concerns. In all four U.S. 2024 bids, organizers presented budgets hovering around $5 billion—far less than the $51 billion spent in Sochi for the last Winter Games and the $40 billion Beijing spent in 2008. But a promised budget does not always mean cities will follow through. The $5 billion mark was also promised in London, but its Games wound up costing nearly $15 billion. So, while the proposed budget may say one thing, opponents contend it is completely divorced from financial reality. With D.C. out of the mix to host the Games, Brian Flahaven, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for the city, now has a sense of relief. He represents an area near the Anacostia riverfront and Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, two properties included in neighborhood master plans for improvement. But if the nation's capital had won the nod to represent the U.S. in an Olympic bid, he says, those plans would have been uprooted, because it's likely the waterfront would have been transformed into the Olympic Village and RFK into the Olympic Stadium. "Is it really worth it?" he said Wednesday. "Are we going to get the benefits that other cities claim they could get by hosting the Olympics, like it could put us on the map? I don't think we need it for that reason. Increase tourism? We don't need it for that reason." And although the dorms for athletes would become needed affordable housing, you don't need the Olympics to bring affordable housing to the area, he argues. "The reality is, it's not going to bring affordable housing until 2025," Flahaven says. "We need affordable housing now, and we have a community development plan for that site that could be started now without putting $15 billion in a large international event." But there was no victory for Chris Dempsey, the co-chair of No Boston Olympics. His group of young professionals has, for more than year, spoken out against the efforts of that city's leadership to bring the games to Beantown. He scoffs at the Nikes, McDonald's, and NBC Sports of the world who stand to benefit from bringing the Games to the U.S. but don't actually pay for the facilities or preparations. "You spend a whole lot of money on stuff you don't really need, and you're left with venues and facilities that are expensive to maintain," says Dempsey, a consultant in his day job. "Essentially, you've got this massive redirection of resources and attention away from the things that will actually help people on a broad level and instead focus on this one-time sporting event." The USOC will present the Boston bid to the IOC in the fall, but the competition is steep. Paris, Rome, Berlin, and other cities have also considered bids. Plus, as was evident in the Chicago bid in 2009, where the Windy City ended up fourth out of four candidates, bringing the Games back to the U.S. is difficult. Moving forward, Dempsey is weighing options on the approach his group will take to oppose the bid at the IOC level. There could be a ballot initiative. His group could lobby the state Legislature to block public funding for the Games. It might even campaign to get IOC voters to reject the bid. What is clear, however, is his position. The Boston Herald Sunday, January 11, 2015 Eminent domain use for possible Olympic site feared ‘This keeps us awake at night’ By Richard Weir Should Boston ultimately be tapped to host the 2024 Summer Games, the use of eminent domain will be a tempting option to help clear prized land for Olympic venues, but deploying it, warns a legal expert, could cause disastrous ripple effects with lasting economic harm. “There is a long history of using eminent domain to try to promote economic development. Most of the time what happens is it tends to destroy more development than it actually creates,” said Ilya Somin, a George Mason University property law professor. “It destroys existing businesses and homes. It undermines the security of property rights and it tends to destroy people’s social ties in their neighborhoods.” Mayor Martin J. Walsh in a statement to the Herald said: “We are not even thinking eminent domain at this point. It’s way too early.” The Boston Redevelopment Authority — the quasi-municipal agency long used by the city to take land for developments, most notably the bulldozing of the West End and Scollay Square as part of urban renewal in the late 1950s and ’60s — also remained noncommittal. “It would be wildly speculative,” said BRA spokesman Nicholas Martin, “to even venture a guess as to whether or how we might use eminent domain as it relates to the Olympics. There are just too many variables that are still unanswered (such as) where venues might be sited, who owns that land, etc.” Yet with Boston 2024 Chairman John Fish identifying Widett Circle as a prime site for a temporary Olympic stadium, a cooperative of meatpackers and seafood suppliers that have long called the area home are fearful the city will use eminent domain to seize their 20-acre site, called the New Boston Food Market. “This keeps us awake at night,” said Michael Vaughan, head of Nausett Strategies, a consulting firm that represents the market, which employs 800 people, 500 of them Boston residents. “Most of them have been there for over 20 years. Our customers are worried. This is a group of businesses, a co-op, that work together and can’t be easily relocated.” Vaughan said the MBTA in 2002 sent the market a letter stating it was going to take its land to expand its rail yard. But he got late Mayor Mayor Thomas M. Menino to see firsthand the jobs the market created and Menino helped thwart the seizure. Vaughan said he recently got assurances from Walsh as well that he values the businesses at the market: “The mayor personally told me to tell them, ‘I’ve got their backs and these jobs are important to the city of Boston.’” The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Olympic-sized mistake; Boston a great place without 2024 fiasco Boston a great place without 2024 fiasco By Steve Buckley Sorry, Mayor Walsh, and, sorry, hard-core sports fans, but Boston doesn’t need the 2024 Olympic Games to be a world-class city. Boston already is a world-class city. You see it everywhere. I see it everywhere. When I’m jogging along the Charles River and tumble along the wooden foot bridge that runs under the Boston University Bridge, I’m reminded of this town’s magnificence as the downtown skyline emerges, like the Emerald City, on the other side. If you’ve run this route, you know what I’m talking about. We have museums that inspire, and centuries of history that await your deeper exploration. We have wonderful restaurants, a sizzling theater scene, and the four food groups of professional sports: The Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins. And over the past decade-plus, these teams have delivered a combined total of eight championships. And the people! Close your eyes and recall the manner in which we bonded in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Our law enforcement officials responded heroically in their pursuit of the bad guys, and, one year later, thousands of charity runners used the marathon as a platform to raise millions of dollars for a variety of causes. Seriously, don’t you just love Boston people? Right now I’m thinking about Susan Hurley, the ever-upbeat marathoner who trains all those marathon runners. And Marc Davino, whose calling is feeding and caring for people through his work at Victory Programs. And all those talented and caring professionals I was made aware of while following the documentary series “Boston Med” that was produced by ABC a few years back. Can’t tell you how many times I welled up while watching these people work and play. Need I continue? This city rocks. Not just Boston, but Greater Boston — Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, and so on. I love the Diesel Cafe, Grass Fed, and the Boston Public Library. I love Dan Clark, the retired statie who sings the national anthem. I love Donnie Wahlberg’s stories about sneaking into the old Garden when he was a kid. I love the annual spring musical at Emerson College, and how, when it’s over, the cast and crew take over the alley behind the Majestic and put on a display of pure happiness and camaraderie. And now a bunch of suits are saying that landing the 2024 Olympic Games is going to make Greater Boston a better place? A better place for us? If the International Olympic Committee chooses Boston as the host city for the 2024 Summer Games, it’ll mean we’ll be spending nearly a decade getting the place cleaned up and tricked out. And while we keep reading about how the Olympic experience will bring us lots of dollars and leave with the city in better shape when the circus pulls out of town, can you imagine what it’s going to be like around here as everything is getting built and put in place? Are any of you worried that basic services might be taking a back seat to the Olympics? I’m not naive: Boston and the surrounding communities have real problems that’ll need to be addressed as we venture deeper into the 21st century. As is the case everywhere, we still have race issues. We have thousands of talented young people who have staggering college loan debt. We have a pro soccer team, the Revolution, that can never win the big game. Which brings us to that post-Olympics pot of gold — not just in terms of actual dollars, but also the many venues that would be re-tooled for other needs and uses. Let me ask you: Are dormitories at UMass-Boston among our biggest needs right now? Trust me when I tell you I have a soft spot for the Harbor Campus, but I’m troubled by the notion of our entire populace dropping everything and pitching in to help out the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee. I’m confident that Mayor Walsh and most of our other elected officials have the best interests of Greater Boston at heart as they work to secure the 2024 Summer Games. Any mayor who follows the Boston Park League the way Walsh does has an understanding of what grassroots sports are all about. But does the IOC have Greater Boston’s best interests at heart? Does the USOC? They don’t and they shouldn’t. That’s our job. And if we’re going to band together for the common good, don’t you think we’re capable of finding a better project than the Olympics? The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Mayor Walsh: No referendum on Boston Olympics bid By Chris Cassidy Boston Olympics officials ruled out the idea of giving Bay Staters a chance to vote on whether the Hub should host the 17-day sports spectacle — even as they promoted the concept of hosting the 2024 Summer Games as a “once-in-a-lifetime” planning and economic opportunity and vowed a transparent process. “After people in Boston have the opportunity to understand every aspect of the Olympic conversation, they will fully be excited about it,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said at a press conference with the U.S. Olympic Committee in South Boston today, adding the group has no plans for a referendum. Asked how the city would gauge public support for hosting the Games, Walsh said: “The root of the question is, ‘Are we just going to ram it down people’s throats?’ Absolutely not. We’re going to out and talk to the people of Boston. I’d be willing to bet if you took a poll today, the majority of Bostonians are excited about this bid.” Walsh, joined by Gov. Charlie Baker, Boston 2024 Chairman and Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish and USOC officials, announced a series of Olympic community meetings, starting Jan. 27. “We are not going to be using taxpayers’ money to be building venues in the city of Boston or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” said Walsh. However, the mayor said public dollars would likely be spent on land use and infrastructure upgrades, including transit and roadways — improvements, he said, that would be needed whether the Games come to Boston or not. Walsh also downplayed the negative impact hosting the Olympics would have on the city during the weeks around and during the Games. “I heard somebody last night on TV saying we don’t want the Olympics because of the traffic,” said Walsh. “We’re talking 10 years from now for four weeks ... I think there’s a lot of uncertainty around the questions we have to ask. We’re going to have a very open and transparent process. ... We are going to answer every question asked of us over the course of the next 9 months.” Though the USOC billed Boston as its “unanimous” pick yesterday, committee Chairman Larry Probst this morning called the selection “the most challenging, the most difficult, the most agonizing decision we have ever made as a board.” Fish portrayed hosting the Games as an opportunity to showcase the Hub as a world-class city. “Boston does have a phenomenal story to tell,” said Fish. “The world sends its youth to Boston to be educated. The world sends its sick to Boston to be healed. The world sends its great minds to Boston to innovate. The world sends businesses from all over to invest. Why don’t we send the world’s greatest athletes to compete in Boston?” The Boston Herald Friday, January 9, 2015 Charlie Baker declines to endorse Olympics bid: ‘There’s a lot to learn’ By Matt Stout Gov. Charlie Baker hedged on throwing his full support behind Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid, telling reporters today “there’s a lot to learn about this” as the Hub prepares to make its pitch to the International Olympic Committee as the United States’ bid city. Baker, emerging from his first Cabinet meeting on his first full day in the Corner Office, also said he’ll explore tapping a point person for the administration to tackle questions surrounding the city and state’s Olympics bid, as well potentially setting up “regional conversations” for public input beyond the community meetings already announced for Boston. “I’m where I think many people are, which is there’s a lot to learn about this,” the newly sworn-in Republican said when asked if he supports the bid. “I’ve only been in office for less than 24 hours, I haven’t seen the bid book. I don’t think I need to see the bid book. “What I really want,” he added, “is a briefing on how people believe this process is going to go forward and what the expectations are of all the various players, how the private piece of this is going to be associated with the process, and what sorts of infrastructure are going to be part of this conversation. My guess is a lot of that is going to be rolled out over the course of the next four, five, six, seven, eight months.” Baker, who also attended a morning press conference with Mayor Martin J. Walsh and others, said making the process from now until the city submits its bid to the IOC transparent is “where the focus should be.” Some, including those leading the group, No Boston Olympics, have called on the players behind the city’s plans to publicly release the bid they submitted to win over the U.S. Olympic Committee, which last night officially tapped Boston as its bid city for the 2024 Summer Games over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Asked if those plans should be released, Baker said to this point, “what the city of Boston achieved with this decision was the right to compete globally as the representative entity of the United States.” “The actually full-blown proposal,” he added, “the one that’s really going to be the representation of what the city and the state and the USOC believes is the plan, is going to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee in September.” A day after Baker laid out broad strokes of his plans for the Corner Office in his inaugural speech, it’s unclear how the emergence of Boston’s Olympic bid could impact them, including his promises not to raise taxes and fees. But Baker said he did emphasize to his secretaries what it “really tells us all ... is that outside events will certainly factor into the best-laid plans.” “We should all be mindful of the fact that we should be able to adapt as we go,” Baker said. That could include turning to an expert to help coordinate the administration’s role in any Olympic preparations. “We haven’t made decision on that yet but I certainly believe the idea of having someone who is focused and who has the experience and the expertise to actually be the right kind of person to worry about that and to engage that conversation, is an idea to be explored,” Baker said. “Absolutely.” The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 Boston is the US choice for the Olympic bid. Now what? By Evan Horowitz The US Olympic Committee has picked Boston as the official nominee for the 2024 Summer Olympics. But don’t get too ready to welcome the Games; it’s still a long road to opening ceremonies. Over the next two years, the city will face off against bidders from around the world for the right to host an event of immense global interest, but also one that research has shown costs billions of dollars, does little to increase tourism, and can leave behind massive stadiums and other big projects with little long-term use. Are the Olympics definitely coming to Boston? What we learned Thursday is that Boston beat out San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., to become the official US nominee. However, the toughest competition may still lie ahead. Rome has already submitted a bid for the 2024 Olympics, and many other cities have expressed a similar interest, including Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Melbourne, St. Petersburg, and Istanbul. If even a fraction of these bids get submitted by the initial deadline this September, it could make for a rather crowded field. One reason for the wide appeal is that the International Olympic Committee recently adopted new policies to encourage more sustainable and less grandiose Olympic plans. What would a Boston Olympics look like? We don’t know much about the precise plans for a Boston Olympics. The process is not being organized by the city or state but by a nonprofit group of business and cultural leaders called the “Boston 2024 Partnership” — and it hasn’t shared the official bid. In describing the bid, however, the group has emphasized the importance of a compact Olympics, with many venues accessible from existing transit stops. They’re also hoping to keep costs down by partnering with local universities and building structures that can be reused for other purposes. Still, Boston doesn’t have a large stadium or an aquatic center or a velodrome (for biking), and these are three of the most expensive Olympic facilities. What is more, finding places for them could be just as challenging as raising the money. For example, while there has been talk of building an Olympic stadium at Widett Circle, off I-93 south of downtown Boston, there’s already a meat and seafood wholesaler business at that spot whose owners don’t seem eager to sell. How much will this cost? Without seeing the bid, it’s impossible to say for sure how much a Boston Olympics would cost. Estimates from “Boston 2024 Partnership” suggest about $5 billion to run the games and another $13 billion in already-approved public transit improvements. Recent Olympic games have tended to cost at least $15 billion, and sometimes far more. Cost of recent Olympics Athens2004 - $16b Beijing2008 - $40b London2012 - $15-20b Sochi2014 - $50b+ Rio 2016(est.) - $20b Source: Zimbalist, 'Circus Maximus' And in virtually every case, final costs vastly exceed the initial estimates. Who pays? While the Olympic Games do generate some revenue — from ticket sales, advertising, and TV rights — it’s not usually enough to cover the full cost. “Boston 2024 partnership” has said that Massachusetts taxpayers would not have to make up the difference, but for now there’s no plan to ensure that. A lot depends on how you think about the $13 billion in already-approved transportation funding. Ultimately, that’s taxpayer money, so diverting some of it to pay for Olympics-related infrastructure — like a stadium — should probably count as public funding. But it’s also possible to argue that since that money has already been authorized, it’s not really a new taxpayer expense. What are the benefits of hosting? The games are good for local construction companies and do provide a short burst of happiness for local residents basking in the global spotlight. Beyond that, the proven benefits are few. Tourism actually went down during the London and Beijing Olympics, and while many economists have looked for evidence of Olympics-related economic growth, they haven’t found much. Does everyone support Boston’s bid? Despite backing from a wide array of political leaders, the Boston Olympics bid has been met with substantial opposition — much more opposition than you find in other cities. The most public face of that opposition has been a group called “No Boston Olympics,” which has been working to prevent what they see as a dangerous distraction from more pressing needs in the Commonwealth. What happens next? Debate will likely intensify as provisional plans get more definite and decisions have to be made about where to build and how to pay. The “Boston 2024 Partnership” has long promised to share information and hold public meetings, and an endorsement from the US Olympic Committee would increase the urgency of greater disclosure and transparency. The number of interested parties may increase as well. Major corporate sponsors may line up behind the Boston bid, since US-hosted Olympics tend to attract strong TV audiences. Local universities will clarify their own willingness-- or reluctance-- to contribute land, dorms, and dollars. And the International Olympic Committee will start expressing its preferences as the bid takes final form over the next two years. Finally, state politicians will have to decide whether they’re really willing to risk taxpayer dollars. Without an official guarantee that the state will cover all necessary costs, the bid can’t go forward. And what if we ultimately lose? At the end of this long process, it’s still possible that Boston won’t be chosen as the host city. In that case, we’ll have to watch the Olympics on TV and do without a velodrome for the foreseeable future. But we can continue to invest in vital infrastructure. And for really committed boosters, there’s always 2032. The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 John Fish recuses construction company from Olympic projects By Mark Arsenault John Fish, head of the Boston 2024 Olympic campaign, said Friday he is recusing himself and his company, Suffolk Construction, from any Olympic-related building. A number of sports venues and a temporary Olympic stadium would have to be built, if Boston is named Olympic host city. The US Olympic Committee on Thursday chose Boston as the US nominee in the worldwide competition for the 2024 Summer Games, picking Boston over competing bids from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Fish’s company is one of the city’s most prominent building firms. Some critics have suggested that he may be pushing an Olympic bid to benefit his firm. “I think it’s extremely important now that I say publicly that I will recuse Suffolk Construction from getting involved in any Olympic construction,” Fish said, in a Globe interview. “I don’t want the appearance of a conflict.” Fish said he intended to continue working on the Olympic bid. The International Olympic Committee will select the host of the 2024 Games in 2017. The Boston Globe Friday, January 9, 2015 Walsh, officials vow cost-effective Olympics By Andrew Ryan and Mark Arsenault An upbeat group of political leaders and the organizers of Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Games vowed Friday to be transparent during the planning process, and also predicted that some 70 percent of the venues used would be on college campuses. “I am wicked excited, and Boston is wicked excited," said John Fish, who has emerged as the leader of the privately financed Boston 2024, which submitted the winning bid to the United States Olympic Committee. Fish said that 70 to 75 percent of the sporting venues will be on college campuses. At a news conference in Boston, Mayor Martin J. Walsh and newly sworn-in