As local support for the Boston 2024 Olympics declines, organisers of the bid have announced they will hold a statewide referendum on whether to host the Games.
Boston’s bid was cautiously welcomed by most residents when the city was announced as the US Olympic Committee’s official selection in January. At the time 51% of Bostonians supported the bid – that figure has now fallen to 36% according to a poll released last week.
Boston 2024 officials say they will abandon the bid if the November 2016 poll is not backed by the public. “All we ask is an opportunity to have a constructive dialogue with everybody in the Commonwealth … of how these Games, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, can benefit our community,’’ John F Fish, the chairman of Boston 2024, told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
The bid has attracted a number of criticisms in recent months. Opponents say that locals will not be consulted over construction projects and taxpayers have little protection if the project comes in over budget. “We hope to work constructively with Boston 2024 to craft language that accurately and fully reflects the difficult choice now facing our Commonwealth,” said No Boston Olympics, an anti-Games pressure group, in a statement. “We need to ask voters if taxpayers should be on the hook if things don’t go according to Boston 2024’s plan.”
Experts believe that a referendum will hand back control to the Boston 2024 organisers. “What they’ve been doing is clearly not working, so they need a reset and that’s what the referendum campaign would give them,” Dan Payne, a Democratic political consultant, told the Boston Globe . “It gives them maximum control over their arguments, and that’s what they need right now.”
The referendum will coincide with the presidential election. According to the Globe that could help Boston 2024’s cause: groups who support the bid – namely the young, those on lower income and minorities – are more likely to vote during that period.
A referendum on an Olympic bid is rare but not unprecedented. The 1976 Winter Olympics were first awarded to Denver, but Colorado voters passed a referendum in 1972 declining to host over cost concerns. Krakow and Munich pulled out of the 2022 Winter Olympic bidding after “no” votes. Oslo got a 55% “yes” vote for 2022 before the government decided not to financially back it and infamously pulled the plug.
If the Boston bid is rejected by voters, an alternative US city will not be able to step in – the IOC will select its candidate cities by May 2016.
