L.A., on guard for the Games
Re “Hosting a five-ring circus,” Opinion, Aug. 26
Three cheers for former L.A. County Supervisor and City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. We need to approach the potential bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics in a business manner. The International Olympic Committee is responsible only to itself. There is no oversight of this international organization.
We cannot afford to be blinded by all the colorful pageantry and history of the Olympics. The IOC has established a system whereby the hosts are on the hook for all the costs of organizing and staging the Games, with no limits (except for what you can negotiate). The host gets the privilege of paying for everything that the IOC demands.
While it is true that Southern California has many sports venues, the default position of the IOC is to push for new venues. It can dictate that a brand-new stadium, a dedicated Olympic village and other venues be built from scratch. The list is almost endless of what it can demand.
These and many other variables obviously can destroy a budget and quickly result in huge financial liabilities. Let the business community handle these issues, as it did for the 1984 Games.
The city of Los Angeles should not be liable. Not in the past. Not now. Not ever.
Andrew Strenk Tustin The writer, a participant in the 1968 Summer Games, was the historian for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Games.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council need to balance excitement over the Olympics with an unshakable commitment to ensure that local taxpayers are not on the hook for any costs associated with the 2024 Games.
Los Angeles’ 1984 Summer Games were wildly successful, and they did not burden the city’s taxpayers. That’s because in 1978, L.A. voters overwhelmingly approved Charter Amendment N, which prohibited the expenditure of city funds for the Games without a legally binding guarantee of reimbursement.
Faced with this reality, the IOC agreed to waive the city’s liability for any cost overruns and allowed the Games to be run by a private committee.
Using Amendment N as its template, the council should place a similar measure on the ballot and allow L.A. voters to make history once again by ensuring that a spectacular Olympics is staged at no cost to L.A. taxpayers.
Bob Ronka Tiburon, Calif. The writer, a member of the L.A. City Council from 1977-81, was the principal author of Charter Amendment N.