Is Chicago still game? The final 30 days will tell, say alderman, activist

Less than a month shy of the International Olympics Committee's Oct. 2 decision on who will host the 2016 Olympics, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington sat down with fourth ward Alderman Tony Preckwinkle, and Jay Travis, executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization to talk TIFs, housing, and city finances.

Both Preckwinkle and Travis had information to clarify surrounding the increasingly complex relationship between Chicago 2016, the bid committee, City Hall and South Side communities.

Preckwinkle, who's ward contains the site of the Olympic Village and neighbors the sites of the Aquatic Center and Olympic Stadium, cautioned that decision is not "set in stone." Because there has never been an Olympics in South America, she explained, Rio has a particular advantage over the other cities vying for the bid, which include Tokyo and Madrid. Nonetheless, Preckwinkle pointed to the Civic Federation report, commissioned by the city council, as evidence that Chicago's bid has a firm financial foundation.

Travis, a community organizer and one of the founding members of the Communities for an Equitable Olympics (CEO 2016), thinks the Olympic bid stands to negatively impact her community, Bronzeville, if her neighbors don't do something about it. Bronzeville lies north of Washington Park, and would be host to the Olympic Village.

The event took place at the Chicago History Museum last Tuesday evening, Sep. 1. as part of the museum's In the K/Now speaker series. Chicago 2016 declined an invitation to send a representative to speak at the event.

"Displacement often occurs within neighborhoods that are within the Olympic footprint, and that displacement doesn't always happen because of the demolition of homes around Olympic venues. that displacement is caused by housing costs due to escalating rent values," Travis said. CEO 2016 has already played an instrumental role in drafting the Memorandum of Understanding, a document that binds Chicago 2016 officials to the promise to create affordable housing and jobs via the Olympics. But Travis said CEO 2016 is now filing a Freedom of Information Act request to learn about how the city plans to use TIF dollars and other public funds in the neighborhood venue sites.

"I would like more transparency around the use of public fund and public dollars," she said. "We've heard over and over and over that there will be no public funds, except the 500 million that the city is holding, and except for the 250 million that the state is holding. No money except for the TIF funding ... Where will that money be used?"

According to Preckwinkle, there will be a tax increment financing initiative, (TIF) for the Olympic Village in her ward, and there is a proposed TIF for Washington Park in the 20th ward. The TIF for the Olympic Village, she said, will be used to finance new water-mains and streets—infrastructure investments that the city would need to make to successfully redevelop the neighborhood, with or without the Olympics.

"But I think Jay is quite right," when it comes to the need for transparency, Preckwinkle added. The city council was able to pass an ordinance in support of the Memorandum of Understanding because, "not only were we able to build a consensus in City Council, but there were local groups building around the issue."

Travis acknowledged Preckwinkle's help in passing that ordinance, but is worried that it will not legally bind Chicago's Olympic Organizing Committee, which will not be formed until after Chicago wins the bid, to any of the promises for transparent finances, affordable housing or local job creation.

"There's an opportunity for the city, if the city should win the Games, to figure out how to do development in a way that doesn't displace people," Travis said. "But if we don't have the right checks and balances, the Olympics could exacerbate a lot of the issues that are already happening in our neighborhood in terms of displacement."