Chicago 2016′s ward meetings wind down, but opposition, questions remain

City’s financial guarantees for Olympic Games raise concerns among residents

By Kathy Bergen

In a sweltering meeting room filled to overflowing, Bronzeville residents fired one question after another at Chicago’s 2016 Olympic boosters.

“If we can find these resources for an Olympics, why can’t we find them for year-round?” asked Kelly Saulsberry, a museum program coordinator, who said she found it “really troubling” that the city’s promises of youth sport programs and economic development were contingent on landing the Summer Games.

Her pointed question and comments, like many others aimed at the bid leadership during a 2 1/2 -hour session on the South Side, drew vigorous applause.

As the Chicago 2016 bid team winds down its 11th-hour sales blitz in the city’s 50 wards, it has become clear that the meetings have not doused the brush fires stoked in June when Mayor Richard Daley did an about-face, saying he would sign the host-city contract placing full financial responsibility for any losses on the city.

“People are just not buying into the spin coming out,” said Stephen Alexander, a senior research fellow at the Egan Urban Center at DePaul University, who has attended several meetings.

But just by enduring the grillings, the bid team may be helping its cause, observers say.

“While clearly there are some negatives coming out of it, I think … it probably has been good in terms of demonstrating some transparency and openness,” said public relations expert Jonathan Dedmon, a principal at the Dilenschneider Group.

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Last Chance to Attend Public Meetings

Chicago 2016 will be hosting its last four ward meetings.  Come out and hear what the city has to say about the bid, and let your voice be heard!

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Advisory Council on Asian Affairs / 50th Ward Meeting
August 22nd @ 11:00 a.m.
Warren Park – 6601 N. Western Ave.

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UNO / 14th Ward Meeting
August 24th @ 6:00 p.m.
UNO’s Veterans Memorial School Campus – 4248 W. 47th Street

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Little Village Chamber of Commerce / Little Village Community Council / 22nd Ward Meeting
August 24th @ 6:30 p.m.
Little Village Community Council Hall – 3610 W. 26th Street

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42nd Ward Meeting
August 25th @ 6:00 p.m.
Palmer House Hilton – 17 E. Monroe, Empire Room

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Organizers continue to rally support for Chicago’s Olympic bid

Organizers of Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics have spent more than a month traveling to neighborhoods to explain the city’s plan and to drum up support.

Chicago is one of four finalists — and the only U.S. city — vying for the hosting gig. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will select the winner in less than two months.

Selling The Games’ Benefits

On a recent day, Lori Healey, president of Chicago’s 2016 committee, and other officials answered questions and presented details about the city’s Olympic plan to residents of the 49th ward on Chicago’s far North Side.

The 49th ward will not be a site for any of Chicago’s planned Olympic venues, but on this day, the neighborhood library is packed with residents.

“You all know we’re competing against three world-class cities: Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Tokyo,” Healey tells the crowd.

Much of the talk centers around the economic benefits Chicago can expect if it wins the bid.

“Other cities that have hosted the games have seen a seven-fold increases in international tourism,” she says.

As an example, she points to Atlanta — the last city in the U.S. to host an Olympics, back in 1996. The presentation includes a clip from current Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who says the games increased Atlanta’s international visibility and its employment.

“People got educations,” Franklin says in the clip. “Educational institutions got stronger, and people got jobs and they expanded their businesses. There is no lose.”

And then there’s the clip from the supporter who’s probably Chicago’s most formidable weapon in this contest over the Olympics: President Barack Obama.

“Bringing Olympics to Chicago will be a capstone in the success that we’ve had in the last couple of decades in transforming Chicago, not only into a great American city, but into a great world city,” he says.

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Community Concerns Addressed During Town Hall Meetings

By Dan Kolen | August 2009

Reaching out to local residents, the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee visited Marshall High School’s auditorium on the West Side on July 14 in a meeting to discuss how the Olympics would affect communities if the City wins the Olympic bid.

The Olympics would provide an indoor track located in Douglass Park on the West Side, an Olympic Village in Bronzeville that would be transformed after the games into housing (around 30% affordable), and a “direct surplus to the City’s budget,” committee members claimed.

Many people who attended the meeting expressed concern about the Olympics, despite committee members’ rosy view. “They didn’t answer the questions, plain and simple,” said Maurice Robinson. “With the Olympics being here, the issues that are ahead of us — and thereare so many problems already — it’s hard to imagine what’s going to happen.”

