Park’s dependence bodes ill for Boston 2024

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/06/park_s_dependence_bodes_ill_for_boston_2024

Park’s dependence bodes ill for Boston 2024
Matt Stout, Erin Smith
June 11, 2015

Former transportation czar Richard Davey’s failure to compel the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy to make do without public money should make taxpayers wary as the Boston 2024 CEO now vows that no state funds will be used in the bid to bring the Summer Games to Boston, watchdogs say.

“It’s like a little canary in the coal mine. It certainly validates the skepticism that some people feel already (about the Olympics) because the Greenway is an example of a project that was supposed to be privately funded and is now funded by taxpayers,” Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation said.

“And the person in charge of the Greenway (state budget) is now telling us that taxpayer dollars will not be involved with Boston 2024,” she added. “It’s a very small project compared to the Olympics and the potential for taxpayers really getting soaked.”

After a series of Herald reports in 2012 exposing the shocking six-figure salaries and questionable expenses at the conservancy, Davey, then the state transportation secretary, demanded that the nonprofit “begin to wean itself off government support.”