|
Help save yourself
— join CLT
today! |
CLT introduction and membership application |
What CLT saves you from the auto excise tax alone |
Ask your friends to join too |
Visit CLT on Facebook |
CLT UPDATE
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Boston 2024 Olympics: David vs.
Goliath
|
"My goal is to make us as unfriendly and
unpalatable to the IOC as possible," said Robin Jacks, a leader of
the group No Boston 2024. “I hate to do that; I’m a really
friendly person. I like to meet new people. I genuinely like people.
But I want the IOC to be like, 'I hate those people.'"
No Boston 2024 is one of two separate groups that
has organized to oppose the games. The first to emerge, No Boston
Olympics, is led by a small group of politically-savvy players;
co-chair Chris Dempsey used to run the MBTA’s open data initiative.
That group has marshaled economists to wage an intellectual fight,
on the ground that the Olympics are bad public policy. They’re
working to lobby elected officials. They’ve gotten overtures from
the Boston delegation.
And at an organizing meeting this week, [No
Boston Olympics] encouraged respectful visibility, and a positive
spirit: Wear you Red Sox cap or your USA shirt while you’re holding
up your “No Olympics” sign.
No Boston 2024 might have, um, a different
approach. The group came together late last fall in response to a
Jamaica Plain Gazette article about how Franklin Park might be used
for horse dressage events. Some of them stood outside a Globe
Opinion forum about the Olympics that I co-moderated last month,
chanting, "Who gets the gold? CEOs."
They have some overlap with the Occupy Boston
movement. And they’re thematically aligned with the Black Lives
Matter protesters who pulled those concrete barrels onto I-93. In a
Twitter message on Thursday, Jacks told me: "I’d say displacement
and oppression of marginalized communities is our #1 concern
regarding the Olympics."
So, yeah, those protests are coming. The question
is: What will civil leaders and Olympic organizers do about them?
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Get ready for Olympic-sized protests
By Joanna Weiss
'Tis apparent to all that the high lords and
ladies here in the Kingdom of Boston desire to host the Games of the
XXXIII Olympiad in the Year of Our Lord 2024.
But what thinketh the commoners of the kingdom on
that matter?
Verily, their opinions may be wayward, given that
those who but live and toil in the kingdom — and thus are spared the
fret and worry of directing its affairs from high and self-appointed
posts — are at present but lightly informed on the topic. Which, I
hasten to say, is perfectly understandable: The city’s dukes, earls,
and barons have not had the time, amidst the royal bustle of their
lives, to share their grand vision for us with us.
But that ever-so-slight oversight will, wondrous
to relate, be rectified next week, when there will be an unveiling
by the Private Privy Council, also known as Boston 2024, of their
Olympic intentions. That moment will no doubt rival the halcyon day
when Queen Victoria announced plans for the Great Exhibition she and
Albert held in London in 1851; the “Crystal Palace” proved a
favorite target for pigeons until it was ravaged by fire some 80
years later....
Much as this will pain the Privy Council, that
level of support can’t truly be called vast. Which raises this
question: When all is said and done, how, exactly, shall the
nobility decide whether there’s sufficient consensus to proceed
apace with their Olympic endeavor? And: Will we peasants be
permitted a vote on the issue?
So far, the high lords and ladies in charge of
this regal effort have said only that they will hold informational
audiences throughout the royal city and entertain queries and
concerns.
That vagueness has alarmed the anti-royalists
over at No Boston Olympics, who worry we common folk will have no
real say. “They” — that is, the nobility — “feel the decision has
already been made,” declareth Chris Dempsey.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Olympic decision in the kingdom of Boston
By Scot Lehigh
The Boston 2024 campaign has succeeded, thus far,
in part by marrying what is purportedly a private-sector enterprise
with prominent figures who have ties to the public sector.
Fish hired a virtual alumni club of Deval
Patrick’s administration to staff the committee and serve as outside
consultants, including the Northwind Strategies firm led by former
Patrick chief of staff Doug Rubin.
Former US senator William “Mo” Cowan, who also
served as a Patrick chief of staff, cochairs the government and
community outreach committee. Dan O’Connell, who was Patrick’s first
economic development secretary, is president of Boston 2024. Nikko
Mendoza, another former top Patrick aide, is vice president of
engagement and external affairs.
The group’s general counsel, Emiley Lockhart, has
worked for outgoing Attorney General Martha Coakley, was a senior
policy analyst for US Representative Joe Kennedy’s first
congressional campaign, and served as general counsel and policy
director for Lowell Democratic state Senator Eileen Donoghue, who
sponsored legislation establishing a commission to study the
feasibility of the Olympics. Its vice president of strategic
initiatives, Amy Sennett, is dating Dan Koh, Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s
chief of staff.
Each of those politically wired players brings
his or her own local constituency. And the homegrown nature of the
bid has forestalled Boston’s famed parochialism and mistrust of
outsiders....
In fashioning a campaign dominated by locals, the
committee also hammered in another cornerstone: opposition to the
Olympics is seen as a display of insufficient civic pride. Even
elected officials who harbor deep misgivings about the Games — due
to its expected cost, security risks, or potential for embarrassing
mismanagement — say privately that they keep their fears quiet so as
not to trigger any backlash.
One state lawmaker likened criticism of the
Olympic plan to speaking in favor of an enemy nation during a time
of war, saying it seemed “unpatriotic.” ...
Now, of course, the competition moves to a higher
plane. Boston, having competed against other domestic cities, will
now vie with international ones, and will need to convince an
increasingly tight-fisted Washington to back its bid with an as-yet
unspecified dollar figure to pay for security to protect spectators
at a sports festival that has experienced terror attacks, which
could be well over $1 billion. The Beltway, which has watched what
can happen when federal largesse flows to the Athens of America in
the name of infrastructure, may not prove as easy to convince as a
handful of local politicos....
Meanwhile, members of the Boston delegation plan
to meet on Jan. 26 with the small opposition group, No Boston
Olympics, “to get alternative viewpoints,” according to a letter
from state lawmakers who organized the meeting.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Why is there no political opposition to the Olympic bid?
By Jim O’Sullivan
The choice of Boston on Thursday as the American
nominee to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics is a great honor — but
one that should only begin the public discussion of the wisdom of
hosting the Games here, not end it.
