A construction company CEO walks into a Boston Bar, promising he’ll get an insurance policy that will make sure Olympics cost overruns won’t cost the taxpayers there a dime.
The punchline? The policy only covers $25 million. Or maybe it’s the suckers who believed him to begin with?
Either way, cost overruns for London, Beijing, Sochi and Salt Lake measured in the billions and tens of billions — and that’s no joke.
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Since the Olympics are being sold as the solution to all our problems — a cause to invest enough in Boston so that it won’t be embarrassed on the world stage — perhaps we should ask ourselves what it would mean for the homelessness crisis, which is Boston’s biggest and by far most embarrassing problem.
Antipoverty advocate Anita Beaty, director of the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, said an Olympic building-boom “just steamrolled over Atlanta and nothing has been the same since.” The city decimated its public housing stock in the building craze, she said, and priced many low-income people out of their neighborhoods. She said taxpayers have paid to maintain sports venues inherited by local government after the Olympics.
Lest anyone think Atlant’s crackdown on the homeless and poor won’t be replicated in Boston, let’s not forget what happened to Boston’s first proposed location for an emergency homeless shelter after the Long Island Bridge closed, once it came out the Krafts and Boston 2024 were interested in the area for a stadium.
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Are you a fan of your Constitutional Rights? You may want to read this, because your Constitutional Rights in Boston are about to go the way of the Dodo bird.
If the Olympics come to Boston – and the US Olympic Committee, having chosen it as their contender to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, hopes they will – the government will likely treat it as a National Security Special Event. That means the Boston Police Department and the Massachusetts State Police would fall under the authority of the US Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation, which would be in charge of security operations. All people within the NSSE “security” zone – possibly the entire Boston metro area and beyond – could lose a host of constitutional rights, including the right to protest on public land, and the right to not be searched or questioned absent any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Proponents have already said that the security at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 (an NSSE-designated event) provides a security model for a possible 2024 games. And Dave Zirin reported at The Nation in November that the International Olympic Committee was particularly interested in Boston “because of how the city was able to shut itself down after the Boston Marathon bombing”.
And then there’s this:
Before hosting the games in 1996, Atlanta officials arrested more than 9,000 people – most of them black. In Atlanta and in Salt Lake City in 2002, the ACLU sued to challenge antidemocratic secrecy and unconstitutional limits on free speech. In Georgia, for instance, our colleagues noted for the court that the Centennial Olympic Park’s regulations “make it a criminal offense to ‘hold vigils or religious services, and other like forms of conduct which principally involve the communication or expression of views or grievances.’”
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Every time we hear a blip about where an Olympic event could be held in a Boston neighborhood, Boston 2024 organizers are quick to say they’re still only in the planning stages, that events could be located or moved elsewhere.
But the events are going to have to be held *somewhere*, and what will that look like?
As JConway noted to us in the past, it kind of looks like this.
So, just how will the Boston Commons and Franklin Park be carved up?
How would businesses and entire city blocks be impacted?
Let’s not forget the city has just requested to extend its expanded eminent domain powers, expanded powers that were used to bulldoze entire neighborhoods in the past.
The extension, if granted, would conveniently last just beyond the 2024 Olympics.
Couldn’t really believe they could talk about this without cracking up. Cost of this policy the flack said was about $1 million.
Makes you wonder what it would cost to cover $2.5 billion in overruns (and that might be on the low side).
That means we could have the lawyer equivalent of a Timed on Target artillery barrage where the various litigations from various quarters all combine to create an atmosphere that will send the IOC scurrying for a nice congenial autocracy.
Every Olympics in the modern era runs huge deficits, which are then covered by the national government. What are the chances John Boehner and Mitch McConnell would offer to backstop Boston? Yeah, I thought so. So, we have the Boston business community looking forward to a big party/payday, taking clients to luxury boxes overlooking the games, etc. … with taxpayers from all over the state picking up the tab. Don’t think so? Well, Beijing and London, two recent Olympic cities have populations of 11 million and 8 million, respectively, with the entire state of Massachusetts far behind at about 6.5 million. So, if your town needs a new school, police or fire station, or your roads need repair, get out your checkbook because there’s a new Big Dig in town.
The bid website addresses some of those very concerns.
… If you think the insurance covers money spent against the actual Olympics (it does not) or if you know it only protects Boston from spending extra money towards the bid itself (which is what it does) and are deliberately being obtuse on the subject in order to both vent your poutrage and gin up more…
One of the earliest objections to an Olympics bid in Boston went to the tune of “well, it’s going to cost millions just to bid! Why take the chance on spending that money for something that might never happen?” Apparently, the bid committee took that to heart as a good question, the answer to which was an insurance policy.
One of the more persistent criticisms is that the process couldn’t possibly be managed with care, to which I reply with the above: apparently, some of the things you fear are being addressed. But, for you, it’s just on to the next fear and/or complaint because… well, I don’t know why… but you sure seem convinced and no evidence is gonna change your mind.
