3 Commments

  1. Good performance. The Alderman was quite polite, but pointed in that he wasn’t getting the information or transparency he wanted from the “bid committee”.

    I think it should also be emphasized that Londoners were hoodwinked by these same groups into paying for something most people didn’t want, as well as displacing large numbers of people. At least they are getting some transit improvements and other projects sooner, but we don’t have any big plans here that are getting pushed up and any economic gain would be temporary.

  2. I also just remembered this tidbit; the Gay Games, while much smaller, also lost money and it was hizzoner Jr’s idea to get it to prove that we “could” host the Big Games. In fact, when the Gay Games was in Sydney, the organizers had to use their personal homes as collateral, guess what, they lost them (if I recall correctly). This time it’s the citizens who will lose their homes, not Oprah & Co.

    And if we get the games, we should at least demand MAJOR transit improvements and other big long lasting public works from the games (Montreal got their subway, London is getting major transit improvements).

  3. A quick answer to Mayor Daley’s question about what one thing would be big enough to match the Olympics: That Daley would even ask such a question shows his shortsightedness. Rather than dumping a few billion dollars into a three-week Olympic bash, it would be a far better civic investment to divide this amount of money into many smaller things: building up local youth sports facilities, improving and maintaining existing parks, using seed money to help support small businesses, fund new start-up arts organizations…that’s what makes a city thrive over the long haul.

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