Chicago Tribune Joins No Games Chicago Coalition (Belatedly)

Should Chicago bid on the 2020 Olympics. No way, says the Chicago Tribune in a June 20 editorial. Here’s what they said:

An Olympic bid is an all-consuming exercise not only for a mayor but for corporate leaders and philanthropists. We backed the bid two years ago, but a lengthy bidding process now would hinder, not help, new mayor Rahm Emanuel‘s focus on reinventing government and promoting economic development. And let’s face it, there’s an Olympic-size sense in these parts of, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” Anyway, it seemed like Chicagoans cooled to the Olympics as time went on. A bid from a U.S. city remains unlikely…A spokeswoman for Emanuel would not categorically rule out a bid, but said he is focused on short-term challenges, such as education and public safety. Good enough. Good luck, Rio. We’ve moved on.

What a riot! The Tribune was a huge supporter of the 2016 bid. The owner of the Tribune, Sam Zell, was listed as a contributor to the bid in the cash contributions of “$100,00 and over” and a unit of the Tribune empire, Chicago Magazine, was a pro bono contributor of services in the “Up to $100,000” category. The paper and its staff had access to the same mountain of research that we had access to – the evidence that showed the games lost host cities billions of dollars. So can we now add the Tribune Editorial Board to the small list of allies for No Games Chicago? Your old friends at No Games have moved on. Some of us are fighting TIF abuse at The TIF Report – http://tifreports.com and some are fighting the privatization of our public infrastructure, including the ever more likely sale of our water supply! See http://www.protectourpublicwater.net. Some are supporting the parents at The Whittier School in Pilsen – see http://www.saveourcenter.com.