Just two days after Chicago 2016 Chairman Patrick Ryan tried to put off public hearings with angry aldermen about plans for financing the Olympic Games, he came to City Hall on Wednesday to allay their concerns in a series of closed-door meetings.
As he tried to calm City Council members who complained Mayor Richard Daley was keeping them in the dark about potential liability for taxpayers, Ryan and a Daley spokeswoman denied the private briefings would prevent the public from knowing what aldermen were being told.
"There will be [public] hearings and there will be briefings before the hearings, so they're fully aware and informed before the hearings," Ryan said of the aldermen when reporters caught up to him outside the unannounced meetings. "We want to take any mystery out of this, there's no privacy going on, what we're really doing is explaining where we are, why we are where we are."
Ryan was trying to calm a political storm caused last week when Daley told the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland that he was ready to sign "as is" a standard host-city contract. That agreement gives Chicago full financial responsibility for the Games, which would make taxpayers liable if the Olympics expenses outstripped about $2 billion in public guarantees and private insurance.
Leave a comment