Mar 13, 2007 12:20 am US/Central
Olympics Financing Plan Sails Through Committee
Plan Goes Before Full City Council Wendesday
by Jay Levine
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Chicago 2016 Chairman Patrick Ryan, First Lady Maggie Daley, and Mayor Richard M. Daley, at the Olympic Committee welcoming event March 6.
Alexandra Klimczak
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The $500 million plan to win the bid for the 2016 Olympics sailed through a key city council committee Monday, but still faced a number of tough questions.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports that there is apparently some lingering fear that taxpayers might have to foot the bill.
It's a fear based in part on a lack of information. Giving out Chicago's numbers, the committee said, would help its competitors.
"We think the chances of the city coming into play are practically non-existent," Chicago Chief Financial Dana Levenson assured the committee.
But in the end, with a popular cause and Mayor Daley's political muscle, approval was never in doubt.
Though there was some grumbling and questions about just how remote a possibility it was that the city would have to make good on its $500 million guarantee, quick approval by the finance committee was a forgone conclusion.
"We're voting blindly," Ald. Tom Allen (38) said. "First of all, who's going to vote against it when the whole world wants it?"
City officials were there to answer questions and complaints about style.
"I have grave concerns about connecting the Olympic Village community to the communities to the west and that they be real neighborhoods," Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4) said. "They like they just dropped them there from outer space."
And despite the main stadium planned for the South Side, and the aquatic center on the West Side, there were still questions about diversity.
"Right now the face of the Olympics is an elite white man's rich millionaire's kind of party club," Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6)said.
"It's only because I'm always in front of you that It looks like a white-haired overweight guy," 2016 Olympics Committee Chairman Patrick Ryan said. "But we have a very diverse group and it's not that at all."
Ryan has led the group which has not only come up with the impressive plan, but has also raised $32 million, including some of his own, for a possible two-and-a-half-year campaign to win international approval.
"I've already put money in," Ryan said, though he declined to disclose the amount, which is thought to be considerable.
The guarantee proposal is expected to be approved by the full city council on Wednesday.
The lightning speed is not going unnoticed by the U.S. Olympic Committee, which said from the beginning that Chicago's strong leadership, meaning Mayor Daley, was a huge plus for the city in its battle with four other U.S. cities for the U.S. bid.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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