Boston 2024

Anybody else a little surprised that a member of the 2024 Organizing Committee (Juliette Kayyem) was chosen to represent the committee trying to bring the Games here and, by her own admission, she hasn't even read the Boston's bid fully? I feel like she was sent to this forum with a six-shooter that only had three bullets. Maybe I'm missing something, but I at least assumed all the members of the 2024 Organizing Committee and our legislators had seen the bid packet.
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That doesn't surprise me at all honestly.
 
Olympics opponent becomes a believer

By Shirley Leung Globe Staff December 10, 2014

Conor Yunits, a leader of No Boston Olympics, is defecting from the group, saying he now supports the effort to have the city host the 2024 Summer Games.

The about-face raises a few questions: Who got to you, Conor? Did someone tell you that you would never work in this town again? After all, the people behind our Olympic bid are among the most powerful folks around, from Suffolk Construction chief executive John Fish to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.

And the timing? It couldn’t be more perfect. Boston makes a final presentation next week to the board of the United States Olympic Committee, which could make a decision soon after on which city will get the US bid. Enthusiastic public support matters.

“Nobody got to me,” insists Yunits, 34, an executive at Liberty Square Group, a public relations and political operative shop. “If I was to be gotten to, they would have gotten to me before the bid was done.”

Yunits was one of four thirtysomething leaders of No Boston Olympics, a grass-roots campaign that portrayed hosting the games as a vanity project and one big cost overrun waiting to happen. It’s hard to believe he didn’t fold under pressure — even his own father, former Brockton mayor Jack Yunits, didn’t approve of this extracurricular activity.

The younger Yunits said he has no regrets about being part of the opposition. He certainly seemed to get into it with scathing tweets such as “Hosting Olympics in Boston is just like a dinner party, if you built a brand new dining room and never used it again.” Then there’s my personal favorite: “If Boston Olympics end with invasion of Rhode Island I could maybe get on board.”

We’re not taking over our neighbor to the south, but Yunits has changed his mind. With the bid in, he got what he wanted, which was to push for more transparency in the process. Boston 2024, the private partnership planning our Olympic bid, recently formed a citizens advisory group, launched an online portal to solicit comments, and pledged to hold monthly meetings if Boston gets to go for the gold.

The more Yunits learned about our city’s bid, the more he liked it. Yunits now says he truly believes Walsh won’t mortgage the city just to host a bunch of athletes and tourists — after all, he’ll likely be running for reelection. To keep costs down, organizers are proposing temporary sports venues, piggybacking on planned transportation improvements, and leaning on facilities owned by universities.

“Boston can do this,” said Yunits. The plan “is pretty creative. It’s probably the best bid that has been put forward.”

The other finalists are Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

If Boston gets the nod, Boston 2024 and the Walsh administration should create a public process that begins the very next day. There is much to be hashed out before a formal proposal is submitted to the International Olympic Committee in September. In that round, the United States competes with other entries from around the world, with the IOC making a selection in 2017.

Boston 2024 has sketched out 33 possible sites for venues, and president Dan O’Connell vows to hold a hearing in each community where there is a proposal. If the neighborhood says no, on to the next site. If this is done right, we should all be sick of seeing the Olympic rings and talking about where the main stadium could be built.

And if we don’t get the US bid, I hope both Boston 2024 and No Boston Olympics stick around. More than ever, we need a robust dialogue on how we can build middle-class housing and better public transportation if we want to keep the best and the brightest here.

Just take a look at what happened to New York City, which lost the 2012 Summer Olympics to London. The games forced New York to do comprehensive planning on a short timetable. While the Opening Ceremonies never made it Manhattan, the city feels like a big winner: the No. 7 subway got extended, parts of the waterfront got transformed, and thousands of units of affordable housing got built in Queens, where the athlete village was supposed to go.

“We got all the benefits of the Olympics without the Olympics,” said Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, who analyzed the impact of the city’s bid.

Our pro- and anti-Olympic factions may be on opposite sides of hosting the games, but they’re on the same side of making Boston great. That might be what the Olympic spirit is all about.
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Boston Globe

Cambridge Officials Oppose Olympic Bid

The unease with Boston 2024 spreads across the river.

By Steve Annear|Boston Daily|December 9, 2014 2:32 p.m.

People in Boston aren’t the only ones protesting the way the process to put in a bid for the city to host the Olympics was handled. On the other side of the Charles River, Cambridge officials are also throwing the flag.

“We don’t understand a thing [about the bid], and we want people to know we are not just going to roll over,” said Cambridge City Councillor Dennis Carlone. “I’m generally an optimist, but I see no plan, no strategy, and no real communication about this.”

On Monday night during a meeting at City Hall, Carlone and other members of the City Council voted in favor of supporting a policy order making it known that they’re unpleased with how Boston 2024, the organization that compiled information and submitted the bid to the United States Olympic Committee last month, went ahead with their plan.

By voting in favor of the order, the Council went on record in opposition of the bid, based on the fact that they felt the submission process lacked broad community discussion and deliberation, and excluded stakeholders from surrounding communities that would be impacted were the Olympics to be held in Boston.

Carlone said he endorsed the policy order because “in [his] gut” he feels that preparing for the Olympics will take more than 10 years, and Cambridge mostly felt left out of the initial process to put the region in the running, a decision that would impact the city due to its proximity to Boston, and shared use of facilities and public transportation options like the T.

“I didn’t endorse the Olympic bid because I have no idea what it is,” said Carlone. “It sounds exciting, but do we really have the facilities? I don’t think so. If we go for this, it needs more time, and perhaps 2024 is much too optimistic. I think that some of it sounds dreamy.”

