No one thinks this is a good idea.
Last week LA City Council heard from a room full of residents and organizations — such as NOlympics, Stop the Gondola, Historical Cultural North Neighborhood Council, Unite Here Local 11, Encino Neighborhood Council — about why Olympic building exemptions simply shouldn’t exist. Instead of killing this motion in its tracks, they approved five amendments that would require this process to be more drawn out.
For the second week in a row, there was no pro-Olympic, pro-Olympic development exemption voice in the room. A week prior at a previous full Council meeting, there was equally unanimous scorn and criticism for both the Olympics and the proposal to gut important development regulations so that they can happen.
Nevertheless, LA City Council voted to kick this ridiculous motion for report backs to study “temporary” and “permanent” Olympic construction and development.
????
This whole motion comes off as extremely discordant with the fact that LA28 was billed, sold, and reprinted by the LA Times repeatedly as a “NO BUILD OLYMPICS.” One of Garcetti’s talking points for years was that “LA could hold these Olympics tomorrow”.
Clearly they fucking cannot.
THEY HAD 11 YEARS TO PLAN FOR AN EVENT THAT IS TYPICALLY PRODUCED IN 6-7 YEARS. THEY WERE RUNNING LATE BEFORE THE FIRES. THEY HAVEN’T FINALIZED THE VENUES AND SECURED SPONSORS. WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING THE PAST 8 YEARS?
Shame on the LA legacy publication journalists who have been giving LA28 the most grotesque benefit of a doubt. And shame on the LA publications who refuse to cover this Olympic exemption motion (no one has!). Regular people, as usual, are the only ones paying attention to this. And they are rightfully pissed.
We will most certainly be back. And so will lots of others who can read the writing on the wall.
The chorus to cancel the Olympics and all the displacement, policing, and erosion of democratic processes that they always come attached to the Games has only grown louder.
We can still break it. Let’s GØ.