Public transit

Concerning public transportation, the committee announced officials would arrange an additional bus system specifically for the people going to the games; no parking would be permitted around the games’ sites. Federal aid the City expects to get for transportation would “help immensely” to “permanently improve” the City’s transportation infrastructure, according to committee members.

“Both Atlanta and Salt Lake City benefited very significantly from federal transportation projects in their cities, so they would be ready for the games,” said Doug Arnot, the committee’s director of venues and games operations. “The existing system was improved in time for the games” and had a lasting impact, he noted.

Stephanie Patton, now a Chicago resident, lived in Atlanta in the lead-up to the 1996 games and said Atlanta did see a positive, permanent change in the infrastructure. For example, she noted, express lanes of certain thoroughfares were increased from three to five, although traffic still was massive.

“What happened was, though, during heavy traffic, the people of the city had to learn those back roads” during the games, she said. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics were held in a city growing and expanding, but Chicago is an already built-up city, with public transit plagued by frequent delays, fare hikes, and threats of service cuts. The comments by the committee therefore did not help calm the concerns many residents had about the permanent impact the games would have on public transportation.

“You certainly have your work cut out for you,” Lee Ford, a Garfield Park resident, said to Arnot, who expressed a negative view of “the public transportation access and the public transportation system in the City of Chicago.”

Public funding

On June 17, Mayor Richard M. Daley signed a contract with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) saying the City will take on full, unlimited financial liability for “planning, organization, and staging” the Olympics. The contract and issues pertaining to funding the games drew criticism from several attendees.

The IOC is “in bed with Mayor Daley.” Patton said. “If we get the Olympics, it’s going to be a travesty for Chicago. I feel strongly that with Mayor Daley’s leadership we’re going to have to go deep into our pockets.”

The committee members remained adamant that no taxpayer dollars would be used and that the City has not had to pay so far for planning the games. Despite the contract, the City “will not pay a dime for the games,” committee members asserted.

“No games since 1972 have lost money; all have turned a surplus,” said Lori Healey, president of the committee. “We also have additional insurance protection so we can cover costs on projects.”

Huge price tags are associated with many of the proposed structures: Olympic Village would cost $1 billion, a stadium in Washington Park just under $400 million, and the Douglass Park facility that would be converted into a permanent track and field center after the games would cost $37.1 million. The games’ total cost is estimated at around $4.8 billion.

To cover such massive costs, the City would receive more than one billion dollars from television rights, with private financiers paying the rest, committee members said.

“No taxpayer dollars are included in the budget,” Healey said. “We’re 100% privately financed. In fact, we expect to turn a $450 million surplus.”

Neighborhood impact

From reduced ticket prices for Chicago residents, to favorable vendor deals for locals, to World Sport Chicago’s (WSC) sports program for kids in Chicago, the committee outlined direct, positive effects of the Olympics for the community.

“It’s our commitment that World Sport Chicago grows and continues to grow,” Arnot said about the program that already has enrolled 30,000 of the 300,000 kids in Chicago Public Schools. The committee showed a short documentary during the meeting to highlight a gymnastics class for WSC. Those attending responded with skepticism about how much the program and committee really wanted to help the city.

“We had never heard of World Sport Chicago until today,” Patton said. “And with the games, we’re going to be made to feel like guests or prisoners in our own backyards.”

Some in attendance voiced support for the games, however.

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Unanswered questions and lack of trust remain after 2016 Olympics presentation to Chicago’s 1st Ward

Despite the slick audio and visual presentations sprinkled between hard sales pitches about the benefits of Chicago being the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics games site, questioning of facts and trust persist among some residents and 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores.

Presentation Review
Attendees at the 1st Ward location in VLive at 2047 N. Milwaukee were welcomed by many greeters eager to help with printed material and verbal information about Mayor Daley’s dream event, 2016 Olympics.   Large color pictures of proposed sites were placed on easels easily accessible to the visitors.  Chairs were setup facing large screens and a podium.

Patrick Ryan, CEO of the Chicago 2016 Committee, Lori Healey, President of Chicago 2016, and other members of their team spent over two hours attempting to convince a large audience that the games will transform the city in a way that nothing else can.

Ryan stated that the games will bring huge economic stimulus resulting in job creation, road and rail improvements and youth sport programs.  According to Ryan, only eight of the more than 100 voters on the International Olympics Committee had previously visited Chicago.  When they made the presentations to the IOC  all were impressed with the beauty and accessibility to the lakefront.  He therefore believes that putting the international spotlight on this city would generate more international interest for tourism.

