They’ve come out and said it. (Hey Globe — way to bury the lede.)
Organizers on Wednesday also released bid documents and budget plans, though they said they withheld details on potential land and venue costs to protect their negotiating position if Boston wins the Olympics. [Emphasis mine.]
Boston 2024 has every intention of keeping the true costs of the games hidden from public view, no doubt among many other critical issues, until the IOC makes its final decision.
Until it’s too late to change anything.
Until Boston signs on the dotted line.
There should only be one thing on the mind of all concerned citizens across Boston and the region today: total transparency.
Without it, the people of Boston will never know how much this will cost — and how many decades the people of Boston will be paying billions and billions on Olympic debt instead of on schools and roads.
Cities and towns across Massachusetts operate with full transparency under Open Meeting Laws and are better off for it. Transparency works. There’s no reason why Boston 2024 can’t meet those same standards.
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There are some interesting ideas listed in that Globe piece that Boston 2024’s using to sell the games, including creating a “Midtown” around Widett Circle.
It’s a neat idea. I’d love to hear more. But you know what? The city doesn’t need an Olympics to do it.
Just like Mayor Menino didn’t need an Olympics for the “Innovation District.” He just did it.
Boston real estate is worth more now than ever. Developers can’t build fast enough. Land has become a precious commodity. Is there any point in history where we’d need an Olympics less to get something like “Midtown” done?
If we want to develop, let’s develop. Just like we’re doing all around Boston already.
When I rummaged through that document set yesterday, that one map detail of a rifle range location at Fort Strong tipped me off.
“Hey wait a minute… isn’t that at the far end of Long Island in an area considered hazardous because of old broken WW2 era harbor fortifications the state has been too cheap and lame to fix?”
And it was. It gave away the show. Real Estate developers and building trades people really want that thing but are unwilling to do much heavy lifting to get it. It’s valuable waterfront property with lots of hardhat work potential.
The emergency evacuation was mainly a ruse to clear the way. I hoped it wasn’t so but there it is.
And so what you see is a kind of lame stealth expression of broader development game plans and pipe dreams that want to happen, Olympics or not. It’s just that these cheapskate weasels are trying to leverage something for nothing and have huge contempt for process.
And this gets to the heart of what sucks about the local oligarchs and their courtiers. They have next to zero respect for the public and probably haven’t since Dukakis, if then.
Their first impulse is to contrive ways to manipulate the public when that should be a last resort, if ever.
The Globe reports today that former Transportation Secretary Richard Davey will become the new CEO of Boston 2024
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/01/23/former-mass-transportation-chief-head-boston-campaign/PE8raUhtAwMroNnj2DbIpM/story.html
I respect Davey’s work for the Commonwealth in a range of jobs he held, but it seems that he authorized an unknown number of state agencies under his control to give tacit approval to the Boston 2024 Olympic bid, if the bidders are telling the truth in their bid. If true, his appointment as CEO may may be a violation of the Commonwealth’s conflict of interest law. See MGL, Ch 268A, section 5.
The Ethics Commission’s plain language summary of the restrictions on further employment for past employees is :
“(a) Forever ban. After you leave your state job, you may never work for anyone other than the state on a matter that you worked on as a state employee. If you participated in a matter as a state employee, you cannot ever be paid to work on that same matter for anyone other than the state, nor may you act for someone else, whether paid or not. The purpose of this restriction is to bar former employees from selling to private interests their familiarity with the facts of particular matters that are of continuing concern to the state. The restriction does not prohibit former state employees from using the expertise acquired in government service in their subsequent private activities.”
A FOIA request for any written or electronic messages to/from Davey about the bid would reveal whether he had involvement. I have sent a note like this to the bid opposition but any enterprising reader who wants to freelance (and it might cost serious money for the Transportation department to unearth the communications) is free to chase this one.
The CommonWealth gave explicit approval when the “Special Commission Relative to the Feasibility of Hosting the Summer Olympics in the Commonwealth” was formed in January of 2013.
If, in the course of the life of that committee, then-Secretary Davey directed any or all employees of the Transportation Department to co-operate with the committee in their study of the feasibility, then I don’t see what your objection amounts to, other than grasping at straws…
The Special Commission is an examination of the possibility of hosting the Olympics. The report does not authorize any activities as it has no force of law. It is a report, nothing more.
The Special Commission report does not authorize meetings between Boston 2024 and employees of the Commonwealth, as it has no force of law, nor did any employees of the Commonwealth need authorization. Davey served at the pleasure of the Governor and any meetings or communications he had with Boston2024 were entirely appropriate, but they do likely prohibit him from working for them.
You seem like a fairly smart guy. How could you be so badly misinformed about the law.
The commission is not a report. It is a commission. The result of the commission was the report.
In the investigation of the feasibility of hosting the Olympics, which resulted in the report, the special commission, which was enacted by a vote of 38 to 1 by the state senate and headed by the duly elected and right honorable Sen. Eileen Donoghue of Lowell, was empowered to use the resources of government, which may include the co-operation of the Transportation Department, the Secretary of which at the time was the aformentioned Mr Davey, to come to a conclusion regarding feasiblity.
I’ve very sorry that they did not ask you what you thought, but the truth of the matter is that they did not. You will have to find a way to live with that.
I’m not a lawyer. That’s how.
