Here is why:
It's “a three-week party for the global elite.”
I was getting that feeling from the corporati$ed atmosphere.
"Boston makes US short list for 2024 Olympics; Huge hurdles remain to land Summer Games" by Mark Arsenault | Globe Staff June 13, 2014
Boston’s improbable dream — to become host city for the 2024 Summer Olympics — is suddenly a bit more real.
The city has made the United States Olympic Committee’s “short list” of potential 2024 host candidates, the committee confirmed Friday. Los Angeles, the host of the successful 1984 Summer Olympics; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C., are also on the list.
Making the short list is only a baby step in an arduous process, but it keeps alive the possibility of a Boston Olympics.
City and state political leaders generally reacted positively to the committee’s vote of confidence, without committing themselves to supporting a full-blown Olympic bid. Hosting the Olympics could cost billions of dollars for infrastructure that must be designed to have a use after the Games.
“While promising, this is the first step in a very long process and provides us with the opportunity to begin exploring what this means for Boston long-term,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in a statement. “We intend to engage Boston residents, businesses, and community and neighborhood groups as we begin to discuss what it could mean for our neighborhoods and region.”
The committee’s board of directors trimmed the number of possible US host cities for the 2024 Summer Games to an official short list at a meeting Tuesday in Cambridge but declined at the time to reveal which cities made the cut. It appears San Diego and Dallas were eliminated at that meeting.
The cuts came after a 16-month process, during which the committee reached out to about 35 US cities to test interest in making a bid. Committee leaders have spent the last six months in discussions with a smaller group of interested cities that seemed to meet the initial requirements of hosting the international festival of sports.
“We’re extremely pleased with the level of interest US cities have shown in hosting the Games,” the committee’s chief executive, Scott Blackmun, said in a statement. “Boston, LA, San Francisco, and Washington have each given us reason to believe they can deliver a compelling and successful bid, and we look forward to continuing to explore the possibilities as we consider 2024.”
Boston’s pursuit of the Olympics has been driven by a group of prominent local business and civic leaders, led by Suffolk Construction chief executive John Fish, who have worked discreetly for months to identify potential sports venues and available land.
Related: Walsh Takes Up Residency
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Enormous hurdles remain before Boston could host an Olympics.
A successful bid is not possible without public support, and opponents of a Boston 2024 bid are organizing and reaching out to other groups that opposed Olympics in other cities.
“It’s great for Boston to be recognized as a world-class city, as the USOC did [Friday] by including Boston on the 2024 short list,” the group No Boston Olympics said in a statement sent by cochairman Liam Kerr. “But make no mistake — bidding on the Olympics is the wrong priority for Boston and our region. We have far more pressing challenges than throwing a three-week party for the global elite, one that comes with a $15 billion hangover.”
Another potential hurdle is that the committee has not yet decided whether it will put forth a US city to compete for the 2024 Games. The committee will spend roughly the next six to eight months performing “due diligence” on the cities that made its short list to determine whether any of them is capable of putting together a winning bid.
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The committee wants to be sure cities have plans to address “the really big-ticket items” required for an Olympics, such as an Olympic stadium, a village to safely house thousands of athletes during the Games, and a media and broadcast center....
Governor Deval Patrick said Friday that planning for the Games could be an opportunity to tackle “unmet transportation needs.” He praised proponents for “thinking big about the Commonwealth and projecting that into the world.”
Why are they unmet after eight years of Democrat dominance? WTF?
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said he was proud that Boston — “a well-managed, world-class city” — made the short list.
“At the same time, I’m acutely aware of the fiscal problems that have struck other host Olympic cities,” DeLeo said in a statement. “I plan to carefully review financial proposals and costs associated with hosting the Olympics.”
Senate President Therese Murray said she is “extremely supportive of the entire effort.”
“Events would be held all over the Commonwealth, not just in Boston, and it would benefit the entire state,” Murray said in a statement. “We should do whatever we can to move this process forward.”
Related: Putting the Globe on Probation
It's why she is not running for reelection and stepping down.
Two former governors and a former Boston mayor encouraged the city to explore a bid.
“I think we ought to go for it,” said former governor Michael Dukakis, a Democrat. “Of course, I am concerned about cost and about our ability to handle the financial burdens involved, but done right, it could help us continue to make Boston one of the world’s great cities.”
