United Independent Party’s Falchuk Cites Ten Unanswered Questions from the First Olympics Community Meeting
Falchuk files paperwork with OCPF to form Olympic Ballot Question Committee
BOSTON – In response to the January 21 Boston 2024 meeting at the Boston Convention Center, where boosters of the Boston Olympics put on a presentation of their plans, many key questions either were never addressed, or were asked and evaded by organizers. The charge comes from United Independent Party Chair Evan Falchuk, who is working on a binding statewide referendum where voters throughout Massachusetts will be able to decide whether Boston does in fact host the costly 2024 Olympic Games. This morning, Falchuk filed the paperwork to create a Ballot Question Committee called the "People's Vote Olympics Committee" with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance.
“Boston 2024 officials seemed to be glossing over the more difficult issues hosting the Olympics most definitely will entail,” Falchuk said. “Raising critical questions about the billions the Games would cost, as well as security and traffic concerns, doesn’t make anyone a ‘naysayer.' It makes us taxpaying, thinking adults who see the value of putting things like our seniors, veterans and kids in school above something like hosting the Olympics. Here are just 10 of the central questions that, bizarrely, were still left unanswered by Boston 2024 officials at the January 21 meeting.”
1. Why didn’t we get the “full presentation,” as promised by officials? Organizers, including Boston 2024 President Dan O’Connell said, in the days before the event, we would see “exactly the presentation" they made to the U.S. Olympic Committee, including “the same cast of characters” who were in Redwood City, California, in December when the bid proposal for Boston was first presented behind the scenes. Oddly, missing from this January 21 meeting were two of the key players at that secretive California meeting: Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and University of Massachusetts-Boston Chancellor Keith Motley. What else, exactly, was presented and promised on behalf of Massachusetts taxpayers behind those closed doors in California that Boston 2024 still chooses not to share with the public?
2. Why would Massachusetts residents voting on hosting the Olympics even be an issue? At the January 21 meeting, Boston 2024 Chairman John Fish made much of the fact that Olympics in democratic countries are more successful. So, if democracy is good for business, why would Boston 2024 officials and our own lawmakers be against using it to decide if we want to get into this expensive business in the first place?
3. How much is this really going to cost Massachusetts taxpayers? At the January 21 meeting, O’Connell said that the $4.7 billion he and his Boston 2024 colleagues thought it would cost to operate the Olympics was a “staggering” amount of money. He also said that there would be an additional $5 billion or so of transportation improvements paid for by Massachusetts taxpayers (which was not described as “staggering”), and some significant amount of money paid by U.S. taxpayers for security. Also, some amount of money might go to offset some costs incurred by cities and towns. This most central element was almost comically vague, considering multiple billions of dollars are at stake, and given the fact that Massachusetts already is running a very significant budget deficit while cities and towns across the Commonwealth face significant financial difficulties.
4. How does an unelected group get to set the agenda for our elected representatives and all Massachusetts voters? This is an important but overlooked dynamic. Chairman John Fish talked at length about the need to use the Olympics to “force” a conversation about “increasing the value of real estate outside Route 128 so that we can increase the value of real estate inside 128,” which according to him included building South Coast Rail, a high-speed rail connection to Springfield, and increased rail service to Worcester. We just had an election that included these kinds of important issues, and voters have a right to expect that their choices are respected from that process -- not changed at the behest of this private group which repeatedly has refused to level with people outside its ranks.
5. Is it really still not clear that this is a statewide issue? Both Fish and O’Connell made it clear they thought the Olympics would affect the whole Commonwealth; to quote O’Connell, “It really has to be a Commonwealth Games.” They talked about possible venues in Springfield, Holyoke, Lowell and the South Coast. Assuming they believe that, and given the whopping tax bill every Massachusetts taxpayer would very likely receive as a result, why should the Olympics be thought of solely as a Boston-centric issue?
6. How are people going to get around each day while all these venues are being built? The Boston 2024 team's plans include some big construction projects in and near major traffic arteries that will take many years to complete. A concerned audience member at the January 21 asked this completely legitimate question, but the answer given focused on changing people’s commuting “behavior” during the 16 days of the Olympics, rather than in the years leading up to it. If anything, this important question was outright evaded at the January 21 meeting.
