Boston 2024

stellarfun said:
equilibria, Walsh said today that the opposition in Boston consists of ten people on Twitter.
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And the story about the hashtag behind the quote is trending on the Boston.com homepage just above "Meet the badass woman who will put humans on Mars".


This means something.
 
You guys are seriously overanalyzing his statement. If the bid dies, there won't be any negative consequences for Walsh and no one will remember what he said about the opposition.
 
Good. Kill it with fire. It was a neat idea but horribly planned technically and PR-wise and it's pretty clear the citizens of Massachusetts don't want it.
 
RIP

Time for the red square next to the thread title. Let's get that Revs stadium built!!!

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A eulogy: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/07/27/boston-2024-eulogy/

The USOC pulling Boston 2024 isn’t an “L” on our foreheads; it’s a badge of honor. The people of Boston, armed only with shoestring budgets and broken public records laws, stood up to the IOC, an organization as contemptible and endlessly wealthy as FIFA, and said: “Slow your roll. We’re doing things our way.” This David and Goliath dynamic lends well to an already trite Revolutionary War narrative, but better to one evoking any failed invasion of Russia. But in addition to the crippling cold, Boston’s best defense was its native skepticism...
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I'm bummed over all of the fun planning etc could have been. Oh well.

What is Boston going to quibble about now? Complaining about the T or how the sox are doing seems so boring in comparison.
 
Here's my speculative narrative.

Dec 2014, Walsh and B24 are asked by the USOC about the half billion dollar hole in the B24 budget. Walsh and B@4, in a rehearsed reply, said they were going to impose strict cost control and get insurance against cost overruns.

Jan 2015, Boston is selected.

Spring 2015 (can't find the exact date) Baker and legislative leaders agree to have a consultant look at the bid. Baker says a revised bid is to be sent to him by June 30, for this review.

June 1, consultant chosen to do the review for the state is selected.

June 30, version 2.0 is released. The half billion dollar deficit is erased, but new uncertainties are created. Boston offers major tax incentives to the Master Developers.

mid-July, Boston City Council apparently was not clued in to the tax incentives, or other aspects of the bid. May have heard rumors of the financial information in unredacted 1.0

by third week in July, City Council is an uproar, council chair maneuvers to prevent subpoenas being issued. Walsh then asks that original 1.0 bid be released. It is, but the storm doesn't subside. Senior members of the state legislature now question the bid, the financing, and complain about being kept in the dark.

USOC schedules a meeting to review the Boston bid, and asks Baker to call in. Walsh speaks separately to the USOC executive director. USOC is seeking more commitment from the governor and the mayor because neither the legislature nor the council are on board with Boston's bid. Baker states that he won't decide whether to support the bid until after the consultant's report is completed next month. Walsh also says he is awaiting the consultant's report before deciding what to do, but in any event, Boston will not sign any guarantees. Walsh has gone from being an advocate for the bid in December to sitting on the fence in July, waiting on a consultant's report commissioned by the state.
 
stellarfun said:
June 30, version 2.0 is released. The half billion dollar deficit is erased, but new uncertainties are created. Boston offers major tax incentives to the Master Developers.

mid-July, Boston City Council apparently was not clued in to the tax incentives, or other aspects of the bid. May have heard rumors of the financial information in unredacted 1.0

by third week in July, City Council is an uproar, council chair maneuvers to prevent subpoenas being issued. Walsh then asks that original 1.0 bid be released. It is, but the storm doesn't subside. Senior members of the state legislature now question the bid, the financing, and complain about being kept in the dark.

USOC schedules a meeting to review the Boston bid, and asks Baker to call in. Walsh speaks separately to the USOC executive director. USOC is seeking more commitment from the governor and the mayor because neither the legislature nor the council are on board with Boston's bid. Baker states that he won't decide whether to support the bid until after the consultant's report is completed next month. Walsh also says he is awaiting the consultant's report before deciding what to do, but in any event, Boston will not sign any guarantees. Walsh has gone from being an advocate for the bid in December to sitting on the fence in July, waiting on a consultant's report commissioned by the state.
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What's missing here is the USOC's responsibility in this situation, which is to go to the City Council and say "guys, we redacted the 1.0 Bid, not Boston 2024. Here is what we redacted out, here's why it was redacted, and here's what superseded it in Bid 2.0. It was our call to redact it, and we're releasing it."

What they did was to sit around doing nothing, letting Boston 2024 look weaker and weaker as they kept having to say "the USOC didn't clear us to release this information". Eventually, Boston 2024 would always cave to save the bid and release the information, presumably unilaterally, which pissed the USOC off. Meanwhile, the USOC doesn't seem to have promoted the bid with Walsh and Baker, which left the locals holding the bag while the USOC got the fireworks and confetti ready in LA.

I keep coming back to this - after January, the USOC was supposed to be promoting Boston 2024 as America's bid. It was supposed to be the USOC and Boston 2024 selling this idea to Walsh, to Baker, and to the voters of Massachusetts. It's not supposed to be the USOC holding the bid off a cliff to get Walsh and Baker to sign blank checks, while undermining Boston 2024 with snarky comments and leaks at every turn. It was never meant to be the politicians' job, or the peoples' job, to sell and defend this idea - we were meant to be the deciders.
 
So, can we get on with fixing the T and the roads now? I heard the Red Line was down again on Saturday. Mass Pike was clogged at 7 on Saturday morning, too.
Olympics, indeed.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
Our long regional nightmare is finally over.

Today's been a pretty good day, overall.
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Some regions have been stalled for years in economic depression. Some have mass outmigration that results in entirely abandoned neighborhoods. Others are so broke that they must cut back on essential services and lay off public workers. Some regions are plagued by gun violence that claims the lives of innocent victims every night. Others see such high levels of pollution that it is unsafe to spend time outdoors.

Boston had six months of elites arguing in the media over a plan to possibly host a sporting event 9+ years from now. Oh, the horror!
 
Perhaps now we can focus on building getting a soccer specific stadium built in the near future.

Would still like to have seen Widett circle decked over and the whole Olympic boulevard down to south station, regardless of an Olympics.
 
bobthebuilder said:
Perhaps now we can focus on building getting a soccer specific stadium built in the near future.

Would still like to have seen Widett circle decked over and the whole Olympic boulevard down to south station, regardless of an Olympics.
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Kraft's soccer stadium got pushed aside for this Widett Circle pipe dream. Hopefully they can drop the Big Deck and let Kraft build his small stadium. My fear now is Widett won't get dropped like the idiotic plan it is.
 
datadyne007 said:
I'm just so f'ing tired of this notion that LA is the only place in the entire f'ing United States to host to the Olympics.
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Yeah, I'm annoyed by that, and I'm equally annoyed by the lack of faith Bostonians have in our own ability. Boston could have held a great Olympics, but nobody will ever know that for sure. We've cemented our status as less than world class.
 
It's felt like this has been over for awhile now--at least since the words "Master Developer" entered the conversation if not sooner--and all the time since has been spent going through the motions. While this quick a hook seemed improbable as little as 3 afternoons ago, in the end it was probably the merciful thing to do...and do quickly. Spending the rest of calendar year 2015 going through the motions serves no one's interests if that's the rut they were stuck in.



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<-- The USOC's problems. . .

. . .are not our problems anymore.
 
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