To the editor: California legislators fear that the Trump administration might renege on its $1-billion dedication for the 2028 Olympics (“Concerns over federal funding for L.A. Olympics raised by state lawmakers,” Might 14). That fear ought to be directed on the metropolis of Los Angeles and the LA28 committee that’s staging the Video games.
In 1978, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly accepted a constitution modification that prohibited taxpayer funds from being spent on the 1984 Olympics until they had been reimbursed. The poll measure was written by Councilmembers Bob Ronka and Zev Yaroslavsky, and as Ronka’s chief of workers, I helped draft it. It completely utilized to the ’84 Video games.
In its eagerness to host a 3rd Olympics, the town whiffed on its duties to its taxpayers throughout the 2015 bidding course of by executing an agreement that uncovered the town for the primary $270 million of value overruns and the state for the subsequent $270 million, with the town assuming all monetary legal responsibility past — a clean examine.
Town is the guarantor for LA28’s staging of the Video games. But, it’s at midnight the place the committee’s revenues and bills stand. One of many metropolis’s prime officers expressed no worries on this article, saying that “L.A. is aware of how to do that.” No, it doesn’t. In its historical past, the town has by no means assured a multi-billion-dollar occasion over which it had no management. The LA28 committee should open its books to its guarantor: the town of Los Angeles and its taxpayers.
Wayne Avrashow, Rancho Mirage
