Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone’s Commonwealth piece is a must read for anyone following the Boston 2024 Bid. It is an even handed assessment of the real challenges the region will face, and why the risks and rewards will need to be regionalized for these games to be successful. It’s a piece supporters, opponents, and those on the fence would do well to read.
Mayor Curtatone has identified the only way forward for these games-a regionalized effort where burdens are shared, costs contained, and the legacy the games leave behind HAVE to include substantial long term investments in our crumbling infrastructure and depleted housing stock. He also addresses a need for greater civic engagement and transparency, using the Olympics as a springboard to get guaranteed federal funding for infrastructure improvements needed on a broad scale in a short timetable, and using the games to increase the permanent sustainability of our local economy.
The municipalities that constitute Greater Boston share many of the same goals that we’re trying to tackle in piecemeal fashion. The Olympics presents an opportunity to leap forward on some of the most pressing issues such as transportation, infrastructure, and housing. A true Boston Olympics should be one where we go to the International Olympic Committee and say, “This is how you do it better.”
Key questions remain:
1)Is this the kind of bid the IOC would actually approve?
2)Is it worth pursuing this bid the right way if it won’t be selected?
3)Can these laudable goals be achieved without an Olympic bid to spur them?
Glad to see at least one policymaker asking them, and looking towards the long term risks and rewards that the Games pose to the entire Commonwealth-not just the city of Boston itself.
drikeo says
Interesting contrast between Curtatone’s stance on the Olympics and that of the Cambridge City Council. Perhaps it’s because Curtatone’s undertaken some major projects, so he likes the taste and/or is willing to brave the blowback that come with such endeavors. Yet this also strikes me as an attempt to steer the conversation. Cambridge is effectively giving up its leverage in a process that affects it regardless of its participation.
The reality is the bid will happen with or without input from Somerville, Cambridge, Revere, etc. Despite that, Curtatone seems to have identified where his leverage lies. Boston’s too damn small to host a games by itself. Willing partners will be required. Looks like what he’s saying is he’ll play ball, but let’s make sure we all get something out of it. A lot of talk has been about the T, but what about a state of the art electricity grid (and lots of federal funding for it)? Or housing and schools?
Curtatone’s sitting on 126 acres of redevelopable land in the Inner Belt. New Green Line tracks are going through it and NorthPoint in East Cambridge (which has been slow to get rolling, but Magic Johnson is involved and I imagine he’s pro-Olympics) is a stone’s throw away. Olympic village? Venue sites? Seems he could do some horse trading. Knock down his overpass, fix his sewers and help him develop that new housing he wants and he’ll help make Boston’s Olympic dreams come true. Dare I say, that’s leadership. Sounds like a guy who’s decided that if we’re going to have an Olympics then we should play to win.
jconway says
And I’ve long felt his leadership of comparable Somerville shows the advantages of switching to a strong mayor system. Somerville has definitely accomplished more in the last decade than Cambridge has. And I say that as a native Cantab.
Pretty much. It is unclear if that is how the Boston 2024 Bid is playing to win, but I can’t stress how much he emphasizes strong civic engagement, transparency, public participation and voice, and also sustainability and long term investments. We should get legacies out of this more than pretty postcards, white elephant stadiums, debt, and trampled on public spaces and venues. If we are truly an innovation and start up area, we have the potential to make a games worthy of us, rather than stoop to the low level the IOC is now. Make them come to our level or go home.
mimolette says
Because you know somebody’s going to say it: It’s certainly a positive that he’s casting the potential event as a catalyst to get all of this work done.
But the thing is? It’s a list of things we should be doing anyway, whether or not there’s a bid for the Olympics in play, and it doesn’t address the costs of doing it all with an Olympic event as opposed to doing it because it’s good government and good planning. And it’s also a list of things that are to a great extent tangential to the Olympics themselves, so that it’s not hard to envision a process that starts out with the best intentions in the world, and then ends up jettisoning a lot of these goals as event time approaches in favor of whatever bandaids are absolutely necessary to satisfy the immediate needs of the IOC and the event.
Since you spent some time looking at the process for Chicago, you may know the answer to one obvious question: that is, is there a relatively modern example of a host city that was able to use the event to make the kinds of systemic improvements that Curtatone is proposing here, when the political atmosphere might have made it difficult or impossible to do in the absence of the Games? If so, did they use a model Massachusetts can borrow and adapt as needed?
chris-rich says
Exactly.