Donna Shaw, VP of Marketing for the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, reported that last year forty-four million people visited Chicago but only 1.3% of those visitors were international. According to Shaw, the Olympics could quadruple the 139,000 jobs created last year.

On the topic of economic development, Healey stated that an independent impact study predicted that the economic impact of  $22.5 billion would occur over eleven years.  Whether the clock would start before or after 2016 was not addressed.

Healey noted that the added economic upside of those numbers is that it would increase tax revenues by approximately $1billion thereby generating more monies for parks and city services.  She also stated that there was a high likelihood that there would be federal funding.  Both Ryan and Healey seem to agree that the total Olympics price tag is currently $3.3 billion.

Though there are to be no sports venues in the 1st Ward, Healey emphasized that the 2016 Committee is looking for ways to bring tourists into the neighborhoods.  Knowing that Alderman Flores is a major proponent of “green,” she pointed out that the games are being called the Blue-Green games, with strategies that support both blue air and water and green parks and nature.  Their goal is to provide the city and its inhabitants with enhanced environments that will last into future generations.

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Daley’s Olympics dream only bruised as key test nears

Posted by Greg Hinz – Crain’s Blogs

I went out to listen the other night when Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 2016 Olympics “listening” tour hit my ward, fully expecting Team Daley to get clobbered.

Olympics critics have been on a roll lately, ever since the mayor let it slip after a meeting in Europe that Chicago taxpayers would after all have to guarantee the whole $4.8-billion-plus shooting match. If there’s a place where folks don’t like to have their pockets picked, and are smart enough to know when that’s happening, it’s on the liberal lakefront, where I live.

But in the end, though the critics raised valid questions at the meeting, it was the pro side that impressed.

The critics huffed and puffed and rolled their eyes and wildly exaggerated: No, Monroe Harbor is not going to be emptied of boats for four years, as one speaker suggested. No, the lakefront bike path is not going to be decimated by hordes of Ukrainian wrestlers in SUVs or slow moving construction crews, as another hinted.

The message from the anti side was that everything is hunky dory, just the way it is today. The parks are in perfect condition, Chicago doesn’t need the international image boost that a successful games could provide, yadda, yadda, yadda.

In comparison, the Chicago 2016 bid committee crew was cool and collected, without a trace of the arrogance that the critics wore like a cheap suit. They knew their stuff.

When, for instance, one speaker belabored Chicago 2016 for not creating new park land by putting the games on toxic waste and other fringy sites, officials promptly responded that doing so would invite the kind of risky financial excess that they are trying to prevent.

Game, set, match.

Some confirmation of that view landed in my in box this morning, when U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Evanston, announced that the House had unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Chicago bid.

“I can’t think of a better place to host these games,” Ms. Schakowsky said in a somewhat breathless press release. “Chicago boasts a magnificent skyline and a diverse population that prides itself not only on its history but on what will be achieved in the future.”

Now, Ms. Schakowsky is a charter member of the lakefront liberal alliance. She’s represented the north end of the city lakefront — in Congress, and earlier as a state rep — for two decades. And if she can engage in such a full slobber over Mr. Daley’s dream despite recent occurrences, guess what? Maybe she’s concluded that those recent occurrences don’t mean much.

That said, Mr. Daley and his Olympics dream are about to enter a critical phase. The City Council is set to vote late next month on whether to authorize that total guarantee after receiving an outside financial review by a firm hired by the Civic Federation.

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Inside the 2nd Ward Olympic Forum

No Games Chicago is a no show

by Bernard Ramos

After Mayor Daley remarked that he will sign the standard city contract guaranteeing the games’ finances in Switzerland last month, Chicago 2016 decided to hold several community forums for all Chicago’s fifty wards in fifty days. The Committee had to not only drum up support from the residents but they also had to quell any concerns that taxpayers’ money might be used to fund the games. The Second Ward, led by Alderman Bob Fioretti and one of the big downtown wards that would be affected by the Olympic Games had its chance to voice out their concerns at the UIC Forum in the University Village on Tuesday.

The most important topic of the meeting was the financial guarantees, which Lori Healey, the Chicago 2016 president, delved into the details right away.  She reassured the audience that the city’s commitment of up to $500 million, the state’s $250 million share and the additional $1 billion insurance guarantees would never be touched because of the assumption that no recent US Olympic games have lost money, and revenues would be pouring in from ticket sales and many major sponsors would pay to have a piece of the pie, and Ms. Healey touting the Central Time Zone as the most lucrative TV market in the world. The Chicago 2016’s $3-plus billion conservative budget also included the premiums to pay for the insurance guarantees.

