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Sealing No vote to Olympic bid


shootingstar

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With a few exceptions, it's a major money loser for the country selected. We're talking millions upon millions.

Probably the worse was the 1988 Summer Olympics for North Korea. After South Korea won the bid, NK thought that they could jointly hold the Olympics with the south and went ahead and built a bunch of stadiums. Unfortunately the Olympic committee said no to that idea. So Kim Jong-Il had a Korean aircraft with a few hundred passengers blown up.

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1 hour ago, JerrySTL said:

With a few exceptions, it's a major money loser for the country selected. We're talking millions upon millions. 

There are those exceptions and there are ways to do it properly - especially the Winter Olympics.  Several places in NA have the facilities already in place for another Winter Olympics.  Several others probably have enough facilities in place to host a FIRST one where the added infrastructure would be a positive investment for them both short and long term.  Calgary doesn't seem a likely good candidate, but surely a return to Vancouver/Whistler would be a good idea (for Canada) but doubtful that the Olympics would want to return so soon :(

Same with a CO/UT bid.  The ski facilities in both those states are world class, and the other stuff for hosting the ice skating or curling are nearby in the cities.  I assume CA or New England could likewise pull it off reasonably.

It is mostly a matter of managing the Olympic committee. Push back on them, let them find their bribes somewhere else, and sit tight.  There is no reason to oversell a Canadian or US venue, since we have what we need in place already.  The IOC can stuff it if they think we need to build a new stadium to host the Olympics. We are up to our necks in modern stadiums and arenas.

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Most people feel the SLC Olympics had a lasting positive impact.  The Games had a surplus which was used to fund an endowment to keep the facilities updated an in use, as well as make donations to local charities.  But the games, and the demands on the host cities, have expanded a lot even in the last 16 years, and the IOC has had problems finding "acceptable" cities to host the Games.

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6 hours ago, Kirby said:

Most people feel the SLC Olympics had a lasting positive impact.  The Games had a surplus which was used to fund an endowment to keep the facilities updated an in use, as well as make donations to local charities.  But the games, and the demands on the host cities, have expanded a lot even in the last 16 years, and the IOC has had problems finding "acceptable" cities to host the Games.

This U.S. article reflects on other Olympics and costs:   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/sports/calgary-winter-olympics.html

The following govn't will not give municipal City of Calgary the following public funds unless the vote was a "YES" majority.  Frankly I'm glad the 2 levels of govn't placed conditions on funding that City of Calgary held a plebiscite on whether or not Calgarians wanted to host the Olympics.

The province of Alberta was only willing give $700 million  (Peanuts)

Federal govn't of CAnada only willing to commit $1.4+ billion   (then municipality will be left holding the remaining billion dollars over budget which is bound to happen with IOC and construction claims (that's the game in engineering sector in order for them to make money beyond engineering hourly fees).

Frankly the City of Calgary was over $120 million in debt last year.  Also nearly 200 people's permanent jobs were cut.  As of this month, the downtown city core has not recovered in oil and gas/businesses  slump as shown by shrinking or no longer around to occupy empty commercial space ...over $40 million lost just from our operating budget.

After last night's vote result, today IMMEDIATELY budget reviews of all submitted 37 depts. for next 4 years, are now being reviewed/debated by Councillors and Mayor.  

City of Calgary's current sports facilities would need millions of $$$$ upgrades to meet 21st century Olympic competitive sport standards.  The idea was to also split locations among Calgary, Canmore (90 km. west of us) and Whistler, BC.  Sorry....I'm certain everyone outside of Canada didn't get these details.  

It doesn't surprise me that Italy is in the running...the Mafia would have a hand in the construction industry (if not already).  Make no mistake that Sochi must have been tainted by that also. 

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18 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

It doesn't surprise me that Italy is in the running...the Mafia would have a hand in the construction industry (if not already).  Make no mistake that Sochi must have been tainted by that also.  

