Olympics Not Top Priority for Boston Mayor

(ATR) After pitching his city to the United States Olympic Committee, Boston mayor Marty Walsh says running the city of Boston is his "top priority."

Walsh was in Redwood City, California on Dec. 15-16 pitching Boston 2024 to the USOC Board of Directors. Los Angeles; San Francisco and Washington, D.C. also made presentations to the board.

"My top priority is making sure that we have homeless shelters, making sure we have places for our rehab programs, making sure we have balanced budgets and our educational system gets better," Walsh said to the Massachusetts Sentinel and Enterprise.

Walsh praised the three other cities in their presentations to the USOC and said that Boston is in a "very strong" position, no matter what. He also said he believes the city’s presentation was a success.

"I think we put on a great presentation," Walsh told Boston National Public Radio affiliate WBUR.

"I think on a scale from 1 to 10, we put on an 11."

Walsh said he would liked to have talked more about the bid to the public, but could not due to USOC rules over what could be disclosed.

"There's going to be a lot of collaboration with the universities and colleges and possibly city-owned land that we could build on, but we will not be investing financially in a venue," Walsh told the Sentinel and Enterprise.

"We are not going to be putting money into building venues. Nothing is in writing. There's no guarantee where any of these venues will be, so there's going to be plenty of conversation around, with the public, about where these different venues are."

A decision from the USOC on the 2024 United States bid city is expected to be made in January 2015.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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