I live on the border of the two cities and have explored the industrial barrens along the GLE extensively. He’s jumping in early to leverage the process in his favor while being astute enough to know it all may sink anyway. There are plenty of other things to do with it. I found coyote tracks in the snow there.
It’s a neat bit of Kabuki that sidesteps arguments about whether it should be done. With luck it’ll get his counterparts in the impacted areas thinking along similar lines.
I was wondering why the only photo I’ve seen of Mellon, owner of the railyard is at the Panamerican website and involves Magic Johnson.
I figured it was just an oligarch fanboy thing.
Christopher says
…but we clearly aren’t doing them, so I come down on the side of accepting the external motivation of the Olympics to give us the nudge we need.
HR's Kevin says
While there is still a lot in the way of improvements we could make to our infrastructure in Boston, it is not like we have had zero progress in the last twenty years. We have had the Big Dig, silverline, expansion of commuter rail, new trolley and railway cars, real-time bus/subway/rail tracking, Hubway bikes, more bike lanes, and so forth.
There is no reason to believe that we cannot continue to make improvements purely based on the motivation of improving the lives of those who already live, work and visit the Boston area. Indeed, the organizers of this bid claim that they are only relying on public infrastructure projects that have already been scheduled and only want to move up the schedule a bit. So what does the Olympics really give us? Or do you not believe the bid committee after all?
jconway says
Curtatone is forcing the organizers to go bolder-let’s fund things and get projects that aren’t on the schedule, let’s actually build an internationally competitive city before we showcase it, while also increasing affordable housing and sustainability while we are at it.
I see the Olympic bid being one of the only plausible ways we get immediate federal funding for our projects out of a Republican Congress and Bobby DeLeo’s house. I totally do not see Boston 2024 aiming that high, or even near that goalpost, at all. Curtatone just changed the conversation and raised expectations. It will be that much harder for bid boosters to get away with agreeing to business as usual from the IOC. I might add his caveats and amendments are awfully close to what our esteemed editor David said we should shoot for.
Aren’t they saying we are supposed to go big or go home? Now it’s up to them to live up to their hype.
jconway says
You and sabutai keep saying this, in clear contradiction to recent history from every other Olympics ever held anywhere, that said, I must say, I actually agree that a nude is needed. Voters killed gas tax indexing, Baker just got sworn in, there is no money in the till for any of these projects unless the Federal government helps us. Let’s force the GOP to vote against their country and the glory of hosting. That is exactly what Curtatone did. Clearly the Bay State is incapable of doing any of these things on it’s own, and Curtatone wisely forces it to actually have stalled long term regional planning become the centerpiece of this bid, with shared sacrifices should come shared rewards.
So while I agree with you Christopher on the Olympics potential as a nudge, nowhere has it been made clear that Boston 2024 views the games the same way you do. No commitments have been made to this effect. A lot of platitudes about how awesome they are, and how awesome they would be, but no tangible long term public goals for what the Olympics would produce. Curtatone forces your argument on the table, and forces the bid to either accept it and wed it to the proposal, letting the IOC either evolve or show it’s true colors. By refusing Curtatone, Boston 2024 automatically loses any credibility on this front.
To use debate terms, Curtatone just made a countercase. We are all arguing about opposing or supporting the bid, he just said to everyone, let’s have a bid that rebuilds Greater Boston. Let’s use a private event and make it into a mini New Deal/CCC for the area. Now let’s see if the corporate suits at Boston 2024 and international neoliberals at the IOC are actually down for that. Balls in their court now.
Christopher says
I have a lot more respect for someone who offers alternatives and comes in with the attitude of let’s see if we can make this work, rather than just throwing rocks.
jconway says
I totally agree about Curtatone. These aren’t just alternatives, this is a sound call for an iron clad commitment that these Games are different from every other game and that they actually improve the region when they leave with assets we all can use and enjoy, rather than the white elephants and mounds of debt from every prior Olympics.
I disagree that we are just throwing rocks. Maybe some folks are, I think I have made a strong data based case against the Olympics based on prior history, economics, public policy, and my own inside experience. And frankly, I don’t think anyone supporting the Olympics here or in public has made a similarly strong case. It is they who are throwing rocks at the opposition, not the other way around.