Calgary might just not be a good fit.  Looking at the list of Olympic host cities/countries over the past 50 years, only a few really jump out as really poor choices or "tainted". USSR/Russia is always a poor choice. Likewise, Yugoslavia while under the Soviets was a poor choice.  Add in Barcelona (great city, poor execution), Greece (also great, but financially devastating), and Rio, and you have a half dozen really bad choices, although I think it actually cemented Barcelona on the world stage and Athens was a belated centennial honoring of the first modern Olympics.  I'm no fan of China (gov't), but they have also used the Olympics to step onto the world stage. Almost every other country on the list is an established and non-Mafia or non-corrupt regime running the show, so it is my belief that somewhere like Los Angeles can handle the Olympics with nothing more than strain on normal traffic versus Olympic chaos, and at a reasonable cost.  Countries need to simply be willing to stand up to the IOC and let them have to choose to put bribes ahead of the Olympics (Rio, Russia, etc) or they can put them in places where they will be well run and fit into the existing infrastructure (US, Europe, Japan, Canada, S Korea). Or send them to a place like China again which is still growing so crazily that they can build the infrastructure and use it later as the surrounding area develops around it.

Winter    1960    United States Squaw Valley, United States
Summer    1964    Japan Tokyo, Japan
Winter    1964    Austria Innsbruck, Austria
Summer    1968    Mexico Mexico City, Mexico
Winter    1968    France Grenoble, France
Summer    1972    West Germany Munich, West Germany
Winter    1972    Japan Sapporo, Japan
Summer    1976    Canada Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Winter    1976    Austria Innsbruck, Austria
Summer    1980    Soviet Union Moscow, Soviet Union
Winter    1980    United States Lake Placid, United States
Summer    1984    United States Los Angeles, California
Winter    1984    Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
Summer    1988    South Korea Seoul, South Korea
Winter    1988    Canada Calgary, Canada
Summer    1992    Spain Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Winter    1992    France Albertville, France
Winter    1994    Norway Lillehammer, Norway
Summer    1996    United States Atlanta, United States
Winter    1998    Japan Nagano, Japan
Summer    2000    Australia Sydney, Australia
Winter    2002    United States Salt Lake City, United States
Summer    2004    Greece Athens, Greece
Winter    2006    Italy Turin, Italy
Summer    2008    China Beijing, China
Winter    2010    Canada Vancouver, Canada
Summer    2012    United Kingdom London, United Kingdom
Winter    2014    Russia Sochi, Russia
Summer    2016    Brazil Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Winter    2018    South Korea Pyeongchang, South Korea
Summer    2020    Japan Tokyo, Japan
Winter    2022    China Beijing, China
Summer    2024    France Paris, France
Summer    2028    United States Los Angeles, California

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10 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

I think LA is one of the few cities that can host the olympics without building infrastructure. The UCLA student housing will be the Olympic village and the arena and various venues are already built. 

That model works all over the US.  DC has multiple stadiums and arenas.  We have a convention center and a Metro. We have dozens of colleges (and dorms). Plenty of hotels.  We're a small city, for sure, but we could swing it.  In a grander scale, NJ/NYC have even more stadiums, arenas, public transportation, and hotel rooms. I'm thinking Philly, Baltimore, or Boston could all swing it. Atlanta has shown it could, and I think Charlotte (or NC/SC) could do it.  Florida ought to be able to figure it out, as should Texas.  From the winter side, Utah and Colorado have all the pieces available, and likely California or New England as well.

"Building" infrastructure is the challenging one to quantify, because, if done right, it is an investment that most cities in the US already need and are going to pay for anyway.  I don't think I've ever seen road work on the major roads around me "completed".  It just moves to the next chokepoint, so a push to improve existing or build NEW infrastructure would be the question voters would need to think about supporting or opposing.  By supporting it, locals would be paying more sooner to help the Olympics but also meaning it would be available years (or decades) before it was scheduled. By opposing it, locals would be saving their tax dollars for their own needs, but also likely keeping the infrastructure a step or two behind the need.

