The city would be on the hook for any cost overruns, though Millman said officials are projecting a sizable surplus.
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Los Angeles isn’t even the U.S. bid yet, although Mayor Eric Garcetti says the bid looks like its the city’s for the taking.
The two-time Summer Games host will step into a crowded bidding field, officials told the Los Angeles Times on Monday.
Los Angeles is close to becoming the United States Olympic Committee’s candidate to bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, reports Peter Jamison of the Los Angeles Times.
That and the other key venues have already been built, minimizing the need for public funding for new facilities.
Asked for comment on Garcetti’s willingness to pledge public money to backstop the Games, Bill Achtmeyer, a Boston 2024 board member, said in an e-mail that he did not believe Boston “should have been compelled to make an ironclad guarantee before we had the opportunity to review the results of an independent study on the efficacy” of Boston 2024’s revised venue plan.
But that would definitely require the city’s taxpayers to cover any cost overruns, meaning $4 billion less the amount the IOC would cover (they put $1.5 billion toward this year’s Games) and any profit the Games make.
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Millman said discussions with the United States Olympic Committee are just beginning. The move had been expected since rumblings began to grow in recent months that Boston, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s original choice, might drop out in the face of widespread public opposition to the effort. Paris, Rome, Hamburg, Budapest and Toronto also are possible contenders, with a September 15 deadline looming for national organizing committees to submit bids.
