Apr 12, 2007 11:34 pm US/Central
Will Chorus Of Praise For City Boost Olympic Bid?
New Olympic Security Plan Unveiled, Renowned Musican Weighs In On City's Assets
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine contributed to this report.
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
It's no surprise Mayor Richard M. Daley is boosting Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, but when a world-renowned, French-born, Chinese American musician speaks, its music to the mayor's ears.
"Far more than any other American city, Chicago has an incredible will to get things done," cellist Yo-Yo Ma said.
Before performing at Symphony Center Thursday night, Yo-Yo Ma told an orchestra trustee Chicago is a truly international city.
"No other city has the entire world living within it the way Chicago does," he said.
That's one argument the mayor will make in Washington.
"We want to portray Chicago as a city of immigrants and of migration as well," Daley said.
The mayor met with the president of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and got a pledge from him.
"If I'm lucky enough to be president of the United States in October 2009, I will be at the IOC meeting fighting hard for the U.S. to get the bid," said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Romney remains a long shot for the White House, but Olympic officials have long maintained that a strong push from Washington is crucial to U.S. hopes.
The mayor and his chief security officer emphasized another strength Thursday.
Daley unveiled a state-of-the-art security center at McCormick Place, which would be part of a larger security operation that would protect the city's Olympic sites in 2016.
As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, Mayor Daley hopes the new security center will be a selling point that will help Chicago land the 2016 Summer Games over Los Angeles.
The new security center is set up in a fashion similar to the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications on the Near West Side. The new center is designed to ensure security and protection for the mammoth McCormick Place convention center.
The security operation will have 450 cameras running once the latest edition to McCormick Place is completed on the west side of the facility this summer.
But in addition to its immediate use for McCormick Place and the more than 3 million people who go there annually, the security system is also designed to be part of the overall operation to protect the Olympic sites and activities.
"What we said to the Olympic committee is that each venue would be treated as a stand-alone venue and would have its own command and control operation for each site and the proximity of this center to Olympic Village is a great credit to it," said Chief Emergency Officer Cortez Trotter.
The Olympic Village complex would be just south of McCormick Place. Security there would have to be tight.
The assault on Munich Olympic Village and the massacre of Israeli athletes there remains the worst tragedy in modern Olympic history.
The city is re-emphasizing security and Chicago's acknowledged leadership in preparedness as the USOC prepares to choose between Chicago and Los Angeles.
"Los Angeles like New York and other places that had elected over the years to build smaller but separate systems are now looking at Chicago as the way to go," Trotter said.
A commitment to and history of state-of-the art security will be one issue Chicago will stress on Saturday, but the main selling point, according to the mayor, is that of the two American candidates only Chicago can show the world what America is all about.
"What Chicago's all about is the great history of America as an American city, still today, proud of its immigrants even arriving today right now and really show the best of America," Daley said.
And that's what it comes down to -- which city can show the world the best of America and convince the world it wants to be here.
Earlier, a report said a team from the U.S. Olympic Committee recommended neither Chicago nor Los Angeles as the U.S. pick for the 2016 Olympics after visiting each city.
City officials hosted the Olympic Committee in early March. After visiting, the committee said the lack of a guarantee of financial backing was the city's most serious weak point in its Olympic bid.
A short time later, the City Council voted to offer a financial guarantee of $500 million in local tax dollars for the Olympics.
Mayor Daley has cited the more compact nature of what would be Chicago's Olympics grounds, with a stadium at Washington Park and an Olympic village near McCormick Place, as a selling point over Los Angeles. The Olympic activities there would be more spread out.
The mayor and other Chicago officials will deliver a final pitch to the Olympic Committee this Saturday, and the board will take its vote later the same day.
On Friday 11 USOC board members will sit down to dinner in Washington and start a discussion that will lead to a decision on Saturday.
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