The Council’s vote unintentionally coincided with a protest held outside of the ICA in Boston on Monday night, where the Boston Globe hosted a forum and discussion about the bid, and potential impact on the area if the USOC decides to make Boston a frontrunner. Boston is up against San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., and the USOC is expected to vote on their host city to represent the U.S. sometime in December, with the announcement to follow in January.

According to the State House News Service, during the forum, Juliette Kayyem, a member of the Boston 2024 executive board who worked on the bid’s innovation and technology proposal, said the bid is still in its early stages, and promised the public would get to weigh in more heavily in the event the USOC selects the city as the country’s submission for the summer games.

When called out about the organization’s lack of transparency and community input by those opposing the games, Kayyem “defended the secrecy of the bid” because it’s competing with other potential host cities, the report said.

One day after they delivered the proposal to the USOC last month, Boston 2024 announced the formation of a citizens advisory group and online portal for public feedback, as part of a “new phase of an extensive outreach” to get the public involved with the historic proposal, but some felt the effort should have been made prior to the organization’s bid submission.

Kayyem also touted the benefits of hosting the Olympics would have on both Boston and surrounding municipalities, such as improved infrastructure and transportation, but Cambridge City Councillor Nadeem Mazen said that’s short-lived, and hard to quantify.

“I don’t think anyone opposes that, especially the infrastructure question, but that cannot come without the opacity, corruption, and in all cases waste that the Olympics entail,” he said. “It’s not just in Boston, it’s Greater Boston, and that’s clear. No one is making the argument that it’s going to be in Boston proper.”

Like Carlone, Mazen said he expected Boston 2024 to “come to City Councillors and key community leaders” to discuss the bid.

“They didn’t reach out to me, and I represent a lot of people who have concerns,” he added. “It would have been nice for [Boston 2024] to have a conversation with those groups that will be directly affected.”
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Boston Magazine
 
^ LOL. I had to literally stop the DC video mid-way through. As a one-time resident of DC, it was too embarrassing.
 
Shepard said:
^ LOL. I had to literally stop the DC video mid-way through. As a one-time resident of DC, it was too embarrassing.
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I thought the video added a personal touch. Then again, it did a lot of apologizing and "you don't really know us"-ing.

Boston 2024 has something in this glowing wreath. It's way better than Olympic promoters usually do.
 
Isn't Chase in the first floor at 100 tech square?

Edit. Sorry. I realize now it's a citi bank. Interchangeable to me.
 
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BostontoLancaster said:
Anybody else a little surprised that a member of the 2024 Organizing Committee (Juliette Kayyem) was chosen to represent the committee trying to bring the Games here and, by her own admission, she hasn't even read the Boston's bid fully? I feel like she was sent to this forum with a six-shooter that only had three bullets. Maybe I'm missing something, but I at least assumed all the members of the 2024 Organizing Committee and our legislators had seen the bid packet.
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she would have read the executive summary and a few key sections - I'm guessing she wouldn't have read the entire document as it's probably massive and full of a lot of dry data and numbers. Like if a developer submits a PNF - they'd defer to the experts on various sections - event the lawyer assembling the document wouldn't have completely read the section on, say, traffic counts.
 
The U.S. Olympic Committee will submit a bid, but won't announce the city until next month.

The IOC said that the U.S. cannot combine cities, a joint San Francisco Los Angeles bid was being considered.

The IOC will allow European countries to submit joint city bids; e.g., a joint Berlin-Hamburg bid.
 
Marty presenting to the USOC:
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https://twitter.com/USOlympic/status/544967244552216578
 
No Boston Olympics made an appearance at the USOC meeting today to protest.

So all 4 cities had their mayors and civic/business leaders making the pitch. But only Boston had a group of protesters show up outside the door in California. I think it's looking less and less likely that Boston gets the bid.
 
Probably were a local proxy army. LA has loads of Boston transplants. Witness the sox cap wearing Massholes who camped out all night for the grand opening of West Coast Dunks.

I doubt the protesters would sink the bid. I think opposition from Cambridge is probably a lot more worrying to the IOC.
 
stellarfun said:
The U.S. Olympic Committee will submit a bid, but won't announce the city until next month.

The IOC said that the U.S. cannot combine cities, a joint San Francisco Los Angeles bid was being considered.

The IOC will allow European countries to submit joint city bids; e.g., a joint Berlin-Hamburg bid.
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Hamburg is less than 2 hours away from Berlin by train. LA and San Francisco is over 6 hours by car - if they did that, they might as well do Boston/DC bid, which would include NYC and Philly.

Shepard said:
Probably were a local proxy army. LA has loads of Boston transplants. Witness the sox cap wearing Massholes who camped out all night for the grand opening of West Coast Dunks.

I doubt the protesters would sink the bid. I think opposition from Cambridge is probably a lot more worrying to the IOC.
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Cambridge is raising a stink because they weren't kept in the loop - but the organizers reached out to the colleges... IMO - the only reason people are getting all worked up is because Bostonians don't like things without a public process. I'm sure once the bid is announced and things start to get more solid more people will be on board.
 
lexicon506 said:
No Boston Olympics made an appearance at the USOC meeting today to protest.

So all 4 cities had their mayors and civic/business leaders making the pitch. But only Boston had a group of protesters show up outside the door in California. I think it's looking less and less likely that Boston gets the bid.
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For I know Boston won't get it; but you really think a handful of protesters in LA will sink the bid?
 
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