Daley not ready to commit more cash for Olympic effort
Mayor Daley said Monday he doesn't know yet whether taxpayers will need to increase their $500 million Olympic guarantee, but he portrayed the International Olympic Committee's critique of Chicago's transportation plan as no big deal.
The chairman of the City Council's Finance Committee has offered to up the ante if that's what it takes to satisfy the IOC, calling the 2016 Summer Olympic Games "the most important thing to happen to Chicago in over 100 years."
But Daley said Monday he's not certain that another City Council vote would be either advisable or necessary.
"You have to be careful how you use taxpayers' money," the mayor said.
Daley initially promised to bankroll his Olympic dream with "not a dime" of taxpayers' money, only to break that promise after the 2007 mayoral election when the USOC demanded that Chicago "put some skin in the game."
On Monday, the mayor was asked whether he anticipates asking the City Council to raise the $500 million Olympic guarantee.
"No. I don't think so. I haven't heard anything yet," Daley said. "I don't know yet. I just got back from Athens. We have to look at it. We have a long way to goŠWe have a good financial team looking at that. But we don't want to dip into the system of government. That's one thing we don't" want to do.
As for the IOC's criticism of Chicago's transportation plan, Daley argued that the road and mass transit infrastructure is already in place.
"We have the foundation. You can modernize. You can do innovations. Better cars. Better systems and technology. But we're only talking about 80,000 people going to the opening and closing ceremonies" at a temporary stadium in Washington Park, the mayor said.
"At the Bears games, we get 64,000 people on a Sunday. It's only 15 or 16,000 more people. So it's not monumental because we don't have to build all the highways, all the L services, train services and things like that. We already have them there."
Last week, Chicago was named one of four finalists in the race to host the
2016 Summer Games, joining Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro.
But in a technical evaluation by an IOC working group, Chicago won the bronze, finishing third of the four finalists. The report cited weaknesses in Chicago's transportation plan, construction budgets that appear to have been low-balled and financial guarantees that do not yet meet IOC requirements.
The complaint about unrealistic construction budgets appeared to focus, in part, on Chicago's claim that a temporary stadium in Washington Park can be built for $385.9 million.
On the transportation front, Chicago fell short when it came to describing how fans would travel between venues. The city's application also outlined a
$27 billion wish list of road and transit improvements it hopes to make by 2016. But only $2.7 billion of that work is actually planned, the IOC report stated.
Last year, the City Council took a $500 million gamble that a 2016 Olympics here would turn a profit.
The guarantee assumes that a Chicago Olympics would make $525 million and that -- even if it lost money -- a $200 million private sector cushion provided by Olympic village equity and the sale of 117 luxury suites at the temporary Olympic stadium would shield taxpayers.