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

That model works all over the US.  DC has multiple stadiums and arenas.  We have a convention center and a Metro. We have dozens of colleges (and dorms). Plenty of hotels.  We're a small city, for sure, but we could swing it.  In a grander scale, NJ/NYC have even more stadiums, arenas, public transportation, and hotel rooms. I'm thinking Philly, Baltimore, or Boston could all swing it. Atlanta has shown it could, and I think Charlotte (or NC/SC) could do it.  Florida ought to be able to figure it out, as should Texas.  From the winter side, Utah and Colorado have all the pieces available, and likely California or New England as well.

"Building" infrastructure is the challenging one to quantify, because, if done right, it is an investment that most cities in the US already need and are going to pay for anyway.  I don't think I've ever seen road work on the major roads around me "completed".  It just moves to the next chokepoint, so a push to improve existing or build NEW infrastructure would be the question voters would need to think about supporting or opposing.  By supporting it, locals would be paying more sooner to help the Olympics but also meaning it would be available years (or decades) before it was scheduled. By opposing it, locals would be saving their tax dollars for their own needs, but also likely keeping the infrastructure a step or two behind the need.

Even without Olympics, major construction projects either net-new builds or major retrofits that are millions of dollars, tend to fall over by millions.  I can tell that some of you just don't know the game played by major engineering firms worldwide:  if infrastructure work is not detailed in the signed contract, then often there are construction claims....hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.. This is how engineering firms really make money.  It's not only the engineers' hourly billing rate for signed contract work.

Trust me, I saw the flow of documents ….as someone heading up document management for a nearly $1 billion construction project. I was also involved in gathering a pile of documents to back up a construction claim to...a public government organization.  

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11 hours ago, shootingstar said:

Even without Olympics, major construction projects either net-new builds or major retrofits that are millions of dollars, tend to fall over by millions.  I can tell that some of you just don't know the game played by major engineering firms worldwide:  if infrastructure work is not detailed in the signed contract, then often there are construction claims....hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.. This is how engineering firms really make money.  It's not only the engineers' hourly billing rate for signed contract work.

Trust me, I saw the flow of documents ….as someone heading up document management for a nearly $1 billion construction project. I was also involved in gathering a pile of documents to back up a construction claim to...a public government organization.  

I'm pretty versed in that sort of nonsense.  But, it is often a "that's how it goes" sort of thing.  For example, a bridge needs to be built.  It's gonna cost - according to the estimates - $100 million dollars.  After it actually gets built, it will have actually cost $200 million dollars. That doesn't 1) negate the need for the bridge, 2) mean we could build it for less (or at the estimate), nor 3) mean it doesn't make sense to build it now (for the Olympics or whatever) versus later.

We've had discussions on expanding the Metro as long as I have lived in the DC area.  When I first moved here in the 90s, the cost of expansion to the NoVA burbs was estimated at like a billion dollars.  It was deemed to costly and never truly considered.  Every few years, it came back up and the estimates were always much higher than before.  Eventually, the expansion was approved (probably 30 years too late) at a cost over $20 billion.  All sorts of time and dollar overruns - the final Phase 2 is due in 2020 - have occurred.  Many are exactly like you discuss - extra costs tacked on that everyone knew would happen.  But none of this ties the Olympics/World Cup/Super Bowl/whatever to infrastructure. 

My opinion is that hosting a huge event like the Olympics or World Cup simply highlights the areas ALREADY needing improvement in your area.  The bridge that is a regional bottleneck needs to be fixed/built/widened regardless of the coming event, but striking NOW rather than later may be the best course of action and a good impetus to break a stalemate.  Likewise, everyone in government, most tax payers, and certainly all contracting companies KNOW the game that is being played with "estimates", "contracts", and then reality.  We all hate shopping for a new car, so we try to figure out how to "bargain" with the dealer to get a great deal, but they have spent their time working on how to sell the car for maximum profit. It's the "game", and it is part of life.  Ultimately, it is a "do we truly need XYZ?" sort of question, and then, if so, its a how do we manage the process best.

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