Indeed, that was the promise of the city’s
Olympic boosters, who justified the inordinate secrecy around the
bid by describing it as only a preliminary step that would still
leave plenty of time for discussion later. Now that the United
States Olympic Committee has picked Boston over three other
applicants, the boosters should begin that discussion by making
public all of their bid documents.
The bid was organized by a private group called
Boston 2024, which proposed a $4.5 billion event. It was led by John
Fish, the local construction executive, and supported by many other
business interests in the city. Hosting an Olympics would be a
mammoth undertaking: The city would need an Olympic village to house
thousands of athletes, new venues for sports from swimming to
cycling, and adequate infrastructure to ferry staff and media around
a crowded city in the heat of summer. Since there is little evidence
to suggest that Olympics yield public benefits for host cities,
boosters shouldn’t expect any public investment or government
guarantees; the burden is on them to provide a plan for a privately
funded Games.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Let the Olympic dialogue begin
Bay Staters will likely get a referendum on the
2024 Summer Games — whether state and city officials like it or not
— and that opinion poll, conducted by the International Olympic
Committee, could force the power brokers behind the Boston bid to
wage an all-out campaign to win over the public.
In the run-up to its decision on which city will
host the Olympics, the IOC has commissioned independent polls
measuring support and opposition in each community, the surrounding
region and country, as part of its own report evaluating risks and
opportunities for candidate cities, according to IOC documents
reviewed by the Herald.
“It absolutely matters,” said Jules Boykoff, a
former Olympic soccer player and international sports expert at
Pacific University, about the poll. “If there’s serious doubt in a
community ... and if there’s the prospect of serious protest,
there’s a better chance the IOC will say, ‘No, we’ll go somewhere
else.'" ...
“It’s all relative,” said Boykoff. “If you have a
few finalists and one of them has incredible public support and the
others have less than 50 percent, it will matter more.”
In the three most recent Olympic picks, potential
host cities with the highest public support didn’t necessarily win
the bid — but cities with the most opposition were never chosen....
The key to garnering more support isn’t
necessarily trying to convince people it’s a good idea, but proving
to the public that the Olympic rollout will go smoothly, said
Democratic strategist Scott Ferson, whose firm Liberty Square Group
has no business tied to the Boston bid.
“They just have to be careful about hyperbole,”
Ferson said. “Saying they want input is different than actually
listening to input and answering people’s questions. I haven’t seen
there’s been a lot of that.”
Ferson compared the Olympics to the Big Dig — Bay
Staters may support the concept but despise how it is implemented.
“For the Big Dig, there was institutional
arrogance,” Ferson said. “There was a lack of knowledge and
oversight of a private entity that ran rampant with no public check.
And the Olympics cannot fall into that same trap.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 16, 2015
Public opinion matters to IOC in Olympic choice
You might have to sit down when you read this.
Dan Doctoroff spent the better part of a decade
preparing New York’s ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer
Olympics. He likes what he sees in Boston’s proposal for the 2024
Games.
“Boston has a very good chance of winning,” he
tells me. “I feel very strongly about that.”
Gulp.
I tell you this not as a way to get the naysayers
and critics on board this fast-moving train, but because I needed to
get your attention so you can start thinking about what an Olympic
bid really means....
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
What Boston can learn from NYC’s failed Olympic bid
By Shirley Leung
Governor Charlie Baker sounded cheery Thursday
afternoon as he answered a barrage of questions — on topics ranging
from his recent illness to the Olympics to a morning traffic snarl —
in his first monthly appearance as governor on a call-in radio
show....
One caller from Everett asked Baker whether
Boston should be able to hold a citywide vote on the Olympics. The
city was named last week as the US candidate for the 2024 Summer
Games.
Baker noted that there are state laws in place
that allow for citizens to collect signatures and put a referendum
on the ballot and he has always been a big believer in the process.
“If people want to collect signatures to support
referendums, they can do that,” he said, adding that it could be
done on a statewide or citywide basis.
“But part of the point behind making people
collect signatures and engage in that civic endeavor if they want to
put something on the ballot is to determine whether or not, in fact,
there is any level of support for it,” he said.
Baker affirmed that he’d like no public money to
be spent on the Games, other that which is already in the pipeline
to be spent.
So how do the taxpayers know that they won’t be
handed a massive bill after the Olympics, Braude asked the governor.
“Part of that is there’s going to be an open
process here, and the way I think about this is: This process is
just starting now,” Baker said.
He noted he was a private citizen until last
week, doesn’t have a lot of access to what’s been discussed with the
US Olympic Committee, hadn’t read the city’s bid, and is “looking
forward to being brought into that conversation.”
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Baker discusses Olympics referendum
Evan Falchuk — the independent candidate who
failed in his gubernatorial bid but earned enough votes to win
his party official state status — is pushing for a ballot
question to give voters a say on whether Boston should host the
2024 Summer Olympics....
“If you look at the history of these games,
they’ve cost taxpayers a lot of money wherever they go. I think
voters want to be treated as adults and respected,” he said.
“There’s a point where voters say it’s enough.”
The Herald reported yesterday that public
opinion matters in Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympics bid because the
International Olympic Committee has commissioned independent
polls to measure support and opposition in potential host cities
in the run-up to its decision....
Falchuk serves as chairman of [the United
Independent Party], which is still in its infancy after the
group earned major party status alongside the Democrats and
Republicans when he won more than 3 percent of the vote on
Election Day 2014.
Falchuk said he is waiting to see the exact
proposals from the Boston 2024 Partnership, the nonprofit
spearheaded by Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish and largely
funded by downtown business leaders.
“We don’t have any billionaires or the
powerful money groups that are backing the Olympics,” Falchuk
said. “This is about grass-roots organization. We’re getting
involved in this because there’s been a groundswell of concern.
We think it’s important for people’s voices to be heard.”
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Ex-gov candidate plans push for ballot question
At a booster dinner on Oct. 6, Boston Mayor
Marty Walsh declared that if the city hosted the 2024 Summer
Olympic Games, “It would be Boston leading the United States.”
He went on to say, “It’s an opportunity for us to plan what the
future of Boston will look like,” and that it would bring
awareness to issues of global warming.
These claims all appear to be lines from the
International Olympic Committee’s playbook on how to make a
successful bid to host the Games. While the assertions may
please the IOC, they haven’t worked out as advertised for the
host cities, with few exceptions....
Neither the state Legislature nor the Boston
City Council has voted to pursue hosting. Rather, Governor
Patrick appointed a committee of 10 construction industry
executives to investigate the feasibility of the hosting the
Games. The construction industry will benefit mightily from all
the contracts. The rest of us will pay the bills.