7. Do the Olympics make money – and if so, for whom? Fish listed numerous cities where the Olympics were a “positive financial experience,” or “cash flow positive.” Does he mean that the entity that operated the Olympics made money, or that taxpaying residents did? In this case, are they confident that Boston 2024 officials and their buddies would profit, or are they saying every taxpayer in Massachusetts helping to foot the bill would? To use their own numbers, if the cost of operating the Olympics in Boston is $4.7 billion, and Boston 2024 earns $5 billion in revenue – but the taxpayers had to spend an additional $10 billion to make that happen – is that what Boston 2024 organizers would deem a “positive financial experience” for the people of Massachusetts?
8. What’s with all the continued secrecy and lack of community engagement? O’Connell apologized at the January 21 meeting for the fact that there had been less outreach to the public than there should have been. Yet in addition to the many still-unanswered questions, not once did organizers address why Mayor Walsh signed an agreement requiring city employees to speak positively and actively promote the Olympics, the bid and the IOC. Why?
9. Do Boston 2024 believe what they’re saying in their own PR? Following the January 21 meeting, TheBoston Globe reported that Fish, who heads Suffolk Construction and chairs Boston 2024, told the crowd that “hosting the Olympics would lead to better transportation and housing for the entire state. 'There’s no question: These games are a catalyst for economic growth, job creation and prosperity,' he said." This means one of two things: either Fish and Boston 2024 have done a woefully terrible job with their due diligence of past Olympic experiences – which hardly bodes well for how he and his cohorts would actually run things – or they simply do not care if what they tell the public is true or not.
10. Where are our elected leaders? In the materials Boston 2024 released, they detailed numerous conversations with federal, state and local elected officials in Massachusetts about their bid during 2014. Pretty much all of our current lawmakers have either been silent about or enthusiastically supportive of the Olympics. Is there really no one willing to ask the tough, common- sense questions about hosting the Olympics, and how it could easily impact families’ wallets in the years to come throughout Massachusetts? Why aren’t we hearing about or reading about elected officials saying their constituents should be able to vote on this issue?
About the United Independent Party
Founded by 2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Evan Falchuk and a group of supporters from throughout Massachusetts, the United Independent Party (UIP) is committed to moving from the outdated political establishment debate of “small government versus big government” to one focused on greater fiscal accountability to voters, stronger protection of civil rights, and innovative, pragmatic solutions that improve the day-to-day lives of people, families and communities. The UIP, which earned status as a major party alongside Democrats and Republicans when Falchuk earned more than 3 percent of the vote on Election Day 2014, calls for smart, brave reform of our politics, economy and government.
中華廣教學校籲請社區助學童“追夢”，一月廿三日晚在帝苑大酒樓舉辦年度籌款晚宴，有四，五百名嘉賓出席支持，共募得逾十八萬元。
廣教校長曾秀芬指出，廣教辦學是為下一代著想，幫助他們藉由教育增長知識，改善生活，造福社會。該校老師不計較工作時間，諄諄善誘，只為幫助學生實現“摘星”夢想。他們認為，就像當年的阿波羅號登月，人類終有一日將踏上火星，而這樣的未來要靠下一代去實現，廣教學校正為著將來世界，培養下一代。所有老師們的盡心盡力，的確值得社區支持。
當晚應邀致詞的嘉賓，還包括也是廣教校董的波士頓市議員吳弭，以及駐波士頓台北經濟文化辦事處處長賴銘琪。
廣教學校當晚還頒獎表揚捐款三萬元的鑽石贊助商塔芙茨醫療中心，以及從香港移民來美，“追夢”成功，創業有成的東海集團董事長梁國忠夫婦。
廣教學校在節目冊上，點名感謝了捐款者，包括捐出三萬元的塔芙茨醫療中心，捐二萬五千元的薩福克建築公司，捐一萬元的龐加羅（Anthony
Pangaro）等人。
捐款二千五百元至四千九百九十九元的有七名個人或機構，包括波士頓國民黨，Harbour食品服務設備公司，李伍綺蓮，千禧年合夥公司，新科技資訊系統，蘇李慧敏，V&E地產公司等。