Governor Charlie Baker outlined the next steps in the high-profile effort. Walsh said there would be at least nine community meetings in Boston in the coming months. “Wow," Walsh said. “Can you believe this?” Walsh then turned to Baker, who took his oath of office Thursday and said, “What a way to start your term!" Walsh vowed transparency and promised that Boston residents — “in every corner of this city” — will be given a chance to voice their concerns during the planning process that was being launched in earnest Friday. “We are going to answer every question asked of us over the next nine months until every Bostonian and probably everybody in the Commonwealth will understand what the impacts of the Olympics will be on the community, what the benefits will be, and what it means to be an Olympic city," Walsh said. Walsh added, “I promise that this will be the most transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history. ... We’re not here to ram this down people’s throats." Baker described the Olympic effort as a planning opportunity, saying no one should be surprised that Boston was selected. He said the bid gave Boston and Massachusetts the opportunity to become “a shining example” of how to manage the complex process. “This is the start of the race. This is where it begins," Baker said. He said there would be an “opportunity for robust and thorough debate." A reporter asked Walsh if the Olympics should be put to a vote, noting that the mayor had been pushing for the neighborhood of Charlestown to have the opportunity to vote on the casino planned for neighboring Everett. “This is very different,” Walsh said. “The Olympics we would bring to Boston is not just going to be in the city of Boston." Walsh was asked if there would be a referendum on the Olympics in Boston. “No referendum,” Walsh said. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Revenue to dictate difficult choices on Olympic transit projects By Michael Levenson and Nicole Dungca To hear backers of the 2024 Boston Olympics tell it, the projects necessary to pull off the event have already been approved and are ready to go: a nearly $1 billion expansion of South Station, new trains to run from the Back Bay to South Boston, an upgraded JFK/UMass Station in Dorchester. All that is needed now, they say, is a kick from the Olympics to make them a reality. “Government always works best with a deadline, and the Games can be a deadline for getting things done,” said Daniel O’Connell, president of Boston 2024, the private group promoting the Olympic bid. But some observers say that, even with an Olympic push, the projects could require additional public money and thwart road and rail construction outside the Boston area. Many have been talked about for years and are still in the planning stages, with legal, environmental, and financial hurdles remaining. And at the very least, they will require Governor Charlie Baker to make them a top priority and speed their progress. “It’s up to what the administration wants to do, and the governor is limited by the revenue that they have,” said Rafael Mares, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation. “The governor, as anyone in that position, will have to make serious choices because not everything can be done under the current revenue.” To pull off the Games, backers want to build venues near existing public transit hubs. Their plans call for a removable 60,000-seat Olympic stadium near Interstate 93 in South Boston, a 16,000-person Olympic Village near the Bayside Expo Center in Dorchester, a 15,000-seat aquatics center near the Turnpike in Allston, and a removable 5,000-seat velodrome at Assembly Square in Somerville. They say these venues will be paid for by corporate sponsorships, ticket sales, private donations, the licensing of Olympic merchandise, and broadcast fees. But moving spectators to the venues will require upgrading or overhauling several transit lines at taxpayers’ expense — all of which Olympic planners say have already been authorized by the Legislature. One of the biggest endeavors involves adding five to seven additional train platforms at South Station and moving the postal facility there to Fort Point Channel, at a cost of $866 million. That would allow spectators to take trains into South Station and walk to the Olympic Stadium in about 10 minutes. State officials have been trying to expand the station for a decade but have been stymied by the financially ailing Postal Service’s demand for more money for its land. Another major public upgrade that Olympics backers want involves building a new commuter rail station, called West Station, in Allston, as part of a major $260 million project that includes straightening the Turnpike near the Allston tolls. Olympic backers plan to build a tennis pavilion and aquatics center near there using private money. Former governor Deval Patrick approved the West Station project shortly before he left office but said the state still needed one more private partner to fund the last third of the construction. Still more projects on the Olympic to-do list involve making the JFK/UMass MBTA stop more pedestrian-friendly; running new trains — called “diesel-multiple units” — from hotels in the Back Bay to table tennis and fencing competitions at the South Boston Convention Center; building a bike path from the Olympic Village in Dorchester to the Olympic Stadium in South Boston; and redesigning Kosciuszko Circle, off Morrissey Boulevard, which funnels traffic from I-93 into Dorchester and South Boston and is notoriously nightmarish at rush hour. Boston 2024 officials have said all the public projects were approved as part of a $13 billion bond bill that Patrick signed last April. But that bill is more like a wish list from lawmakers, not a financing plan. It merely authorizes the state to borrow money to pay for a smorgasbord of rail, road, and bridge projects from the Berkshires to Cape Cod. It is now up to Baker to decide which projects to undertake. Then the administration needs to borrow money to pay for the work and figure out how to cover the debt, all without breaking Baker’s pledge not to raise taxes. “Bond bills are stuffed to the gills with wish lists and much of what’s in a bond bill doesn’t get funded,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank. “A lot of it will be based on what the state can pay for and what’s possible, and that’s not purely up to Charlie [Baker], but also about the economy.” Mares said the state will inevitably need more money to cover the debt incurred for the transportation projects, especially after voters in November repealed a state law that would have increased the gas tax based on changes in inflation. That law would have raised about $1 billion during the next 10 years, Mares said. “There just isn’t enough revenue to support issuing bonds for all of these projects,” he said. Tim Buckley, a Baker spokesman, did not directly address how the projects could be financed. He said the governor is excited to work with Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston 2024 “to explore important infrastructure projects as well as other issues surrounding the Games such as keeping costs down and continuing to press forward on pledges of private funding.” Stergios said it was ultimately impossible to assess how to pay for transit upgrades since Boston 2024 has refused to make available to the public the bid it submitted to the US Olympic Committee. “What is maddening thus far is the lack of information,” he said. Walsh has said the bid will be made available in coming days. The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Across Mass., the cheering and carping gets underway By Brian MacQuarrie Boon or boondoggle, bonanza or bust, the prospect of the 2024 Olympics in Boston has unleashed what figures to be an ultra-marathon of conflicting reaction in the Massachusetts hinterlands. Some outside Greater Boston are certain they’ll reap economic benefits. Some worry about terrorism. And others are certain that they -- in some way, at some time -- will have to shoulder part of an enormous pricetag if Boston lands the Games. “From an image standpoint, it’s powerful,” said Darby O’Brien, who runs an advertising agency in South Hadley. “Boston is just such a great city to hold any kind of event, but I think it would be fun and interesting and worthwhile for the city, the state, and all of New England.” As a sports fan, O’Brien said the idea of an Olympics less than two hours away is irresistible. And as a Massachusetts taxpayer, he believes the plan to use many existing facilities for sports venues makes economic sense. “It’s been pretty resourceful,” O’Brien said. Suddenly, in a region where residents complain about being ignored, Boston seems much closer after being chosen Thursday as the US entry in the Olympics sweepstakes. Not wasting any time, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno spoke Thursday night with John Fish, the leader of the group behind Boston’s bid. Besides issuing congratulations, Sarno said, he discussed how Springfield could host some events. “We have a riverfront area, we have great college institutions, we have fields,” Sarno said. “Hey, why not? If you don’t ask or dream that it can be done, it won’t happen.” Besides the prestige of using Springfield for Olympic events, Sarno said, the Games could help create a long-discussed rail link between the city and Boston. “This comes at a great time,” Sarno said. “I look upon this selfishly and parochially, but this could finally spur the east-west rail connection that I’ve been looking for, which would open up vast opportunities for economic development.” Kevin O’Hara, an author and retired nurse from Pittsfield, counted himself among the cheerleaders. “Are you kidding me, 130 miles away from an Olympic event?” O’Hara said. “I know there’s a downside, but a lot of the facilities are there and they seem to have answers.” The possible downside -- that the Olympics could become a money-hemorrhaging clone of the Big Dig -- did not concern O’Hara. In his mind, that financially traumatic experience will serve as a template for how not to stage the Games. “I think they’ll be better and clever about the whole thing,” O’Hara said. Others believe that the Games, like many of its predecessors, will shatter budget projections and leave little behind except short-term euphoria. “It’s usually overblown,” artist Jim Murphy, a longtime runner from Ashfield, said of the Olympics effect. “It’s kind of [promoted] like that trickle-down thing you always hear about, or a rising tide raises all boats. I think a lot of time that hasn’t been borne out.” Still, Murphy said he would travel from his home in the foothills of the Berkshires to watch the Games. “I’d be very enthusiastic about that,” he said. Carl Alves of Dartmouth also expressed mixed feelings. “It’s great to be on the world stage, but there is a tremendous amount of expense,” said Alves, who directs a substance-abuse treatment center in New Bedford. “Just hearing the news about it not being fiscally lucrative has me a little hesitant, but, again, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” Barbara Snider hopes the Boston Olympics is a never-in-a-lifetime thing. A resident of the Cape Cod town of Eastham, Snider is wary of claims from Boston organizers that the Games would not use any new public money. Add to that, she said, the risk of terrorism for a region still recovering from the Marathon bombings in 2013. “Boston needs to be under the radar for a while,” she said. Finally, Snider said, there is traffic from Olympics visitors who would spill onto the Cape during the bumper-to-bumper summer season. “If the people had to vote for this,“ Snider said of the Games, “they wouldn’t vote this in at all.” The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 Olympics in Boston would require unprecedented security By Bryan Bender WASHINGTON — Hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics in an age of terrorism would require a security effort unprecedented in Boston’s history, requiring the efforts of tens of thousands of