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Area activists organize against Olympics
By adamg on Fri, 11/21/2014 - 6:13pm
The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on an organizing meeting on Nov. 24 at the First Baptist Church in JP to plan ways to fight efforts to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston.
Robin Jacks, one of the organizers, referred to the private organizers' plans to commandeer Franklin Park for equestrian events:
Frederick Law Olmsted did not create the crown jewel of the Emerald Necklace so billionaires could mow it down for profit.
Also see:
No Boston Olympics.
Should Boston Host the 2024 Olympics? - Forum sponsored by the Globe, Dec. 8.
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Comments
There are a number of good reasons I can think of
NOT to allow the 2024 Olympics to be held in Boston. However, the fact the equestrian events would be held in Franklin Park is way down on my personal list of issues.
With respect to the committee, if that's going to be their opening salvo, then this fight will be far more of an uphill battle than it already is.
This.
For Pete's sake. The Olympics in Boston is NOT going to happen. And if they did, equestrian events in Franklin Park would be the only reason I'd be on board. Aren't there other local windmills to joust at--coffee shops to protest or exploring ways to "make gentrification illegal?"
Lol! Couldn't have said that
Lol! Couldn't have said that better myself. I thought Adam's post was an Onion article. Of all things, they focus on the equestrian events?!
Here's hoping that you're right about that, Sally!
There are all kinds of reasons why it won't happen. Boston's way too small, and too congested, and the already-strained public transportation system would be under even more of a strain if millions upon millions more people were added to the tourism, even on a temporary basis. Even the various parks around the city would be way too small to hold the Olympics in, as far as I'm concerned.
The only time I could see the Olympics happening here in Boston is if they were held outside the city, like maybe a place like Foxborough's Gilette Stadium, or whatever.
That's not how it works
Olympics crowds will not be additive with existing tourism. Nobody is coming on vacation to see the Old North Church during the Olympics because there will be no availability in the hotels and flights will be triple normal price. A lot of residents will be out of the city too once they see how much they can rent their condos for. I'd be renting my house for $8000/week and going to Italy for free.
Why the article focused on Franklin Park
It's the Jamaica Plain Gazette. Of course they're going to focus on things that most directly affect their neighborhood, i.e., Franklin Park - the same way the Dorchester Reporter focused on Widett Circle, which is right next to Dorchester.
If you want the global picture, there's No Boston Olympics.
gentrification, yep
The stretch of Franklin Park at risk-- from the back entrance of the Zoo, encompassing the playing fields, the Seaver Street playground, the old bear cages, and White Stadium, over to the old bridle path area-- is bordered by some of the least expensive but relatively safe housing in Boston. Are the Olympic cheerleaders going to leave all that housing and its tenants in place, as tourists shuttle in?
Menino was a great mayor in a lot of ways, but not at providing affordable housing. And he especially sucked at protecting affordable housing in locations that were a decent commute to the commercial/business/university areas, where the jobs are. Most housing that can be paid for with an income below $50,000 in the South End, JP, Mission Hill, Fenway, Allston/Brighton, and Chinatown has evaporated since 1995. In Southie, its dropped by at least half.
Roxbury, Eastie, and the northern neighborhoods of Dot are all that's left for places where you can get downtown in 40 minutes more or less without a car, and get a 2 bed for a small family with two adults earning $11/hour ($44,000 pretax/year)
So, I just did a boston.com rental search, putting in $1400, rental, and 2+ bedrooms as the parameters. Only a dozen places came up, and the only 2 apartments not in Roxbury, Dot, or Eastie, were in JP near Faulkner and in Hyde Park. That's 10 places advertised that could be paid for earning $55,000 and not have car/gas expenses. My three hypothetical apartments a family with $44,000 could afford were in Dot, JP and Roxbury.
For the whole city.
So, yes, it's important to get a guarantee that housing on Seaver & Blue Hill and the surrounding streets is neither lost nor made unaffordable. If not, the Olympics should stay out of Franklin Park.
Edited for multiple typos. I blame cold medicine
I'll blame the cold medicine
I'll blame the cold medicine for the claim that Menino sucked at preserving and providing affordable housing. There are plenty of issues one could criticize Menino about, but his affordable housing record is pretty amazing considering that public resources for affordable housing were getting constrained more and more (locally and nationally) during his many terms.
He was a mayor, not a millionaire. Rent control was killed (by the voters, not Menino) years ago. All he could do was leverage and lobby for resources for building and preserving and create financing sources where he could and he did all of that and more. He created the housing linkage fund and increased the amount private developments contributed to that fund consistently. He lobbied multiple governors to award limited funds and tax credits to Boston, over other cities, he put public land out to bid for affordable housing and was successful in obtaining multiple HOPE VI grants to rebuild entirely shamefully neglected public housing developments all over the city (Maverick, Franklin Hill, Mary McCormack, etc). He even secured the very last HOPE VI grant awarded by HUD, for Washington/Beech in Roslindale, beating out hundreds of other requests around the country. I can't recall the statistic, but something like 1/4 of the housing units downtown and in the south end are restricted as affordable for a term of years. There are certainly things he could've done better, but it would be tough to beat Menino's record on affordable housing. And no, I didn't work for him, but I represented multiple private and non profit housing developers (some he liked, some he didn't), but I feel compelled to give credit where credit is due.
