Last night I went to a No Boston Olympics Community
Engagement meeting near South Station in Boston. The meeting was
hosted by Chris Dempsey, Co-chair of
No Boston
Olympics. I had already met Chris when he was the guest
speaker at CLT’s Friday Morning Group meeting in April. He was
glad to see me in attendance, since he knew Citizens for Limited
Taxation has officially endorsed his efforts to stop the Olympic Games
from coming to Boston. There were almost a hundred people in the
room; the vast majority seemed to be sympathetic to his cause.
No Boston Olympics had done a survey asking people to
list their biggest concerns about the Games.
Survey results:
Taxpayer responsibility: 80%
Projected costs: 63%
Displaced homes and businesses: 57%
Without going into details on the presentation by
Chris and others, below are some of the major points made during the
almost two hour meeting:
● Every
Olympics since 1960 has had a cost overrun. The average overrun
was 179%.
● The
Boston 2024 bid requires that the three most expensive venues:
the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatics Center and the Velodrome; all
have to be built from scratch.
● The
revenue sponsorship is listed at $1.6 billion. This would be the
highest sponsorship support ever required in Olympic history.
●
Insurance will be unable to adequately protect the taxpayers.
Insurers do not insure risks that are virtually certain to
materialize – like cost overruns.
● Lake
Placid was 3 times the initial budget. New York State bailed it
out to stave off bankruptcy.
● London
boosters initial bid to the IOC was 4.2 billion; the eventual
outcome was 11 billion.
