LA Moves Closer to Bid for 2024 Olympics

[Sysop3]

A view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum during the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, in Los Angeles, on August 12, 1984.


The Los Angeles City Council cleared the way Tuesday for Mayor Eric Garcetti to strike agreements for a 2024 Olympics bid, putting the city on the verge of becoming the U.S. contender after Boston's awkward collapse.

With the 15-0 vote, the U.S. Olympic Committee is expected to announce shortly that Los Angeles is the replacement candidate for 2024, about a month after Boston was dropped from contention amid shaky public support and questions about taxpayer spending and liability.

Garcetti has said Los Angeles, home to the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, would stage games both spectacular and profitable.

The city's selection as the U.S. nominee would mark the start of a long competition. The International Olympic Committee will pick the host city in 2017, and Rome, Paris, Hamburg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, are also in pursuit of the 2024 Games.

A key issue has been whether approval of the resolution would saddle Los Angeles with potential cost overruns for an event that historically runs over budget. Council members were assured repeatedly that the approval starts a negotiation with Olympic officials and does not commit taxpayers to future spending to stage the Games.

"This is the engagement, not the wedding," Council President Herb Wesson said.

The council's vote authorizes Garcetti to execute agreements related to the bid, which outlines over $6 billion in public and private spending. The city's 2024 plan calls for staging events from volleyball on Santa Monica Beach to mountain biking in Griffith Park, one of the nation's largest urban green spaces.

The vote comes after council members received assurances from city lawyers that the resolution would not expose taxpayers to unchecked spending or debt. A so-called host city contract, which essentially sticks the city and state - not the IOC - with the burden of any cost overruns, became an obstacle in Boston.

For Los Angeles, a host city contract would come later, if the city is selected to stage the 2024 Games. For now, that temporarily pushes aside looming questions about costs.

Over the years Olympics have been notorious for cost overruns, and studies have questioned if host cities benefit economically. Russia has been struggling with costs from the 2014 Sochi Olympics, which have been called the most expensive Olympics of all time.

Many financial details of the Los Angeles plan remain vague.

The bid calls for building a $1 billion athletes village on a rail yard the city doesn't own, and government analysts have warned that developing the site could significantly exceed the projected cost.

A private developer would invest most of the $925 million to build the village, but who would build the site, how the company would be selected and what type of financing would be used is unclear. The plan refers to necessary environmental and planning studies, but no cost estimates are given.

City analysts last week said they didn't have enough information to verify the overall 2024 budget or determine the financial risk.

The IOC had set a Sept. 15 deadline for cities to enter the race for the 2025 Games.

The U.S. hasn't hosted the Summer Games since 1996 in Atlanta.

www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-city-council-bid-2024-olympics/

[mouse]

the Olympics are nothing but a money pit for greed and corruption...I hope the UK never has the misfortune to host another one
the background to the last one we hosted was utterly corrupt and an absolute disgrace the way it was all handled including vey unsutle threats to diverse peoples such as florists..cake makers and the like and with contracts going to America and China etc etc .....
it got so bad that in the end I and others refused to even watch it other than the opening ceremony which was a labour party political broadcast paid for with our taxes
an absolute disgrace..which should be transferred to Greece on a permerment basis..with ALL nations contributing to permerment structures and athletes living quarters etc etc..and stop this farce and corru0ption every four yrs

a small but true story about our Olympics
an advert for security and tenders were asked for duly submitted...and those whose tenders given a 2nd look were asked to attend an interview in London..
among those at the interviews were ex military who now had their own security bussineses some of whom knew each other ...the military background and their qualification were not in doubt and very easily checked..they had been in security and protection and guarded such as the Queen and others of the Royal family
foreign heads of state..including our own priminister and other notables and had experience of crowd control and nasty situation
all were experienced highly trained and no stranger to adverse conditions on active service
and guess who got the contract...not those with experience...not those who could prove their expertise...two people who had no experience and who were teachers who had gone into security work...but they had the advantage of not being English..need I say more.
PC won the day yet again....luckily none of the security was ever tested...

[josephdphillips]

Notwithstanding the success of the 1984 games, which I remember quite well, I don't think Los Angeles is going to pull this off.

For one thing, I don't recall the Los Angeles taxpayer (which I was in 1984) having to shell out for a $1 billion "village." There is plenty of hotel space here for athletes.

Who really needs a "village?" Is the construction of such a building even possible in time, given the legal obstacles?

Also, there's a reason we don't have many running and bicycling events here, considering the size of the city. The streets are a disaster.