New York Mayor Wants Stadium Plans Approved Ahead Of IOC Visit

Newsday reports that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a legislative fiscal panel Monday that the Public Authorities Control Board should approve his West Side stadium proposal linked to New York’s 2012 bid, before an International Olympic Committee (IOC) delegation visits New York next month. The IOC Evaluation Commission will be in New York February 21 to 24 to examine the city’s bid plans.

The Mayor warned that Olympic officials realize how New York building projects can become bogged down, reports Newsday.

During his testimony the newspaper reports that protesters in the audience held up homemade signs with messages like “Hell’s Kitchen says Hell No!”

Bloomberg later old reporters, “an awful lot of the members of the IOC, including the more senior people, one of the things that they keep coming back to is, will New York City build the venue they think is appropriate…”

He added, “they watched what happened to other big projects in the city, and they are sceptical. And I said to them, ‘we will have this project going, and shovels in the ground, before I make the presentation along with others, on July 6 in Singapore’.

“But the site selection committee is coming here, they’re going to say, ‘hey, we read the papers, is this going to get done or isn’t it?’”

Meanwhile, the bid is moving along and on Monday the bid committee kicked off Restaurant Week January 24 to January 31, to promote New York’s 2012 bid. During the week about 200 of the world-renowned restaurants across New York City will offer specially priced three course lunches for $20.12.

New York’s Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff said, “the efforts of the restaurant community to come together for Winter Restaurant Week to honour New York City’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games embody the spirit of New York and the extraordinary support for the city’s bid”. Write or read comments about this article

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