I do think this changes the conversation in a positive way. If the casual bid proponents and educated opponents can get together to make a better bid, than we can either get a bid that will actually work for Boston (something I hope we can all agree on) or a get rejected by an IOC unwilling to clean up it’s own act. Something we can live with. The time to walk away completely has passed now that the USOC selected Boston. So if we must submit a big, might as well submit one we can all live with, even if we lose.
Christopher says
…maybe just the occasional small pebble:)
TheBestDefense says
not throwing rocks. My rhetoric has been tough but since some people want to put their hands into my wallet, I think that is appropriate.
I will take this place to state what I would want and not want, certainly not an all-inclusive list but a lot more detail than the Boston 2024 peeps have offered:
If the Expo Center, owned by UMass, is going to be the Olympic Village, I want a minimum of 5000 beds permanently available to UMass students and a few thousand others for local residents. I have no problem with putting tax money into PART of that purchase since that is a true investment in the future of the Commonwealth. Make it a mixed use community when the Olympians leave.
I want the other universities in the region that will host events to engage in a serious fundraising program to build dual-use Olympic/student housing so that when the games end we can get students out of the Alston, Brighton, Mission Hill etc neighborhoods where their students crush low income renters.
No dedicated Olympic road lanes. None. They say this is a walkable Olympics, so get off of your ass and walk, or take the T.
Stay the fuck off of the Boston Common. Franklin Park is negotiable if they leave a hell of a lot more amenities than currently exist, but not paid for by the Commonwealth, nor the regional communities. This poor neighborhood should not be left empty when the swells leave town. Build amenities for youth activities, both athletic and intellectual (yeah, even poor people can learn science from nature).
A boatload of low cost tickets reserved for low-income residents in the region (not just Bostonians).
But I must disagree with jconway here. If Boston 2024 does not meet our demands for transparency and real democratic representation in the process, then we should walk away and tell the local committee and the USOC that we do not tolerate the international rules.
petr says
… those people wishing to put their hands anywhere near your wallet?
Seriously. Who wants to go anywhere near your wallet?
So far, Boston2024 has been so allergic to your wallet that they gave a solid million dollars to insure the city against cost overruns just from the bid.
They. Spent. A. Million. Dollars. I think they are serious about putting on an Olympics AND staying out of your wallet.
TheBestDefense says
Erin Murphy who was quoted in the aforementioned CNBC article saying that Olympic 2024 wants to be able to seek tax money for Olympic building construction. As noted on other posts here, I am willing to hold judgement on whether she really said it if Olympic 2024 will publicly deny that statement. It has not happened yet.
If you think people playing at this level of multi-billion dollar programs care about a mere million dollars then you do not have contact with serious business spending. I once asked a donor for one million dollars and she later asked why I did not ask for more. I worry about paying my cell phone bills while some people wonder whether to buy a Parisian condo.
The Olympic clowns are the same ones who throw money at candidates and ballot questions because it gives them a sense of being a Master of the Universe. And that is why they want to be in the luxury seats when the TV cams are on them. Did you thank that luxury boxes exist because they have better views, or because they denote status? Ask Chris Christie.
petr says
The actual quote from the actual article:
“Murphy counters that no taxpayer dollars would be put toward the “operation of the games,” although public spending would go toward infrastructure costs like roads, buildings and transportation.</b
Nothing about “seeking” or “wanting’ or, indeed, spending anything outside what’s already identified and funded.
You’re making things up and then you accuse me of making things up. Blah.
HR's Kevin says
And in fact the cost of “buildings” will probably make up the bulk of the costs.
Previously they claimed they would only use public money for transportation infrastructure, not for building venues.
You aren’t winning any credibility points.
petr says
… then there’s certainly not going to be a problem raising 5 Billion dollars, if not more, privately. So what’s your problem? Either it’s going to cost us money because the rich aren’t rich enough or the rich have got money to burn and so who cares!! Your argument works against itself. Go and pay your cell phone bill without worry.
petr says
A “mere million”. I bet if I gave you a million dollars to spend on your cell phone bill you’d be singing a different tune.
