Effort draws foes before exploratory panel is done

Group named NOlympics wants voters to have a say

The question of whether Denver should bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics is still officially open, but a group of community activists on Friday launched a formal opposition committee with a catchy name: NOlympics.

The group has met informally in recent weeks to strategize while the consideration process is underway by the 40-member Denver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Exploratory Committee. Chief among the exploratory committee’s goals, its leaders have said, is determining whether Colorado could host the Winter Games with a privately funded host committee, which would shield taxpayers from most — but not necessarily all — costs.

At its news conference Friday morning, the NOlympics Colorado Committee, with a roster numbering nearly three dozen and counting, said it wants state and city voters to have a voice in any bid decision.

That could come in the form of voter initiatives at both the state and city levels this year, developer Kyle Zeppelin said. Attorneys working with the group will consider the best way to create binding ballot questions, he said.

Shortly before becoming governor, Dick Lamm led a campaign for a successful referendum in the early 1970s that torpedoed Colorado’s hosting of the 1976 Winter Games. He was back in the state Capitol on Friday — beneath his own official portrait.

Flanked by more than a dozen members of NOlympics, he recalled overriding concerns back then about fiscal recklessness and the Olympics’ potential impact on the environment.

“Well, those issues are back again,” Lamm said. “It isn’t that they haven’t tried to take some steps to ameliorate those two issues. … You just can go back for 50 or 60 years and see how difficult it is to hold a cost-effective Olympics.”

The NOlympics co-chairs are Zeppelin

and community activist Tony Pigford. Lamm is an honorary co-chair, along with Zeppelin’s father, Mickey, a longtime developer.

Besides the environmental concerns and cost, other speakers also pointed to a lack of equity in how Denver has handled its recent growth spurt. The Rev. Timothy Tyler, pastor of Shorter Community AME Church, said Denver should focus on addressing its long-standing socio-economic problems, including homelessness, before seeking to host such a large event.

“Let’s not do this,” said NOlympics member Dana Miller, citing environmental concerns. “We are better than this. We are more visionary than this — we love Colorado much too much to have the Olympics here.”

The exploratory committee’s timeline calls for finalizing its bid recommendation by late April, with a presentation to Mayor Michael Hancock and Gov. John Hickenlooper in early May.

“The exploratory committee has not made a recommendation yet, and the U.S. Olympic Committee has not formally entered into a Winter Games bid process,” Ramonna Robinson, the committee’s spokeswoman, said after the NOlympics launch event. “To oppose something that does not exist is premature. We encourage Coloradans to keep an open mind while the Exploratory Committee and subcommittees complete their work.”

It could be a couple years before the International Olympic Committee seeks official bids for 2030. It recently started the 2026 Winter Games bid process.

In response to cost concerns — hosting costs are estimated at $1.5 billion to $2 billion — Denver exploratory officials have pointed to the IOC’s recent bid and hosting reforms.

On Thursday night, the exploratory committee’s official Sharing the Gold advisory panel in Denver wrapped up a series of four meetings. Robinson said participants discussed recommendations and concerns that included the imperatives of avoiding taxpayer support, making sure that any housing built for Olympic villages be usable as affordable housing for families afterward, and addressing major transportation challenges.

A community debate of sorts is set to tackle the Olympic bid question Saturday morning. Exploratory committee chairman Rob Cohen and two other representatives are set to join Lamm and Zeppelin at the event, organized by the group Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation. Also participating will be Chris Dempsey, a Boston activist who helped lead a successful opposition campaign to that city’s bid — later withdrawn — for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The event is set to run from 10 a.m. to noon at Park Hill Congregational Church, 2600 Leyden St.