Results tagged “2016bid”

1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores is moving forward with his plans to introduce an ordinance in the City Council to limit the city's Olympic liabilities. "While I remain a strong supporter of hosting the Olympic Games here at home and believe that the Games can provide an economic boost to our city," Flores said in a press release. "We must pursue the Olympic bid in a financially responsible and transparent manner." Flores would like to restrict the city's liability to $500,000,000 should the city win the bid to host the 2016 Summer Games. Mayor Daley signed a contract with the International Olympic Committee earlier this month in Switzerland, leaving taxpayers on the hook for unlimited damages.

Amid the growing controversy over Mayor Daley's signature on a financial guarantee for the 2016 Summer Games, the city's bid team met yesterday with aldermen behind closed doors. Mayor Daley's Intergovernmental Affairs Office informed aldermen of the meetings, which started at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall. Mayoral spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard denied that the meeting were secret. "The 2016 team walked into a public building in broad daylight right past a crowd of reporters that the team knew was waiting there and proceeded to brief aldermen as part of the same process that had been in place for decades," Heard told the Tribune. "First, aldermen are given the opportunity to ask questions and hear the facts in private. This allows them to develop a well-informed opinion before they air them publicly." Chicago 2016 spokeswoman Mica Matsoff echoed that sentiment, saying that the meetings were a decision the bid team made "as we're going through this in in real time and hearing things and responding to them."

As the backlash against Mayor Daley's Olympic commitments grows, 1st Ward Ald. Manny Flores is now saying that he will introduce an ordinance that will limit the city's liability for the Games to $500 million. Daley signed a contract last week with the International Olympic Committee, committing the city to assume unlimited financial liability for the "planning, organization and staging of the Games." Chicago has already guaranteed $500 million in backing for the Olympics.

When it all started, Mayor Daley said the taxpayers would bear no additional costs from his 2016 Olympic dream. We'd get the Games, development would be spurred on, and glory would come to Chicago. And the taxpayers would only reap benefits, from the redevelopment of Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital campus to revamped venues all over the city.