“what we know today is that Walsh has been far more invested in the city’s stretch for the Games than he initially let on, whether or not his team ever reviewed Olympics Bid 1.0 in its entirety.”
—BBJ
As a Western Massachusetts resident, I don’t know much about Boston politics. But it seems like every month there’s another example of Boston’s Mayor doing something democratically graceless, if not downright sleazy. There was an agreement with the Grand Prix committee loaded with his friends and former staffers. Now, based on a Freedom of Information request, the Boston Business Journal levels a number of charges:
Mayor Marty Walsh and his staff confirmed to the Business Journal this week that City Hall never reviewed last winter’s formal bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Boston. That’s a problem.
Boston 2024 and the Mayor won’t even remotely consider actually releasing the unredacted bid document. There must be something in one or both of those withheld portions that would doom the bid if it got out. I wonder what it could be?
They have made an utter joke of any promises of “transparency”. I am sure that Boston 2024 doesn’t really care if they are caught lying or not, but Marty Walsh should care. Voters (including me) don’t like when politicians break their promises. Voters want to know that their elected officials are working for them and not for developers and trade unions. To be fair, I am sure that in Marty Walsh’s mind anything that is good for the construction industry is good for Boston, but that kind of thinking just doesn’t work for me nor for the majority of Boston citizens who only stand to lose if Boston 2024 has its way.
[BTW, it should be deeply embarrassing to the Boston Globe that it is the BBJ and not them doing serious journalism on the Olympics. I cannot believe that the editors are happy about being required by John Henry to write positive stories and bury any negative ones.]
There are some great things in those docs, and they cost a lot of money. City charged $700+ for the Northwind FOIA and the Koh FOIA. A sign of the problem with public records law as well.
What the records show well is just how blurred the lines are between the Mayor’s Office and Boston 2024. Fitzy attending a Boston 2024 branding/messaging conference, Kate Norton (who now works as a consultant for Boston 2024–Walsh and Boston 2024 have quite the revolving door) running Walsh’s statements by Boston 2024’s spokesman, Kate Norton deferring to Boston 2024 on whether the bid counts as a public document….So much shady behavior, but also so common to the Olympics.
…usually collaborate closely with bid and host committees?
n/t