Article content continued

A:We started in a living room, in Boston. There were initially three of us, all of whom were young professionals in their early 30s, with backgrounds in business, politics, government and communications. We had seen the boosters, the supporters of the bid, putting out this idea that the Olympics would bring all sorts of benefits, and limited risk, and this was a good idea for Boston. They had been pushing that message without anyone in an organized fashion asking if that was true and making the case maybe this wasn’t a good public policy to pursue.

Q: How much money did No Boston Olympics spend over the course of that debate?

A: We spent less than US$10,000. Our single largest expenditure was $700 to rent the meeting space of a church for our first meeting.

Q: How much did the Boston 2024 group spend exploring the bid you opposed?

A: They spent about US$15 million.

Q: What ended up happening with Boston’s Olympic bid?

A:Despite that mismatch of resources and spending, we felt like we had the facts on our side. When the U.S. Olympic committee chose Boston on Jan. 8, 2015, over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., people in Boston started paying very close attention to this issue. In the early polling, there was a lot of excitement. Bostonians were open to the idea. But, as they learned more about the bid, the downsides and the risk, they started to realize this was not a good deal.

For example, and this would be the same in Calgary, the bid requires a taxpayer guarantee. The mayor of the host city signs a contract that says the city is responsible for any and all cost overruns and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) bears no responsibility for those. Thinking about essentially writing a blank cheque to the IOC is troubling. As people learned more about the IOC and the process and saw the boosters were focused on winning the bid, not what was best for Boston, the support declined over time.