Sounds like you want them to dig deep in your wallet just so you can have the pleasure of being grumpy about it.
TheBestDefense says
is this quote a really skeevy kind of homophobia?
“… those people wishing to put their hands anywhere near your wallet?
Seriously. Who wants to go anywhere near your wallet?”
LOL
petr says
… on where you keep you wallet and what you think I know about where you keep your wallet I generally keep mine in a breast pocket of my jacket. But that’s just me.
TheBestDefense says
ewww
petr says
… seriously…
friendly says
I don’t even like petr (based on a years worth of comments I’ve lurked on), nor the olympics, but he totally owned you TBD… Let’s step up our game!
Al says
you have to hope Boston2024 doesn’t get the nod because we’ll then be on the hook for the upgrades as well as all the cost overruns on the facilities. I can’t see any way this comes off at 4.5 billion dollars like they are promising. I expect 15 to 20 billion is more realistic.
jconway says
In my initial thread about my Chicago 2016 experience, my key questions at the end of this thread, and most of my comments on other threads, I remain highly skeptical that the catalyst argument will work. What the IOC requires of it’s host cities is at a direct cross purpose to what Boston should want and aim to get out of this bid. The IOC skips town and washes its hands right after the closing ceremonies. So I am still skeptical.
But, the reality is both papers are now controlled by the same special interests that want the Games. Walsh wants the Games. Baker will probably want the Games. State Street wants the Games. Those forces have already dismissed the growing opposition as ideological, whiners, or people who don’t believe in the city.
Rather than just come out against the bid, as Cambridge has, Curtatone is firing an opening salvo against Walsh and Boston 2024. He is asking that they bring other cities to the table, that everyone gets a cut, and that the cut we get actually benefits the entire region. This essentially forces the bid boosters to either ink those commitments publicly and in some form of writing, or to waive them off showing their true colors.
If they do the former, they risk limiting the bid’s competitiveness before the IOC, as Chicago did. If they do the latter, expect NoOlympics to get bigger and get treated like a mainstream player.
Instead of making this an ideological fight-we are saying-let’s play to get the Games on our turf and our terms. Worst case scenario: we do the bid our way and lose. There can now be a consensus against the Olympics as foolhardy and the blame will go against the IOC instead of Boston 2024 or NoOlympics. We came together with a game changing plan, they stuck to the status quo. Same old corrupt IOC, glad we missed it.
Best case scenario: we win the bid on our terms and we end up getting federal funds for all the projects we can’t seem to have around here and the games actually act as a catalyst for once.
Currently, the best case scenario for opponents is we don’t get the games AND we still won’t get the funding past DeLeo locally or Boehner nationally. The worst case scenario is we get the games the IOC always gets, and not the ones Boston deserves. This hybrid proposal joins the goals of opponents (better public transit, better infrastructure, better housing to get the Games) with the goals of the bid (get the Games). And now we sink or succeed together.
ryepower12 says
is that we don’t waste money on the Olympics, but start an honest conversation about what our priorities should be — and create the civic engagement to get the projects we need, without spending two or three times what those projects will cost on things like track stadiums and velodromes we don’t need.
If you listen to what No Boston Olympics is saying, it’s very clear it’s largely comprised of people who are very eager to have conversations about investing in the region and solving the tough revenue and tax questions it would take to do it. They just don’t believe the Olympics is the way to go.
drikeo says
NBO almost exclusively has harnessed negative energy. While some elements of it talk about directing positive energy in other directions (and I’m sure the individuals generally mean well), there really isn’t any gravitas within the organization that would lead people to believe this an organization capable of tackling big and expensive problems. In other words, it looks like a no machine. I appreciate that sometimes a pat “no” is all that’s needed, but if we’re talking about transportation, modernized electrical grids or a massive influx of new housing, NBO strikes me as fundamentally incompetent beyond having loosely associated members attend a charrette.
Not to go all Ned Stark on you, but the bid is coming. The main accomplishment of NBO might be to make a more public process seem pointless.
chris-rich says
Nearly every Boston neighborhood with property value anxieties has its own organizations that excel at objecting to things.
If the initial wave of objectors does a halfway decent job of just getting the fallacies and hazards up for discussion the larger conceit may well sink itself.
It may not be useful to compare it to, say, the anti gambling lobby. just because gambling became a baked in thing. This is still mostly froth.