Former governor William Weld, a Republican, said, “the world would be thrilled to come to Boston.”
“I know from my travels that the leadership of most countries in the world is well aware of all that Boston has to offer — not least because they send the tuition checks here,” Weld said.
Added former mayor Ray Flynn: “If there is one thing that defines Boston, it is competition and sports. The Olympics is the ultimate sporting event in the world, so it’s really a natural fit.”
The fact that the elites of Bo$ton all agree makes me inclined to say site it someplace else.
Besides, if Mitt couldn't bring them here....
The United States has not hosted the Summer Olympics since 1996, in Atlanta. St. Louis hosted in 1904 and Los Angeles hosted in 1932 as well as 1984, according to the USOC.
Remember Atlanta?
The bomb that went off, the FBI framing of a security guard named Richard Jewell, who was just doing an effective and efficient job (no accounting for that, I suppose), and the eventual link to domestic terrorists?
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Also see:
Bringing the Olympics to Boston
Give Boston Olympics a chance
Boston group eyes Olympic venues
They can stay and the new convention center:
"State Senate OK’s convention center expansion" by Casey Ross | Globe Staff June 13, 2014
The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday approved a $1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center to help attract larger events to the facility and spur tourist spending into the state’s economy.
The 31-to-6 vote came after a lengthy debate, with several Republican senators sharply questioning the economic benefits of the proposal. They were overwhelmingly defeated by Democrats, who argued the project will generate more than $180 million a year in additional spending on meals, hotel rooms, and other products.
The Senate’s approval will allow construction of the expanded hall to begin within 18 months. The House has already signed off on the bill; Governor Deval Patrick must sign it, but his administration has already offered support.
The project will increase the size of the South Boston hall by 60 percent, adding a total of 1.3 million square feet of exhibit space, ballrooms, and meeting rooms. The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority is also pursuing a separate project to add a headquarters hotel near the facility with up to 1,200 rooms.
“It is our belief that the return for the taxpayers will be greater than the funds we are expending,” said Senator Brian A. Joyce, a Democrat from Milton, adding that the bill “protects taxpayers” by ensuring contracting for the project will be carefully monitored.
We have heard that before and it turned out not to be true!
Republican senators argued that expansion is a taxpayer-funded giveaway to an industry that may not generate the promised economic benefits.
That's why I call it Ma$$achu$hitts.
They pointed out that the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center failed to achieve some of the benefits initially projected, such as the number of hotel room stays it would generate.
Yeah!
In 1997, a consultant estimated construction of the center would results in 670,000 hotel room stays per year by 2009; instead, it only generated about 313,000 that year.
It generated LESS than HALF the JOBS PROMISED?!
“Apparently, the theory now in the Commonwealth is that if you build something and it doesn’t perform up to expectations, just make it bigger,” said Bruce Tarr, a Republican from Gloucester.
Stephen Brewer, a Democrat from Barre, said that the convention center proved to be a powerful economic engine for the state, attracting huge crowds of attendees and producing more than $620 million in additional spending last year. “I believe the economic vitality of having a world-class convention center is well worth it.”
Plus he wants a nice place to party!
James Rooney, executive director of the convention center authority, has said the expansion is needed because the Convention & Exhibition Center is not big enough to compete for the nation’s largest meetings and trade shows.
He has also said thousands of new hotel rooms must be built to accommodate show attendees.
The expansion of the convention hall itself will be funded from existing taxes and fees on hotel rooms, taxi rides, rental cars, and other-tourist related activities. Rooney has said the hotel project will probably need between $100 million and $200 million in subsidies.
We don't have it in this age of austerity. Go get it from those you are building it for.
In a statement last night, he thanked the Democratic leadership for supporting the bill. “The analysis of this expansion proposal has been going on for five years, and we are grateful that our lawmakers have undertaken such a comprehensive examination.”
Over the past several days, the expansion bill has undergone a flurry of amendments. The senate’s bonding committee stripped $110 million amid accusations from the state’s former inspector general that the money had been inserted as a hidden subsidy for the headquarters hotel project.
The bill approved last night also included language barring any of its fund from being used for the hotel project, as well as a provision that requires the convention center authority to notify the state’s inspector general if it deviates from state procurement procedures during the expansion effort.