Now the Games are being pushed by the private
group, Boston 2024 partnership. If the partnership really wants
the Olympics, let the partnership pay for them. The city and the
state have much better things to do with their thin resources.
The Boston Globe
October 9, 2014
Let Boston 2024 pay for the Olympics
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
"My goal is to make us as unfriendly
and unpalatable to the IOC as possible," said Robin
Jacks, a leader of the group No Boston 2024. “I
hate to do that; I’m a really friendly person. I like to
meet new people. I genuinely like people. But I want the
IOC to be like, 'I hate those people.'"
No Boston 2024 is one of two separate
groups that has organized to oppose the games. The first
to emerge, No Boston Olympics, is led by a small
group of politically-savvy players; co-chair Chris
Dempsey used to run the MBTA’s open data initiative.
That group has marshaled economists to wage an
intellectual fight, on the ground that the Olympics are
bad public policy. They’re working to lobby elected
officials. They’ve gotten overtures from the Boston
delegation.
—The Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 2015, "Get
ready for Olympic-sized protests" by Joanna Weiss
Until yesterday morning, when reading the above
report, I was unaware there is more than one group opposed to Boston
hosting the 2024 Olympics.
We must be sure to recognize the extreme
difference between them.
Reportedly No Boston 2024 has ties with
the Occupy Movement, is aligned with the anarchists, according to
Joanna Weiss's above report:
They have some overlap with the
Occupy Boston movement. And they’re thematically aligned
with the Black Lives Matter protesters who pulled those
concrete barrels onto I-93. In a Twitter message on
Thursday, Jacks told me: "I’d say displacement and
oppression of marginalized communities is our #1 concern
regarding the Olympics."
CLT has no use for that movement and especially
for its reckless, despicable tactics.
No Boston Olympics is an entirely
different group with an entirely different philosophy and tactical
approach:
And at an organizing meeting this
week, they encouraged respectful visibility, and a
positive spirit: Wear you Red Sox cap or your USA shirt
while you’re holding up your “No Olympics” sign.
CLT has contacted No Boston Olympics and
offered its support.
"Olympic decision in the kingdom of Boston" by
Scot Lehigh, longtime Boston Globe columnist, has to be one of, if
not the best of his columns. The entire column, beneath my
commentary below, is a must-read! His prose captures
the sense of entitlement, ruthless power, and the cavalier disregard
for mere citizens of the self-serving backers and promoters of this
inevitable debacle, as
Christopher L. Gasper dubbed them, "The Lords of the Rings."
Jim O’Sullivan cleanly exposed the
behind-the-scenes heavy-duty political wiring in his Boston Globe
report, "Why is there no political opposition to the Olympic bid?":
The Boston 2024 campaign has
succeeded, thus far, in part by marrying what is
purportedly a private-sector enterprise with prominent
figures who have ties to the public sector.
Fish hired a virtual alumni club of Deval Patrick’s
administration to staff the committee and serve as
outside consultants, including the Northwind Strategies
firm led by former Patrick chief of staff Doug Rubin....
It's interesting that the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) will be doing its own "referendum" before deciding
which nation to put its Olympics in, its own polling. The Boston
Herald reports ("Public opinion matters to IOC in Olympic choice"):
Bay Staters will likely get a
referendum on the 2024 Summer Games — whether state and
city officials like it or not — and that opinion poll,
conducted by the International Olympic Committee, could
force the power brokers behind the Boston bid to wage an
all-out campaign to win over the public.
In the run-up to its decision on which city will host
the Olympics, the IOC has commissioned independent polls
measuring support and opposition in each community, the
surrounding region and country, as part of its own
report evaluating risks and opportunities for candidate
cities, according to IOC documents reviewed by the
Herald....
“It’s all relative,” said Boykoff.
“If you have a few finalists and one of them has
incredible public support and the others have less than
50 percent, it will matter more.”
It's the job for us beleaguered taxpayers is to
make sure we drive down the numbers before the IOC makes its
decision — if we don't want to be
saddled again with paying the inevitable massive cost-overruns bill
for the "brilliant idea" of a handful of zealots
— as we were so recently with the Big
Dig fiasco.
Regardless, No Boston Olympics is
considering a petition drive for a referendum, either in Boston
alone or statewide. United Independent Party leader Evan
Falchuk is also looking into that possibility. If they decide to take that onerous route
and succeed with getting the signatures, the question could be on
the 2016 ballot for voters to decide —
something The Lords of The Rings oppose at any and all cost.
If the decision is on the 2016 ballot, I predict we'll see one of
the most lopsided "David vs. Goliath" ballot campaigns in this
state's history, maybe more expensive than even the recent casino
ballot question ($14 million spent by the pro-casinos
committee/$658,526 by the sponsoring repeal committee, as of Nov.
1). It will be another ad hoc grassroots citizens committee
taking on this cabal of fat-cats with the deepest pockets in our
Commonwealth.
I predict we can expect to see the pro-Boston Olympics
advertising/propaganda campaign begin soon.
|
 |
 |
You can learn more about No Boston Olympics
by clicking their logo below.
|
|
Chip Ford |
|
|
|
|
|
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Get ready for Olympic-sized protests
By Joanna Weiss
Stuck in traffic on I-93 yesterday? Even a handful of protesters, it
turns out, can make a big splash.
Now, is Boston ready for protests against the Olympics?
They’re coming, so get ready. That idea about what would happen if
Boston won the US bid for the 2024 games — that once we got the nod,
the juggernaut would be unstoppable — seems to be coming true.
Leaders of Boston 2024, the private group that is assembling the
bid, have indicated that, while they’re open to input about venues
and details, they won’t withdraw because of anyone’s objections.
Which leaves some anti-Olympic activists with a different goal: To
convince the International Olympic Committee, a group of 100-some
Swiss-based dignitaries who get to choose the host city, that Boston
isn’t for them.
And maybe not always through gentle persuasion.
"My goal is to make us as unfriendly and unpalatable to the IOC as
possible," said Robin Jacks, a leader of the group No Boston 2024.
“I hate to do that; I’m a really friendly person. I like to meet new
people. I genuinely like people. But I want the IOC to be like, 'I
hate those people.'"
