Posted on 12/14/2009 6:28:18 PM PST by re_tail20
When Mayor Richard Daley spoke at the private and final meeting of Chicago 2016 volunteers, he was, according to one attendee, "in rare form." Another described him as "on a rant. It was straight off the cuff. ... He looked angry, and he was angry."
Now, we weren't there. The press was barred from last week's meeting at the Aon Center and the reception that followed at the private Mid-America Club on the top floor of the building. About 150 to 200 volunteers attended, and four shared their impressions on the condition of anonymity.
Daley started his remarks by calling on the federal government to financially back all future U.S. Olympic bids. It was too difficult for U.S. cities to raise the necessary funds in such short amounts of time, while their competitors often received financial assistance from their national governments, he said.
"He started by saying we spent $75 million, and the next city was going to have to spend $100 million, and we didn't even have a chance," said one attendee, paraphrasing the mayor, who was the driving force behind the bid. "It was all politics and all money. All politics and all money. (The International Olympic Committee) didn't care about the athletes, and they didn't care about the quality of the bid."
Another attendee said she came away from the 15-minute speech believing the city never understood the depth of its disadvantage. And Daley reportedly told the group that had the city known from the start that the International Olympic Committee was intent on taking the games to new regions of the globe, they never would have spent the time or the money on the effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
someone should tell the mayor the gerald celente is one of the ioc consultants
Right in the wheelhouse for Chicago democrats
the Chicago thug mafia...infamous for this POSs father and his influence at the 1968 DNC convention...and stealing the 1960 presidential election, and whose favorites son, is BHO...
......needs to be crushed like the little fascists that they are.....
I bet the people who put up that $75 mil are pissed at Daley.
That’s right. They were counting on the Obama “charisma” to carry the day for them. That’s why the Chicago Dems did whatever it took to get him in office...
Cry me a river.
Leni
After selling off the Skyway and the city parking concession, and almost immediately squandering the stack of money he got for them, Daley knew his only significant hope for replacing the lost revenues from those sources would be all the graft that would come with the Olympics.
Which means he’s in deep kimche as the bill comes due over the next few years, depending of course on how much walking around money he can score from his boy Obama.
He needs to go away; I hope he’s defeated for reelection. He was somewhat sane when he was first elected, but not anymore.
Didn’t a few people connected to the olympics “commit suicide” ?
I wonder how badly it hurt Daley.
“He needs to go away; I hope he’s defeated for reelection.”
Not gonna happen. He’s the mayor-for-life.
I think he is getting uncomfortable because he is being exposed for the crooked thug he is.
Chicago, you gave us the Obamaloon.
For this, you will never be forgiven.
Obama you!
I would think someone has to have a tape/video of that.
Have the summer Olympics perpetually in Greece, and stop the madness. It’s supposed to be about athletics, not advertising for cities and countries. I would personally pare down the Olympics to a lot fewer events. And, I would go back to the every four years format where the summer and winter Olympics occur in the same cycle. The staggered manner in which they are now doing it really dilutes Olympic anticipation that used to be there.
Why would you want to spend that kind of money to have your citizens lives disrupted for a year? Hosting the Olympics is a sucker's game for citys on an ego trip. It is not a boon anywhere. Other that the very few who will walk away with millions in profiteering, (That would be Dailey's motivation) it is a fiscal curse for the citizens. Think how many small strat-up enterprises and the employment they could provide in Chicago with $75 million in small business tax breaks?
I recall being in Atlanta a few months after the Olympics. All of the store fronts around the 'Centennial Park' or whatever they called it, were empty and boarded up. No taxes being collected --- not a penny. After dark, it was a ghost town outside the CNN tower full of beggers and worse.
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