● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
The Los Angeles City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympic & Paralympic Games last met on 24 June 2024, and was considerably irked by what it saw as a lack of collaboration on the announcement by the LA28 organizers of multiple venue changes on 21 June, and more revealed on 12 July.
Said committee Chair Traci Park:
“I want to be very clear that to move an Olympic sport outside the City of Los Angeles will not be done by a press release, headline or by another city.
“That decision will be made by this committee and the full Council as agreed in the Games Agreement.
“I look forward to the [Chief Legislative Analyst] and the [Chief Administrative Officer] providing their joint analysis and I would encourage committee members to use the summer recess to review those materials so that we can take them up when we return after recess.”
Then came the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, both outstanding successes that thoroughly impressed the Committee members, judging by the continuing flow of motions from its members:
● 20 September: A motion by Council members Curren Price and Park to “identify City-owned sites within their respective Council Districts that could be converted into Activation Zones for the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games and other major events prior.”
● 25 September: A motion by Council member Monica Rodriguez that “DIRECTS the Department of Cultural Affairs, with the assistance of the City Administrative Officer, the Chief Legislative Analyst, and REQUEST LA28 to report on the status of planning for the Olympic Arts Festival for the LA28 Games, including how the Festival will engage the broadest range of performing arts centers, museums, galleries, and other types of venues throughout the City of Los Angeles as possible.”
● 25 September: Rodriguez submitted another motion, this time concerning hiring, to “request the City Administrative Officer, the Chief Legislative Analyst, and the City Attorney to work with LA28 to establish and document employment opportunities available for the local workforce in the City of Los Angeles and provide a report to Council detailing how opportunities will be promoted to the City workers.”
● 25 September: Rodriguez also moved to obtain supplier and vendor information, asking “the City Administrative Officer, the Chief Legislative Analyst, and the City Attorney to work with LA28 on procurement opportunities available for small, medium, and large size businesses in the City of Los Angeles and provide a report to Council detailing how the opportunities will be promoted to local businesses.”
● 25 September: Rodriguez’s fourth motion, joined by Price, expanded the desire for festival sites:
“I THEREFORE MOVE that Council DIRECT the Chief Legislative Analyst and the City Administrative Officer, in consultation with the Council Offices and all relevant Departments, and REQUEST LA28 to develop at least 28 locations throughout the City, in every Council District, including, but not limited to, non-City owned spaces, where viewing party locations and activations can be hosted to serve Angelenos.”
No reference was made to Park’s 20 September motion on “Activation Zones,” although Park seconded Rodriguez’s motion.
The Ad Hoc Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Games has not publicly announced its next meeting date, but it has quite an agenda on its hands.
All of these are interesting inquiries and ideas, but Park, Price and Rodriguez may be disappointed by the responses they get, partly because there appears to be very little understanding of how an Olympic or Paralympic Games organizing committee works:
● On local hiring, the motion also asks “LA28 to provide estimates of local hiring by category and work with the Bureau of Contract Administration and the Economic Workforce Development Department to develop an outreach, education and training program leveraging current programs.”
LA28 is still in formation at 160-plus staff (it will reach more than 3,000 by 2028) and has not confirmed its Olympic competition venues for six sports, two cycling disciplines, one sport in limbo – boxing – and its five added sports, not to mention the Paralympics altogether. It will be a long time before LA28 can estimate its hiring needs in the long term, or for the Games.
Multi-sport projects do not follow a linear plan, such as for building a skyscraper, but are developed on the fly, with input from multiple stakeholders on the local, regional, national and international level. For those sites outside of the City of Los Angeles, those host cities will be just as interested in having their residents get a crack at Olympic and Paralympic jobs.
● On the “Olympic Arts Festival,” Rodriguez’s motion refers only to the City’s agreement with LA28 to work with the city, and notes “It would not have been possible without the 1984 Los Angeles Organizing Committee.”
In fact, it is the organizing committee’s responsibility alone, as stated in Rule 39 of the Olympic Charter:
“The OCOG [organizing committee] shall organise a programme of cultural events which must cover at least the entire period during which the Olympic Village is open. Such programme shall be submitted to the IOC Executive Board for its prior approval.”
In 1984, the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee completely changed the cultural program from a during-the-Games project to a 10-week program which began on 1 June 1984, way ahead of the 28 July opening of the Olympic Games. The program included 432 performances and 31 visual arts exhibitions from more than a dozen countries, with 37 co-producers at a total of 47 different sites throughout Southern California.
Attendance was more than 1.25 million, with the Festival coming in at a total cost of about $11.5 million, about $34.8 million in 2024 dollars. A large part of the budget came from a $5 million sponsorship by the Times Mirror Company.
In fact, if the LA28 cultural program is only limited to the City and resident artists, it will be a failure.
● The interest in “Activation Zones” has grown considerably since seeing the Paris “Terre des Jeux” program which placed viewing and festival sites across the country and in all 20 Paris arrondissements.
Park’s 20 September request for an “Activation Zone” in each of the 15 Council districts has ballooned to 28 in Rodriguez’s 25 September motion.
Whatever the program ends up being, it will be critical for the City of Los Angeles and LA28 to work together to avoid the uncontrolled, ambush marketing efforts which were allowed in Atlanta in 1996 and which remain an unforgettable stain on that Games to all who saw it.
One of the truly underrated, but crucially important elements of a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games is the close cooperation of the City and the organizing committee. Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984, Salt Lake City in 2002 and Paris in 2024 all achieved outstanding results, significantly due to the partnership between the local government and the organizing committee.
LA28 is just starting up. Rodriguez, Park, Price and all of the L.A. City Council need to ensure they help its growth in order to get the results they are dreaming of in four years.
~ Rich Perelman
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