The Olympic Challenge
September 9, 2009 No CommentsFinance Committee signs off on blank-check Olympic promise
We learn today, from the Chicago Sun-Times, that the Chicago Finance Committee has prepared to offer a blank check to the International Olympic Committee in an attempt to become the host city for the 2016 games. The apparent quid pro quo of this deal was that the Finance Committee got the go-ahead in exchange for the Chicago City Council’s ability to have extraordinary oversight into the planning should Chicago win its bid.
“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 losses made by Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro was the major criticism cited by the International Olympic Committee in an evaulation report issued last week.”
We are happy that more transparency should be shined into a system that so impatiently sent through a measure privatizing parking meters (a measure binding the city for 75 years and costing over $1 billion).
We are concerned about something else though: in the midst of unparalleled economic challenges, how can the city of Chicago and people of Illinois afford this? There must be a greater effort on behalf of the City Counsel of Chicago and in fact all Chicago leaders to explain how this will be productive and cost-efficient.
Currently, Illinois is operating with a debt of over $100 billion and a deficit projection of over $10 billion. Pension obligations are being ignored. Our infrastructure system is crumbling. We have had one capital bill in ten years. Social service payments are dwindling to irrelevance. Our state education investments are 2nd to last in the nation.
And now is the time to be spending billions of dollars on games?
You should never have desert before you’ve eaten your vegetables. We think that the Chicago Finance Committee, Chicago and all other Illinois leaders need to stand up and demonstrate how the Olympic Games will get us out of the rut-and not push us further down into it.
We are at a critical moment in the history of Illinois, economically and otherwise; we need to view every investment as a means to propel us forward into the 21st century. So, we challenge this group with illustrating the following:
- How will an investment into the Olympic Games provide for a more stable economy in the future?
- How will vulnerable groups be protected before and during the Olympic Games?
- How will the promise of transparency be translated into effect to avoid the appearance or reality of corruption and graft?
On these matters and others we will continue to push for more dialogue and explanation.
We learn today, from the Chicago Sun-Times, that the Chicago Finance Committee has prepared to offer a blank check to the International Olympic Committee in an attempt to become the host city for the 2016 games. The apparent quid pro quo of this deal was that the Finance Committee got the go-ahead in exchange for the Chicago City Council’s ability to have extraordinary oversight into the planning should Chicago win its bid.
“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 losses made by Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro was the major criticism cited by the International Olympic Committee in an evaulation report issued last week.”
We are happy that more transparency should be shined into a system that so impatiently sent through a measure privatizing parking meters (a measure binding the city for 75 years and costing over $1 billion).
We are concerned about something else though: in the midst of unparalleled economic challenges, how can the city of Chicago and people of Illinois afford this? There must be a greater effort on behalf of the City Counsel of Chicago and in fact all Chicago leaders to explain how this will be productive and cost-efficient.
Currently, Illinois is operating with a debt of over $100 billion and a deficit projection of over $10 billion. Pension obligations are being ignored. Our infrastructure system is crumbling. We have had one capital bill in ten years. Social service payments are dwindling to irrelevance. Our state education investments are 2nd to last in the nation.
And now is the time to be spending billions of dollars on games?
You should never have desert before you’ve eaten your vegetables. We think that the Chicago Finance Committee, Chicago and all other Illinois leaders need to stand up and demonstrate how the Olympic Games will get us out of the rut-and not push us further down into it.
We are at a critical moment in the history of Illinois, economically and otherwise; we need to view every investment as a means to propel us forward into the 21st So, we challenge this group with illustrating the following: century.
· How will an investment into the Olympic Games provide for a more stable economy in the future?
· How will vulnerable groups be protected before and during the Olympic Games?
· How will the promise of transparency be translated into effect to avoid the appearance or reality of corruption and graft?
On these matters and others we will continue to push for more dialogue and explanation.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.