No Boston 2024 is one of two separate groups that has organized to
oppose the games. The first to emerge, No Boston Olympics, is
led by a small group of politically-savvy players; co-chair Chris
Dempsey used to run the MBTA’s open data initiative. That group has
marshaled economists to wage an intellectual fight, on the ground
that the Olympics are bad public policy. They’re working to lobby
elected officials. They’ve gotten overtures from the Boston
delegation.
And at an organizing meeting this week, they encouraged respectful
visibility, and a positive spirit: Wear you Red Sox cap or your USA
shirt while you’re holding up your “No Olympics” sign.
No Boston 2024 might have, um, a different approach. The group came
together late last fall in response to a Jamaica Plain Gazette
article about how Franklin Park might be used for horse dressage
events. Some of them stood outside a Globe Opinion forum about the
Olympics that I co-moderated last month, chanting, "Who gets the
gold? CEOs."
They have some overlap with the Occupy Boston movement. And they’re
thematically aligned with the Black Lives Matter protesters who
pulled those concrete barrels onto I-93. In a Twitter message on
Thursday, Jacks told me: "I’d say displacement and oppression of
marginalized communities is our #1 concern regarding the Olympics."
So, yeah, those protests are coming. The question is: What will
civil leaders and Olympic organizers do about them?
Every Olympics sees its share of protests. (In Sydney in 2000, one
group called itself People Ingeniously Subverting the Sydney Olympic
Farce, which lends itself to a lovely acronym.) And it’s wise to be
wary of overreach when it comes to controlling dissent. Bettina
Scholz, a political science professor at Stonehill College who has
studied the Olympic movement, said that in the run-up to the Sydney
games, new legislation dictated how Olympics buildings would be
built, limiting how close protesters could get.
That pleased the IOC, which always wants to keep protests as far as
possible from the games, Scholz said. But once the Olympics moved
out of town, the architecture remained, perhaps to the city’s
detriment.
Before the London games in 2012, meanwhile, some worried that laws
passed to limit the "overcommercialization" of the games were so
broad that they could be used to suppress protests and free speech,
limiting what people could put on anti-Olympic placards, even giving
police the chance to search people's homes.
So as the Olympics barrel forward — whether you hate the idea or
love it — the protesters deserve apprecation. Dissenters who have
the Legislature's ear could become a good safeguard against
ill-conceived laws and outlays, passed in Olympic zeal.
And we shouldn’t discount the value of street-level demonstrations,
made up of people who are deeply engaged in civic life. Boston’s
history is part of its appeal. Protests are one of our birthrights.
"I’m proud to be a Bostonian now,"Jacks told me. If I were on the
IOC, I might even think her movement was a selling point.
Then again, maybe not.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Olympic decision in the kingdom of Boston
By Scot Lehigh
'Tis apparent to all that the high lords and ladies here in the
Kingdom of Boston desire to host the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in
the Year of Our Lord 2024.
But what thinketh the commoners of the kingdom on that matter?
Verily, their opinions may be wayward, given that those who but live
and toil in the kingdom — and thus are spared the fret and worry of
directing its affairs from high and self-appointed posts — are at
present but lightly informed on the topic. Which, I hasten to say,
is perfectly understandable: The city’s dukes, earls, and barons
have not had the time, amidst the royal bustle of their lives, to
share their grand vision for us with us.
But that ever-so-slight oversight will, wondrous to relate, be
rectified next week, when there will be an unveiling by the Private
Privy Council, also known as Boston 2024, of their Olympic
intentions. That moment will no doubt rival the halcyon day when
Queen Victoria announced plans for the Great Exhibition she and
Albert held in London in 1851; the “Crystal Palace” proved a
favorite target for pigeons until it was ravaged by fire some 80
years later.
Certainly the curtain-lifting on our own civic royalty’s plans is
something we scribes eagerly await; why, it will impart that
delightful sense of knowingness a page or squire feels when his
master confides a delicious piece of palace intrigue.
Strangely, however, the citizens — excuse me, subjects — here in the
kingdom have already taken the liberty of forming some initial
opinions on this matter, which they have conveyed to people’s
pollster Lou DiNatale in a new automated telephonic survey conducted
in conjunction with the consultancy Sage.
Overall, a slim majority of both Massachusetts and Boston citizens
smile upon the notion. Realm-wide, 52 percent say they would be
strongly or somewhat pleased to have Boston play host. Fifty-four
percent in Boston venture the same. But notably, at least 39 percent
of both polities declare themselves opposed.
Much as this will pain the Privy Council, that level of support
can’t truly be called vast. Which raises this question: When all is
said and done, how, exactly, shall the nobility decide whether
there’s sufficient consensus to proceed apace with their Olympic
endeavor? And: Will we peasants be permitted a vote on the issue?
So far, the high lords and ladies in charge of this regal effort
have said only that they will hold informational audiences
throughout the royal city and entertain queries and concerns.
That vagueness has alarmed the anti-royalists over at No Boston
Olympics, who worry we common folk will have no real say. “They” —
that is, the nobility — “feel the decision has already been made,”
declareth Chris Dempsey.
Could that really be so?
This week, I made bold to pose my questions to Lord Dan O’Connell,
president of Boston 2024. Alas, extracting a straight answer from
Lord O’Connell was akin to pinning a drop of quicksilver to a sheet
of wax paper.
And yet, I can now say this with certitude: Our civic royalty has no
plans to let the commoners vote. No indeed. Rather, they will listen
at the kingdom community meetings and then take their own measure of
our sentiments. And, provided they have the imprimatur of Prince
Martin the Mild, push ahead with their plans.
So how to resolve this vexatious matter? Puzzlement thereupon
prompted me to converse with Secretary of State William “the Great
Commoner” Galvin. His reading of the law is that it would it be easy
for the Boston City Council and Prince Martin to place an advisory
question on the ballot for November’s municipal elections.
We commoners could then cerebrate upon the nobility’s plans and
perhaps even hie ourselves thither to one of their public audiences.
And then once the fall harvest is in and we troop to the polls to
cast our votes for our favorite court jesters — pardon me, city
councilors — we could register our sentiments on the Olympics as
well.
Mind you, that vote wouldn’t be binding. But at the risk of seeming
presumptuous, it’s my hope that our feelings, simple and unlearned
though they may be, might be taken into consideration.
That, anyway, is my modest proposal.
The Boston Globe
Friday, January 16, 2015
Why is there no political opposition to the Olympic bid?
In a city that cherishes its right to turn even the most picayune
policy question into a pitched battle, something mighty peculiar has
happened. Suddenly, political leaders are all singing the same tune.
