e year mark before the start of the London 2012 games, “Dear Members of the International Olympic Committee” tells the inside story of the No Games Chicago campaign!
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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, …
An international group of citizens has emerged to oppose the 2014 Winter Games to be held in Sochi Russia. NoSochi2014 lists 14 reasons for opposing the games.
The Sochi Olympics of 2014 will be the 150th commemorative year of the Circassian Genocide. Choosing Sochi as the site of the Winter Olympics, in such an auspicious year for the Russians, represents the perpetual celebration of Imperial Russia’s oppression and systematic murder of the Circassian People. Building the Olympic Village over the mass graves of the victims symbolizes the virtual erasing of this atrocity! Read the rest of the declaration.
On April 30, 2011 No Games Chicago was honored by the Chicago Audubon Society as a Protector of the Environment for our work on stopping the 2016 Olympics from coming here. “Congratulations! The Chicago Audubon Society has just selected the recipients of its Biennial Environmental Awards. I am very pleased to tell you that “No …
From The New York Times, February 23, 2011, a story headlined “In Vancouver, a new Effort to Sell Olympic Condos.”
A year after the winter games, fewer than half of the 737 condos have been sold — almost all as preconstruction sales in 2007 — and the city’s taxpayers now owe about 750 million Canadian dollars for a project that was never intended to be a public sector development.
A local developer has the last word in the article and says “Olympic Village is going to be a financial failure,” and predicts losses in the “hundreds of millions.”
No Games Chicago said as much from the beginning. As a new Mayor takes over here, we can all be thankful that a multi-billion dollar sinkhole is NOT on his agenda.
The No Games Chicago campaign was nominated for “Most Valuable Campaign” for Roots Camp and The New Organizing Institute. The winners will be announced in mid-December.
The Battle for the Olympic Bid – What Happened and What’s Next Organizers with No Games Chicago tell their story at The Experimental Station on how the battle for the Olympic bid was won by a grassroots effort and what it holds in store for Chicago’s future Mayor. Tom and Bob tell the story of …
Tom talked about the story and strategy behind the No Games campaign at the College of Complexes. This video is divided into three sections – the first part is the story and is about 45 minutes. The second is questions from the audience. The third is mostly unrelated to the No Games narrative.
All of 30 people made it to The Experimental Station Tuesday night to hear No Games organizers Bob Quellos and Tom Tresser reveal the story behind the “Battle for the Bid.” A conversation was at least started about what lessons for civic Chicago can be taken from the bid process and the opposition to it. …
PUBLIC FORUM – TUESDAY – OCTOBER 12, 7PM – 8:30PM
THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION – 6100 S. BLACKSTONE AVENUE
On October 2, 2010 Chicago lost its bid to produce and host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. For some, the decision was a shattering blow to the ego of the city and a monumental defeat for the city’s powerful, led by Mayor Daley. To others it was a triumph of grass roots community organizing in face of the most powerful people on the planet. On one side there was the 2016 Committee led by Pat Ryan, the founder of AON Insurance and… Lori Healey, the former Chief of Staff to Mayor Daley and behind them stood the entire Chicago business, media, academic, philanthropic and nonprofit communities.
The 2016 Committee had access to almost unlimited resources, raised $90 million and had the support of all elected officials in Illinois and the President of the United States. On the other side stood a organized group of concerned citizens called No Games Chicago who had virtually no resources, no office and less than a handful of allies. The “battle for the bid” has never been told publicly. It represents a major teaching moment in the life of the city. Even more so as Mayor Daley has announced his retirement.
Some say the loss of the Olympics was a factor in his decision. If this is the case, it’s very fitting to take some time at the one year anniversary of the decision by the International Olympic Committee to ask what happened, why and what does it portend for Chicago’s future?
The battle for the bid offers telling lessons on a number of fronts. This was a clash of two fundamentally different views of how to make a city prosperous. It was about local politics and who gets to decide the fate of neighborhoods. It was about Big Contracts and inside players. It was about privatization of public assets with no public debate. It was about wrestling with the question of “What is a city for?” and “How do we use the resources of a city to make opportunity happen?” It was about democracy, dissent and fear. It was about old school organizing and new school technologies. It was about nose counting and strategic messaging. Happening, ironically, during the one hundredth anniversary of the Burnham Plan, the battle for the bid engendered virtually no such discussion while it was in full swing.
Now, one year later, an examination of the battle will help set up just about every relevant issue that the city will be facing as it picks its next mayor. It is our hope that the story of the battle for the bid will help frame and inform the civic work that will be unfolding in Chicago. (more…)