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Posted: Friday, 04 September 2009 7:59AM
Chicago bid chief downplays poll
Bob Roberts Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780
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CHICAGO (WBBM) -- The president of the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid committee shrugging off a Chicago Tribune poll that shows public support for the bid has slipped.
"We've had tremendous public support for having the Games in Chicago," said Chicago 2016 President Lori Healey. "Polls are polls, and they move all the time."
Healey said she prefers to look at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) evaluation committee report and the Civic Federation's analysis. She said both show that Chicago can put on the Olympics well, and can do so within budget.
"I believe we're addressing the fears of the Chicago City Council, certainly a commitment to transparency, and I'm hopeful that next week the city council will give its support to us so that we can go to Copenhagen and be ready to put our best foot forward," she said.
Healey spoke at a hospitality industry event backing the bid, hosted by Tim O'Malley of Concierge Preferred, who dismissed the poll's findings.
"There was a whopping sample size of 385 people," O'Malley said. "We look at that and we can't take that seriously."
O'Malley said Chicago's hospitality industry is primed and ready to host the 2016 Games, and said he has heard that hotel developers are ready to announce plans to build in early October, if the IOC votes to make Chicago the 2016 site.
The Tribune poll found that nearly as many city residents oppose Mayor Richard Daley's Olympic plans, 45 percent, as support them, 47 percent. The Tribune reported that those it interviewed for the poll increasingly and overwhelmingly oppose using tax dollars to cover any financial shortfalls for the Games, with 84 percent disapproving of the use of public money.
Support was nearly 2-1 in a similar sample, taken in February.
IOC members vote Oct. 2 on a 2016 host city. Chicago is competing against Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro.
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