Boston 2024

Another ratchet click today:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...his-cabinet/aN5S954xnkYHXTnCcrjbaI/story.html

A sampling of the article:

Ratcheting up his scrutiny of the effort to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Boston, Governor Charlie Baker has invited one of the leading opposition groups to appear before his Cabinet Friday afternoon to outline its case that state taxpayers should not provide any funding for the event, according to a source with direct knowledge of the invitation.

...

The unusual decision by the governor to extend the invitations came earlier this week when Baker reached out to the anti-Olympics group, the source said. Asking them to appear at his Cabinet meeting could give the small organization a boost in credibility as it takes on the financial and civic leaders who are pushing for the Summer Games to come to Boston.

Baker is also working to arrange for No Boston Olympics to attend his weekly meeting with House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg on Monday to brief them on the group’s position in the debate over the summer Games, a senior legislative source confirmed.
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It's good that Baker is doing this, however obvious it may be that he's keeping his distance due to political concerns. What other governor would be doing differently, given how this has all played out?

But quite aside from how Baker feels the need to play the political angles, it is time for the Boston 2024 to stop with so much focus on re-assigning duties (as needed as that might be) and get the conversation back onto details by rolling out the second iteration. In the article stellarfun linked to yesterday, Davey was quoted as saying that they've been working real hard on it and agree it should come out next month. So, good, let's see that. September 15 is not that far away.

I suspect that email from the USOC, the one that prompted the shake-up and which (I think?) hasn't been made public, may have had a similar prompt to go along with the leadership issues. Along the lines of, "the flaws in your original plan have been pretty well vetted, so let's see the upgraded version, soon."
 
I'll say it again: the USOC does not fuck around with organizational disorder. If there's a sudden shakeup and new big-guns coming in, it's because certain unpleasant truths and 'suggestions' for immediate corrective action were communicated warningly and matter-of-factly in a way that no sane person with business savvy would ignore. And I doubt anyone on the inside is going to leak the full text of said communiqué and risk further trying the USOC's patience.

I would expect a much tighter-run ship from here on out. Whether that's enough to regroup the focus and make enough forward progress on the thorniest unresolved issues to matter is anyone's guess.
 
Hopefully they can fix the problems with the plan so far, but create a well defined iterative public process moving forward that leaves them room for more changes.
 
meddlepal said:
USOC in damage control mode. I'm guessing internally they've realized selecting Boston was a colossally stupid move: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ers-hearing/kECs9J0pBk0xLP3cTUkxXI/story.html
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The colossally stupid move here was publicly undercutting Boston 2024 when two of your executives already sit on its board and when it has committed to producing a detailed plan for you (and for the Governor) on an accelerated timeline. That's pretty irresponsible. You hitched your wagon to this horse, folks. You claimed your selection was final, and you claimed that Boston made the best proposal. So, now what? You can still be "vetting" the city four months later because the more inherently unreasonable parts of an Olympic bid are running into some pushback? What message does that send to future bidders?

This USOC is made up of people who were brought in to resolve TV rights issues and become more involved in IOC activities. The organization cleaned house after the Chicago loss, so this group has largely not participated in a bid before. It shows.
 
meddlepal said:
USOC in damage control mode. I'm guessing internally they've realized selecting Boston was a colossally stupid move: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ers-hearing/kECs9J0pBk0xLP3cTUkxXI/story.html
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Boston just needs to figure out the Olympic stadium and flesh out the alternatives. Olympic village is the other big ticket, but progress is apparently being made there. USOC chose the best option available.

Have BCEC build the stadium and problem solved. Getting Kraft on board to work out the long term use of whichever location is built is the key to not completely wasting a billion dollars which would undermine public support.
 
We've all spent so much time discussing the internal disarray within Boston 2024 that it's easy to overlook the history of disarray within the USOC. F-Line is absolutely right that they can really drop the hammer on bid cities when they want/need to, but they've also dropped the hammer on their own toes, head, kneecaps, etc, throughout my entire life. Just type in "USOC internal discord" into Google and see how many articles come up, and understand that there are plenty of similar pre-internet articles of a similar nature that don't appear only because they haven't been digitized.

Equilibria also correctly points out the house-cleaning after Chicago's bid went down ugly, but that is the umpteenth house-cleaning.

Also, along with foolishly undermining Boston2024 with Davey sitting right there, Ruggiero also doubled down on the same old same old:

Ruggiero added: “This city has to come together if you’re going to be successful. We need the public to come together, and we need elected officials to come together.”
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We all know that, Ms. Ruggiero, we've known it all along. That point has been flogged to death by now. The elected officials and citizens now need Boston 2024 and by extension the USOC to produce Plan Version 2.0, patching up the glaring holes that existed in Plan Version 1.0

We really do not need further statements about how it'll all fail if we don't all get on board. The onus is on them now. Produce that revised plan, get it in play, and the conversation can move on and become productive. Until then, they might all want to just shut up for the few weeks (or month) left to go until that revised plan is ready. The message discipline here is dreadful.

