A committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted on Friday to support an effort to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles, ahead of a deadline next month for US Olympic organizers to decide on a city to bid for the Games.
The US Olympic Committee has turned to Los Angeles after dropping Boston last month, after the Massachusetts capital’s mayor said he would not expose the city’s taxpayers to assuming possible cost overruns.
The full Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday on whether to pursue the Olympics after a council committee on Friday unanimously recommended moving forward.
Photo: AFP
The US Olympic Committee must designate a proposed host city before Sept. 15 to enter an international competition for the 2024 Summer Games.
Los Angeles represents a possibly thrifty choice as a host, in large part because officials say most prospective venues and locations for the Games already exist, including Memorial Coliseum, which will be 101 years old in 2024.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has thrown his support behind bringing the Olympics to Los Angeles, but some council members expressed concern that the city — which hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games — would be on the hook for costs that exceed revenues.
A budget released this week by LA24, an Olympics organizing group chaired by sports executive Casey Wasserman, envisions more than US$5.8 billion in costs to host the Games.
The organizers said in a “bid book” that Los Angeles could reach the finish line with a surplus of at least US$160 million, even though cities have often lost money hosting the Games.
Council members, citing cost concerns, directed city officials to ensure the Los Angeles City Council gets a vote on a final agreement with Olympic organizers before the city makes an unbreakable commitment.
That final vote would occur sometime after the US Olympic Committee would submit Los Angeles as its bid city.
“We are an international city that’s going to be competing on an international stage, and we need to get this right,” City Councilman Joe Buscaino said.
Zev Yaroslavsky, a retired politician who was on the City Council when Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Olympics, suggested that despite the city’s notorious traffic, many area residents might stay off the roads during the Games, as they did in 1984.
“There was no traffic in this town for two weeks,” Yaroslavsky said.
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