Mayor Daley Insist Taxpayer Risk from Olympics is Limited
Written by DJ Special Blend from Chicago on June 18, 2009
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Mayor Richard M. Daley insisted today that Chicago taxpayers are on the Olympic hook for only the $500 million guaranteed by the City Council.
“We go to $500 million and that’s it,” Daley said in an interview today with the Tribune.
But Daley’s assertion is at odds with language in a host city contract the mayor plans to sign, obligating the city to full financial responsibility for a Chicago 2016 Summer Games. The contract requires the city and the Olympic organizing committee to assume unlimited financial liability for the “planning, organization and staging of the Games.”
Chicago 2016 bid leader Patrick Ryan, as well as a number of outside observers, have acknowledged the city would be on the hook if losses exceeded guarantees and insurance policies. This would only happen “if everyone was so inept that we go over,” Ryan said Wednesday.
Daley declined several times today to address what would happen under the contract in a worst-case scenario — severe cost-overruns or a catastrophic event, for example, that could leave taxpayers responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars or even more.“If everyone goes bankrupt in the world, I don’t know what happens,” Daley said. “The one thing I know is it is only $500 million to Chicago taxpayers.
“Here is what it is,” Daley said. “Only $500 million we agreed to. This other thing is like an insurance policy.”