And there are more ways to oppose and object to this thing. I’ve yet to find an enthused booster among my conservative or liberal friends, nearly all lifelong residents. The consensus favors ‘distracting fools errand’.
drikeo says
NBO clearly can whip up opposition. I’m just saying let’s not pretend these are folks who are going to get something positive done on the other side of their opposition.
chris-rich says
It’s like the immune system.
These are the T8 cells that identify pathogens and zap them. There are plenty of T4 helper cells are around to cover the basic upkeep of the body politic when not thwarted by grifters and gadfly attention whores.
The hosptality industry has plenty of other ways to grub money.
The construction industry has an overloaded plate and has been running the hog at trough play for a few decades.
Real estate speculators have cleaned up and gravel pit owners are the new moguls.
drikeo says
But let’s not pretend NBO is going to lead to an “honest conversation” about our long-term infrastructure and transportation needs. My point was it’s designed to stomp its feet and so and it will never accomplish anything other than stomping its feet and saying no.
HR's Kevin says
But do you actually believe that the Olympics boosters are going to conduct an “honest conversation” about our long-term infrastructure needs. No they will not.
It seems to me pretty ridiculous to expect NBO to solve our infrastructure problems. There goal is to stop a wasteful and unjustified public boondoggle. I don’t see why that forces them to come up with solutions to all of our problems. It should be up to the Olympics boosters to convince us, not the other way around.
chris-rich says
It exists here and in some local news echo chamber. When I ask neighbors and friends there is general agreement this is 10 pounds of hype bloat in a 5 pound urban bag.
Of course it’s ridiculous to expect one of many potential opposing elements to come to opposition with a bucket of solutions.
It’s not even clear what this ridiculous boondoggle solves beyond psycho social penis anxiety problems for whoever has time to fret about the stature of Boston on the world stage.
The ordinary course of political sausage making will grind as it does and stuff will get fixed at the rate it does without getting pumped by some mania stampede of insecure backwater courtiers who can’t seem to get everyday citizens to trust them all that much as it is.
The opposition may well be systemic and the NBO phantom is but one very early manifestation. It’ll be interesting to see what more seasoned opponents make of it all as there are several promising encroachments from Civil Liberties to infrastructure strain and accommodations incapacity.
drikeo says
NBO is a knee-jerk opposition group. Doesn’t even know what it’s specifically opposing. Might be nice to get some details first. Also might be nice to find out whether this could help with some of the thornier metro Boston problems that have been festering for decades.
I agree Olympic organizers and backers need to convince us and I’m far from convinced at this moment. Mostly, I’m interested to see what this would entail and at what level the organizers can be engaged. What I find beyond tiresome and wholly unadmirable is the people claiming principled opposition to the entire concept. Thanks for protecting me from ideas.
As for whether Olympic boosters will engage in a discussion about metro Boston’s infrastructure. They don’t really have a choice. Whether they address it well enough is another matter, but at the very least modernizing the T and building the Blue-Red and North-South connectors will be on the table. Whether the temporary stadia and Olympic village get converted into much-needed housing also strikes me as an unavoidable conversation. On the other hand, we’ve got people rushing to shut down anything like conversation. No, baby, no. Yeah, I think I get it. Might be the right answer in the end, but right now it’s just the same predictable, pointless NIMBY that punctuates every attempt to do something in Boston.
petr says
… that amidst the back and forth your questions, mimolette, are being ignored.
Well, depending upon whom you ask and what their perspective is, the answer is London and Beijing. But Beijing was certainly by fiat, without regard to cost or popular will, so I think it’s not a model we want to emulate. Sochi (though a winter games) was the same way and they blow the curve on the monies spent.
The Barcelona Olympics in 1992 cost quite a lot but seemed to have done exactly what they set out to do: raise both the living standards of the occupants and the view of the city in eyes of the world. I think that the Spanish deliberately set out to improve the city and make the Olympics part of the improvement rather than the reason for it. But, I’m given to understand, they started way way back. I don’t think, per se, we’ve got that much work to do, however. That might, however, explain why Madrid is a constant applicant.