By Jim O’Sullivan
In the beginning, there was the mayor.
Not the current mayor, Martin J. Walsh, who has seized the Olympics
as a defining cause, one that will shape his mayoralty, win or lose.
No, there was Thomas M. Menino, who was at times seemingly
omnipotent when it came to all that occurred, or did not, in the
capital. And the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, had he had his druthers
initially, would not.
Menino, in a March 2013 interview with WBUR, called the notion
“far-fetched.”
“I just don’t know where we could create that massive land in our
city or in the surrounding cities,” he said.
Precious little got done during Menino’s 20-year reign without his
consent, and the mayor’s skeptical stance would have essentially put
the idea on ice before it ever warmed. Chris Young, managing partner
at Boston Harbor Capital, was in the first wave of Olympic
advocates, and called Menino’s leeriness essentially a game-ender.
“We went around town talking to the VIPs, but during that time,
Menino was not in favor of it,” Young said. “We had a lot of good
meetings, but it seemed like a lot of the power players were hanging
out waiting to see what Menino would say before they went behind his
back.”
Then, weeks after publicly voicing his skepticism, Menino announced
he would not seek a sixth term. And the idea got new life.
Over time, as his close friend John Fish, CEO of Suffolk
Construction, took increasing control of the Olympic effort, Menino
grew more sanguine. In an interview with the State House News
Service less than a month before his death last October, Menino said
that, even if Boston were not selected, “something good will come of
this.”
Had he stayed in office, and maintained his resistance, Menino
surely would have accrued allies. But, in his absence, the Olympics
effort’s momentum has built with barely a burble of
institutionalized political opposition.
It’s an unusual dynamic in a civic ecosystem that cherishes its
seemingly divine right to turn even the most picayune policy
question into pitched battle.
The Olympics, said one person directly involved with the bid, are
not like “fixing the Boston public schools or fixing the MBTA....
People have died on those mountains. This is bright and shiny and
new.”
Over the last decade, Massachusetts has introduced a number of new
sectors and industries: stem cell research, off-shore wind farms,
medical marijuana, casino gambling. At each turn, counter forces
have arisen, institutionalized opposition that has posed existential
challenges to the new proposals. The Olympics, which would
constitute an industry unto themselves, has provoked no such
organizational foil. The chief opposition force that has emerged is
a low-budget, ad hoc group of young professionals who initially
numbered four, and now are three. How the organizers muffled dissent
before it could even gather momentum provides a study in how power
is exercised in a place straining to envision itself as a
world-class city, but that remains very much a small town.
More is likely to emerge as the Olympics crowd out other budgetary
priorities, and as local residents protest the new developments
charted for their neighborhoods. But, for now, it is a fairly quiet
front.
“I think we’re in the love affair that we ought to have around the
concept of having the Olympics,” said Larry Moulter,
executive-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts Boston,
who led the redevelopment of the Boston Garden. “Falling in love is
very different from getting married and having a family and buying a
house.”
The Boston 2024 campaign has succeeded, thus far, in part by
marrying what is purportedly a private-sector enterprise with
prominent figures who have ties to the public sector.
Fish hired a virtual alumni club of Deval Patrick’s administration
to staff the committee and serve as outside consultants, including
the Northwind Strategies firm led by former Patrick chief of staff
Doug Rubin.
Former US senator William “Mo” Cowan, who also served as a Patrick
chief of staff, cochairs the government and community outreach
committee. Dan O’Connell, who was Patrick’s first economic
development secretary, is president of Boston 2024. Nikko Mendoza,
another former top Patrick aide, is vice president of engagement and
external affairs.
The group’s general counsel, Emiley Lockhart, has worked for
outgoing Attorney General Martha Coakley, was a senior policy
analyst for US Representative Joe Kennedy’s first congressional
campaign, and served as general counsel and policy director for
Lowell Democratic state Senator Eileen Donoghue, who sponsored
legislation establishing a commission to study the feasibility of
the Olympics. Its vice president of strategic initiatives, Amy
Sennett, is dating Dan Koh, Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s chief of staff.
Each of those politically wired players brings his or her own local
constituency. And the homegrown nature of the bid has forestalled
Boston’s famed parochialism and mistrust of outsiders.
“I think what John and the rest of the committee have done in a very
responsible way is put together men and women who are respected,”
Moulter said. “Here, you have a committee that has their feet firmly
planted in the city, has their careers firmly planted in the region,
and so we know them.”
Moulter pointed to bygone civic battles royal — like his effort to
replace the old Garden with what was initially known as the Fleet
Center, owned by the Jacobs family, or the Boston megaplex proposed
by Patriots owner Robert Kraft — as examples of forces perceived as
outsiders encountering opposition. “You didn’t know Jacobs, and you
didn’t trust Kraft,” he said.
In fashioning a campaign dominated by locals, the committee also
hammered in another cornerstone: opposition to the Olympics is seen
as a display of insufficient civic pride. Even elected officials who
harbor deep misgivings about the Games — due to its expected cost,
security risks, or potential for embarrassing mismanagement — say
privately that they keep their fears quiet so as not to trigger any
backlash.
One state lawmaker likened criticism of the Olympic plan to speaking
in favor of an enemy nation during a time of war, saying it seemed
“unpatriotic.”
Just as adroitly, the Olympic organizers resisted the outcry from
the disclosure and anti-secret-government crowd to release even a
morsel of their formal planning before the US Olympic Committee
decided on Boston. This provided a tactical edge, because there were
no specific projects to oppose or price tags about which to kvetch.
Potential critics had nothing at which to shoot. That ends next week
when the bid documents become public, and 2024 organizers present
their early thinking under a bright media glare in a public meeting.
Fortuitous timing, too, played a role. The notion gathered steam in
a singular moment in local politics, as Patrick was diminished by
lame-duck status, and Walsh and Baker were still locating their
bearings.
Now, of course, the competition moves to a higher plane. Boston,
having competed against other domestic cities, will now vie with
international ones, and will need to convince an increasingly
tight-fisted Washington to back its bid with an as-yet unspecified
dollar figure to pay for security to protect spectators at a sports
festival that has experienced terror attacks, which could be well
over $1 billion. The Beltway, which has watched what can happen when
federal largesse flows to the Athens of America in the name of
infrastructure, may not prove as easy to convince as a handful of
local politicos.
At the same time, details of the plan, as they emerge, will
naturally spark their own pockets of opposition.
