OK. it’s been a few months since Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. We asked you what should we do now, if anything. 567 of you took the time to take the online survey. Right after the October 2 decision most of the key organizers inside No Games were exhausted and returned to their lives and civic commitments – including studying full time, trying to make a living, teaching, campaigning to stop the deportation of long-time Chicago residents and many other ongoing issues. We looked at the results of this survey as well as the hundreds of e-mails that we received. There were differing opinions as what to do next. There was no firm decision to move forward on any one idea. We told you we’d report back to you…
Here’s how the survey broke down:
We asked people to share ideas for economic development and political reform and YOU DID. Download the 28 page document here with your ideas for what Chicago should do next.
If you want to know more – download the “Thank You, No Games!” email messages (17 pages, names and email addresses of senders removed).
One of our organizers, Tom Tresser, wrote a column for Huffington Post, “Lessons Learned From Olympic Fiasco.” Tom is now the Green party candidate for Cook County Board President.
That’s about it, Chicago. There hasn’t been a real discussion of what happened around the bid and the opposition to it. The media did not tell the story running up to the bid and they haven’t told the story since we lost the bid. We have not seen any academic institution or public policy body convene a discussion and no in-depth article or story has been published telling the story of what we did and why. We think Chicago’s progressive community ought to come together some how to frankly review what happened and why, but it will be up someone else to organize that forum.
To all the people who wrote, organized, marched, protested, donated, emailed, sent us articles, sent us advice, helped out and secretly wished us well when they could not do so publicly – THANK YOU.
No Games Chicago
No Games Chicago 