Senator Mark Montigy, a New Bedford Democrat who voted against the expansion, sharply questioned the proposal and the need for additional hotel subsidies.
“The notion that we would need to subsidize private hotel developers in one of the hottest real estate markets in the world is nonsense,” he said.
Rooney has said, however, that the additional hotel rooms will pay off by attracting more business to the convention hall.
Cities around the country have routinely subsidized large hotel projects in recent years because private developers have been unwilling to accept the risk of building them entirely with their own funds.
Then it is $ociali$m, not capitali$m.
Hotels with some or 100 percent taxpayer financing have been built in Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.
$uckers!
Several companies have expressed interest in building the headquarters hotel in Boston, including MGM, Omni, Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The convention center authority will solicit formal bids for the project in coming months.
If funding for the hotel is approved, it would be built in concert with the expanded convention center over the next several years.
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Related: Look What Was Tucked Into the Convention Bill
The debt interest is more than the project itself. Looks fa$ci$t to me.
This will get you over to the arena:
"Horse-drawn carriage firms worried about BRA plan; Operators fear taking their horses across grated bridge" by Nestor Ramos | Globe Staff June 19, 2014
Leading horses to water is simple for Boston’s carriage drivers. Getting them across it is another matter.
That, carriage operators say, is why a plan to move the staging area for their horses across the river to Charlestown could sink their businesses. The Boston Redevelopment Authority is scheduled to vote Thursday on the proposal, which would turn over the current staging area on Northern Avenue to redevelopment.
The Charlestown site, near the Terminal Street boat launch, is about the same distance as the existing site from Faneuil Hall, where the carriages pick up passengers. But the journey from Charlestown requires the horses to cross the mouth of the Charles River on North Washington Street — a bridge with a section of iron grate decking that’s distinctly unfriendly to horses.
Because the horses can see the water below, “they think they’re going to fall through the bridge,” said driver Paul Bowman. That could cause the horses to spook, taking off in busy traffic with a driver in tow.
Or start pooping.
And, he said, the metal surface provides no traction for horseshoes, and the bridge’s condition could allow for a misplaced hoof to fall into a stray hole.
Now that would likely break the horse's leg, and that is just damn cruel.
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While some horse operators insist the move could mean the end of their business, the BRA does not seem inclined to back off its plan.
The Charlestown site was the only available option, said Nick Martin, director of communications for the BRA. It’s unfortunate, he said, if the spot doesn’t prove feasible for carriage operators.
“We’ve supported them for a number of years,” Martin said, including the recent effort to find a new staging area.
How many taxes you collect?
But the land on Northern Avenue has simply become too valuable. “We see this as being a favorable real estate market,” Martin said.
We can $ee who is running the city under Wal$h. Seems rather in$en$itive.
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If the plan is approved Thursday, the Northern Avenue land will soon be shopped to developers. The land is zoned industrial, the BRA’s Martin said, so its uses are somewhat limited.
“My feeling is the city is just pushing us out of business,” said Oscar Foster, who owns Elegant Touch Carriage and its two carriages. It’s a difficult business, he said, driven by uncertainty that’s both seasonal and day-to-day. On Wednesday, his carriages were not operating because the weather was too humid.
They are. They want you gone, and this is a good way to do it with it looking like they didn't want to do it.
The safety concerns presented by the bridge would be something else entirely. Foster once owned a horse trained to cross metal grates, but such horses are rare.
“The horses I got now? I don’t know,” he said.
Jake Kennedy, who founded Christmas in the City with his wife, Sparky, said potentially losing horse-drawn carriages downtown would deal a blow to Boston.
“I’m a downtown Boston guy,” Kennedy said. “We think it’s a great addition to the city and to tourism.”
Sutherland’s Bridal Carriage Co. donates rides to Christmas in the City every year, Kennedy said.
“If the city lost her, it would be horrible,” he said. “The horse-drawn sleigh ride going through the park is one of the best things we ever had.”
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Related:
Globe Tracks de Blasio's Trailblazing
Hay is For Horses
Must be the venue.
I've kicked this post around enough.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
BRA delays plan to move staging area for horse-drawn carriages
Watch where you step.