Organizers say they expect “a lot of back and forth” around the
matter as the public meetings commence, but say they are optimistic
on how their ideas will fare.
“I think really the power of the idea and the power of the Olympics
is what brought a lot of people who may have been on opposite sides
in the past to come together around this issue,” said Rubin.
Meanwhile, members of the Boston delegation plan to meet on Jan. 26
with the small opposition group, No Boston Olympics, “to get
alternative viewpoints,” according to a letter from state lawmakers
who organized the meeting.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 8, 2015
A Boston Globe editorial
Let the Olympic dialogue begin
The choice of Boston on Thursday as the American nominee to bid for
the 2024 Summer Olympics is a great honor — but one that should only
begin the public discussion of the wisdom of hosting the Games here,
not end it.
Indeed, that was the promise of the city’s Olympic boosters, who
justified the inordinate secrecy around the bid by describing it as
only a preliminary step that would still leave plenty of time for
discussion later. Now that the United States Olympic Committee has
picked Boston over three other applicants, the boosters should begin
that discussion by making public all of their bid documents.
The bid was organized by a private group called Boston 2024, which
proposed a $4.5 billion event. It was led by John Fish, the local
construction executive, and supported by many other business
interests in the city. Hosting an Olympics would be a mammoth
undertaking: The city would need an Olympic village to house
thousands of athletes, new venues for sports from swimming to
cycling, and adequate infrastructure to ferry staff and media around
a crowded city in the heat of summer. Since there is little evidence
to suggest that Olympics yield public benefits for host cities,
boosters shouldn’t expect any public investment or government
guarantees; the burden is on them to provide a plan for a privately
funded Games.
Financing, though, is only one of the problems that Olympics
boosters will need to do a better job explaining to the public.
Would the construction require use of eminent domain? What would
happen to the facilities after the Games?
Should Boston proceed with a bid, the public must also be kept
informed of what the International Olympic Committee, an
organization with a history of corruption, demands from the city.
Olympic costs have a habit of ballooning; London ended up paying
three times what it expected to host the 2012 Olympics. And it was
the extravagant demands for free booze and other perks by the IOC,
which were leaked to a Norwegian newspaper, that helped convince
Oslo to pull out of competition for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Above all, there can be no presumption that the city’s invitation to
bid means that Boston must actually do so. Backers may attempt to
create a sense of inevitability — who wants to be the stick in the
mud? — but Boston deserves better than that. The apparent hunger of
advocates to use the Olympics to show that Boston is a world-class
city cuts both ways. Dozens of cities have hosted the Olympics. A
more select group, including such provincial backwaters as Rome and
Stockholm, have dropped out of consideration at one time or another
after concluding it wasn’t right for them. The invitation to bid is
great news, and a credit to Boston 2024. But Boston is, and will
remain, a world-class city whether it chooses to bid for the
Olympics or not.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, January 16, 2015
Public opinion matters to IOC in Olympic choice
By Erin Smith and Chris Cassidy
Bay Staters will likely get a referendum on the 2024 Summer Games —
whether state and city officials like it or not — and that opinion
poll, conducted by the International Olympic Committee, could force
the power brokers behind the Boston bid to wage an all-out campaign
to win over the public.
In the run-up to its decision on which city will host the Olympics,
the IOC has commissioned independent polls measuring support and
opposition in each community, the surrounding region and country, as
part of its own report evaluating risks and opportunities for
candidate cities, according to IOC documents reviewed by the Herald.
“It absolutely matters,” said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic soccer
player and international sports expert at Pacific University, about
the poll. “If there’s serious doubt in a community ... and if
there’s the prospect of serious protest, there’s a better chance the
IOC will say, ‘No, we’ll go somewhere else.'"
Boykoff couldn’t say how the IOC weighs various criteria for hosting
the games, so it’s difficult to determine exactly how much of a
factor public opinion represents. But a city can stand out if it
corners the market on Olympic enthusiasm.
“It’s all relative,” said Boykoff. “If you have a few finalists and
one of them has incredible public support and the others have less
than 50 percent, it will matter more.”
In the three most recent Olympic picks, potential host cities with
the highest public support didn’t necessarily win the bid — but
cities with the most opposition were never chosen.
In the IOC’s evaluation report of finalists for the 2018 Winter
Games, polls showed 15 percent of residents in Munich either opposed
or strongly opposed hosting the 2018 Games, while a whopping 32
percent in Annecy, France were against the Olympics.
Only 2 percent of the people in Pyeongchang, South Korea —
ultimately chosen to host the 2018 Games — were in opposition.
Officials with Boston 2024 Partnership, the group spearheaded by
Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish, have said their own internal
polling shows more than 50 percent support a Boston Olympics.
The key to garnering more support isn’t necessarily trying to
convince people it’s a good idea, but proving to the public that the
Olympic rollout will go smoothly, said Democratic strategist Scott
Ferson, whose firm Liberty Square Group has no business tied to the
Boston bid.
“They just have to be careful about hyperbole,” Ferson said. “Saying
they want input is different than actually listening to input and
answering people’s questions. I haven’t seen there’s been a lot of
that.”
Ferson compared the Olympics to the Big Dig — Bay Staters may
support the concept but despise how it is implemented.
“For the Big Dig, there was institutional arrogance,” Ferson said.
“There was a lack of knowledge and oversight of a private entity
that ran rampant with no public check. And the Olympics cannot fall
into that same trap.”
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
What Boston can learn from NYC’s failed Olympic bid
How that saga helps Boston secure its future, with or without the
Games
By Shirley Leung
You might have to sit down when you read this.
Dan Doctoroff spent the better part of a decade preparing New York’s
ultimately unsuccessful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. He likes
what he sees in Boston’s proposal for the 2024 Games.
“Boston has a very good chance of winning,” he tells me. “I feel
very strongly about that.”
Gulp.
I tell you this not as a way to get the naysayers and critics on
board this fast-moving train, but because I needed to get your
attention so you can start thinking about what an Olympic bid really
means.
And it is this: an opportunity to figure out how Boston and the
state can work better, not only for those of us who live here but
also for the thousands of athletes and spectators who would show up
at our doorstep.
Where we are now — newly minted as the US nominee to bid for the
2024 Olympics — is where New York was a decade ago. And even though
our archrival lost to London, the Big Apple came up a big winner.
The mere act of putting together a full-blown bid got government and
civic leaders to focus on the future of New York. What would have
taken years to do — or perhaps never would have happened — got done.
