"This is a good thing for our bid," Pat Ryan was saying the other night, after Bronzeville neighborhood citizens grilled Olympics officials for nearly three hours about costs and risks of staging a Chicago Olympics.
A root-canal look on his face, Ryan had sat in a hot, crowded South Side meeting room as residents raised concerns about the demolition of historic buildings, travel inconveniences and access to business opportunities that could accompany a 2016 Games.
The Chicago 2016 bid committee has been the most open ever, asserted Ryan, the chairman. The group that would run the Games -- the Chicago Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, or OCOG -- will be open to scrutiny too, Olympics officials have said.
Yet when it comes to opening their own records to public scrutiny, the way all public agencies must, the transparency goes dark.
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