Boston 2024

[F-Line to Dudley]

http://www.wbur.org/2015/07/29/ioc-president-bach-blames-boston-failed-bid

So, in hindsight...did we really want to be dealing with savory characters like this for the next 9 years?

 

[Semass]

http://www.wbur.org/2015/07/29/ioc-president-bach-blames-boston-failed-bid

So, in hindsight...did we really want to be dealing with savory characters like this for the next 9 years?

Did you really need to look backwards to realize that the USOC is a bunch of criminals? The IOC is as vile an institution as FIFA and as I recall had a bunch of criminal indictments and convictions of its own people. That the olympic establishment is "unsavory" has been well known since, what, 1936?

 

[datadyne007]

http://www.wbur.org/2015/07/29/ioc-president-bach-blames-boston-failed-bid

So, in hindsight...did we really want to be dealing with savory characters like this for the next 9 years?

Wow. Seriously. Just wow. Fuck him. No, we definitely did not want to deal with that for 9 years.

Did you really need to look backwards to realize that the USOC is a bunch of criminals? The IOC is as vile an institution as FIFA and as I recall had a bunch of criminal indictments and convictions of its own people. That the olympic establishment is "unsavory" has been well known since, what, 1936?

To just blame Boston and not the USOC is un-freaking-believable. The USOC is the one who submits the bid and is accountable to the IOC.

This response is like the CEO of a company blaming a single entry-level employee and not holding his/her manager accountable. Boston was accountable to the USOC.

 

[West]

http://www.wbur.org/2015/07/29/ioc-president-bach-blames-boston-failed-bid

So, in hindsight...did we really want to be dealing with savory characters like this for the next 9 years?

While I was open to the general concept of using an Olympics bid as a way to prompt urgently needed regional improvements, one of the biggest factors causing me concern was the reality that, at some point, the conversations shifts away from the USOC and moves on to the IOC.

This is not hindsight for me. I decided many years ago that the IOC, like FIFA, is essentially an international organized crime syndicate very thinly disguised as a sports organization. They may not shoot people or deal drugs, but their methods have been entirely illegitimate for many decades, and they have long since completely perverted the "Olympic Ideal". They do not defend or promote the Olympic Ideal, they milk it shamelessly as a brand. If they were headquartered not in Switzerland but in Canada (to toss out just one country as an example), they'd all have been hauled off to jail ages ago.

I'm probably sounding like a broken record, but the only time it'll ever make complete and unreserved sense for ANY city in a democracy to bid on an Olympics is when (not if) the situation has once again deteriorated to what it was when LA bid for 1984: only one credible bidder at the beginning, and over time down too only one bidder at all. With the situation ever again get there? Seems a lot more possible with each passing year, but maybe not, maybe there will always be at least two bidders willing to sign the IOC's unlimited guarantee. In that case, Boston's better off having said no.

That article ended with a perfect example of IOC Doublespeak:

“It is now an internal issue for USOC to determine the most appropriate city,” Bach said. “It’s not up to the IOC to give unsolicited advice on this. I’m sure that USOC will find the best solution.”

Utter bald-faced lies. The IOC has very clearly been leaning on the USOC in recent weeks regarding Boston's bid, Mr. Bach has in fact throughout this article been giving unsolicited advice, and he's making it perfectly clear that he thinks the USOC has stumbled very badly and he isn't sure they can find the "best solution" - and let's be clear that to Mr Bach the "best solution" means "best from the IOC's perspective".

Also note his earlier quote:

“For us the situation has not changed,” he said. “We had a commitment from USOC for an Olympic candidature for 2024. We have this commitment. We’re sure that USOC will deliver on this commitment, and that we will have on the 15th of September, a bid from the United States.

USOC, you have been given your marching orders!!!! Snap to it!!! Next city by September 15!!! And (implicit in everything the IOC has ever said this year) that City WILL BE MAKING AN UMLIMITED FINANCIAL GUARANTEE, in the eyes of the IOC.

No, I do not regret that we won't be dealing with this bastard for the next 9 years. I still wish there was a way to craft a Boston Olympics on our terms, but there isn't any such way, not in 2015 at any rate.