New neighborhoods, parks, stadiums, middle-class housing, and even
the first subway extension in 50 years grew out of the city’s failed
Olympic bid. These don’t sound like white elephants.
Even if we never see the Olympic flame burn brightly in our city,
Boston now has a shot at creating that kind of legacy.
Critics will say we don’t need to host the Games to build a better T
or create more housing. Remind me — what’s stopping us now?
Governments need due dates to get anything done, and nothing gets
everyone to hop to it like the possibility of hosting an Olympics.
Boston now has 2½ years to prepare its bid before the International
Olympic Committee makes a decision in 2017.
“You cannot overstate the importance of a deadline in government,”
Doctoroff said. “The hosting of the Olympics is one of the very few
things that occur on a deadline. You cannot miss it.”
So this is what happened in New York: Doctoroff was like our John
Fish, but instead of being the construction king of Boston, he was a
private equity guy. Much like Fish, he corralled business leaders,
including some guy from Medford named Michael Bloomberg, into
organizing a bid for the Olympics.
The effort began in the mid-1990s, when Bloomberg was just a media
mogul. After he got elected mayor of New York in 2001, he brought
Doctoroff into his administration as a deputy mayor overseeing
economic development — and to work on the city’s Olympic dream. The
move paid off because, in 2002, New York got the nod to represent
the United States in the international competition for the 2012
Summer Games.
“We saw it as a catalyst to get things done,” Doctoroff said. “When
you shine an Olympic spotlight on a city, people in the city do
things they otherwise wouldn’t do.”
He likens it to inviting people to your home — and how you want it
to look its best. You clean up, bring out the good china, pop open
the fine wine.
Doctoroff proposed a $3.3 billion privately funded Olympics with
public money in the form of infrastructure upgrades that would have
to be done anyway. Many of the venues would be built in
underdeveloped, former industrial zones.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, looks like Boston is taking a page from New York.
Doctoroff said he’s had a few conversations with Fish, and he
considers Bain Capital managing director and Boston 2024 member
Steve Pagliuca a friend. (The two have met a couple of times to
discuss how to win the Games.)
The $50 million NYC2012 bid was funded by major corporations. While
the IOC chose London for the XXX Olympiad, Doctoroff estimates that
preparing New York’s bid spurred the rezoning of 40 percent of the
city.
If you think that’s Doctoroff patting himself on the back, think
again.
“The rezoning done for the Olympics has done more to transform New
York than any other land development during the past half-century,”
said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning and policy at New
York University, who released a 2011 report on how the city “won”
with its rejected bid.
The opening and closing ceremonies were going to take place in a new
football stadium built by the New York Jets on a former rail yard.
The Jets never moved, but the rezoning of that area lured investment
to create a new district known as Hudson Yards. When fully built
out, Hudson Yards will be a live-work-play neighborhood served by a
new subway extension.
Athletes were to be housed in an Olympic village on Hunters Point,
an industrial area of Queens that sits across the river from the
United Nations building. Today, Hunters Point is where thousands of
affordable and middle-income housing units are being built.
After talking to Doctoroff, you wonder if he didn’t mind that New
York lost. No, it still stings.
“It would have been great to host the Olympics,” said Doctoroff, who
left the Bloomberg administration in 2008 to be chief executive of
Bloomberg LP. He stepped down last month so that Michael Bloomberg
could return to the company’s helm.
Doctoroff believes Boston has a better shot than New York had
because the United States Olympic Committee has improved its
relationship with the IOC. Plus, a large percentage of the Games’
revenue comes from US sponsors and television rights. And by 2024,
the United States will be due its turn. The last Summer Olympics on
our soil will have been more than a quarter-century ago in Atlanta.
To take home the gold, Doctoroff said city officials and the Boston
2024 team will have to work together seamlessly — and be out in the
community talking about the proposal.
“The more people understand how you’re going to do it, I believe the
more people will like the bid,” he said. “Over time, you will
benefit from growing enthusiasm.”
The Boston Globe
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Baker discusses Olympics referendum
By Joshua Miller
Governor Charlie Baker sounded cheery Thursday afternoon as he
answered a barrage of questions — on topics ranging from his recent
illness to the Olympics to a morning traffic snarl — in his first
monthly appearance as governor on a call-in radio show.
Early on in his hour-long appearance on WGBH-FM’s Boston Public
Radio program, Baker addressed his recent illness, which prompted
him to miss Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston’s State of the City
address Tuesday and a two public events Wednesday.
“I’m doing fine. I think I was mostly tired,” he told hosts Jim
Braude and Margery Eagan, who also hosted former governor Deval
Patrick on a monthly “Ask the Governor” segment.
Baker said he started to feel really sick on Monday, it got worse on
Tuesday, and he was concerned he might infect people he met.
But, he said, he did “the public-health appropriate thing to do” and
went home.
One caller from Everett asked Baker whether Boston should be able to
hold a citywide vote on the Olympics. The city was named last week
as the US candidate for the 2024 Summer Games.
Baker noted that there are state laws in place that allow for
citizens to collect signatures and put a referendum on the ballot
and he has always been a big believer in the process.
“If people want to collect signatures to support referendums, they
can do that,” he said, adding that it could be done on a statewide
or citywide basis.
“But part of the point behind making people collect signatures and
engage in that civic endeavor if they want to put something on the
ballot is to determine whether or not, in fact, there is any level
of support for it,” he said.
Baker affirmed that he’d like no public money to be spent on the
Games, other that which is already in the pipeline to be spent.
So how do the taxpayers know that they won’t be handed a massive
bill after the Olympics, Braude asked the governor.
“Part of that is there’s going to be an open process here, and the
way I think about this is: This process is just starting now,” Baker
said.
He noted he was a private citizen until last week, doesn’t have a
lot of access to what’s been discussed with the US Olympic
Committee, hadn’t read the city’s bid, and is “looking forward to
being brought into that conversation.”
Braude asked whether it is conceivable at the end of the process
Baker would determine that it’s not affordable and he’s not going to
support it.
“I’m thinking about it the other way around, Jim, which is that it’s
important that it be something that people believe can work
financially,” he said.
Baker also touched on the Thursday morning traffic snarl caused by
protestors on Interstate 93.
“I’m a big believer in the right to protest,” Baker said, “but I
think tying up traffic and putting cement barrels down in the middle
of a highway at the height of rush hour on two of the most important
arteries in and out of the city of Boston is a bad idea,” he said.
