US Olympic Committee Offers a Raw Deal to Boston Youth

[unhappycamper]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31513-us-olympic-committee-offers-a-raw-deal-to-boston-youth



Richard Davey, the chief executive of Boston 2024, the private group that is overseeing Boston's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Recent polling showed that only a third of Boston residents want the Olympics in their backyard. The majority are worried they will be stuck with the tab for cost overruns, and they have been annoyed by Boston 2024's lack of transparency.

US Olympic Committee Offers a Raw Deal to Boston Youth
Tuesday, 23 June 2015 00:00
By Britni de la Cretaz, Truthout | Op-Ed

Supporters of Boston's bid to host the 2024 Olympics are using the June 23 "Olympic Day" holiday to drum up support for a plan that, if approved, is sure to result in gentrification, displacement and increased surveillance throughout the city of Boston.

Boston 2024, the private group that is supporting the bid, has had the most success in garnering support by touting Boston's Olympic bid as a way to invest in youth sports. In fact, one of Boston 2024's core principles is that the bid would ensure that "youth sports opportunities are created for the young people of Massachusetts." But in Boston - a city where roughly half of public schools do not have a gymnasium and 30 percent don't have physical education of any kind, and where public schools continue to face huge budget cuts - it seems that promoting the Olympics as an investment in youth sports is misguided at best.

When Boston received the news that it had been "chosen" to receive the United States' bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games in December 2014, Bostonians weren't celebrating. Residents of Boston had no idea that their city was even up for the bid: Boston Mayor Marty Walsh had flown to California to pitch to the US Olympic Committee behind closed doors without hosting a public meeting to see if Boston even wanted to host the Games.

Since then, Boston 2024 has been on a campaign to win over residents. The group has hosted contentious community meetings, which have involved the mayor's cousin heckling and intimidating opponents of the bid. Boston 2024 has been unable to answer many questions about the bid itself and though its members have promised transparency, they have yet to provide it. They've attempted damage control, changing leadership just months after the bid was announced, and revising the bid after their initial one was poorly received. None of this seems to be helping; public support has sunk to a dismal 39 percent, according to the most recent polling data by WBUR, Boston's NPR news station.