Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and planners for a potential '24 Games in Boston "heard area residents’ concerns about financing, infrastructure, transportation, and security on Thursday at the first community meeting on the massive proposal," according to Jeremy Fox of the BOSTON GLOBE. More than 300 people "packed a first-floor meeting room at the Suffolk University Law School to discuss the endeavor." Walsh said that he would "ensure that Boston would neither spend public money on facilities that do not benefit city residents nor be left with the bill on potential cost overruns that could run into the billions of dollars." Walsh: "We’re not going to mortgage the future of the city away. If taxpayers’ money goes into this, it would go into the infrastructure.” While there "was support for the Games at Thursday’s meeting, many residents voiced strong objections." Other issues raised "included the Games’ potential impact on housing and education" (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/6). In Boston, Matt Stout reports Walsh and Boston '24 officials "fielded dozens of questions in the first of nine so-called 'community meetings' on the city’s Olympics bid." Those in the crowd "against the Games in Boston were more vocal, putting officials on the defensive at times." Boston resident Dan Guarracino "asked Walsh if he’d stop the city’s pursuit of the Olympics if residents voted it down." Walsh: "If there’s a binding referendum, it’s done. If it’s nonbinding, that’s a different conversation" (BOSTON HERALD, 2/6). In N.Y., Katharine Seelye reports some of the residents' questions were "hostile, some of them laudatory, and some from people who said they were potentially supportive but had concerns," including over "the lack of transparency about the process" (N.Y. TIMES, 2/6).
RULL PLAYER: In Boston, Encarnacao, Stout & Smith write the organizing committee's hiring of City of Boston Chief of Operations Joe Rull as Chief Administrative Officer "is the latest in a string of politically wired recruitments by Boston 2024." Evan Falchuk, who is leading a push to put the Olympic bid to a ballot vote, said he is monitoring "a remarkable amount of overlap and almost fluidity between what’s government and what’s the 2024 Boston group." He added, "When you have the mayor saying, ‘I’m basically going to deputize my top guy to go to work at the Olympics,’ it begs the question, who does everybody work for?" (BOSTON HERALD, 2/6).
TRIAL & ERROR: The BOSTON GLOBE's editorial cartoonist Dan Wasserman takes an Olympic theme with his cartoon on recent weather-related troubles for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
