One Alderman’s View of Chicago 2016

From the Aldermanic newsletter just released today:

We’ve been quite busy here in Chicago since we last met in Englewood. At our last Ward meeting, Gyata Kimmons, from Chicago 2016 came out and discussed the Committee’s plans to obtain and host the Summer Olympics in 2016. He took every question asked and as you know, our constituents can ask very intelligent and pointed questions. A part of his remarks included the IOC trip which just ended. The weather was terrible but hundreds of unpaid volunteers stood out in the cold and rain to show support for Chicago’s bid. From all reports the visit went well, even with the presence of protesters. As I stated at the last meeting and will restate here, I was not initially a supporter of the Olympic bid. Refusing to formulate an opinion from the mass media or City Hall briefings, I went on the Internet and read newspaper articles, reports, interview and working papers on Olympics held over the last 20 years. I looked at what worked and what didn’t work in the States and abroad. I decided that if we had a chance of getting the Games it would be up to the Aldermen to make sure that our communities were able to share in the bounties it would bring. That’s what I started working on. At the very first Chicago 2016 Aldermanic briefing that I attended, I told Ald. Preckwinkle that we should create a Community Benefits Agreement and presented her with a copy I had secured soon after the meeting.

At the first Finance Committee meeting where the Chicago 2016 presented, I questioned the racial make-up of the Committee. Shortly thereafter Mr. Kimmons was hired. When they next appeared before the Finance Committee, I and others questioned the numbers of minority businesses that were being utilized and the communication vehicle between the Council and the Committee. Shortly thereafter, the Committee was expanded to include several new persons. I then began focusing on the Legacies of the various Olympics and have continuously pressed for the proceeds to be spent on funding youth recreational programs in the Chicago land area, like LA84, the Legacy Organization of the Los Angeles Olympic. The City had already come up with World Sports Chicago and I recently met with the Executive Director to share my vision for the Legacy Fund.

Once we moved into the recent selection phase (which narrowed the competition to 4 Cities), I joined the 84 person Outreach Advisory Council sitting on the Contracts and Procurement Sub Committee. We met at 7:30 a.m. and drafted a historic Community Benefits Agreement that requires the creation of training vehicles, apprenticeships, technical assistance to businesses, equity fund opportunities for businesses, affordable housing, minority participation of 30% of all 2016 contracts, called for the creation of a new, simplified certification process; provides transparency for bidding, creates a score card to be used in the selection of contractors (a portion of the score being based on their minority participation numbers and hiring) and creates a compliance entity to verify that these standards are met. To be frank it was a better agreement than I had expected. As it happens however, that was not enough for some and we have been criticized for not having a legally binding agreement to which the City was bound. Well, the City is certainly the beneficiary of the Chicago 2016 efforts so far but the entity competing for the Olympics on behalf of the City of Chicago is Chicago 2016.

Further, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) was not a party to any of these discussions, nor can any person here bind them. The 2016 Committee would be the entity which builds the venues and conducts the games if we are successful and we did bind them. Is the document enough to ensure that young people get jobs, of course not. We have to make sure we know about the potential jobs early on; provide training to the best of our ability in those areas; alert the community as to those opportunities; and make sure we have trained, drug free young people to get those jobs*. Will this document ensure that black businesses get a representative portion of the contracts that are awarded, of course not**.

Again we have to give businesses and communities the areas for which contracts will be let; we have to train the agencies that assist businesses on bid requirements and processes; we have to provide resources for small businesses to obtain the capital needed to do business with the Committee; we have to encourage small business to form joint ventures and coops to create the capacity to undertake some of these contracts; we have to aggressively monitor the letting of contracts to make sure there are no front companies and no more scandals like we saw this week in the news. There is a lot of work to be done to make the Olympics benefit our community. We who have been working on this have a lot of ideas as to how we can make it work. But we can’t make it work, if our community is not ready to open the door when opportunity knocks.

*In addition to the hospitality jobs in hotels and restaurants, and the sales jobs at the venues and the service jobs at the venues, there will be transportation jobs (buses have to take the athletes and guests to venues; trucks have to bring the equipment and supplies into the City and to the venues), logistics and staging jobs (someone has to determine how many port-a-potties are needed, where and when), marketing jobs, communication jobs (folks to make sure allthe phones, cell and landlines work), technical jobs (i.e. people to run the cable for all of the TV cameras), etc., etc., etc.

**Bus companies will get contracts; of course construction firms will get contracts; marketing and advertising firms will get contracts; caterers will get contracts; paper products suppliers will get contracts; souvenir makers will get contracts; printers will get contracts; sundries suppliers (deodorant, soap, sunscreen) will get contracts; audio and video suppliers and operators will get contracts; medical equipment suppliers will get contracts; neighborhood restaurants will get business, etc., etc., etc.

If you got a copy, well I had to break some of this up. Copied and pasted there was a long paragraph in here, it was too long.

Great to see how the 6th can possibly benefit when the olympics come to town.