As reported by NBC Chicago online: The White House on Thursday signaled that President Barack Obama was unlikely to travel to Copenhagen to personally deliver Chicago’s final pitch to the International Olympic Committee – a decision that would be a blow to his hometown’s prospects for landing the 2016 games. IOC members will vote to …
Surprising no one, the Chicago City Council voted this afternoon (Wednesday, September 9) unanimously to approve Mayor Daley’s blank check for the 2016 Olympics.
Mayor Daley wanted this bid and to have a competitive Olympic bid you have to sign a blank check. The Mayor knew this. The 2016 Committee knew this. No Games Chicago knew this. The Aldermen should’ve known it.
What the Mayor wants, he gets.
People of Chicago – you have been totally abandoned. No one is looking out for you. Not the Aldermen – who heaped praise on the Mayor for his vision and courage. Not the local cheer leading media and not the business community. Not the nonprofit groups who collect donations supposedly to protect the common good.
Only No Games Chicago has been telling you the truth about the Olympic scam. We have been the only voice offering unbiased academic research on our web site, news from other host cities and asking tough questions at every opportunity. We have no support from any downtown organization, no funding and we are all volunteers. The 2016 Committee has raised $75 million to sell the bid.
We’d like to remind Chicago or a few important points:
So the City Council is set to sign the Mayor’s 2016 blank check and will give oversight of our taxes for the games to Alderman Ed Burke, Chairman of the City Council Finance Committee. This clearly won’t work for Chicago’s taxpayers. The Alderman has so many conflict of interests representing firms that do business with …
As reported online by the Chicago Sun-Times: The City Council’s Finance Committee today set the stage to remove the single-biggest impediment to Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid — by authorizing Mayor Daley to sign a host-city contract that amounts to an open-ended guarantee from Chicago taxpayers. Chicago’s reluctance to match the blank-check promise to cover Olympic …
From CLTV’s “Garrard McClendon Live.” Watch No Games organizer Tom Tresser on the September 2 show. Olympic nonsense in the ghetto Garrard McClendon on 09.02.09 | 6 comments // | Watch Garrard’s commentary on Olympics. Mayor Daley should concentrate on gun violence before the Olympics. I would rather see billions spent on eradicating crime than …
No Games volunteers visited this class On Tuesday, September 1. It’s one of many, many such events our organizers have attended at no charge and without pay to themselves. We’re just saying – if someone WANTS to lay a six-figure salary on us, that would be great. In the mean time, we are available to …
Patrick Kissane of Chi-Town Daily News thinks that public subsidies of for-profit sports stadiums are rip offs. And he thinks the 2016 Olympics would be one, too… We live in a truly Orwellian place called Chicago. Guided by the mayor and the local Olympic boosters, we are being sold tripe about the economic benefits to …
As reported in today’s Chicago Tribune:
Support in Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games has dwindled, with residents now sharply divided over whether the city should host the Games, a Tribune/WGN poll has found.
Nearly as many city residents oppose Mayor Richard Daley’s Olympic plans, 45 percent, as support them, 47 percent. And residents increasingly and overwhelmingly oppose using tax dollars to cover any financial shortfalls for the Games, with 84 percent disapproving of the use of public money.
Mindful Metropolis’s Jacob Wheeler reviews the Olympic possibilities in the September issue: Will Chicago’s bid for the 2016 games adorn the Windy City in beautiful rings or lock it in handcuffs? Imagine two glorious weeks of summer when the entire world comes to nearby Chicago — which is our local city, judging by the number …
As reported in the Chicago Sun-Times:
Mayor Daley’s chief of staff got a whopping 41 percent pay raise — to $250,000 a year — when she jumped off the City Hall merry-go-round to become president of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid.
Even with that $72,784-a-year pay raise, former chief of staff Lori Healey is not the bid team’s highest-paid executive, according to Chicago 2016’s “Stewardship Report” of $48.3 million in Olympic spending.
That distinction goes to chief operating officer David Bolger, with an annual salary of $300,000.
Six-figure salaries also are paid to Chief Bid Officer John Murray ($250,000); Doug Arnot, venue and operations ($250,000); Chief Financial Officer Rick Ludwig ($200,000); and Chief Governance Officer Kevann Cooke ($200,000). Others are Valerie Waller, marketing and communications ($190,000); Cassandra Francis, Olympic Village planning ($175,000); international relations specialist Deb Fiddelke ($150,000) and Patricia Rios, administration ($135,000).