If a $25 million policy is supposed to impress me when it comes to even just protecting the city from the potential costs of the bid, then you are sorely mistaken.
It also leaves considerable doubts that the city could be protected at all from the costs of the game. There is doubtfully any sum large enough that insurance companies would take to insure Boston from being on the hook for cost overruns, not after Beijing, London and Sochi. So, effectively, there is no meaningful guarantee Boston 2024 can make on this most central promise they’ve made.
…And Rio spent $33 million, on another successful bid. The Tokyo 2020 games had a budget of $75 million for the bid, but I don’t know if they spent all that because they re-used some material from their 2016 bid. Chicago is an outlier. Your objections are nonsensical when not actual fabrications and/or conflations of the insurance on the bid with overruns for the games. I don’t see why you think that helps your cause.
Even if the Boston bid does come in at $100 million or greater, the city won’t be on the hook for what the private groups raise and spend — which will be the bulk of the spending– only for what the city spends in excess of what they already planned to spend. If that comes in at more than $25 million I’d be very surprised.
In an ideal world, it would be wonderful to have a simple Olympics process that we weren’t on the hook for, and where we knew everything would go just peachy and Bostonians would be minimally impacted for a very short period of time if we were to get it.
You don’t think I’d love to show off the city to the world? That would be wonderful. But I’m just realistic on the costs of this thing, and understand that far more often than not, a lot of things go wrong and the budgets spiral out of control.
I know we have a lot of work cut out for ourselves — we don’t have the infrastructure that London already had, so aren’t going to be able to put together a bid as inexpensively as they could.
As for Rio, maybe they didn’t spend enough on all the planning, given how much of a disaster that it’s been. If the IOC held Rio to a higher level of scrutiny, they would have kept themselves out of this trouble.
The Olympics, like the Marathon and the World Series and other sporting endeavors, are all about hard. They are all about difficult… They exist to be strenuous and arduous. They should be hard. Hard is what makes it worth it. I don’t know where you got the notion that politics and public policy should be about the path of least resistance (and, no, you’re not alone in this thinking) but I wish you’d get over it.
Can things go wrong? Absolutely. Yeah, the Big Dig went horribly awry. (and, as noted elsewhere, the Big Dig was itself a cure the self inflicted wound that was the Central Expressway). But it doesn’t take much effort, other than cynicism, to merely assume the same mistakes will be made: That we can’t learn; That we’r e doomed to do it to ourselves again and again. That’s the lowest-common-denominator, least-effort, no-try, shrug there is.
Why don’t we just lie down and give up, if that’s the case? Seriously, if we can’t improve — if we can’t even dream about doing the Olympics — what’s left besides a lifetime subscription to the Herald, a constant bad attitude and a barcalounger to nap upon between Sunday afternoon huddles? We can spend the rest of our time amen’ing EB3 on our way to becoming mini-versions of that crank. That’s what people who’ve given up sound like: all cynic, all the time.
So says you. The bid committee thinks otherwise: they think we have a good bit of infrastructure in place or already allocated for, fairly equal to London in 2003 (when the London bid was won). The USOC seems to agree with them. As much as you demonstrate your intelligence and passion on this and other subjects, I’ll have to defer to their expertise and experience in this… As unlikely as it might appear to you, it’s possible that they do, in fact, know what they are doing. Yeah, it’s a lot of work, but nothing I’ve seen so far suggests to me that Boston isn’t up to the task.
and provide affordable housing to everyone in the Boston area who needs it. Let’s get rents down to an affordable level for everyone, based on a percentage of median income. Let’s build enough section 8 and public housing so that there are no more waiting lists, ever. We can take back that tax exempt land from Harvard and the other big institutions. They don’t need it anymore–we can all go to Harvard online. Meanwhile, let’s freeze rents and stop displacement.
What? Impractical you say? It hasn’t worked before? What kind of cynics are you? “Yeah, it’s a lot of work, but nothing I’ve seen so far suggests to me that Boston isn’t up to the task.”
Wait a minute. Where is everybody? Where did all the boosters go?
.. or all? What’ s up with that?
Ya’ll act like walking and chewing gum require concentration, dexterity and laser-like focus.
We can take the money supposedly set aside for the Olympics bid and spend it on affordable housing! Then youse can take the same money and spend it again on the Olympics! We can take the same money and spend it over and over! Don’t let the cynics tell you it doesn’t work that way. They don’t understand, Boston is a world class city.
… money is private money. If you have an objection to how people spend their money, you should tell them, not me. I have relatively little money and none of what I have is tied in to the Olympics bid.