Almost a full hour was designated for questions and the first concern that was brought up used the Athens games as an example of excessive cost overruns and white elephants. Ms. Healey defended the Chicago games that it would not be similar to the Athens games because most of the city’s venues and infrastructures are already in place and the fact that Athens had to build an international airport.

One local business owner asked the committee how small businesses can participate in the business aspect of the games without being trumped by the big-time sponsors. Another attendee raised some concerns about the possible displacement of local residents when the Olympics come to town and quickly drew Mr. Fioretti’s attention and countered the notion of displacement as unfounded. The Committee explained that the planned Olympic Village will be located in what is now the shuttered-Michael Reese Hospital and provided the prospects of additional housing, especially senior housing, possible students dorms, apartments and retail development in the underserved area.

Another issue the Committee tackled was the fact that these future housing units would not flood the current real estate market until 2017. Furthermore, the Committee reassured one South Loop woman who inquired how local residents will be affected with the influx of tourists and spectators within the immediate venues in the Near South Side. Part of the plan is to have spectators use their venue/event tickets as passes for free transportation so that car traffic would be limited to local residents. Venue parking garages and lots would not be used to guarantee minimal disruption in the local area and promote public transportation and foot traffic.

Ms. Healey quipped that the largest possible event would most likely be the opening ceremonies and that alone would attract about 80,000 spectators which pales in comparison with the 4th of July Fireworks during the Taste of Chicago—which attracts at least a million people without so much incident. A woman who was involved with a youth track and field program drew applause from the audience after raising the prospects of leaving several sports facilities after the games for the underserved kids in the area, especially the obvious lack of track and field venues.

One big surprise was the lack of anti-games questions or concerns that were expected to cloud such community meetings, especially from the diverse and dense Second Ward.  But what the audience unexpectedly heard were the gung-ho attitude of one downtown worker asking for more visionary developments beyond the games and another man quoting the clichéd Burnham mantra “make no small plans.” Another attendee, who apparently attended the other previous meetings, commended the Chicago 2016’s consistency in delivering the facts and information for not just telling the neighborhood what they want to hear, but also what they need to hear. Being a former chief-of-staff of the mayor, Ms. Healey certainly controlled the discussion and seemed to calm any doubts on the Committee’s delivering the Games. This community forum’s views may be different from the rest of the forty-nine wards, but it was definitely a major win for the Chicago 2016 Committee.

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Skeptics and supporters

By MICAH MAIDENBERG

Chicago 2016, the group organizing the city’s bid to host the Olympic Games seven years from now, brought its traveling road show to the Near West Side on Tuesday night, and was greeted by a crowd that included both supporters and skeptics.

Proposed Chicago 2016 Olympic Village
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Lori Healy, president of the bid organization and Mayor Daley’s former chief of staff, cast the chance to host the Olympics as a singular event that would create jobs, boost the number of international tourists visiting Chicago and jumpstart development.

“People are losing jobs. Businesses are closing. Tourism is down, and tax revenues — very, very importantly — tax revenues coming into local municipal government are shrinking,” Healy told the audience. “The Games provides a unique opportunity to spur new economic growth.”

The forum lacked some of the critics who have bird-dogged Chicago 2016 from the city’s neighborhoods to Lausanne, Switzerland, where the International Olympic Committee met with Chicago’s bid team last month. But residents — many of whom support the bid — had their own concerns about the Olympics in Chicago, peppering Healy and other bid leaders about cost overruns, the impact on homeowners and possible displacement of low-income renters.

There was plenty of praise, too.

“It’s time for us to start being visionary and not being scared about spending money. Because it’s an investment. You would invest in your home. It’s time to invest in your city,” said Butler Adams, an architectural tour guide who lives in Woodlawn, to applause.

“I just think that Chicago is a great city. It needs to be on the map. It needs to be international. Even in this country, people don’t think of Chicago,” said Eileen Kaplan, of the South Loop, explaining her support before the meeting started.

Healy walked through Chicago 2016’s budget assumptions during her presentation, which project $3.3 billion in costs and $3.8 billion in revenues brought in by sponsorships, ticket sales and broadcast rights, for a net profit in operations of about $450 million.

A so-called safety net for cost overruns includes the $450 million profit; $500 million and $250 million in non-appropriated commitments from the City of Chicago and state government, respectively; and a $1 billion dollar private insurance policy that Chicago 2016 hasn’t purchased yet.