police officers, soldiers, spies, and private security firms. Some of the city’s neighborhoods would be transformed into something approaching armed camps with security personnel carrying automatic weapons — and possibly even anti-aircraft batteries, according to security specialists familiar with security precautions at recent Olympic games in London and Sochi, Russia. While Boston has successfully hosted its share of high-profile events in the past — including the 2004 Democratic National Convention — it hasn’t had to organize anything of this magnitude, said Representative William Keating, the Bourne Democrat and member of the Homeland Security Committee. “The scope of the Olympics brings it entirely to a new level,” Keating, who was part of a US delegation that assessed security at the Winter Olympics in Sochi last year, said in an interview. “The security will have to be extraordinary.” And extraordinarily costly — although precise estimates are difficult to come by. When preparations began for the last summer Olympics, held in London in 2012, officials estimated security would cost $361 million. In the end, the price tag came in at more than four times that, or $1.6 billion. And when the London opening ceremonies began, there were barely enough guards and other personnel available to protect the athletes and screen millions of spectators. British soldiers were summoned to duty to help. The demands in Boston are unknown, nearly a decade before the event. But the security costs would likely be paid for with federal tax dollars. “We don’t know what the threat will be years from now, and we don’t know what the technology will be like nine or 10 years from now that may make it easier,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former federal and state homeland security official who is now advising the Boston bid team on security matters. But she said planning is already underway and that officials envision three different tiers of government security. There would be the role of state and local agencies like the Boston Police, Massport, the National Guard, and university security forces. The next layer would be comprised of federal agencies, such as the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Administration and the US Coast Guard. Finally, international intelligence and security personnel would be required to assess potential threats and coordinate arrangements for the Olympic teams from individual countries. The terrorist shootings in France this week brought yet another reminder of the threats in today’s society. Those events follow other tragedies, including the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013 and a history of security disasters at past Olympics. Eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 games in Munich, Germany. In 1992, Basque separatists threatened to attack the games in Barcelona but failed to succeed, while a right-wing domestic terrorist set off a pipe bomb at the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta, killing one and injuring 11 others. The enhanced focus on security was underscored by the so-called “steel ring” that the Russians placed around last year’s Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, which was within driving distance of several centers of Islamic militancy in the Caucasus region of Central Asia. In the wake of the Sochi games, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service credited the help of intelligence agencies in the United States, Austria, France, Germany, and the Republic of Georgia in helping to thwart terrorists attacks aimed at the Olympics. Security preparation have long dogged the games. Failure to screen employees working at the Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles in 1984 enable convicted felons to hold security posts — without any major incidents. The verdict following the Atlantic Games in 1996 — where a bombing killed two — was that public safety preparations were wholly inadequate. When former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney oversaw the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah, the 9/11 attacks that took place just four months earlier loomed large. “Among the steps we took were double-fencing, cameras, motion detectors, bio-hazard detectors, food testing, mail testing, and screening people and goods twice before letting them in, and an inner, even more secure location that only the athletes could access,” Romney recalled in his 2004 book “Turnaround,” which detailed his experience overseeing the 2002 games. Ultimately the federal government spent an estimated $1.5 billion for security in Salt Lake City. Boston also would be seeking federal help, according to several officials. The US Department of Homeland Security would be expected to designate the Olympics a National Special Security Event, which would place the US Secret Service in charge of security and also prompt Congress to authorize federal funds. “It is an international event and Boston would have enormous federal resources for security for the event,” Keating predicted. “And international support in terms of security as well.” Kayyem said officials are closely studying the London experience. The 2012 games ultimately had a total of 128 venues that required more than 1,200 security cameras and 20,000 security personnel to screen more than 15 million people, according to Andrew Amery, who served as head of security for the London Organizing Committee. The dragnet also had to be coordinated with a total of 55 separate law enforcement agencies from Britain and abroad, Amery said in a final report. Security preparations included establishing a dedicated intelligence center, while new facilities built for the competitions were constructed with security in mind. A key decision if the games are to be held in Boston will be how much of the security umbrella to out-source to private firms. Late last year an Israeli security firm, ISDS, was awarded a $2.2 billion contract to coordinate security at the Summer Olympics scheduled for next summer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a venue that is seen as particularly challenging due to high levels of crime and drug trafficking. But such private sector help also requires additional oversight. For example, the British company that helped manage security for the 2012 games failed to properly estimate the number of personnel needed. At one point Olympic organizers withheld payments to the firm, G4S, after it said it would be unable to meet its commitment to provide 10,400 security guards. In the end, more than double that number were actually needed. “Security can’t be delegated and it can’t be ignored,” Kayyem said of the London experience. “It is a huge preparedness undertaking. Security and preparedness planning has to begin today.” Keating, however, believes that if the Russians were able to secure Sochi that Boston is more than prepared to take on the task of securing the 2024 games, especially in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. “People should be mindful how resilient our city was after the Marathon, which is an international event,” he said. “Boston is ahead of the curve in cooperation with federal agencies.” The Boston Globe Saturday, January 10, 2015 All that glitters about Boston’s Olympic bid isn’t gold By Christopher L. Gasper Boston is going for the gold in its bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. It’s fool’s gold. The US Olympic Committee selected Boston as its representative to try to bring the Summer Games to the US for the first time since Atlanta in 1996. The Hub bid beat out Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., to serve as the USOC’s torch bearer. The Lords of the Rings won’t choose a host until September of 2017, and Boston is expected to be in competition with cities such as Rome, Paris, and Berlin. Boston is a world-class city and sports mecca that doesn’t need a parade of nations showing up on its doorstep to validate its place on the world stage. We don’t need the five-ring circus coming to town to establish an international identity. Plus, Boston already hosts a world-renowned sporting event every year: the Boston Marathon. The question is not whether Boston is capable of hosting the Olympics. It is. The question is whether it’s worth it. Does the benefit outweigh the potential logistical and financial pratfalls of hosting gym class for the world? Based on recent Olympic Games, the answer is probably not. The Olympics rarely have a lasting, transformative impact on a city, unless you’re talking about the financial ramifications of the event and the planned obsolescence of venues with a 17-day lifespan. Barcelona, host of the 1992 Summer Games, was the exception, not the rule. Proponents of the Summer Games hope to use existing facilities at area colleges, along with publicly owned land. The Games are too big to succeed for most host cities. Just Google “abandoned Olympic venues” and see what comes up. The Summer and Winter Olympics do create indelible memories, like the 1980 US Olympic hockey team’s implausible triumph in Lake Placid, N.Y., or Mary Lou Retton in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. But most of the memories are as ephemeral as the Olympic flame, fading into the black almost as soon as the famed fire is extinguished. When is the last time you thought about Needham’s Aly Raisman, the irrepressible, adorable, and endearing captain of the gold-medal US women’s gymnastics team from the London Games in 2012? Raisman and the rest of the Fierce Five (the sobriquet bestowed upon those golden girls of gymnastics) were the made-for-TV darlings of the 2012 Summer Games. When is the last time you thought about Michael Johnson’s blazing 200-meter triumph in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics or Aboriginal Australian Cathy Freeman’s goose-bump-inducing, barrier-breaking victory in the women’s 400 meters on home turf in Sydney in 2000? These are all magical moments that define the thrill of victory and fleetingly mask the agony of the host city’s balance sheet. Hosting the Olympics is usually rife with cost overruns, tattered promises, and inflated egos and budgets. It’s like sending the world a really, really expensive Christmas card, and hoping they’ll be jealous. Noted sports economist and Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist disputes the notion that the Olympics boost tourism. “Tourists stay away from high prices and congestion,” he said. “Normal tourism goes down. The people that are watching on television are watching the 100-yard dash and swimming. They’ll talk about the competition, not Boston. “Even if it happens to be positive, anybody who has the income and interest to travel to Boston already knows about Boston.” Forget Olympic archery on the Esplanade, Zimbalist just hit the bull’s-eye. Boston 2024 officials promise their Olympics will be different, more efficient, more compact, less wasteful. They pledge to use existing venues and the resources of local colleges for 70-75 percent of the competition, according to Boston 2024 chairman and Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish. They plan to build a demountable and reusable Olympic Stadium in South Boston and an Olympic Village at the old Bayside Expo Center. On Friday, Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, personally echoed Boston 2024’s promise that cost overruns won’t be left at the feet of the taxpayers. That’s like former Patriots cornerback Raymond Clayborn guaranteeing victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX. Boston 2024 has set the budget at an optimistic $4.5 billion. Organizers of the last Summer Games, held in London in 2012, set their initial budget at basically the same level. They ended up spending $15 billion-$20 billion, according to Zimbalist, who has written a book on the cost of hosting the Olympics and the World Cup, “Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.” “They’ve said it will cost $4.5 billion. I think that’s ludicrous,” said Zimbalist. “London’s price was $4 billion, and it ended up being $15 