Keller @ Large: Boston dodged a bullet opting out of hosting Olympic Games
BOSTON - The 2024 Paris Olympic organizer's headquarters were searched by police Tuesday as part of a corruption investigation. This marks the third consecutive time the Olympic Summer Games have been touched by scandal.
And it got us thinking about the 2015 push to bring these games to Boston.
"We dodged a bullet, and it's a credit to the people of Massachusetts for being smart to know we should dodge it," says Chris Dempsey, co-founder of the group No Boston Olympics and co-author of a book by the same name.
Yes, we dodged a bullet alright, in several ways, starting with the stench of kickback and corruption that seems to follow the games and has now settled over Paris.
"There are billions and billions of public dollars that have to be spent quickly to try to meet that artifical timeline of the games," notes Dempsey, who observes that whatever their differences, there were never any corruption issues with the Boston organizers. "That's what we were so concerned about when we started No Boston Olympics."
A major objection here was the multi-billion-dollar cost of a Boston Olympics, which was consistently understated by its organizers. Estimates are the Paris Games are running more than a billion dollars over budget, with more than a year to go.
Quelle surprise!
And consider what's happened since Boston's brush with Olympic disaster - COVID, inflation, global economic turmoil. It turns out then-Governor Charlie Baker and other elected officials dodged a bullet, too. "Imagine if instead he had to be focused on cost overruns at an Olympic stadium and that was the item at the top of his agenda instead of trying to keep people safe," says Dempsey. "It would have been an absolute calamity. Massachusetts taxpayers would have been stuck with $10 billion to $20 billion of debt. That is a really bad hangover to have with us for the next 20 years following the Olympics."
What's the moral of the story?
Beware of wealthy grandstanders and bureaucrats promising all sorts of profit from sketchy investments they want you - not themselves - to make. French President Emmanuel Macron's role as champion of a costly boondoggle that may be riddled with corruption is not a good look, especially after months of pushing pension cuts.
And something tells me Gov. Maura Healey is very glad she won't be forced to sit there next summer and smile as Russian athletes parade into the Boston Olympic stadium.
