City Council Probes Boston Olympic Bid

(ATR) The Boston city council asked Boston 2024 bid leaders questions on issues regarding Olympic Agenda 2020 on May 18.

In a two-and-a-half-hour meeting, city councilors were able to ask questions directly to Boston 2024 chief executive Richard Davey and IOC and United States Olympic Committee member Angela Ruggiero. Ruggiero sits on the board for Boston 2024.

"We would be remiss as a city if we did not do a deep dive on the possibilities of the Olympic Games," John Fitzgerald, city liaison to the Boston 2024 bid, said in his opening remarks.

"There will not be a tax dollar spent over the next two years on the planning process."

The meeting allowed for city councilors to express the doubts of their constituents and ask questions about how Boston 2024 fits in with Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms.

"The real question is, ‘Does this make sense?’" Tito Jackson, city councilor, asked rhetorically before bringing up the possibility of an analysis done by the city into the project.

Councilor Michelle Wu asked multiple questions about potential financial guarantees from the city, which Davey said may not be needed for the operational budget.

"We’re working under the assumption that the city is not contributing any money to venues in tax dollars," Davey said.

"Guarantees can come in many forms, and then it’s the quality of the planning can we insure that we have a plan like the three previous U.S. Olympics did, which were all privately funded."

Ruggiero said that requiring a firm financial guarantee is different in the United States than in other countries due to the country's lack of government funding for sports. She added that "explaining that a financial guarantee was not coming from the government was hard" for previous U.S. Olympic bids.

Included in the discussion was a clarification of the timeline for the 2024 Olympic bids. According to Davey and Ruggiero, Boston 2024 is in the invitation phase of bidding, and its leadership will travel to Lausanne next week to meet with the IOC. If Boston submits a bid to the IOC it will join the application phase, before it could move to the candidature phase.

Davey said that while they bid remains in the invitation phase, it will work hard to "de-risk" as much of the bid as possible. He said that the second version of the 2024 bid plan will be released in June to the public.

"We’re totally focused on shifting costs to anyone but ourselves," Davey said.

"The answer is we cannot have an overrun period so we are very focused on that. We are looking at where it could be judicious to allow cities outside Boston to boost our revenue or decrease our costs."

Multiple councilors expressed doubt about the Olympic plan. Ayanna Pressley said that she "can’t take this leap of faith is because I don’t see a plan," and Charles Yancey said that he cannot find any enthusiasm from his constituents on the bid.

To end the meeting, the city council opened the floor to four citizens to speak about the bid. The citizens offered both praise and criticism for the Olympic bid.

On May 19, another citizens advisory meeting will take place at Dorchester College to allow citizens to speak directly to Boston 2024 leadership.

Blackmun Commencement Speech

United States Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun spoke highly about the Boston 2024 bid in a commencement address.

Blackmun delivered the commencement at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts on May 16.

"Amid all the criticisms and controversy, the qualities and character of Boston’s vision for the Olympics has nearly been lost, and that’s a shame," Blackmun said in his address reported by the Boston Herald.

"I’m confident that Boston will emerge from these discussions and debates stronger, ready to compete against world-class cities like Paris, Rome and Hamburg."

Blackmun addressed the rumors that the USOC had asked Los Angeles to prepare a bid in case Boston decides not to go forward with the Olympic project, defending the USOC’s choice of Boston.

"When we look at Boston, we see a nearly perfect match."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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