By many accounts the London Olympics were a huge success, but you can find counter-arguments if you look. But London was almost wholly a public endeavor and Boston2024 seems intent on being a private endeavor in partnership with the city (and or surrounding cities). London is a particular fit, however, with Mayor Curtatones view of a regional Olympics, as they held a lot of the initial round events outside of the city. So that part of the London model might be of assistance.
Though few here believe them, Boston2024 has a strong case that they can raise 4-5 Billion in private funds to work in concert with 4-5 Billion of already identified pubic spending in a city that already has a lot of venues (with the Feds picking up the tab for security). The best case scenario is that they are right and that, other than the two months of the games (Olympics and Paralympics) there will be no greater disruption to the city (or its coffers) than what is already slated to happen. I think that many people (a few here even) think that Sochi-on-the-Charles is the worst case: that we’ll end up spending 50 billion. But Putin basically had to build a venue nearly from scratch and he chose to do it with his thieving buddies, so I don’t see that happening here.
So, I guess the answer to your question is that there is no real template of former Olympics that we can really use. London, being a free and already fairly prosperous city, is probably the closest in outlook and intent: they took on the Olympics out of a real national pride and love of sport. The same might be said of Beijing but they are not a free city, and their prosperity is fairly newly come by, so there was a bit of bluster to their games. Sochi was just Putin showing off… and the way things are going for him, are likely to be the high point of his career. And it was a winter games anyways. Greece in 2004 probably shouldn’t have happened, because Greece has long been an economic basket case, but everybody was in love with the idea of the hundred year (or so) anniversary of the modern Olympic movement happening in Athens (in 2002 I worked with a Greek who was tickled all kinds of pink to have the games in Athens). Sydney, in 2000, put on a helluva event, but mismanaged some funding decisions and they made some really rosy projections about use of the venues afterwards that didn’t really pan out… one of the reasons both London and now Boston are stressing temporary.
jconway says
That was the most detailed and informative post I’ve seen from you on the Games and you honestly engaged with the questions at hand. I look forward to further discussions of this nature. From my perspective, Curtatone’s vision is exactly what I want to see from the official bid and if it moves in that direction it will be easier to support. I still have many reservations about cost projections, transparency, and commitments but would agree that it is better to oppose or hope to reform the bid from the angle that it should do more for the city than oppose it in a reactionary way.
mimolette says
Thanks, Petr. I agree: Beijing isn’t a useful model. And both London and Barcelona are of questionable utility. We can say that all three were successful giant sporting events, but it’s hard to evaluate them in terms of spurs to needed investment in things like infrastructure. Beijing is able to make any investments it deems useful with or without the political sweetener of the Olympics as a hook to make the projects viable; London was on board for the sake of the games, not because having them was (or was perceived to be) the only way of getting key infrastructure investments through the system; and Barcelona was doing the infrastructure work anyway.
The underlying tension here, it seems to me, is that the kind of spending that those of us skeptical of the pitch want to see, and the kinds of commitments we’d want to see avoided, are likely to be, at best, in tension with what the IOC will want. There will be places where all our interests coincide, but for the most part the priorities will be different — not because one side or the other is evil or wrong, but simply because we have inherently different views on whether a Boston Olympics should be considered a means or an end.
ryepower12 says
It’s better, but not enough.
The operational, venue and security costs have to be nationalized. Let the USOC and Boston 2024 raise as many funds as they can privately, but the Commonwealth and City of Boston shouldn’t guarantee a dime of any of that — and if the Feds won’t, that should be a deal breaker.
Transit costs should be a combo of private, state and federal funding, but the onus should be on private and federal funding for costs specifically related to the games.
For example, if a whole new highway overpass has to be built to accommodate a stadium, or if the stadium needs its own highway exit, etc. then the state shouldn’t be responsible for that funding.
But if it’s general improvement of the T, focused on improving reliability or buying new trains, then the state can kick money in. Yet, the money shouldn’t be robbed from other projects across the state — which means we’ll have to have honest and earnest discussions about how to pay for it. The state’s source of revenue for any spending it makes because of the Olympics, even for things that will improve the state after the Olympics is over, can’t be starving resources for other projects across the state… like it was for the Big Dig.
petr says
… and federal strings means that Boston might not get to be Boston.
I think every Olympics is different because every venue is unique and Boston should not be held back or diminished in any way from being the Boston that it is. Federal funding will make it less a Boston games than an anodyne US games in Boston. I don’t think that’s either helpful or part of the intent of the Olympics in different cities.