 

[West]

The LA phase of the story might turn out to be quite entertaining:

http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-olympics-garcetti-20150729-story.html

Headline: LA's Mayor Garcetti is Mum on Financial Pledge for 2024 Olympics

A few choice quotes:

And it could be a tough sell to a public with memories of the 1984 Olympics, when L.A. became the only Olympic host city in modern history to refuse to put taxpayer money on the line. At the insistence of then-Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council, the International Olympic Committee included a clause in its contract with L.A. that absolved the city of financial liability.

"I think it would be very difficult for any mayor to sign an agreement where we put taxpayer money at risk," said L.A. political consultant Rick Taylor. "If it didn't happen in 1984, I can't see it happening in 2024."

also:

..... at least some L.A. neighborhood leaders say they admire Boston's rationale for balking.

Jim O'Sullivan, president of the Miracle Mile Residential Assn., said he was impressed by Walsh's willingness to walk away from the bidding process. He said Garcetti should publicly promise that L.A. taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook for Olympics-related expenses.

"I think [Boston] looked at it and said, 'Hey, we can't afford this,'" O'Sullivan said. "I have to stand up and respect that."

The IOC is demanding that the USOC put forth an American city, but do you think the IOC is going to allow the USOC to put a city forth without having this guarantee issue publicly resolved? I doubt it, they don't want the Germans, French, etc, getting crazy ideas. The LA Mayor gets less than two months to decide to explain to his taxpayers that they should be burdened by a risk that Boston's mayor rejected.

Break out the popcorn, this could be fun.

 

[ant8904]

Part of my hopes was pinned that the IOC would be in the 1984 position. But instead we got Rome, Hamburg, and Paris all looking to give them a blank check. No matter B24 was more competent or not. There was no real route to victory.

 

[tangent]

The LA phase of the story might turn out to be quite entertaining:

http://www.latimes.com/local/cityhall/la-me-olympics-garcetti-20150729-story.html

Headline: LA's Mayor Garcetti is Mum on Financial Pledge for 2024 Olympics

A few choice quotes:



also:



The IOC is demanding that the USOC put forth an American city, but do you think the IOC is going to allow the USOC to put a city forth without having this guarantee issue publicly resolved? I doubt it, they don't want the Germans, French, etc, getting crazy ideas. The LA Mayor gets less than two months to decide to explain to his taxpayers that they should be burdened by a risk that Boston's mayor rejected.

Break out the popcorn, this could be fun.

Yes. All those nostalgic comments about how LA "did it right in 1984" now come back to haunt them because in 1984 they refused the guarantee and were one of the only Olympic games in modern history to not lose hundreds of millions or billions of money.

It isn't hard to determine that a major reason 1984 didn't lose money was because of the refusal to write a blank check.

 

[tangent]

Part of my hopes was pinned that the IOC would be in the 1984 position. But instead we got Rome, Hamburg, and Paris all looking to give them a blank check. No matter B24 was more competent or not. There was no real route to victory.

Yes, I really hope the USOC is unable to field a US candidate city because of the guarantee. Or if they do put forward a US city in September that bid ends as negatively as Chicago, New York and now Boston have.

If the IOC realizes it is losing the Olympic brand in the US, that should give it the punch in the head they need to wake up and change their rules.

The Athlete's village should get scaled back from the Billion dollar boondoggle it has become (Boston should have absolutely been able to locate athlete's on its multiple college campus dorms), and they should only consider cities that have all the existing facilities within a certain distance from the city.

Forget this idea of a city like Boston which doesn't have the required athletic facilities even getting past the gate. Or Hamburg building an Olympic city on an industrial island on a river... The IOC reforms haven't gone far enough.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Yes. All those nostalgic comments about how LA "did it right in 1984" now come back to haunt them because in 1984 they refused the guarantee and were one of the only Olympic games in modern history to not lose hundreds of millions or billions of money.

It isn't hard to determine that a major reason 1984 didn't lose money was because of the refusal to write a blank check.

...or that the IOC is what it is today because they spent the last 30 years trying to stuff the L.A. genie back into the bottle and put an 80-ton concrete cork in it so they always, always had the Deal with the Devil hanging over the host's head.