Title: “So let’s get the homelessness situation solved”
Body: “and provide affordable housing to everyone in the Boston area who needs it. Let’s get rents down to an affordable level for everyone, based on a percentage of median income. Let’s build enough section 8 and public housing so that there are no more waiting lists, ever. We can take back that tax exempt land from Harvard and the other big institutions. They don’t need it anymore–we can all go to Harvard online. Meanwhile, let’s freeze rents and stop displacement…”
And it got *downvoted*.
There appear to be a handful of presumed progressives. You can tell because they center arguments on fairness and solicitude for the unfortunate. That’s progressive… right?
Then you have strange semi liberal courtiers from the ward heeler caucus or aspiring ward heelers.
They seem to care about favorable process rigging and functioning as hall proctors due to imaginary status of association with a decrepit party that only derives its real legitimacy by an ability to envision, inspire and fulfill.
And they fret about upsetting yuppies.
There are callow Ron Paul youth with their glibertairian heroes beating a drum for expedience.
I’ve also noticed soft GOP entreaties to uphold the virtues of selfishness, assuming the actual progressives are persuadable.
And the One Note Janes and Johnnies from the various self absorbed identity politics factions spasmodically weigh in when one of their oxen seems to be getting a goring.
For an amateur social anthropologist and fan of Masshole subcultures, it’s a pretty good slice of life stream with out all the fire breathers and knuckle draggers that infest the Herald or all the snarky neurotic gotcha snipes who hover over UHub.
As for me, I’m kind of in agreement with Al Giordano on many matters. I’ll happily wear the geezer crackpot appellation and am always happy to toss a rock when the target tempts. I gotta get my arm exercise.
Your premise is invalid.
It might also reflect the shallowness of a period where marketing and branding are thought to be a kind of secular wizardry.
I never know what to make of it.
I’m an old senile liberal who is proud of my aunt for working to get Tip elected back before it was fashionable. I have an invitation to her from the JFK inaugural in my desk.
more than an exhortation to Boston being up to the hard, difficult, strenuous, arduous, full of blood, sweat, toil and tears challenges you cite. Blah, blah, blah. The Olympic bid is not war, your Churchill quote to the contrary. When you have spent time in a war zone, then you have earned the right to quote that line. Until then, maybe you can stick to the more prosaic.
You have underlined my point rather crisply: ‘don’t dare to think big, you haven’t earned it,’ is all you have to offer. Bah. You have no idea what I’ve earned… doesn’t stop you from judging me, but it should…
I think big, going to what are politely called “post-conflict zones” even when the bombs are still flying. And you quote Churchill. BS.
Don’t put quotation marks about ‘don’t dare to think big’ and try to attribute it to me. I never wrote those words. Stop. You just prove your dishonesty.
For I have sinned in forsaking your permission to quote him. Alas, for I am wretched, naughty, very silly and altogether unkempt. Woe unto me for an insufficient bigness of thought!
As for your mighty bigness… alas, I cannot compete with ‘post-conflict’ bomb sniffing… it is truly a bigness of virtue that you upstage me with and I may, in fact, have to make plans to sleep poorly tonight. Alas, I am undone.
I yield me.
I retire to my wretchedness, hoping –nay, dreaming— only that, someday, you may be relieved of your gigundish burden of ‘post-conflict’ crater-hopping by an international effort at coming together in brotherhood and competition without conflic — Wait!–
— never mind.
“Alas, for I am wretched, naughty, very silly and altogether unkempt.”
Nah, you’re not all those. More so petty and belligerent, and the only contributions you seem to make here are to fight with others users.
It’s all about the glitz, baby. Politicians, business executives, lobbyists, construction firms and so on and so forth are all falling over themselves to get a piece of this.
This is not hard.
Investing in schools is hard. Ending hunger and homelessness is hard. Building roads and bridges that aren’t private highways for the IOC is hard.
Making a bid for the Olympics is easy.
The drummed up drama gave me a hoot, though. If they ever reboot A League of Their Own, you’ve got the Tom Hanks part down flat.
“The hard is what makes it great!” You yell, right before you spit out your chewing tobacco. You’re ready for the Hollywood-like Olympic glitz — just like #Boston2024.
How many Olympics have the bid committee organized to date? How many big events have the bid committee organized?
Why should anyone automatically assume they can be trusted when they won’t even reveal the details of their bid?
The Olympics could be fun but are not even remotely necessary to the growth and development of the city and region. I can think of 50 hard problems that would be far more worthwhile for us to spend our energy on than this one. Before you can argue that the difficultly of pulling of the Olympics is itself a good thing, you need to prove that the goal itself is worthy.
What I have not yet seen is how Boston is somehow different from other cities that have bid either this or other cycles.
The question remains, why are you so willing to blindly trust everything the bid committee says?
I have no idea whether other cities bid committees were run with the same degree of non-transparency and accountability but it would not surprise me in the least. And given the incredibly poor track record of past Olympics to live within their budget and/or deliver lasting improvements to their host cities, why would you be in any way reassured to know that this process is being run the same as it has been elsewhere?