Demand transparency
Rather than focus on objections to a proposal we've never seen, I would suggest a demand for transparency. Ask our elected officials why they're avoiding public presentations and conversations before the USOC makes a decision. Ask the media why they're looking the other way. And this should be discussed not just here in Boston, but across the state, since taxpayer dollars will inevitably be needed.
Maybe the city council could actually be useful here.
Serioulsy. The headline
Serioulsy. The headline should be:
Up next, area activists will be organizing against the plan to bring the World Cup to Boston, and the plan to bring the next season of Survivor to Boston.
Yeah, how dare they protest something like this
So you're OK with a private group coming up with a secret plan that will disrupt life in Boston for months (it's not like the Olympics will just land in Boston the day before the event) that even they admit will require several billion dollars in public investment?
Secret?
It's not secret. How can something be secret when it's not even complete? Once (if) the USOC selects Boston, that's when they really start developing the meat of the bid. Going to the public without the plan fully fleshed out is a recipe for disaster. Right now people only see the downsides, because they're the more obvious.
What I need to support a bid is to know the specifics. How much is it going to cost? Who's paying for what? What are the long term benefits. The actual Olympics would be cool and all, but I need to see what is better in Boston in 2030 because we held the Olympics in 2024.
Right now you're just contributing to the mindless hysteria of people hating a plan when they don't even know what the plan includes.
By the time the selection is made ...
It's going to be too late to have substantive discussions about who pays for what.
Selection
The USOC selection is rather meaningless. There's a pretty strong chance we don't even make the short list for the IOC. Even if we do, do you think we beat Paris? There is PLENTY of time to have a discussion.
Read the story about Oslo 2022 if you disagree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Winter_Olympics
Do you disagree that any discussion right now would be VERY one sided? Right now you have the general public, who (naturally) can't stop talking about the costs. After seeing the debacle that was spending on Sochi and Beijing, who wouldn't worry? If we had a meeting now and the organizers couldn't give a straight, detailed answer about expected costs and expected long term benefits, it would be a total mess.
This isn't something you plan in a month.
Nor is it something you can do in under 10 years
At least around here. C'mon - it took us 4 years just to build a bus station in Kenmore. As I've noted before, we shut down one of the central transit hubs for 2 years to build a couple stairways, an elevator and retile the walls in a transit system that would be the laughingstock of the world if they ever came here and got stuck on it every other trip due to "headway" or some such.
And the biggest problem (like with all of these things) is they tell you it will cost $X billion. In the end it ALWAYS ends up costing a multiple of $X billion. We don't have that money - never will - and the Olympics isn't bringing it to Boston.
Agreed
First anon here. I completely agree with you. My point isn't to say my JP neighbors shouldn't protest, but that fragmented, vague opposition is easy for the powers that be to ignore.
Imagine if every elected official in Boston heard a unified demand from every skeptical constituent that we expect to be informed before any bid is submitted. I have told my city councilor and state rep that I'll vote against any elected official that backs this. If they hear it from hundreds of constituents, maybe they'll care.
Why are so many people
Why are so many people convinced that this complete impossibility is possible? The state house doesn't need to authorize state spending now? Get real.
You must be new here
Aren't you.
Not talking Uhub - talking Boston/Mass
I'm not sure why you're so
I'm not sure why you're so dedicated to miss reporting the costs to the public.
Yeah, MassDOT has a long term budget strategy
Do you really think that all it takes are new orange and red line cars to bring our transit system up to speed? (sorry for bad pun)
John Fish and the other magnates looking to get rich(er) from Olympic construction contracts haven't taken public transit in years, if ever. Of course they think these things are will handle future transit demand, when in fact they're long deferred promises that barely meet current needs.
No one thinks that, but good
No one thinks that, but good job beggin the question. The story itself, if you bothered to read it, outlines the number of other projects already on tap.
Oh God....
It's the Children of Privilege vs. the Grown-ups of Privilege....
It's the Iran/Iraq war--is there some way that they could BOTH lose?
Resorting to class warfare
As with everything that crosses the desk of Jamaica Plain activists, they paint the issue in terms of class warfare
if thy want to gain legitimacy, give us real reasons why we shouldn't host the Olympics. How about the cost to the city for infrastructure and security? Oh that's right , JP activists don't care about bread-and-butter issues,
Bread and butter issues
As long as the butter is organic and free range and the bread is gluten free amaranth sourdough...
Perhaps the equestrian issue comes up because what else would "community activists" in the land of million dollar condos notice?
Nobody tell them there's a golf course there, OK?
What if the IOC promises all
What if the IOC promises all the horses will be free range organic?
The Olympics won't be
The Olympics won't be profitable. That's the big problem.
If they had any hope of paying for themselves, things would be different. But they won't pay for themselves and they will demand hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars from us taxpayers.
Professional Protestors
Do they have a union, do they get paid well and have a pension plan? How about protesting the loss of Long Island Shelter and how public transportation in this city is not safe?
I hate the idea of the
I hate the idea of the Olympics being here but I think Robin is even more annoying. I'm torn.