Looks like reality just slapped the Boston 2024 pooh-bahs in the face. After a really terrible two weeks, in which the folks trying to bring the Olympics to Boston saw their poll numbers nosedive so that a majority of Boston-area respondents (52%) now oppose the idea, were so embarrassed by the revelation that they were planning to pay ex-Gov. Deval Patrick an eye-popping $7,500 a day for boosting the bid that Patrick himself had to reverse course and say he’d do it for free, and came close to losing the support of their most sympathetic Globe columnist, they’ve come around to what should have been obvious from the get-go: they cannot have an Olympics in Boston unless the people want it. From today’s Globe:
The local Olympic bid committee says it will move forward with a proposal to bring the 2024 Summer Games to Boston only if a majority of the public shows support for the effort — and the panel would be open to a statewide referendum to accomplish that.
“We’re only in this if we have a majority with us,” said Richard Davey, chief executive of the bid committee, Boston 2024, in a Globe interview over the weekend. “It’s clear we have to find a measure to show that support. How we measure, we’re open to that.” … Davey stopped short of directly calling for a referendum, saying the committee is open to how the support would be measured, either with a vote or through public polling closer to the deadline for submitting a bid.
This is a startling turnabout from Boston 2024’s earlier statements, which (under now-departed president Daniel O’Connell) seemed to take the position that even a defeat at the ballot wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the bid. Perhaps not coincidentally, O’Connell is now gone from the process, and that surprising line hasn’t been repeated.
Boston 2024’s newfound commitment to majority public support is certainly welcome – some of us have been saying from day 1 that Boston 2024 should be the first to embrace the idea of a ballot question.
It’s politically stupid not to hold a referendum. A positive result allows backers to proclaim that the public is behind the bid, without fear of contradiction. Whereas relying on polls, or on elected officials, can and will always be second-guessed…. I frankly can’t imagine what the case against a public referendum would be. So come on, Boston 2024 and Mayor Walsh, just back a referendum. Then everyone will know that you mean it when you say that you only want to have the Olympics in Boston if the people are behind it.
This new position is one point of a ten-point plan that Boston 2024 announced in a full-page newspaper ad that ran in the Metro section of today’s Globe (click image for larger version). The ad acknowledges that “[t]here are legitimate concerns and potential risks associated with this effort that must be addressed in a thoughtful and transparent manner for the Games to work in Massachusetts.” The plan then promises that Boston 2024 will bid only if:
- Hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games is consistent with the future of Boston and Massachusetts and leaves both better for hosting the Games.
- Tens of thousands of good-paying jobs are created for Massachusetts residents leading up to and during the 2024 Games.
- Thousands of affordable housing units are created as a result of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
- The 2024 Games serve as a catalyst for improvements in public transportation and infrastructure that benefit residents both pre and post-Games.
- The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games create opportunities for transit-oriented, mixed-use development in the City of Boston.
- There is a clear and measurable plan for the inclusion of women and minority-owned businesses in all aspects of the 2024 Games.
- Education and youth sports opportunities are created for the young people of Massachusetts.
- A sophisticated plan, including multiple layers of insurance, is put in place to protect the city and state from financial risk.
- The federal government designates the 2024 Games in Boston as a Special National Security Event and pays for the security costs.
- A majority of people in Massachusetts support bidding for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
That all sounds great, I guess … though it’s funny that majority support is #10. Shouldn’t it be #1? In any event, we all anxiously await specifics, especially on items like #8, and also on why people like economist Andrew Zimbalist (the Commonwealth’s Olympic skeptic-in-chief), writing in today’s Globe that the jobs and economic benefit numbers in UMass’s recent study are highly suspect, are wrong.
jcohn88 says
Shouldn’t they have tried to get public support BEFORE submitting a bid to the USOC?
If there is a referendum, you can expect well-funded ad blitz from Boston 2024 and all of their other rich backers.
Personally, I see no reason for anyone to trust them on anything here, given their record. Fool me once, yada yada…
The #1 on the list is pretty devoid of any real substance. And it reminds me of the funding ties between Go Boston 2030 and Boston 2024.
HR's Kevin says
Why not see if they can get the public behind it and then bid for 2028?
Regarding financial risk, the sure way for the City and State to avoid risk is to not agree to pay for a dime of cost overruns. If the Olympic committee is so sure they can insure themselves against cost overruns, then there can’t possibly be any reason for the City or State to sign anything saying they will step in.
Trickle up says
First round will be to restrict the voting to a subset of those affected by this decision. Think all those local votes on, and regional effects of, casinos.
Then 2024 can shop for the best timing. A special election, a municipal one, or a state one? Make that decision based on which type of election produces the most favorable turnout.
Finally, spin what a “victory” is. As long as you exceed expectations you can still claim rights to the gold.
Can’t wait! But I’m rooting for Hamburg at this point.
stomv says
I would expect someone from the Berkshires to be more likely to support Boston 2024 since they get the feel-goods without the pragmatic, ahem, challenges.
HR's Kevin says
I fully expect to see both a Boston and Statewide ballot initiative. Losing on either one should kill the bid, one would hope.
judy-meredith says
That bit of hardball handiwork made clear that, from here on, Boston’s mayor, not John Fish or Doug Rubin — and certainly not a former governor looking for a nice score — will be the guy driving the Olympics effort.
In Saturday’s Herald, an unnamed Walsh insider succinctly laid out the situation: “Mayor Walsh has hit the reset button on the Olympic effort given that this is his city and he has the most to lose.
