Thursday, April 2, 2009

anywhere but here

Toni - Well said.

Tonight's anti-Olympics protest at the federal plaza was vocal and well organized. The police presence there seemed almost as large as that at the noontime protest at City Hall and Daley Plaza. I was there in support of our officers and firefighters. The fact that they've been 2 years without a contract is a disgrace.

The track record of Mayor Daley and the city with major projects like Millennium Park does not inspire confidence in the likelihood of building multiple sports venues, an Olympic village, transit improvements and other necessary changes on time and without significant budget overruns. There's a very real possibility, based on the last few Olympics, that Chicago could end up incurring enormous debt without enough of an increase in tourism revenues during and after the games to avoid making our current budget deficit much worse.

I'd be happy to see Rio get the 2016 Olympics.

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