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U.S. Committee wraps up final visit
By Josh Richman ,STAFF WRITER
Oakland Tribune
July 16, 2002 - SAN FRANCISCO -- U.S. Olympic Committee officials had only kind words for the Bay Area on Monday as they wrapped up their brief, unexpectedly tumultuous and final visit before picking a U.S. city to vie for the 2012 Summer Games.
"This bid doesn't have any shortcomings," USOC bid evaluation task force chairman Charles Moore said at a news conference on the Bank of America building's 51st floor.
The setting would have given the task force a sweeping view of the Golden Gate Bridge had the local icon not been fog encased.
"This is a fine bid, it may even be an exceptional bid, and for that I congratulate you," Moore said.
He said the task force was particularly impressed with the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee's involvement of so many athletes in building its proposal, as well as Stanford University's and the University of California, Berkeley's cooperation in the bid. "You have aligned the academic culture and sports interests, and that is important. It really resonates with us."
The task force made final visits to Washington, D.C., and New York City in late June and early July, and came directly to the Bay Area from Houston. Well, maybe not so directly: bad weather in Texas delayed the group's Bay Area arrival by a few hours, sending BASOC scrambling to reconfigure a schedule it spent months planning.
Task force members spent Monday in intensive question-and-answer sessions with BASOC board members, taking a break for lunch at San Francisco City Hall.
"We got to eat yesterday's lunch," Moore quipped, referring to a Sunday luncheon scrapped by the delayed arrival. They also went on a boat tour of the Bay.
The task force will eliminate two of the four cities in September, and the USOC will pick the U.S. bid city Nov. 3. The USOC will then work intensively with the U.S. bid city to beat out international competitors and win the International Olympic Committee's nod in 2005.
Moore said 54 percent of the task force's scoring is based on IOC criteria; 31 percent is based on the "extras" a bid city offers, such as cultural, educational, environmental and other benefits; and 15 percent is based on the bid city's financial stability.
Moore would not comment on that final category, although he said these four cities would not have made it this far -- four other cities were cut from the race last October -- if they did not have generally sound financial plans.
Moore said that since the task force's first visit here in August 2001, BASOC has "made significant changes in their venues, which we think were a plus," consolidating most events within a "ring of gold" defined by San Francisco, Stanford, Santa Clara, San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley. Only four events -- in Sacramento, Napa and Monterey -- remain outside that ring.
BASOC has demonstrated that "a gold ring of transportation" would connect the venues, Moore said, adding too many events too close together would be a problem anyway: "You have to have some dispersion." And Moore also praised "refinements" BASOC made of its plan for an Olympic Village at Moffett Field near Mountain View.
The task force was feted Sunday night with a San Francisco reception attended by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, state Assembly Majority Whip Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, and U.S. House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.
The Bay Area already is making waves among would-be international rivals for the 2012 Summer Games. Former International Olympic Committee vice-president Dick Pound, a Montreal lawyer, last week told the Toronto Star newspaper the Bay Area would be tough to beat, although Toronto would provide "all the advantages of America without the disadvantages of being in the U.S.A."
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