(Edited to note that the quote above comes from the same Globe article that was first linked to above by meddlepal.)
 
I don't know what else to call opposition to a final plan that we haven't even seen yet.
 
In his defense, it's not NIMBYism if he thinks NO city should ever host.
 
I think what I'm most bummed about is that I always hoped we would put forth a serious bid in my lifetime, and it's been so bungled that I don't know it will ever happen again, or if we even have a puncher's chance at getting the games.

I don't presume to know all the technical details, but I feel like the only way they could have truly and honestly turned the tide from the pushback of having submitted the bid without much public input would have been to, every month on the first of the month, show how the plan had changed based on the meetings from the preceding month - what they changed, what they didn't, and why.

If the bid is a living document, it needs to really live and change.
 
MBTAddict said:
I think what I'm most bummed about is that I always hoped we would put forth a serious bid in my lifetime, and it's been so bungled that I don't know it will ever happen again, or if we even have a puncher's chance at getting the games.

I don't presume to know all the technical details, but I feel like the only way they could have truly and honestly turned the tide from the pushback of having submitted the bid without much public input would have been to, every month on the first of the month, show how the plan had changed based on the meetings from the preceding month - what they changed, what they didn't, and why.

If the bid is a living document, it needs to really live and change.
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Good points, but I haven't lost all hope yet. If they're truly getting their act together, they have a puncher's chance this time.
 
MBTAddict said:
I don't presume to know all the technical details, but I feel like the only way they could have truly and honestly turned the tide from the pushback of having submitted the bid without much public input would have been to, every month on the first of the month, show how the plan had changed based on the meetings from the preceding month - what they changed, what they didn't, and why.

If the bid is a living document, it needs to really live and change.
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Yes, some iterative public process would be good.

I don't think it is too late to turn this around with a plan that goes through several more iterations based on the feedback. Polling shows the bid will get broader support if they can pull together a really good plan that doesn't rely on large sums of public money for Olympic specific costs.

January 8, 2016 is the real deadline for the plan that goes into the official bid and the more detailed plan is actually due in January 2017.

September shouldn't really be a significant date unless Boston 2024 isn't making progress towards a viable plan or the state leadership expresses clear opposition to moving forward because of lack of progress or viability. The USOC would be crazy to switch to another city before then, so really it is a matter of whether the US is going to bid or not this time around.

So that leaves time for a June plan iteration, more feedback, and then an August/Sept plan to assure the USOC that enough progress has been made to move forward. Then we could see another round or two of publicly released iterations before January to smooth out remaining issues. And then all of 2016 to get through all the remaining details.
 
John FitzGerald needs to be removed from moderating these Boston 2024 meetings. In a civil public meeting, you give a person a chance to respond to the answer to their question and then you are justified to ask him to sit down after the follow-up question. FitzGerald has a documented history of stacking the deck at public meetings and this kind of well publicized lack of basic decency on the part of Boston 2024 or city officials is the last thing Boston 2024 needs at this point.
 
aaaaaa said:
Interesting, and unfortunate. #Boston2024 Community Meetings Continue To Be Unsafe & Hostile Spaces For Opposition (Storify, h/t uHub)
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Well, that's certainly a big dump of chum in the waters for the Herald comment section.


Still...how many community meetings in a row have gone completely off the rails with bad, no-good, terrible optics for B24? This is Public Outreach 101: crowd control without being patronizing about it, and if disruptive elements are doing the proverbial bus-in to intimidate and stack the deck perhaps getting wise to that pre-emptively--you know, especially when it's happened multiple times in a row--instead of letting it disintegrate into a total shitshow...again.

They can't wait another month for the "Version 2.0" launch (ugh...speaking of virtual optics, don't ever give the impression that you knowingly foisted a buggy "beta" release in a production environment and expect that to not do further harm to the trust in your product). Every damn day they need to be tightening up and minimizing these mistakes. This isn't going to be as automatic as flicking on a light switch and everything suddenly going smooth. If they're still bungling the messaging the week of Memorial Day, flip of the calendar to June is not going to magically make it a clean slate. This is improvement with repetition, and they're not showing it with each passing rep. If anything that Dot Debacle was pretty close to a new low point.

It doesn't matter if it was a legitimately unruly crowd full of pot-stirrers; the fact that they haven't demonstrated much of anything in the way of improved composure when put in a less-controlled environment outside of their own circles means they're still very much at square-one and stuck in neutral with the "improving" part of the "improvements".
 
Within that storify link above, there's a picture of a man who allegedly loudly called a woman bid opponent a "fucking piece of shit" at the Dorchester meeting.

Now Lauren Dezenski of the Dot News is relaying along assertions made on Twitter that the person in question is Marty Walsh's cousin, who is named Martin Walsh for maximum confusion. If you go to this link...