In June, Mayor Richard Daley made a verbal commitment to sign the standard host city contract should Chicago be chosen for the games; the contract opens the prospect of unlimited taxpayer liability for the games.

Cost of the Games — and cost overruns — were on the minds of more than a few people Tuesday.

“I like the idea of the Olympics, but I have some reservations and concerns. One of them is there’s a lot of cost overruns with the Olympics,” Peter Antonopoulos, who attended the 2004 games in Athens, said during the question-and-answer sessions. “In Athens and in Greece, they’re paying for the Olympics for the next 30 years.”

May Toy, the West Loop-based parks activist, said after the meeting that being involved in local park issues made her skeptical of the Chicago 2016’s budget.

“I’m not saying these improvements are not good,” she said. “Millennium Park is beautiful. But the cost overruns were astronomical.”

Fred Ash, a South Loop homeowner, worried the legacy of the Olympic Village’s conversion into condo units would hammer Near South homeowners, actually stripping them of real estate-based wealth.
“We currently have a very depressed market because supply vastly exceeds demand. We have a wave of more units yet to come online, that are under construction now,” he said. “We could have a tsunami with what the Olympic Village is going to dump on the market.”

Healy and other panelists took the critical questions in stride, promising no displacement of the poor and ample chances for jobs and contracts for Chicago workers and small business operators.

To Ash’s question, Healy said more people are expected to move to downtown Chicago, creating demand, and the Olympic Village units wouldn’t be coming on the market until 2017.

Healy told Antonopoulos that Chicago’s Games would not be like Greece’s because “we don’t have to build venues and infrastructure like many of the past cities have done.” The roads and airports and most of the stadiums — McCormick Place, United Center, the UIC Pavilion, among them — are already in place.

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Bid for Olympics on the hot seat

Use of parkland is criticized during forum in Lakeview

By David Heinzmann and Kathy Bergen | Tribune reporters

Chicago 2016 leaders gave their regular presentation Monday, telling a community forum in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood that the Olympics would be a privately funded spectacle that would raise the city’s profile globally.

But unlike a string of recent meetings, after the bid team put its best foot forward, it was immediately hit with counter-presentations from critics who fear that the Summer Games could gravely damage the city.

While bid officials hoped to allay fears particular to Lakeview residents, such as the impact of venue construction to a lakefront bird sanctuary and further congestion to a crowded neighborhood, they had to defend the bid from attacks on multiple fronts.

Sharing the stage with bid officials were Tom Tresser of No Games Chicago, which opposes the games, and Erma Tranter, president of Friends of the Parks. While Tranter doesn’t oppose the Games outright, her group fears that the current plan would permanently mar some parks and burden the Chicago Park District with facilities it later won’t be able to afford to operate.

Tresser said he believes that the Olympics would be a boondoggle from beginning to end.

“We’re broke. We have no money. We’re incompetent and corrupt, and we’ll bungle it,” Tresser said.

Much of the debate Monday focused on the use of the parks for Olympic venues. Tranter said her group still wants the 80,000-seat Olympic stadium moved out of Washington Park. But the stadium in Washington Park is a centerpiece of the Olympic plan.

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Community Meetings with Chicago 2016

Come out to the Chicago 2016 Community Meetings

CALENDAR

July 18 11:30 a.m. 1st Ward Meeting VLive Chicago – 2047 N. Milwaukee Ave.

July 20 5:30 p.m. 13th, 18th, 23rd Ward Meeting Richard J. Daley College – 7500 S. Pulaski, Room 1307

July 21 6:00 p.m. 2nd Ward Meeting UIC Forum – Main Hall D

July 22 6:00 p.m. 29th Ward Meeting Columbus Park Refectory – 500 S. Central Ave.

July 30 5:30 p.m. 30th, 31st Ward Meeting TBD

August 3 5:30 p.m. 24th Ward Meeting TBD

August 4 6:00 p.m. 27th Ward Meeting First Baptist Congregational Church – 1613 W. Washington

August 4 6:00 p.m. 10th Ward Meeting Knights of Columbus Hall – 11201 S. Ewing

August 5 TBD 19th Ward Meeting TBD

August 5 TBD 49th Ward Meeting TBD

August 6 6:30 p.m. 37th Ward Meeting Amber Hall – 1140 N. Lamon

August 8 TBD 47th Ward Meeting TBD

August 13 TBD 36th, 38th, 41st Ward Meeting Wright College

August 17 TBD 46th, 48th Ward Meeting Truman College

August 19 TBD 32nd Ward Meeting TBD

Click here for updated information