In Commonwealth’s download.
judy-meredith says
http://commonwealthmagazine.org/category/the-download/
sabutai says
Makes me like Walsh a bit more. Mind you, with the much larger resources 2024 can bring to bear on a referendum campaign, I expect that they will win. But these haven’t exactly been winning votes across the world these days…
HR's Kevin says
I appreciate that Walsh is responding to the negative feedback, but he still just thinks this is a PR problem and not an actual problem with fundamental aspects of the bid. He hasn’t begun to explain why this will be good for the citizens of Boston or how he will absolutely guarantee that we won’t be left holding the bag in terms of higher taxes, misdirected services, unwanted building development, or land giveaways to private developers.
While I appreciate that he encouraged the committee to open up their salary information, what we really want to know are the details of the financial plans. Where do those budget numbers come from? Are they in any way backed up just made up out of whole cloth? Where are those “proprietary” documents we were told we could not see?
Absolutely nothing the bid committee has done so far gives me any confidence that they can be trusted to ask themselves hard questions or be honest with us about the risks. The fact that Marty Walsh blindly gave his trust to these guys is a huge black mark against him.
Al says
to any city that doesn’t have overwhelming support for the event? I mean overwhelming support, not some redefinition that calls 51% overwhelming. Without that support, where are the thousands of volunteers, free labor, going to come from? Where will the public pressure to pay for it, including the inevitable cost overruns, come from? Why would the IOC risk their franchise to a place like that? Of course, if they award them to Boston2024, a lot of opposition will melt away as folks decide if they are stuck with it, what can they do to gain from it?
HR's Kevin says
It would be hard to believe they would pick Boston if the polling stays like this, but who knows?
ryepower12 says
they care about what the people living in any city think.
The IOC is compromised of the elites of the elites from all around the world. They don’t have to care about what Bostonians or people from any city care about, not from their yachts and private islands.
A public referendum will become necessary to block this — that’s the only kind of public opinion they care about, the kind that could prevent the games from happening in the first place.
Bob Neer says
Anyone? Anyone?
Exactly.
I think Ryan is right as to the IOC. But, equally, Boston 2024 won’t be able to deliver without a solid majority supporting the games. So in our case, the referendum will be critical, as it should be.
sabutai says
That’s why they require a neutral pollster to show a pretty thorough surveying of the population, and receiving notable support.
paulsimmons says
…and they have been polling the issue for some time..
ryepower12 says
My guess is, at this point, Fish & Co will try to do their own referendum — probably through an intermediary, to nip any others in the bud.
Don’t fall for it.
Any generic “should we have the Olympics?” is a recipe for disaster. The pro-Olympics side will vastly outspend the anti-side, so if the question could be reduced to a feel good ‘let’s have a big party’ question, it’s something they could actually win through ignoring the issues.
We need a referendum that comes from people deeply skeptical of the games.
The issues, of course, are all about the $$$ and disruption. It’s hard to get at disruption at the ballot box, so the focus for any referendum has to be on the money.
Specifically, the question has to be designed around ensuring the Massachusetts, its cities and its agencies aren’t held liable for any cost overruns — with cost overruns designed as anything that exceeds the what is written in the initial IOC bid.
No blank checks. That has to be the issue. The IOC and/or USOC has to be held liable for any and all cost overuns, NOT Massachusetts, Boston, or any city or public institution (such as UMASS or the MBTA).
People aren’t going to vote to give the Olympics a blank check no matter how many millions Fish and his backers flood into a campaign.
It’s easy to organize around and it’s impossible to confuse the public about what the question is really about.
Make the language very tight, so there’s no wiggle room. If there’s any range of costs written in the bid, define it as the lowest number. If there’s any cost not written in the bid, define that as a cost overrun.
Include a proviso that defines security costs as a cost overrun, so that either the feds must pay it or the USOC/IOC/Boston2024.
Include in the bid a proviso that the state legislature must approve the bid and any public money spent.
The IOC isn’t going to be willing to be held liable for the cost overruns of the game, so in reality this is really a question about whether or not to have the Olympics — but if for any crazy reason the IOC says they’ll take on any cost overruns, then we could start to actually talk about an Olympics that could make sense in Boston.
But it’s never going to happen before then, not when the last Olympics to be done in a sane way, without absurd cost spirals, will have happened before most 2024 Olympic athletes were born.
Christopher says
…and I key reason that I am generally not a fan of referenda. There’s never going to be a complete division of public vs. private funding. You can say no direct spending on things like facilities, but it will cost public dollars in things like security and infrastructure no matter how you slice it. I prefer a simple “Shall Boston host an Olympics?” and let the campaigns battle it out to explain to the public what the ramifications, both pro and con, are.
ryepower12 says
there should be a ban on public funds. I suggested the referendum should be about banning the state, cities or public agencies from signing any deal in which they would be accountable for ballooning costs.
If the state, city or public agencies want to agree to spend money, fine — but it should be a fixed amount, and they shouldn’t be held accountable for any ballooning costs.
HR's Kevin says
Plenty of people might support the Olympics if they believe that it won’t cost anything, so putting that in a ballot question would not be especially meaningful. I think that it is important that the ballot initiative directly take on the public spending issue in some fashion.
For instance, it would not be hard to limit public spending strictly to public security and permanent infrastructure that will outlive the Olympics and be publicly owned and maintained. It would also not be hard to forbid the Government from indemnifying the Olympic committee against cost overruns or failure to generate expected revenue.