billion-$20 billion. Those kinds of costs are common. “They’ll bludgeon their way through it. If it’s similar to Beijing and London, they’ll have less tourism. When it’s over, they’ll have a hangover, all these buildings with no use they’ll have to scramble to find a use for.” Through the securing of the USOC’s imprimatur, the Boston bid was shrouded in secrecy that would make Bill Belichick jealous. A cabal of corporate titans and political heavyweights nursed the idea to life. Now, there are vows of nine public meetings in the city of Boston and “the most open, transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history,” according to Mayor Walsh’s remarks Friday. Yet, concrete details of the bid are scant. Zimbalist has written that private interests tend to be the compass for Olympic bids. “In practice, host cities tend to be captured by private interests who end up promising much more than the city can afford,” Zimbalist wrote in The Atlantic magazine in 2012. That thorny history doesn’t mean Boston’s bid can’t break both the mold and the cycle of Olympic excess. This is a city known for its revolutionary spirit, after all. It just means it should be approached with caution, skepticism, and the understanding that much of what glitters about hosting the Olympics isn’t long-term gold. The Boston Globe Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Boston will need taxpayer help in Olympic bid Cost may be $1b more; lobbying push expected By Jessica Meyers, Noah Bierman and Sylvan Lane WASHINGTON — Backers of a Boston 2024 Olympics have downplayed the need for public money but, based on past budgets and security needs, the city would likely need at least a billion dollars in federal taxpayer support — and perhaps far more. Supporters acknowledge they will have to mount a significant lobbying effort to persuade Congress, wary of government spending, to support the price tag. Early reaction in Congress is mixed, and some fiscal conservatives appear to be skeptical. “They made their bid. They should pay for it,” said Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican. Local backers’ promise not to use taxpayers’ dollars refers to the operating budget of $4.5 billion. But that does not include security, a formidable federal cost. Federal dollars also would be needed to cover infrastructure projects — such as the Somerville extension of the MBTA’s Green Line — although the Boston leaders say those costs would occur even without an Olympic bid. “It’s the whole nation ponying up, I don’t see any way around it,” said Mark Dyreson, a sports historian and professor at Penn State University. “The Games are larger and the world is a different place than 2002 [Salt Lake City Olympics]. I imagine the security costs are going to be in the multiple billions of dollars.” Officials have not released estimates for such costs. But security for the most recent Summer Games, the 2012 London Olympics, totaled $1.6 billion. Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, in his book “Turnaround” devoted an entire chapter to the extensive lobbying efforts needed to pull federal funding for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which he oversaw. Federal support started at $200 million but stretched to about $600 million, he said. Romney’s number is far too low, according to outside estimates. A 2000 Government Accountability Office report estimated total federal costs for the 2002 Games would reach $1.3 billion. A Sports Illustrated investigation in late 2001 placed the federal cost at about $1.5 billion. At least 24 federal agencies reported spending money on the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, 1996 Games in Atlanta, and the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, according to the GAO report. Dan O’Connell, president of Boston 2024, the nonprofit spearheading the effort to win the Games, said organizers have modest expectations for federal dollars but will try to secure as much as they can. “We can’t count on it,” he said, referring to the overall level of federal spending that went to Salt Lake City. “We are hopeful and will be very pleased if it does occur.” O’Connell said he has yet to fully assess lobbying efforts but plans to seek further advice from the state’s congressional delegation – including Representative Michael Capuano, the Somerville Democrat who sits on the transportation committee – on finding other sources of federal money. That will be crucial in the next months as Congress considers a new transportation bill. Over the years the total cost of the Olympics has grown, as governments poured billions into new buildings or overhauled parts of their municipalities. Beijing spent around $40 billion on its 2008 Olympic production and Russia tossed out $50 billion for its splendor last February. The International Olympic Committee hopes to tone down the over-the-top spending in future ceremonies. But at the very least, the Department of Homeland Security would need to designate the Boston Olympics a “National Special Security Event,” which puts the Secret Service in charge of security. Congress would be expected to authorize funding for the extra safety measures. O’Connell thinks Congress will approve a security designation — as it did during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston — and provide funding for personnel, equipment, and technology. The United States Olympics Committee must submit a preliminary bid by September 2015 that will outline some of its spending plans. O’Connell said the proposal does not depend on the federal government approving new transportation spending. Instead, it relies on projects already approved at the state and federal level, along with the approximately $1 billion a year the state gets in federal transportation money through a formula to pay for them. The federal government already has approved $1 billion for the Green Line extension to Tufts University, a venue that would be used for games. Other improvements, such as new subway cars for the MBTA’s Red Line and Orange Line, also have been ordered. Even amid congressional skepticism, Boston may find some allies. Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who replaced Issa this year as House Oversight Committee chairman, said the investment would prove to be worthwhile. “I’m a conservative Republican and I’m going to fight for it because most of those dollars are going to go to national security and transportation and infrastructure,” he said. “The economic benefit long term is unparalleled.” Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said that it’s still early to say how much the city could depend on federal support but that Capuano and Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of South Boston, may play key roles. Like others involved, Walsh pointed to security and transportation but said the city would not push for projects that are not already in the pipeline. “If the Olympics will give us that little bit of an edge, that would be great,” he said. Even some in the Massachusetts delegation are unsure how much Congress will offer up. “I don’t anticipate there is going to be any federal bonanza coming out of this,” said Representative William Keating, a Bourne Democrat. “Clearly, on security matters that is a basic obligation that we share as Americans.” Lynch hopes to organize a meeting with the delegation and Walsh in coming days to discuss how they can help. He and Walsh have texted back and forth about “the whole security apparatus that would be necessary,” he said. The Boston Globe Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Boston’s Olympic conundrum By Kevin Cullen Over the weekend, a very earnest CBS correspondent named Jericka Duncan asked me what I thought of the Olympics coming to Boston, and being honest, something I seldom am with people I have only just met, I said I don’t know. I also told her that most people who live in and around Boston probably feel the same way. They might, when pressed, say it’s a great idea, or instinctively think it’s a taxpayer and/or logistical disaster waiting to happen. But I’d bet the house that the vast majority of people haven’t given it much thought. It’s like driving off the Cape in mid-August and somebody asks you, “How you gonna vote on Question 3?” Huh? Attention has been focused elsewhere, from the most recent election cycle to the Patriots to the existential question of whether we really need a “Taken 3.” Even the news last week that the United States Olympic Committee had selected Boston as the US candidate for the 2024 Summer Games broke while most people were preoccupied with the madness unfolding in France. Now, local boosters have 2½ years to persuade the International Olympic Committee that Boston would be a better host than Paris, Rome, or any number of other places. First, though, they’ve got to persuade everybody in Boston. Olympic boosters acknowledge it’s important to put on a united front to impress the grandees at the IOC. So their goal is to, over the next year, forge a consensus, which in a town like Boston might be harder than beating Bob Beamon’s Olympic long-jump record. Getting people around here to agree on anything, other than the fact that A-Rod is a complete jerk, is a tall order. Even as he pledged to hold “the most transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history,” with a series of nine community meetings, Mayor Marty Walsh dismissed the idea of holding a referendum. Which raises this question: Why was it appropriate to hold a referendum on the effects of building a casino, but not on the wisdom of launching a massive infrastructural transformation of the city and metropolitan area? That doesn’t make any sense. But then, when you realize how little polling has been done on the matter, it does. The first thing a good trial attorney learns is to never ask a question if you don’t know the answer. The same goes for politicians and referenda. Olympic skeptics point, with some credibility, to the elite insider dominance of the initial bid to the USOC. The prominence of so many downtown bigshots feeds neighborhood cynicism. Still, a lot of downtown types I know and trust and whose opinions I value — businesspeople, lawyers, those who are loath to be associated with discredited projects — genuinely believe the pledge that tax money will not be used to build venues or pay for the operation of the games; that private money from ticket, licensing, and sponsorship fees and broadcast rights will pay for it. The infrastructure improvements paid for by taxpayers are needed anyway, the argument goes. Obviously, the USOC was duly impressed by that argument and the enthusiasm of Boston’s bid in general. Still, there is a certain irony that Boston got its good news from the USOC in Denver. The IOC selected Denver to host the 1976 winter games, but then Colorado voters held a referendum and said thanks but no thanks. Chris Dempsey, cochairman of No Boston Olympics, told me his group is seriously considering taking the question to voters. He said there are issues to work out: how to pay for getting a referendum on the ballot, and whether to push for a citywide or statewide question. “We’re more inclined to be democratic about this,” he said. “At the least, we’d encourage more discussion of a referendum.” Me, too. What better way to impress the swells at the IOC than with a popular mandate. Besides, this is the new Boston, and we don’t do bribes anymore. Much. The Boston Herald Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Support grows for foes of 2024 Olympics in Boston By Chris Cassidy Critics of Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympics bid said they’ve experienced an outpouring of support for opposing the games since the Hub was selected as the nation’s choice last week. “We had over 1,000 sign-ups on our website in the 72 hours since the USOC announcement,” said Chris Dempsey of No Boston Olympics, an opposition group trying to stop the games from coming to the city. “Our message got out there. We feel like we were part of the debate and part of the news, and people responded by coming to us and saying, ‘How can I help? How can I support you guys?’ ” Dempsey said the group hasn’t decided its next move, which could include trying to sponsor a referendum at the polls, directly lobbying International Olympics Committee members or trying to convince Beacon Hill lawmakers to pass legislation. No Boston Olympics plans an organizing meeting tomorrow at the First Church in Boston at 6 p.m. Meanwhile, a Boston 2024 citizens advisory group — which supports Boston’s bid — will meet for the first time Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Mayor Martin J. Walsh last week also announced nine Olympics-related community meetings, kicking off Jan. 27 at 6:30 p.m. at Suffolk Law School. A Boston 2024 official told the Herald the group also has seen a huge spike in public interest since the U.S. Olympic Committee picked the Hub on Thursday. The group’s Twitter followers nearly doubled from 5,585 on Thursday to 10,500 yesterday. Its Facebook likes increased from 8,514 to 10,218 and its Instagram followers soared from 489 to 1,309. The Boston Herald Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Marty Walsh tries to have it both ways on games, gaming By Alex Reimer Mayor Marty Walsh’s opposition to holding a referendum on Boston’s 2024 Olympics bid is the height of hypocrisy. Walsh said at his Friday press conference that Bostonians will be excited about hosting the world’s most expensive block party once they learn the details — or well, anything — about the bid. He and the other Olympics backers ruled out the idea of giving people a chance to vote on whether the Hub should host the 17-day sports spectacle. That stands in stark contrast to the way Walsh views another high-profile project that will affect the city in the coming years — Wynn Resorts’ Everett casino. In his suit against the state Gaming Commission, Walsh says Boston residents have a right to vote on the casino as a “host community,” because the majority of its visitors will have to drive through Charlestown to get to it. “My number one concern is making sure the people of Charlestown have an opportunity to vote on something in their backyard,” Walsh said. But for whatever reason, the mayor doesn’t apply that same line of thinking to the Olympics, which will be in everybody’s backyard. Apparently Boston residents should just be happy that their city has a chance to be on the world stage, or something corny like that. Or maybe the real reason Walsh and members of the Boston 2024 Committee don’t want a vote is because they might lose. The $51 billion price tag associated with last winter’s Olympics in Sochi, Russia, has scared several potential hosting cities for the 2022 Winter Games away. Voters in Munich, Germany, Davos and St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Krakow, Poland, all rejected the bid in referendums. Only two cities — Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan — still have bids alive. Citizens and politicians in the European communities that voted no must think that it’s possible to improve their roads, bridges and transit systems without bringing on a likely Olympics boondoggle. Imagine that. There’s a debate to be had here — a free-flowing exchange of ideas. But the backers of Boston’s Summer Games bid just want to have a one-way conversation. If Walsh is serious about having the most transparent process in Olympics history, he’d do more than schedule nine community meetings over the next several months. He would put the Hub’s Olympics bid up for a vote. The Boston Herald Wednesday, January 14, 2015 Media getting peek at Boston’s Olympic plans ... but public can’t take a look By Chris Cassidy, Laurel J. Sweet and Owen Boss Boston’s Summer Games organizers last night said they will make all the bid documents they submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee available for reporters to look at during a media event next week — but won’t release them, allow copies to be made or even let the public take a look. Boston 2024 executive vice president Erin Murphy Rafferty said in a statement yesterday the group will be “reviewing all the bid documents with media” next Wednesday. And while reporters will be able to “inspect” the documents for as long as they want, the group won’t let them have copies or issue them to the public because the documents “are subject to change,” a Boston 2024 official told the Herald. They also won’t be on display later that day during a citizens advisory group meeting, which is open to the public, the official said. Bid documents submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee offer comprehensive information about a city’s plans to host the games. For example, the bid book Los Angeles submitted to the USOC for its unsuccessful effort to be America’s choice to host the 2016 Summer Games stretches some 350 pages and contains detailed venue information, including the construction and financing needed for each site. It also included security, transportation and technology plans. (The USOC ultimately selected Chicago, which lost in the final round to Rio de Janeiro.) Also yesterday, former Bay State Gov. William Weld told the Herald he is “all in” for Boston 2024 and even offered to serve as the Hub’s goodwill ambassador. “I’m not surprised that we won. First of all, we’re the No. 1 sports town in the United States. Anybody would give their eyeteeth to have the four franchises that we have,” Weld said, referring to the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics. “Second, I’ve always thought the universities would give us a leg up on housing an Olympic Village and accessories,” he said. “And third, we’ve got a political environment that’s full of a lot of support for this.” “I’ve told (Suffolk Construction CEO) John Fish I’ll fly to other countries as a goodwill ambassador for the Boston bid with great pleasure,” he added. Olympic gold-medal-winning figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, who served as the goodwill ambassador for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, said serving at the post was an “incredible experience.” “It was very busy. I spent a lot of time traveling around and getting people pumped up about the games,” Yamaguchi said. “Being goodwill ambassador is all about spreading the Olympic spirit.” The Boston Herald Thursday, January 15, 2015 John Fish: I’m giving up billions for Olympic bid But will still do related work By Erin Smith Suffolk Construction chief John Fish, who spearheaded the bid to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston, said he’s giving up billions in business by recusing himself from bidding on any projects specifically designated for the Summer Games. But he told the Herald yesterday he still plans to pursue contracts with state transportation and college building agencies that will likely oversee construction and upgrades ahead of the potential arrival of the world’s Olympians. “I’m walking away from billions of dollars worth of work,” said Fish, whose private group, Boston 2024 Partnership, drove the Hub’s Olympics proposal. “I’m leading this as a civic leader. I don’t want anybody accusing me or my firm of a conflict of interest.” Fish said he would recuse himself from some — but not all — projects for colleges and transportation, two sectors which have been central to the bid that won the nod of the U.S. Olympic Committee. The Boston 2024 Partnership has repeatedly vowed that the only tax dollars spent on a Hub Olympics would involve transportation infrastructure improvements already needed, and has proposed area universities open their existing facilities or build new ones as venues for the games. Fish’s construction company received nearly $146 million from Massport last fiscal year alone, records show, and another $37 million from the MBTA, the Massachusetts State College Building Authority and the University of Massachusetts Building Authority. These quasi-public state agencies would likely oversee any transportation or university construction and upgrades ahead of the Olympics. “I’m in the building business. I build buildings for a living. It would be suicide if I put myself in the situation where I couldn’t work with existing clients,” Fish said. “I can’t take myself out of the game.” He said as much as 30 percent of his company’s business comes from building for universities. “What I’m recusing my firm from is any building construction associated with the Olympics,” said Fish. “There is no reason for me to recuse myself from working in that sector unless the building has a relationship to the Olympics. If I was aware of a building that was being designated for an Olympic program, I wouldn’t be a part of it.” Fish, who said 33 designated Olympic venues are expected to be finalized over the next few years, pledged his company wouldn’t bid on any of those potential projects. He also said he still plans to do work for Massport, the agency in charge of Logan International Airport — where athletes and spectators will be flooding if the Hub bid is successful. “If we do projects for Massport, that doesn’t mean it’s solely for the Olympics,” said Fish. “I’m going to continue to compete at Massport. I don’t think the Massport issue is a conflict whatsoever.” The Boston Globe Thursday, January 15, 2015 Olympic backers to make more bid information public By Michael Levenson The private group pushing to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston, under pressure to be more transparent, said Wednesday it will release more information to the public than it had previously planned. On Tuesday, Boston 2024 officials had said the bid they submitted to the United States Olympic Committee would be shown to the media, but not to the public. Late Wednesday, the group changed course, saying the media and public would both have access to as much information as possible. Boston 2024 officials said that, next Wednesday, they will release to the public the presentation they showed the USOC last month, as well as supporting documents. The information helped Boston beat Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., and emerge as the US nominee to host the 2024 Games. Boston will now compete against international cities, with the winner to be chosen in 2017. “There is a limited amount of proprietary information that the USOC has asked us not to release because they believe it will put Boston and the United States at a competitive disadvantage,” said Erin Murphy Rafferty, executive vice president of Boston 2024. “All supporting documents with the exception of that proprietary information will be released to the media and the public.” Rafferty did not elaborate on what details would be in the documents that are being released or withheld. Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who has pledged the most open, transparent Olympics ever, on Wednesday said it made sense to release the supporting documents, but not proprietary information in the city’s bid. “The United States Olympic Committee has said they cannot release the bid because it’s proprietary information,” Walsh said in a telephone interview before Boston 2024 announced it would release the documents. “Their feeling on it is, it puts the United States at a competitive disadvantage.” The group No Boston Olympics has said the complete, unedited bid is a public record and should be made public. “We are hearing too much ‘the USOC wants,’ and not enough ‘the people want.’ It’s telling that it took Freedom of Information Act filings and repeated demands by the media for Boston 2024 to decide to share these documents with the people who will be impacted by them,” said Chris Dempsey, co-chair of No Boston Olympics, before Boston 2024 announced it was releasing more records than previously planned. Walsh said some parts of the bid — such as venue locations and costs — are subject to change and argued it is important to release information to the public as it becomes firmer. “I know it’s a concept now and, as we move forward, I want to make sure that information is released to the public as different venues become reality,” he said. Governor Charlie Baker, who has also called for a transparent Olympic process, did not directly answer a question about whether he believes the bid should be made public. On Wednesday, a spokeswoman said, “Governor Baker hopes for an open and transparent process that ensures all voices are heard as the organizers prepare their bid for the [International Olympic Committee].” Walsh has pledged to listen to community concerns even as he enthusiastically supports the city’s Olympic prospects. Last week, he announced that the city will hold nine community meetings about the Olympics and said, “I promise that this will be the most open and transparent and inclusive process in Olympic history.” Olympics specialist Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a professor of sports management at George Washington University, said it is not unusual for the USOC to demand that local organizers keep bid documents secret. “One reason they don’t want those documents online is that the competitors can look at it,” she said. “The Internet is global, and it’s not just something you can block off.” The Boston Globe Thursday, January 15, 2015 Architects caution about costs of temporary Boston Olympic stadium By Michael Levenson At the most recent Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Games Festival, the main attraction wasn’t just the stone throwers, yodelers, and wrestlers competing in seven rings of sawdust. It was also the venue where the games took place: Built in part by the Swiss army, the 52,000-seat Emmental Arena was hailed as the world’s largest temporary grandstand. Three weeks after the games ended, the spartan metal structure was taken down. All that was left was green grass. Backers of the 2024 Boston Olympics now want to build something similar, only much grander and more complex: a temporary 60,000-seat Olympic stadium in South Boston. The vast arena — with all the hallmarks, safety systems, and design details of a permanent structure — would host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and field events. And then it would be removed, down to the last bolt. The plan — audacious in its scope and complexity — has no precedent, according to independent architects, and would pose a steep design, engineering, and financial challenge, all for a giant structure that would stand for about six to eight months. While sporting venues that can be scaled down or have seats removed have become more common, the temporary Olympic stadium would need to meet intense security requirements and exacting track and field rules. It would also need space for locker rooms, drug testing, Olympic officials, and worldwide media. Perhaps just as challenging, the stadium would need to be a showpiece, striking enough to be broadcast around the world as a symbol of Boston, said Mike Holleman of Heery International, the architectural firm that designed the stadium for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. “It can’t be a bunch of bleachers stuck up there,” Holleman said. “It needs to look like an iconic Olympic stadium, if you’re going to have any chance” of landing the 2024 Summer Games against a host of international competitors. Benjamin Flowers, an associate professor of architecture at Georgia Tech, said a 60,000-seat stadium would be so large and complex that calling it a temporary structure would be inaccurate. “What they are really saying is, build a full-on stadium and then demolish it,” said Flowers, who studies stadiums around the world. “It strikes me as a curious proposition to suggest investing the many hundreds of millions it would take to do that to then demolish it and take it down.” David P. Manfredi, an architect working with Boston 2024, the private group pushing the city’s Olympic bid, said a first-rate temporary stadium can be built and would hold several advantages over a permanent arena. Most importantly, because no sports team in Boston wants such a stadium after the Olympics, removing it will ensure the city is not saddled with a hulking eyesore. In Beijing, for example, the 91,000-seat Bird’s Nest stadium, built for the 2008 Olympics at a cost of $480 million, now sits mostly vacant. “We don’t want to leave any white elephants,” Manfredi said. Temporary stadiums made from aluminum and steel framing also “have much simpler foundations,” than traditional concrete stadiums, which means they are “significantly less expensive,” he said. Boston 2024 declined to release a cost estimate for the stadium, but said information about the entire Olympic budget would be released next week. Manfredi said that after the Olympics, the stadium’s parts could be sold for use on other projects — 5,000 seats, for example, could be sent to a high school football field. The land near Interstate 93 where the stadium stood would be prime for development, with the environmental cleanup completed and utility lines built, he said. “We think, in many cases, that’s the best legacy,” he said. Some architects cast doubt on the claims of cost savings, however. “No one should think it’s cheaper than building a stadium; the requirements are the same for life safety, fireproofing, egress — everything has to work and be to code, meaning the way you build it is not going to be that much different from a permanent stadium,” said Marc Schulitz, a German architect who helped design the 55,000-seat Arena Fonte Nova in Brazil, which was used for the 2014 World Cup. Any cost savings, Schulitz said, would come from simply removing the stadium after the Olympics, eliminating maintenance and operating costs. Temporary arenas have grown in popularity in recent years, particularly in Europe. Emmental Arena, built in 2013, consisted of six metal grandstands arranged in a hexagon. More sophisticated but smaller was the 12,000-seat temporary basketball arena built for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. After the Olympics, it was sold for parts, clearing the way for a 650-unit housing development. For last year’s Davis Cup tennis tournament in California, Petco Park, home to the San Diego Padres, was outfitted with 6,000 temporary seats, turning the outfield into a clay-court pavilion. Although not a temporary structure, London’s 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium was designed with removable tiers so it could be scaled down to 25,000 seats after the Games. It is now being converted into a 54,000-seat stadium for the West Ham soccer club, a shift that has brought soaring costs. In addition to planning the temporary Olympic stadium in South Boston, backers of the city’s bid also want to build a partially removable 16,000-person Olympic Village in Dorchester, an aquatics center with 15,000 removable seats in Allston, and a temporary 5,000-seat velodrome in Somerville. Schulitz, the German architect, said temporary structures make sense, particularly when there is no long-term use for them. “A removable stadium is a good idea,” he said. “It’s just that it’s really hard to do, and I think there’s this misconception where people think temporary means cheap.” Boston.com Thursday, January 15, 2015 Boston’s Olympic Opposition Lays Out Arguments and Plans By Adam Vaccaro Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the Olympic bidding group Boston 2024 have said they believe the majority of the public supports holding the 2024 Summer Games in the Hub. With little public polling on the issue to this point, it’s hard to judge whether that’s the case. But if No Boston Olympics, the group leading the opposition to the city’s bid, does represent a minority, it showed that it plans to be a vocal one at a public meeting it held in the Back Bay Tuesday night. More than 100 people attended the meeting at the First Church in Boston. What’s in it for Boston? The meeting featured a talk by sports economist and Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist. Zimbalist, who has written extensively on the lack of economic benefits sporting events like the Olympics bring to cities and countries, scoffed at the idea that Boston’s bid can be done on a $4.5 billion budget for operating expenses, and said he was skeptical that the budget can be entirely privately financed (as is proposed by Boston 2024). Boston 2024 also says public money would go toward infrastructure and security. Zimbalist discussed some of the hidden expenses to hosting the Olympics, including the loss of advertising revenue on the MBTA during the Olympics. (The International Olympic Committee has historically required control of advertising space in the host city during and around the Olympics. An example of host city requirements built into the bidding process can be seen here, from page 213 on.) He also said that construction costs can go up if planning falls behind at all, because projects may need to be done in a rush as the Games approach. “It’s one thing to have a nice idea and say the private sector is going to cover this,” he said. “It’s another thing to have hard contracts.” No Boston Olympics co-chair Chris Dempsey hit on the “opportunity costs” associated with the Games, which has been a common refrain of the group over the past couple of months, suggesting that an Olympics bid will be top priority for of City Hall and the State House over the next several years. Dempsey said that for No Boston Olympics, the question isn’t whether Boston can host the Games, but whether it should. Transparency still a clear concern. At the beginning of the meeting, No Boston Olympics co-chair Liam Kerr asked that people raise their hands to bring everybody to attention. “That’s the most civic participation we’ve had in the process so far,” he said once they did, drawing laughter. The lack of public involvement in the bidding process has been another regular criticism brought by No Boston Olympics, and remained front of mind Wednesday. “Only a handful of people in Massachusetts have had the opportunity to read the bid,” Dempsey said. “That is not the democratic process that Massachusetts wants and needs,” he added. No Boston Olympics has argued that there should have been more transparency ahead of Boston submitting its bid to the United States Olympic Committee in the first place. It has continued to call for the public release of plans since the city was chosen as its representative for the 2024 bid. Minutes after the No Boston Olympics meeting ended, Boston 2024 announced it would make the bidding documents it submitted to the USOC available to the public and the media ahead of its own meeting next week. This is an adjustment from plans it had made on Tuesday to present the plan at the meeting and let the media look through documents afterward. Boston 2024 Executive Vice President Erin Murphy Rafferty said in a statement that “a limited amount of proprietary information that the USOC has asked us not to release” will not be shared “because they believe it will put Boston and the United States at a competitive disadvantage.” Boston 2024 plans to hold monthly meetings about the bid. What’s next? The meeting included some discussion of the group’s plans moving forward. No Boston Olympics has suggested it could take the issue to the ballot booth in some form for the 2016 election, and said that option — either at the state or city — remains on the table. (Walsh said last week that he does not think there will be a referendum on the topic.) Dempsey suggested that a referendum would, at the very least, further bring the public’s concerns into the fold. “If we take a referendum strategy, then all of a sudden they’ve got to convince you,” he said. Other options for the group, Dempsey said, include direct lobbying of IOC members to not choose Boston, and pushing for legislative action at the State House or with the Boston City Council. Asked what that might entail, Dempsey said the group could advocate for laws requiring more public input in the bidding process, or in setting restrictions on how public money could be put to use for the Olympics. More immediately, No Boston Olympics is suggesting its supporters go to the planned City of Boston public meetings about the bid, the first of which is scheduled for Jan. 27 at Suffolk Law School. (You can see the full