Among other topics Baker addressed was the state’s urgent budget
mid-year gap, but said he and his staff still hasn’t figured out the
exact scope of the deficit.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Ex-gov candidate plans push for ballot question
By Erin Smith
Evan Falchuk — the independent candidate who failed in his
gubernatorial bid but earned enough votes to win his party official
state status — is pushing for a ballot question to give voters a say
on whether Boston should host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
“There’s a lot of people concerned about this process and a lack of
transparency, so we have to make sure we’re participating as voters
because this is going to affect people across the commonwealth,”
said Falchuk.
“If you look at the history of these games, they’ve cost taxpayers a
lot of money wherever they go. I think voters want to be treated as
adults and respected,” he said. “There’s a point where voters say
it’s enough.”
The Herald reported yesterday that public opinion matters in
Boston’s 2024 Summer Olympics bid because the International Olympic
Committee has commissioned independent polls to measure support and
opposition in potential host cities in the run-up to its decision.
In the three most recent Olympic picks, cities with the highest
level of public opposition were never chosen to host the games.
Pyeongchang, South Korea, was chosen to host the 2018 Winter Games
with only 2 percent of residents opposed or strongly opposed —
beating out Munich and Annecy, France, which posted opposition
numbers of 15 percent and 32 percent respectively, according to IOC
documents.
By comparison, Boston residents oppose or strongly oppose the
Olympics by more than 40 percent, according to a survey taken Monday
by Boston-based Sage Systems, a Democratic political consulting
firm. The poll also found more than 39 percent of Massachusetts
voters are against the Hub’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics.
Falchuk’s group of organizers with the United Independent Party is
still deciding the exact wording of a potential ballot question —
whether it would be a simple for-or-against or a referendum to
prohibit taxpayer money from funding the games. He estimates that
about 70,000 voter signatures would be needed to put an Olympics
question on the ballot.
Falchuk serves as chairman of UIP, which is still in its infancy
after the group earned major party status alongside the Democrats
and Republicans when he won more than 3 percent of the vote on
Election Day 2014.
Falchuk said he is waiting to see the exact proposals from the
Boston 2024 Partnership, the nonprofit spearheaded by Suffolk
Construction CEO John Fish and largely funded by downtown business
leaders.
“We don’t have any billionaires or the powerful money groups that
are backing the Olympics,” Falchuk said. “This is about grass-roots
organization. We’re getting involved in this because there’s been a
groundswell of concern. We think it’s important for people’s voices
to be heard.”
The Boston Globe
October 9, 2014
Let Boston 2024 pay for the Olympics
By Andrew Zimbalist
At a booster dinner on Oct. 6, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh declared
that if the city hosted the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, “It would be
Boston leading the United States.” He went on to say, “It’s an
opportunity for us to plan what the future of Boston will look
like,” and that it would bring awareness to issues of global
warming.
These claims all appear to be lines from the International Olympic
Committee’s playbook on how to make a successful bid to host the
Games. While the assertions may please the IOC, they haven’t worked
out as advertised for the host cities, with few exceptions.
Los Angeles 1984 is one exception. Back then, Los Angeles was the
only bidder. City officials told the IOC that it would only host if
the IOC guaranteed the organizing committee against any losses. The
Los Angeles plan was to use the existing sports infrastructure (plus
a few smaller, privately-funded venues), and Peter Ueberroth, the
head of the organizing committee, introduced a new corporate
sponsorship model to help cover operating expenses.
Barcelona 1992 is another exception. The city began to develop a
plan for its renovation after the death of former Spanish dictator
Francisco Franco in 1975. The plan had several components, including
the opening of the city to the sea. Crucially, the plan preexisted
the bid to host the Olympics, and the Olympics were fit into the
plan, reversing the typical sequence.
If Boston wants to plan properly for its future, it must have a
lengthy discussion about the city’s developmental, architectural,
environmental, and financial possibilities. Beginning that
conversation with the need to create more than 30 competition venues
— plus an Olympic village, a media center, and special traveling
lanes for IOC officials — is not the way to do this planning.
One venue that will have to be built is the Olympic Stadium, with an
80,000-person capacity. There are no venues in greater Boston that
will meet IOC standards. The stadium needs a track and a field, plus
all the luxury accoutrements of a modern sports facility. It will
also need some 20 acres of land, complete with special access roads
and parking. Such a stadium is likely to cost upwards of $1 billion.
Where would it go? Is it wise to sacrifice these 20 acres for the
next several decades? What would be its use when the 17-day event is
over? Perhaps the New England Revolution could play there, but the
capacity would have to be reduced to 25,000 and the track removed.
London is spending more than $320 million to “remodel” its Olympic
Stadium for the West Ham soccer club.
The independent scholarship on the return to hosting the Olympics
suggests that it does not pay off economically. Beijing 2008 spent
over $40 billion; London 2012 spent close to $20 billion; Rio de
Janeiro 2016 is projected to spend over $20 billion; and, Tokyo
2020, just having won the bid a year ago, is already facing
political protests and reformulating its plan to reduce costs.
The Summer Games bring in around $5 billion to $6 billion from
television, sponsorships, ticket sales, licensing, and merchandise.
Less than half of this sum goes to the host city. Beijing and London
actually experienced a decrease in international tourism during
their host month and year. This balance of revenues and expenses is
not encouraging for a prospective host city.
It is little wonder, then, under the current hosting conditions,
that the number of bidders for the Winter Olympics has gone steadily
down from nine in 1995 for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City to two
in 2014 for the 2022 Games. The Summer Olympics has decreased from
12 in 1997 for the 2004 Games in Athens to three in 2013 for the
2020 Games in Tokyo.
The notion that hosting will promote sustainability in Boston also
lacks credibility. There will be billions of dollars spent on sport
facility construction, much of it for facilities that will find no
financially viable use going forward. This construction will not
lower Boston’s carbon footprint.
Neither the state Legislature nor the Boston City Council has voted
to pursue hosting. Rather, Governor Patrick appointed a committee of
10 construction industry executives to investigate the feasibility
of the hosting the Games. The construction industry will benefit
mightily from all the contracts. The rest of us will pay the bills.
Now the Games are being pushed by the private group, Boston 2024
partnership. If the partnership really wants the Olympics, let the
partnership pay for them. The city and the state have much better
things to do with their thin resources.
|
| |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|