These comments today about how everything is the IOC's call is the facade coming off on their real aims.


Honestly, I was encouraged at the start by the fiscal responsibility tone shared by all parties. As if there was an actual lesson learned by Sochi experience that boxing oneself into a corner where only a vain totalitarian gov't with a personality cult could keep up this escalating bubble was...perhaps something in their best interests to back away from. And I thought ball is entirely in B24's court; they've set the fiscal responsibility terms, now they win it or lose it fair-and-square trying to live up to it.

Nope. The rope Boston was given was little more than meat tenderizer for the real show of leverage. These guys like cavorting with dictators. That's their circle. There was always that ominous tone lurking in the background throughout whispering "FIFA. Remember FIFA. Remember who's a fellow traveler with FIFA." And maybe we didn't listen to that all the time, especially when other fires needed to be put out. But it was discomfortingly there the whole time.

And it turned out to be accurate.


Frankly, L.A. doesn't even have to be serious. Because the IOC told the USOC "OBEY!" on submitting another U.S. bid. Almost certainly because NBC said so. And L.A. is the only candidate. So Garcetti et al. have nothing to lose playing hardball. They have nothing to lose never taking their bid out of second-gear or taking on risk, knowing up-front they never expected to win. The USOC has been chastened by by its gods. The bid city that enters completely and fully aware of this can take advantage of this. Positive vibes, little risk because they aren't gonna win and have nothing to prove, and will always...always be in the USOC's Top Three and always the backup option to come groveling to when the gods chasten them.

Basically, USOC gonna get trolled. And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of hacks.

 

[ant8904]

LA should still refuse the guarantee, just in case. Especially what if IOC trolls USOC by actually letting LA win with a guarantee?

 

[West]

LA should still refuse the guarantee, just in case. Especially what if IOC trolls USOC by actually letting LA win with a guarantee?

Not a chance in hell that the IOC would do that if one other credible city were willing to make the guarantee. If Paris says Oui to the guarantee, and LA says No to it, then LA will have exactly 0% chance of winning the games, I don't care how much money NBC could make.

The IOC is not interested in trolling any country's OC by showing flexibility on one of their core demands. They want to remain in their imperious position for as long as they can maintain it. If the IOC can use LA and the USOC's willingness to guarantee (if the LA Mayor caved) as leverage to ensure that Paris (or Hamburg or both) signs up for the guarantee, now THAT is a form of trolling the IOC would do (and vice versa of course). But that would be Paris getting trolled, not the USOC - in that scenario the USOC and LA are playing the roles of useful idiots. The USOC is beyond doubt willing to be the IOC's useful idiot. LA? Remains to be seen.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Not a chance in hell that the IOC would do that if one other credible city were willing to make the guarantee. If Paris says Oui to the guarantee, and LA says No to it, then LA will have exactly 0% chance of winning the games, I don't care how much money NBC could make.

The IOC is not interested in trolling any country's OC by showing flexibility on one of their core demands. They want to remain in their imperious position for as long as they can maintain it. If the IOC can use LA and the USOC's willingness to guarantee (if the LA Mayor caved) as leverage to ensure that Paris (or Hamburg or both) signs up for the guarantee, now THAT is a form of trolling the IOC would do (and vice versa of course). But that would be Paris getting trolled, not the USOC - in that scenario the USOC and LA are playing the roles of useful idiots. The USOC is beyond doubt willing to be the IOC's useful idiot. LA? Remains to be seen.

Just listen to the top-town tenor and it's plain as day to see what the game is here. IOC is nothing but consistent in its imperiousness once it wraps its tentacles around a host.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jul/29/rio-olympics-2015-organisers-face-challengers-pollution

http://www.dailynews.com/events/201...zils-olympic-organizers-rush-to-finish-venues

http://www.usnews.com/news/sports/a...c-chief-apologizes-to-ioc-over-stadium-change


"Yes, M'lord."

 

[lexicon506]

Wouldn't it be cool if Boston 2024, instead of ceasing operations, continued as a civic planning organization that rallied communities and the private sector around ideas that were hatched through the Olympic bid? Perhaps re-brand as Boston 2030 and form a public-private partnership with City Hall to pursue mutual goals for Boston's 400th birthday.

