Greg Hinz Weighs in on Olympic Ward Meetings

Greg Hinz, at Chicago Business, is one of the more opinionated voices in the Chicago media and generally speaking we usually like his take on topics. He weighed in on the Olympics and recently provided some good perspective:

That said, Mr. Daley and his Olympics dream are about to enter a critical phase. The City Council is set to vote late next month on whether to authorize that total guarantee after receiving an outside financial review by a firm hired by the Civic Federation.

The key question isn't whether operations of the Olympics have any real chance of losing a ton. The answer is, no. The games will sell tickets and TV rights, someone will pay them, and the thing quite probably will come in somewhere near budget.

The real question is about risk in building the things needed for the games, in particular the $300-million stadium and $1-billion housing village that will go where the former Michael Reese Hospital now stands.