There is also a strong case to be made that what monies were lost and or/wasted during the execution of the Big Dig, slipped through the cracks and gaps that lie across the federal-state divide. As much as I don’t think the Olympics is another Big Dig, you’re asking the funding mechanisms and processes to be the same and that’s just
There is also a third case to be made, that since you don’t want to use CommonWealth funds, but nationalize instead, why does that mean we pay less? You might just be putting it at a few removes, but –really– it’s still money spent. Either you object to spending money or you just object to spending our money… or you think we just don’t have it. If your argument is that Boston and/or the CommonWealth isn’t rich enough I disagree. If your argument is that we shouldn’t spend, then neither should the feds… and so your argument reduces to stopping the show a priori.
ryepower12 says
Whether or not federal money would mean more federal involvement than others (and given that the feds will take over all security components anyway, they’ll have their hands in everything), it’s insane to suggest ditching federal influence is worth putting our state and Boston on the line for what in all likelihood will cost 15-20 billion.
INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This Olympics, along with any US Olympics, should be paid for by private money and national money, as an ‘insurance policy’ to cover whatever private money isn’t raised. Local/state money should only ever go to things that directly improve the local area and state, and even then it should be just like any other big public project and include federal assistance. That is how this largely works in every other country and it’s how it should work here.
Christopher says
If so, why wouldn’t they this time and if not, why should Boston be a special case?
Christopher says
…which the bid website already says the feds will handle.
TheBestDefense says
on this subject to properly answer your question. The laws on mega public events and federal security don’t really apply to our Olympic history as it is too recent although you can try to extrapolate from other mega event (Boston and NYC marathons for example). Political conventions that take many days, unlike marathons, may be more a appropriate comparison. Sorry, but IDK how you judge this.
ABC says:
“The federal government will pay nearly half of the $2.7 billion it is expected to cost to host the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, according to the report.
The $1.3 billion in federal spending is more than double the amount of federal funds —$609 million— that supported the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta. The Atlanta games cost the city a total of $2 billion, the report said.
In contrast, the federal government spent just $75 million (in 1999 dollars) to support the 1984 Olympics in L.A.”
We don’t really know what Boston 2024 is asking for.
ryepower12 says
Paying about half the costs.
They gave a small chunk of change to Atlanta, but not much in the grand scheme of things.
Before that, they have very, very little previous events.
I think it’s pretty reasonable to expect that they may pick up some security costs, but that’s not enough and we better demand up front what that funding will be – London spent billions on security alone.
Christopher says
…is convince Mitt Romney to come run the Olympics. He has experience and familiarity with the region. He can milk his relations with the Congressional majorities to get federal funding. It takes him out of the running for the White House. I call it a win all around!:)
chris-rich says
And Mittins has plenty of time for bot.
ryepower12 says
-He never proved that he could run an Olympics, only that a) he could leverage federal funds in a way previous American games never could, and b) he could use all that money to ‘fix’ a corrupt and terribly managed games fairly late into the process of getting ready for it. Whether he could have pulled off a much more complicated Summer Olympics in a much denser and more expensive city (Boston), is a whole other story.
-He’s running for President again, so I’m guessing he’s going to be busy for the next few years.
-He’s 67 years old. Is he really going to have the chops to run an Olympics 5-10 years from now?
If Boston has the Olympics, we’d be absolutely crazy not to try our best to get him involved in a big way. But the best role he could probably take is trying to fish for federal funding and providing some good input for our organizers. Realistically, I don’t think we can expect he could or would run the games again.
Christopher says
n/t
chris-rich says
Oh man.. A ‘What were we thinking?” moment can’t be far away.
From http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2015/01/09/boston-city-of-curmudgeons-reacts-warily-to-olympics-bid/21523311/
Then we have:
From Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-09/boston-faces-uphill-battle-in-bid-to-host-2024-olympics.html
And… Finally.
Also USA Today. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/01/boston-olympics-2024-summer
So the press meme is quickly solidifying into variations on the theme of “That’s ridiculous”
It’s cool see that the rest of the world that pays attention has us figured out. Now if only our feckless boosters could be so astute.
ROME 2024!!!!