Hey, there! Log in / Register

City Council wants its say on the Olympics

By adamg on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 5:51pm

A City Council committee on Friday considers setting up another committee to let councilors examine the implications of the 2024 Olympics bid.

New special committees need the consideration of Councilor Steve Murphy's Rules Committee before creation. Council President Bill Linehan proposed creation of the Olympics special committee.

Also Friday, the Rules Committee will look at creating a special committee to look at setting up a task force on the status of black/Latino men and boys following Mayor Walsh's veto of the idea because of his decision to participate in what he said was a similar program by President Obama. The committee will also consider the council's newfound love of the threate of subpoena to compel people to testify before it.

The hearing begins at 1 p.m. in the council's fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.

Neighborhoods: 
Boston
Topics: 
Politics
Free tagging: 
2024 Olympics
City Council
Steve Murphy
Bill Linehan


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

By FredQuimby on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 6:14pm.

Cost of the Olympics.

London 2012.

Initial Budget $4.4 billion
Actual Cost $14.6 billion

Beijing 2008

US$44 billion final operating budget.

Athens 2004

Initial Budget $6.2 billion
Actual Budget $15 billion

Big Dig Budget $2.8 billion
Big Dig Actual cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038

If anyone thinks Boston is going to do this on the cheap is smoking crack.
The Boston Olympics is going to come with a cost that everyone of us will be paying for the rest of our lives.

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 9:27pm.

All the politicos see is a MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR LOOTING AND GRIFT!

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 10:18pm.

I wish people would stop quoting bad sources like wikipedia - original bid estimate for the London Olympics was 4.4 billion POUNDS - which is roughly 7 billion dollars (not including a bunch of other stuff, like security, etc...). The 2007 estimate ended up at 9.3 billion pounds - which is the 14.6 billion number. the olympics actually ended up coming in at 8.9 billion pounds - which is about 13.5 billion USD.

Of this number - most of the increase came in the form of infrastructure improvements that they ended up throwing in AFTER PUBLIC INPUT - in reality - operations and venue construction (which is the ONLY hard number the Boston bid, btw) - came in around 5 billion USD. the rest was all security and infrastructure. Boston's bid is attempting to piggy-back on about 13 billion in transportation improvements that have been bonded (which btw, isn't nearly enough to cover everything that is truly needed sans olympics) - I think they're hoping they can squeeze a little out of that to fix other areas that would have needed improvements anyway. The real problem with their bid is that Massachusetts can't even fund the current yearly transportation bond cap because somebody voted against gas tax indexing.

Of course this isn't going to be "on the cheap," olympics aren't cheap - but these numbers are dog-whistle nonsense.

Here's a breakdown of actual costs for the London Olympics.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil...

up
Voting closed 0

By bosguy22 on Thu, 01/15/2015 - 9:02am.

It came in almost 100% over budget. Your point?

up
Voting closed 0

By JimGaffigan on Thu, 01/15/2015 - 9:29am.

Thats your fucking argument?

Heres an idea. How about we take that $13.5 BILLION plus another BILLION for Security, scrap it and do some more useful projects like:

Greenline Extension to Medford.
Red line - Blue line hookup from Bowdoin to Mass General.
North Station - South Station hookup.
And if we have any money left over, maybe turn the Silver Line into an actual light rail line instead of a glorified bus route.

up
Voting closed 0

By Finn on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 11:25pm.

The City Council is powerless - in the end, they'll take their orders from the 1%

up
Voting closed 0

By Lady Commentariat on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 7:20pm.

...so how do Bostonians feel about their councillors? I know where I moved from, I'd expect this move to be more motivated by making sure they got their piece of the pie before fleecing residents.

up
Voting closed 0

By merlinmurph on Thu, 01/15/2015 - 8:05am.

....the concept of a temporary 60,000 seat stadium boggles the mind. What a waste.

The Globe has an article about it here. Sorry, it may be behind a paywall, but here's a quote:

Benjamin Flowers, an associate professor of architecture at Georgia Tech, said a 60,000-seat stadium would be so large and complex that calling it a temporary structure would be inaccurate.

“What they are really saying is, build a full-on stadium and then demolish it,” said Flowers, who studies stadiums around the world. “It strikes me as a curious proposition to suggest investing the many hundreds of millions it would take to do that to then demolish it and take it down.”

You can easily make a temporary stadium, but whatever you build won't be cheap. What a waste.

up
Voting closed 0

By bulgingbuick on Fri, 01/16/2015 - 8:26am.

Olympics harrumph, harrumph, harrumph:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN99jshaQbY

up
Voting closed 0