list here.) And another No Boston Olympics co-chair, Kelley Gossett-Phillips, asked toward the end of the meeting whether those in attendance would like to meet again. Most raised their hands to signal yes. One resident at the meeting, Edmond Schluessel, has participated in recent protests against police brutality in Boston, and said Wednesday night that a planned rally on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will “make No Olympics a central demand,” partially out of apprehension for aggressive security measures that could come with hosting the Games. Across the political aisle was a man named George Boag who ran for state representative representing the 36th Middlesex District in 2010. “I ran for office as a Tea Party Republican. Let me tell you, this is an issue that will unite left and right,” Boag said. On WGBH’s Greater Boston program Wednesday night, Boston 2024 President Dan O’Connell echoed Walsh in saying he can’t foresee a circumstance in which Boston’s bid doesn’t go forward to the International Olympic Committee later this year. The Lowell Sun Thursday, January 15, 2015 Olympic naysayers light own torch on Boston games By Jimmy Golen, AP Sports Writer Boston [AP] — In order to start the first public meeting — pro or con — since Boston was chosen as the American nominee for the 2024 Olympics, the head of the group opposed to bringing the Summer Games here asked those in the crowd to raise their hands and stop talking. "That's the most civic participation in the process we've had so far," Liam Kerr, the head of the group No Boston Olympics, said to laughter from the crowd. A crowd of more than 100 people gathered in a Back Bay church to discuss the problems they anticipate for an Olympic host, including traffic, runaway budgets and a lack of transparency from the IOC and the local bid committee alike. Attendees groaned and hissed as an economist detailed past Olympic cost overruns and the drain on local budgets. One man arrived in the sub-freezing temperatures wearing shorts and a Beijing 2008 T-shirt with a piece of electrical tape across the logo. Others shouted out support for the local sports teams. Many associated themselves with liberal causes, but one man said he had run for office as a Tea Party candidate and said opposing the Olympics cuts across political lines. Chris Dempsey, a No Boston Olympics founder, said he wanted the group to focus not just on opposing the Olympics, but on the ways the resources that would be devoted to the Games could be better spent. "We are not curmudgeons, naysayers, NIMBYs, or trolls. We're not anti-Olympics. We're not Indianapolis Colts fans, especially this week," he said. "We believe that Boston can host an Olympics. It would be safe. It would be exciting. It would be fun. The question is: Should Boston host the Olympics? "It's an immense distraction from other pressing priorities. And I think you come to the conclusion that while it's something you can do, it's something we shouldn't do." The idea for Boston to potentially host the Olympics was first mentioned to Sen. Eileen Donoghue, D-Lowell, by Corey Dinopoulos, of Dracut, and his college friend Eric Reddy. Donoghue's legislation in 2013 formed the legislative committee that first explored the possibility of making a bid. While Boston would be the city that officially hosts the games, the bid suggests holding rowing events on the Merrimack River in Lowell, and Donoghue has said Lowell could also host boxing at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell, and a satellite athletes' village. Rowing events could include about a thousand athletes. The bid includes the Olympics and Paralympics that would follow. Costs of recent Summer Olympics have varied, from the London 2012 games'$15 billion to Beijing 2008's reported $40 billion. Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist, whose new book "Circus Maximus" looks into the economic risks of hosting the Olympics, said studies have shown that the Games don't deliver the financial benefits that are often promised. He derided the promise of no public money for the 2024 Games, saying the initial budget is unrealistically low and adding that the Olympics would rely on local police and fire services that are ultimately billed to the taxpayers. "To say that there's going to be no public money is ridiculous on a number of levels," he said. But the complaint that seemed to galvanize everyone is the lack of information about the bid that convinced the USOC to pick Boston over San Francisco, Washington and Los Angeles as the American nominee. The city will compete against Rome and potential bids from Paris, Germany and South Africa, as well as others. "I think one of the most important things No Boston Olympics can do is to insist upon the documents," Zimbalist said. Bid organizers said they will soon be opening up the process. In a statement emailed to The Associated Press on Monday night, Boston 2024 Vice President Erin Murphy said the bid book — minus proprietary details that the USOC said would put the bid at a competitive disadvantage — will be released before a public meeting next week. "Boston 2024 is committed to an open civic engagement process and looks forward to our first community meeting on Wednesday," Murphy said. "Boston 2024 will work with our elected leaders to conduct a robust public process that will inform and shape our bid proposal to the IOC." Boston will hold its first public meeting on the Olympics bid at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 27 at Suffolk University Law School. Eight other meetings are between March and September, all in Boston. Additional meetings may be announced on an ongoing basis, Boston mayor's office said. Donoghue said a meeting will also be held in Lowell at a date to be announced later. The Sun staff contributed to this report. The Boston Globe February 26, 2014 Boston Olympics in 2024 would be a ‘monumental task’ Panel calls Olympics in city feasible but says space for venues uncertain By Michael Levenson Boston has enough hotel rooms, security expertise, and cultural cachet to host the 2024 Summer Olympics but would face a challenge finding space for an 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium and a 100-acre Olympic Village, according to a special commission’s draft report. The panel concluded that Boston could feasibly host the 2024 Olympics but would face a “monumental task” making the densely packed city easy to navigate and ready for the world’s largest sporting event. And that’s even before talking about the price tag. A copy of the report, obtained by the Globe, said the commission was not ultimately recommending that Boston launch a bid to host the Olympics but urged supporters in the public and private sectors to set up a nonprofit group to explore the idea further and to work with the United States Olympic Committee on developing a bid. John Fish, the chief executive of Suffolk Construction and leader of the commission, said the group would also need to conduct an in-depth study of the costs of hosting the Olympics, an issue that was not examined in the draft report. “I am encouraged by the potential opportunities that can be borne out of hosting the Olympics,” he said in an interview Tuesday. But he said, “the next question needs to be asked: is this in our best interests, socially, politically, and economically?” The 11-member commission was created by Governor Deval Patrick and the state Legislature to determine whether Boston could meet the basic requirements for a host city set forth by the USOC. Its members included state lawmakers, the Suffolk County sheriff, and the chief executive of Boston Duck Tours. The draft report, which is being circulated among commission members, will undergo final revisions this week and is due to be released to the public on Friday or Saturday, Fish said. The USOC has indicated it plans to narrow the list of American cities by the end of the year. The International Olympic Committee has said it plans to announce the winning city in 2017. Other potential bids could come from Paris, Madrid, Rome, and South Africa, the report said. The draft report argued the Olympics would serve as a “powerful catalyst” to help policymakers and private companies focus on some of the region’s long-term needs, namely its lack of housing for middle-income workers and inadequate public transit system. Those problems must be addressed if the state is to compete economically in the future, the report said. In many respects, the commission said, Greater Boston is well suited to host the Olympics. It currently has 51,000 hotel rooms, more than the 45,000 required by the IOC. An additional 5,000 hotel rooms are set to be built by 2024 and, if more space were needed, visitors could use the 30,000 college dorm rooms in the area or stay on cruise ships docked in Boston Harbor, the report said. Turning to security, the report said the region has enough local, state, and federal law enforcement officials to ensure the Games would be safe. The report quoted former Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis as telling the panel “we are probably better suited than any other place in the country,” to provide security for the Games. Massachusetts is also home to 20 top-flight track-and-field venues, 14 stadiums for soccer, nine large baseball parks, five major basketball arenas, and two horse-racing tracks. But there are four necessary venues the state lacks. The biggest — the 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium and 100-acre Olympic Village, with 16,500 beds and a 5,000-seat dining hall — would ideally be built close to the city center, to satisfy the IOC’s recommendations. However, land in Boston’s urban core is scarce, the report said. The state would also need an Olympic-sized velodrome for the cycling events and a large aquatics center. The public transit system would need to be expanded, “requiring additional and significant investments in our infrastructure to handle the capacity that an Olympics would bring to Boston,” the report said. Traffic — already a notorious bugaboo of life in Boston — would also be a concern, the report noted. The commission acknowledged that it is an open question whether Bostonians, who it noted have a well-earned reputation for being slow to embrace sweeping new endeavors, even want to host the Games. “The biggest concern is related to the actual cost associated with hosting — from where funding comes from to how it would be allocated,” the report said. The commission’s official charge listed costs as one of several areas it was to investigate. But Senator Eileen Donoghue, a Lowell Democrat and commission member, argued it would have been impossible to determine an accurate price for the Games, without knowing more about the location of the venues and the structure of the public-private partnerships that would fund them. The report warned that cities that have spent heavily solely to stage the Olympics and promote national pride — such as Beijing and Athens — have struggled financially, and their venues have been unused after the athletes left. But others, such as London and Barcelona, have used the Games to revitalize neglected neighborhoods. “The Olympics can be helpful, but only if you pick the right projects and make sure people are going to want to use the projects after the athletes are gone,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, who did not serve on the commission. “For every Barcelona, there are other cases, probably more cases, where the infrastructure only served the Olympics and then fell into disuse and disrepair, and that’s worse than doing nothing.” The exploration of an Olympic bid has prompted some residents to form an opposition group called No Boston Olympics. Liam Kerr, a member of the group, said he agreed with Olympic boosters that Boston needs better housing and transportation, but he argued the Games are not a cost-effective way of tackling those projects. “We don’t need the IOC to give us a deadline for how to shape the future of our city and state,” he said.

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