Completing the Emerald Necklace along Columbia Rd, investing in Franklin, Moakley, and Harambee Parks, developing the Bayside Expo site into a mixed-use neighborhood/student housing for UMass Boston, upgrading JFK-UMass and K Circle, redeveloping Widett perhaps with Kraft and the Revs involved, upgrading signals and tracks on the red and green lines, reopening Dorchester Ave. and pushing USPS to relocate their S. Station facility.

That would be the ultimate victory for Boston.

 

[datadyne007]

Walsh fights back:

Mayor Walsh's Response to Criticism From the IOC President Over Boston 2024
"I think it’s just unfortunate that the President of the IOC involved himself in this conversation."

Hayden Bird
07/29/15 @2:54pm in Sports

...

In response to that, Mayor Walsh took issue with one of the most controversial IOC conditions of an Olympic bid:

"In Boston and I’m pretty sure probably in the rest of America, we don’t get forced into putting taxpayers’ money at risk. And if that’s confusing to the IOC president, than it shows exactly why the IOC is in the position they are, in not having multiple countries bid for the Olympics. And I think that’s what they have to realize. I saw his comment today, and the USOC will never admit this but, it's that guarantee that ultimately helps with poor polling numbers, concerned the senate president, the speaker, the governor. Concerned the taxpayer. So if you think about how this thing has gone down over the last several months, it really comes down to the guarantee that the IOC demand the United States Olympic Committee’s host city sign. That’s really what it…looking at it now a couple days later, there were other factors as well, but I think it’s just unfortunate that the President of the IOC involved himself in this conversation."

...

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2015/...nt-thomas-bachs-boston-2024-olympic-comments/

 

[stellarfun]

This is what Garcetti is sitting on.

BILL NUMBER: SB 41 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY Senators De León and Leno
(Coauthors: Senators Allen, Hernandez, Hill, Huff, Lara, Liu, Mitchell, Pavley, and Roth)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Atkins, Bloom, Burke, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Dababneh, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gordon, Holden, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Mullin, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Olsen, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Ting, and Wilk)

DECEMBER 1, 2014

An act relating to public contracts, and declaring the urgency
thereof, to take effect immediately.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 41, as introduced, De León. Public contracts: 2024 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

Existing law provides specified requirements in awarding certain public contracts.

This bill would authorize the Governor to sign agreements required by the United States Olympic Committee as part of the bid process for the City of Los Angeles or the City and County of San Francisco to become the United States applicant city and candidate city for the 2024 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

This bill would make legislative findings and declarations that among other things, the endorsing municipality, as defined, has developed a self-sufficient bid for financing the games. This bill would authorize the Governor to enter into an agreement for the state to be jointly liable, not to exceed a specified amount, with the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG), as specified, for obligations of the OCOG, and for any financial deficit relating to the games, as provided.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
.................

[bolding and underlining mine]
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_41_bill_20141201_introduced.html

Both Los Angeles and San Francisco were able to point to this legislation in their presentations to the USOC. If a similar bill existed in the Massachusetts legislature, Boston's bid would be still alive.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Wouldn't it be cool if Boston 2024, instead of ceasing operations, continued as a civic planning organization that rallied communities and the private sector around ideas that were hatched through the Olympic bid? Perhaps re-brand as Boston 2030 and form a public-private partnership with City Hall to pursue mutual goals for Boston's 400th birthday.

Completing the Emerald Necklace along Columbia Rd, investing in Franklin, Moakley, and Harambee Parks, developing the Bayside Expo site into a mixed-use neighborhood/student housing for UMass Boston, upgrading JFK-UMass and K Circle, redeveloping Widett perhaps with Kraft and the Revs involved, upgrading signals and tracks on the red and green lines, reopening Dorchester Ave. and pushing USPS to relocate their S. Station facility.

That would be the ultimate victory for Boston.

I agree that this could be a major step forward. Boston 2024 was always going to be a distraction from the real planning efforts needed for Boston's future.

 

[West]

This is what Garcetti is sitting on.


Both Los Angeles and San Francisco were able to point to this legislation in their presentations to the USOC. If a similar bill existed in the Massachusetts legislature, Boston's bid would be still alive.

