Today is the day that the International Olympic Committee makes or breaks Mayor Richard M. Daley’s decade. Should the IOC select Chicago as the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics, Daley can return to Chicago triumphantly and consider retirement with his crowning legacy cemented.
Should the IOC choose Madrid, Tokyo or, most likely, Rio de Janeiro, Daley returns to Chicago empty-handed with big questions about his future. Daley used to be known as a successful big-city mayor who was “good” for the city. Of course he was. The city’s economy was booming, and Chicago was relatively manageable.
Today, the city’s sales tax is over 11 percent, the city’s residents are still up in arms over a parking meter deal in which parking rates tripled at the start of the year, the CTA’s equipment and infrastructure is crumbling, and crime is out of control in some neighborhoods.
Getting the Olympics won’t cure those problems, but it might not be disastrous either. Pardon me if I don’t stage a major celebration nor cry a river after the result comes out around 11:30 a.m. local time.
AIP blogger Despina Karras detailed exactly why the city shouldn’t host the Olympics on AIP Tuesday, but the damage might have already been done. Preparing this bid has cost the city an estimated $100 million. By winning the Games, Chicago could turn this into a successful endeavor yet, even if it means bringing in someone at the 11th hour a la Mitt Romney and the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Remember that the last three Olympics in the United States were largely successful events.
The problem is Chicago’s politicization of the games. The venues for the Olympics were chosen because to curry favor with South Side politicians as the North Side neighborhoods have largely been the beneficiaries of the city’s economic growth. Mayor Daley is driving the bid with a big assist from the White House, namely Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett. And of course, President Obama is flying over the Atlantic to give his all-important pitch before burning some more jet fuel to return to Washington and more mundane matters like health care and foreign affairs.
Chicago is a great city independent of, or more precisely, in spite of, its government.
Unfortunately, the Chicago committee doesn’t seem to know that, like the Beijing organizers. The Chinese government took control of the Beijing Games. A critical remark about the government was taken as an insult of the people. Government influence was everywhere.
When Los Angeles hosted the games in 1984, President Ronald Reagan attended the opening ceremonies in his adopted hometown. And then, he exited stage right. The event was a success in that the most countries ever participated, in that it made money, and in that the Soviet Union’s absence was hardly missed.
But Los Angeles’ people — not its government — shared the spotlight. Will that be the case in Mayor Daley’s and President Obama’s Chicago? I hope so.
Finally, it will cost a lot of money. Whether private enterprise turns it into a net positive remains to be seen. One thing is for certain: it could have been much less risky. And both Obama and Daley know it.
As Air Force One made its trek over the Atlantic, maybe Obama thought back nine years ago, when he voted “yes” in the Illinois Senate on renovating Soldier Field. The project cost more $600 million dollars, and the state and city were left with an open-air stadium with 6,000 fewer seats and a smaller playing field than before.
The state could have paid for a larger stadium with a dome that could be used to host more than a handful of events a year. A larger playing field would have allowed Soldier Field to be the main Olympic Stadium.
When Obama spoke in Springfield in favor of the project, he claimed it didn’t cost the state a penny. Wrong! The city collected the funds through a new hotel tax, which of course cost the state. In addition to making a trip to Illinois’ largest city that much more expensive, the tax to pay for the stadium could not pay for the state’s schools, pension system, infrastructure or property tax relief.
Or it could have helped pay for Mayor Daley’s Olympic adventure.
T. J. Brown's Bio
T.J. Brown is a small business executive by day and a freelance writer by night. He earned a Bachelor's of Arts in Journalism at Indiana University and an MBA from Loyola University Chicago. He lives in Northbrook, Ill. and can be reached at comments@tjbrown.com.
Posted
10-02-2009 12:01 AM
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