I’m perfectly willing for it to be the case that I’ve misread the law, but you’ve not proved that I’ve misread the law. You’ve only asserted it.
Again, the report of the Special Commission carries no legal weight. The report was accepted by the Senate, nothing more. It is not legislation. The Commission members consisted of numerous private parties who have no legal standing to make law, among other failures in your argument.
The Patrick administration did not need the approval of anybody to meet with Boston2024. If you are claiming that the Commission did authorize the administration to meet then you are presenting a position that violates the Constitutional capacity of an the executive branch to act independently and without the approval of the legislative branch and private citizens. I assume you have at least a minimal understanding of the Constitutional concept of “separation of powers.”
I cannot imagine why you think I wanted input into a report that has no weight. Do I wait by the phone for impotent bodies (and I am not referring to you in this case) to call me?
You better bring a better line of argument before you wing it based on your desire to argue. So far, you are failing miserably.
Usually, in the face of such a miserable fail, I’d lay off, lest those who fail, also fall in their own esteem. I’m not about that. But that’s just me.
You, it seems, like to make a point of my failure, miserable or not, which indicates, for whatever reason, that I’ve got under your skin. It is not my intent, to be sure, to get under your skin but it does mitigate against “failing miserably.”
You may well understand that law better than me. So far, however, you’ve not demonstrated that you do. You have, I state again, only asserted it.
I just want other BMGers to understand what an incompetent and dishonest string of comments you spew. I will let others decide if I proved what so many others have done, that you just like to argue about the argument and then write “you’ve not demonstrated” the truth. I can lead a horse to water but I cannot make it think.
… as I am, after all, only human (like you).
But you have no basis for your accusation of “dishonesty” upon my part. Wrong? Maybe. Maybe even frequently. Dishonest? Not ever.
Yes. At 9:40pm tonight you wrote:
“when you blithely endorsed a ballot question”
when in fact all I did was note that there would likely be a binding referendum offered by somebody before the final IOC bid was offered. Yes, petr you are dishonest and since this was not the first time I am calling you on it.
If someone is misconstruing what you said, politely correct him rather than cast aspersions on his honesty. You seem to resort to ad hominem attacks awfully quickly.
Eileen Donoghue is now apparently styled “Right Honorable”:) I guess my question would be did the legislature vote to adopt any report produced by said special commission, but we can probably do without the spitting contest over who understands the law better.
There is no such title in Massachusetts. Officially, members of the Massachusetts House are not officially entitled to use the title “Honorable,” a word limited to members of the state Senate. Most members of both chambers probably don’t understand the distinction as it has no real meaning. The use of the word “Honorable” is usually limited to when businesses and NGOs list retired legislators on their programs as sponsors of an event and use the word “Honorable” rather than the more space consuming “former State Senator/Representative” Smith.
Of course none of these honorific titles have much meaning in real life. They are simply a way of acknowledging a person’s service in a non-partisan way.
I don’t sweat issues like this. I am more concerned about their job performance when they are in office and wish them well in retirement. OTOH, if they become paid lobbyists after they leave office, I do not want to see any honorific title attached to them.
… STATE SENATE the right Honorable Sen Eileen Donaghue, who chaired the committee in question AS A SENATOR, is a member in very good standing.
Somehow, and I’m completely bewildered as to how, the committee sanctioned by the Senate and which was chaired by a sitting Senator by the name of Eileen Donaghue, is illegitimate just because TheBestDefense (sic) wants them to be so…
I sure wish I had that power…
the status of the recommendations of the Special Commission as petr claims, because the report is just a report, regardless of the title Senator Donaghue claims.
It is simple fact that there is no such title in Massachusetts except that Senator Donaghue’s staff has fabricated it in the delivery of the Commission report. Go ahed petr, do as you always say, prove it. Find the basis of the claim to such a title. Show it in the Constitution, the MGL, the Joint Rules of the House and Senate, the Rules of the Senate, or the regulations of the Secretary of State.
Meanwhile, your insistence that the report means anything still lacks any support. Go ahead, prove that you are not fabricating this.
Meanwhile, I am still waiting for you to acknowledge that you lied in claiming that I supported a ballot question that does not exist. Go ahead, prove it (that you are not just fabricating straw men).
…and yes, they are entitled to it for life regardless of future employment. I was trying to have a light moment; I didn’t mean to start a debate.
I have no doubt your intentions were good.
because your intentions are good but your comment is not accurate. The title applies to members of Congress, where we have a national standard, but each state has its own traditions about the use of honorific terms. The terms I mentioned were Massachusetts specific, petr to the contrary.
I base my comments about the Senate being allowed to use the “Honorable” word and House members not being allowed to do so based upon a conversation with the final arbiter of all House related parliamentary matters, the House Clerk. Please note that it is rare for anyone associated with the House to acknowledge that the Senate has any higher claim to title but acknowledged the historical difference of use.
There is no place in the US legislative process that allows a member to claim the title of “Right Honorable.” That title derives from the British Empire that we overthrew and we ended the use of the phrase. It is based upon the notion that members of the peerage, those of wealth and property, have a “right” to power. I am afraid your Senator is doing something that was tossed more than 200 years ago.
I understand that petr wants to distract us from his serious failings about how he grossly misrepresented the Special Commission and so many other things. C’est petr.