This committee as far as I know has never acted together before. Did I miss the part where THIS GROUP in particular has already promised one thing and not delivered? Is there already evidence of them acting in bad faith or lying? This is NOT the same committee that has spearheaded other bids since bids originate locally. Simply saying you weren’t invited to a meeting or they didn’t show their hand early enough for your tastes is not a satisfactory reason IMO to assume the worst.
This is not an issue of “lying”, but of competence. They probably honestly believe all of the promises they are making. But they have absolutely no track record. The ONLY reason that anyone trusts them at all is that it is assumed that any broken promises will be made good by the Government. They have promised “transparency” but haven’t delivered it.
They have neither made the details of their proposal public nor have they explained why they have not done so. Most of the people promoting the idea haven’t even seen the details.
You may feel free to trust them all you want, but I won’t trust them until they start talking details. If they want my support instead of my opposition, then they need to win it.
So far you have failed to explain why you put so much trust in this process when it has failed so badly for pretty much every other Olympic bid?
There’s never a shortage of bids and I’m not aware of a host city regretting it after the fact. Some of the points that might be regrettable such as abandoned stadia are being addressed by this bid. I guess I just in general start on the opposite end of the assumption spectrum than you. I start by assuming good faith. They have to earn my DIStrust by affirmatively messing up, breaking promises or lying.
The 25 million dollar protection sounded outlandhishly low to me as well, but if it’s only for the bid, then at least it’s on the right order of magnitude.
I don’t think the developers would even try to take an insurance policy against the actual games. Any reasonable insurance provider would factor in the high likelihood of city funding and therefore charge an unaffordable rate.
Everywhere I look (in my progressive circles) I see Boston residents clearly opposed to the games, fully expecting to pay the price. Was this the case in every other recent city? Are opposition movements doomed to failure?
For all the complaints about timelines, transparency, and inconvenience what I want to know is how does Boston compare to other bids both for this and other years. I might be more sympathetic to the complaints if it sounded as though Boston were somehow getting shortchanged on these points compared to other cities.
From the perspective of someone who both lived in the Chicago community and worked on messaging strategies for the bid, I can tell you that our bid was far more transparent. We had a detailed plan for every potential site, all the residents knew where the games would be, the impact it would have, and developers and my alma mater even scooped up condemned properties around the proposed Washington Park site (which lo and behold, is now the leading Chicago contender for the Obama library).
It also was linked to long term CTA/RTA transit planning, including the proposed Gold Line and a hi line style abandoned railroad-cycling path to be used for the games and left afterward as a ‘legacy’ project, along with updated community sailing facilities for the South Side (my proudest contribution, as I modeled the proposed organization after Boston’s own CBI where I learned to sail) .
So some of these details were quite meticulous. My friend who was also a fellow in 2009 moved back to his native Baltimore and worked on their bid, which eventually merged with the DC bid, and they consciously copied the London model of using the games to redevelop ex industrial spaces. I do not see that level of detail and rigor here in our bid as it is publicly proposed, just a broad outline of what to do. And I suspect that is because the NYC bid got tangled up in urban politics regarding the East Side stadium, and the Chicago bid attracted widespread community opposition when it became clear it would transform some blighted areas and possibly gentrify their residents out.
I would argue Boston deserves the most transparent, cost effective, and accurately estimated Games bid in history. It should be the greenest games, the cheapest games, and games that will be used as an engine for actual growth and community redevelopment that benefit everyone and not just the wealthy or connected. Those would be statement games that show that the cradle of liberty could democratize and clean up a games that are corrupt, autocratic, broken, and reserved for the wealthy. I would be all for those games. That would be the kind of games Boston deserves, it’s not the games we seem to be getting. And I think some of the more eloquent boosters who have pride in our community, our state, and it’s legacy of liberty should be the first ones demanding that we get the best games possible, not settling for the status quo.
If the IOC visits Boston and finds everyone driving around with No Boston Olympics bumper stickers, are they really going to force it on us?
a number of cities in democratic countries have pulled out because of local oppositions.
I’m several of these places, though, there’s been a lot more openness about the process. For example, Norway pulled out of a Winter Olympics after citizens figured out the demands of the IOC — infamously including the IOC’s demand for free booze.
And the protesters tailing every single public IOC event, protesting outside of Chicago 2016 CEO’s Patrick Ryan’s suburban Wilmette manse, blowing up the aldermanic offices phones to force the Council to hold Daley to task on some of the funding promises, all of that showed the IOC that the city didn’t want the games. That was the clear takeaway-so keep vocal and make sure Boston gets the games it deserves. And if the IOC is unwilling to let us host those games, than we shouldn’t host any. That has always been my position and that is what opponents should stick to, loud and clear.