Not necessarily. Key phrase in the section you pulled: "not to exceed a specified amount". Dig down, and that specified amount is $250 Million. It is not an unlimited backstop. And this bill was only introduced, not yet passed (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

The IOC will still be demanding a "sky's the limit" guarantee from LA if it's LA being subbed in. The LA papers have been pointing out to LA readers that the State's backstop is $250M. The CA 2015 budget is about $169 Billion, so the backstop represented about 0.148% of the state budget.

Same dynamic would have pertained here. A $250M State backstop from MA would not have satisfied the IOC in the current multi-bidder climate. A backstop of 0.148% of MA's budget would have been ballpark $53 Million and would have had the IOC sneering with contempt, and would have had me RAOTFLMAO.

 

[West]

A few pertinent sections of that CA legislation, pulled from the same URL that stellarfun linked to above:

SEC. 5. (a) There is hereby established in the State Treasury a special fund to be known as the "Olympic Games Trust Fund."
(b) The state may choose to fund the Olympic Games Trust Fund in any manner it considers appropriate, and at the time or times the state determines necessary. It is the intent of the Legislature that the funding mechanism for the fund shall be determined on or about the time of the selection of the endorsing municipality as the host city by the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees.

6.(b) Obligations authorized by this act shall be payable solely from the Olympic Games Trust Fund. Neither the full faith and credit nor the taxing power of the state are or may be pledged for any payment under any obligation authorized by this act.

The CA legislature very clearly did NOT put the CA taxpayers on the hook, as neither the full faith and credit nor the taxing power of the state were pledged; in fact, this Act precluded pledging full faith and / or taxing power later on.

If CA later on wants to, they can fund that Trust Fund with special hotel, rental car, and restaurant taxes, with said taxes set to jump up to extra high rates in the three months bracketing the Games. Take it out of the tourists’ hides as much as possible, with a focus on Olympics tourists, since there’s a well-documented tendency for said tourists to significantly displace “regular” tourists. Note my point here: CA has not PLEDGED to use any taxing power, but they can use taxation (without a pledge to the IOC) if they later so choose. They didn't say which taxing powers they would or wouldn't use. I hope no one will question whether or not the state of CA would be "clever" in how they go about raising this $250M. I'm sure there are all sorts of other clever schemes aside from the one I tossed out above.

Also, only the funding mechanism will be determined when the IOC selects LA. There is nothing in there about when they have to actually fund it.

The IOC knows how to read these things. This is not a backstop of any significance within the extraordinarily grasping worldview of the IOC. They will want Garcetti on the hook.

 

[tangent]

Wouldn't it be cool if Boston 2024, instead of ceasing operations, continued as a civic planning organization that rallied communities and the private sector around ideas that were hatched through the Olympic bid? Perhaps re-brand as Boston 2030 and form a public-private partnership with City Hall to pursue mutual goals for Boston's 400th birthday.

Completing the Emerald Necklace along Columbia Rd, investing in Franklin, Moakley, and Harambee Parks, developing the Bayside Expo site into a mixed-use neighborhood/student housing for UMass Boston, upgrading JFK-UMass and K Circle, redeveloping Widett perhaps with Kraft and the Revs involved, upgrading signals and tracks on the red and green lines, reopening Dorchester Ave. and pushing USPS to relocate their S. Station facility.

That would be the ultimate victory for Boston.

Boston 2024 is an Olympic Organizing Committee so yes it should shut down for this go around.

Before they turn out the lights it would be good for them to turn over all their files to the planning agencies we already have. MAPC, BRA, and some civic groups focused on those particular parks and facilities. For all the nice drawings we got to see I am sure there were more and the original files could be of great use moving forward.

 

[tangent]

The IOC knows how to read these things. This is not a backstop of any significance within the extraordinarily grasping worldview of the IOC. They will want Garcetti on the hook.

Sure, that's why it is called a host CITY agreement. If LA wants the games this time around then they will have to agree to the guarantee and hope that the plan is pretty tight. It would be pretty BS if the USOC forced Boston out in part because they didn't write a blank check and then let LA wiggle out of that.