City Builds Pool and Gym, Then Will Destroy for the Olympics

The Reader reports that the plans for the 2016 games keeps shifting and the community keeps loosing as those plans shift.

Back in 2007, when Mayor Daley was unveiling his Olympic plans, he promised the games would bring a swimming pool to the west side.

And not just any swimming pool, but a $78 million “state-of-the-art aquatic center.”

But that was then. Last December the city announced it was shifting the aquatic center from Douglas Park to Washington Park on the south side. And in the latest bombshell, Douglas Park might be losing a swimming pool instead of getting a new one. Olympic planners have quietly revealed that if we get the games they’re going to demolish the gym and pool at Collins Academy High School, located in the park, to make way for a 6,000-seat bike-racing arena.

Wait—it gets even better. The city just finished rebuilding the swimming pool and gymnasium at Collins with $30 million in taxpayer money, drawn from funds collected by the Midwest tax increment financing district.

Spend $30 million and then throw it away. Makes perfect sense in the world where the city will do ANYTHING and say ANYTHING to get the 2016 games. Financial sanity be damned. Communities be damned.  Schools be damned.  If you or your organization was part of the Community Benefits Agreement process – we ask you to join us at No Games to oppose the 2016 bid. It’s too late to get sane.