Massachusetts Considers Outside Review for Boston 2024 UPDATED

(ATR) The state of Massachusetts wants Boston 2024 to keep its promises.

According to a report from the Boston Globe, Massachusetts political leadership is looking into hiring outside consultants to ensure that no public money would be used for Olympic Games infrastructure.

Massachusetts state House of Representatives speaker Robert DeLeo, Massachusetts State Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced this option to the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce on Mar. 3.

"What I don’t want to see is to come up three months before the start of the Olympics and have someone say, ‘By the way, the state has to kick in $1 billion for this to work,’" Robert DeLeo said to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

Details on the hiring process will be outlined in the next few weeks by Massachusetts legislators with the major hold up coming from how the consultant firm would be paid.

For the 2024 bid, Boston has proposed a $4.7 operating budget, which will be raised by television rights, sponsorships and a contribution from the IOC. The bid has also considered a $3.4 billion non-operating budget, which is yet to include security costs and potential transportation upgrades.

"I would be in favor of anyone taking an objective look at the Boston Olympics who is not directly connected to the tourism or construction industry," Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross, told the Boston Globe.

"Having someone taking a close look at it to ensure that the rosy projections being made are going to occur is really important."

Boston Mayor Pleads for Support

In a Mar. 4 speech, Boston mayor Marty Walsh said the Olympics will "create the first new vision" for the Massachusetts city.

Walsh spoke about the recent failures of the transit services in the metropolitan Boston area during recent snowstorms and how the Olympics will provide necessary investment into these problems.

"Those who say the [Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority]’s failure is proof we can’t handle an Olympic Games have it exactly backwards," Walsh said in his speech reported by the Boston Globe.

"We need a catalyst to bring us together, keep us on track and push solutions forward. We need a planning process with a timeline. That’s what the Olympic bid provides."

Walsh said his speech aimed to clear up a lot of the "confusion" surrounding the facts of the Boston 2024 bid. The mayor said that even if Boston does not win hosting rights for the 2024 Games, the "two-year public conversation about the future of our city" will still prove beneficial.

The main opposition group "No Boston Olympics," believes Walsh's speech was a "defensive" reaction by the mayor to recent polls.

"The complete failure of Boston's transit system this winter has exposed our need to invest in the basics, not stadiums and velodromes," No Boston Olympics tells Around the Rings.

"Mayor Walsh is clearly on the defensive after the release of new polls showing more Bostonians oppose the bid than support it. The IOC must be watching as support drops and opponents gain strength. Yesterday's speech came across as an attempt to distract from that dynamic."

The full video of Walsh's speech can be found here.

A decision on the 2024 Olympic host will be made at the 2017 IOC Session in Lima, Peru.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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