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=a426d7776c5b47e8ca0cd7034&id=25b7fb19da

...you've got to scroll down halfway to get to the article, and within that is the following embedded link...

https://twitter.com/jayfallon/status/601393791195549696

...which shows side by side a pic of Marty and Martin Walsh, and the photo from the Storify article. Looks like that's him.

The other Martin Walsh is listed online as business manager of Laborers Local 223:

http://massbuildingtrades.org/laborers-local-223

I have found Ms Dezenski's articles to be pretty fair and balanced; she's officially neutral though I think I detect some leanings towards the opposed side. Dezenski does not confirm that the man (whether the mayor's cousin or misidentified as such) used the phrase "fucking piece of shit", but she did note that he was one of the most vociferous supporters, and also noted:

My perspective as a someone who has covered all five of the public meetings so far: this was the most divisive meeting by far. And I can see why folks who might otherwise have felt open to speaking their mind in this setting would have been discouraged by the poor behavior in that room.
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I believe I've seen either the Globe and/or the Herald reference Dezenski's reporting, so it's not like the Dot News is so small the big dailies ignore it. I feel like we should start the stopwatch to measure how long till it's going into broader circulation.

The bid needs this like it needs a hole in the head. Welcome aboard, Mr. Pagliuca.

Edited five minutes later to say that I see it on universal hub now, too. This is going to get aired out, unless BOTH the Globe and the Herald decide to pass on it.
 
Yeah, there's little doubt now who that guy was. And that's what was so baffling about the total lack of crowd control. He's been at prior meetings; Boston 2024 knows who he is. The rabble-rousers have been at prior meetings; Boston 2024 knows who they are. There are official channels (an ultimate official channel in Mr. Walsh's case) for sending a "Stop that! You're not helping." message over the friendly fire making a royal mess of things. Union chapters have bosses with political relationships. There's a chain to bark up.

They also know who the usual-suspect shouty disruptors are on the anti- side, because they show up at every meeting too and are easy as hell to tell apart from the neighborhood locals. Look at all the tweets about that serial interruptor. How did he even get in, let alone be allowed to stay after disrupting the meeting mere nanoseconds in?

And yet, they just stood there limp while this meeting went down in flames in the first 5 minutes at the hands of people they damn well knew beforehand were only there to disrupt and intimidate. With FitzGerald pouring a little bit of patronizing gasoline all over it...again...while Davey just sat there doing a total deer-in-headlights.


I honestly don't know how Pagliuca can turn this around over the summer. It's not just about dismissing Fish, or making sure FitzGerald is never ever allowed to interact with the citizenry ever again. Hell, at this point it's not even about de facto demoting Davey because the inmates are running the asylum on his watch. Their ground game is fucked...top-to-bottom. There are mid-level and low-level staffers organizing these community meetings. And apparently they are so clueless they can't even canvass the crowd for the same disruptive forces people within the crowd can ID within seconds and then tweet that ID to the world within the first 5 minutes of the meeting. There are PR flaks who craft the messaging, and make zero adjustments when it strikes the wrong tone. There are people tasked with prepping the presenters about neighborhood-specific issues and neighborhood fault lines who are supposed to be helping to narrow-cast neighborhood-specific messaging; they don't seem to have followed-up at all with a postmortem from the last disastrous Dot meeting before this one. How did they not learn after the last one that Dorchester was going to be one of the toughest rooms of all and that they had to pivot to a "catch more bees with honey" strategy for convincing the skeptics?


This is basic community organizing, political organizing, and ground-game outreach. Nearly all the top backers of this plan have been big political campaign donors in the past, if not actually running for office themselves or playing an active organizing role in somebody's campaign for office. There are so many people who should be able to instantly recognize a failure of messaging at the retail-politics level to say "you're doing it wrong" and then phone up some real political consultants in their rolodex to help straighten out and offer some direction for the front-line staff. And it's not happening; they shart the bed again, more gruesomely then ever. And now we're into summer.

That is not something a new chairman can just fix overnight. Pagliuca is shrewd...he may be the shrewdest dude in the room. But if their engagement is that messed up from the Davey level all the way down to the interns checking the door apparently unawares of the bus-in of familiar disruptors streaming past...no, this is nowhere near as easy as hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and rebooting like it's no big deal. It took them years to put together the organization they did; you can't just put together a new one over Memorial Day weekend when that many people are failing at their basic organizing functions. For better or for worse they have to go to battle with most of the army they have, and hope that improvement comes with repetition. If they're hitting their nadir going into June, then that's got to be a hell of a lot of demonstrable improvement over the Summer to get in a place by Fall where they should've been going into Spring and the first of these meetings. That's not nearly as much time as the folks buying into this instantaneous 'reboot' spin (*cough* Shirley Leung *cough*) seem to think is still on the clock.
 
These tactics usually work out (for whomever can stack the meeting) when dealing with local issues. Not so much for this level of visibility.
 
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