IOC members met with protests in Chicago

By Kathy Bergen and David Heinzmann

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

CHICAGO _ Protests punctuated the arrival of international Olympic officials in Chicago Thursday, the start of a six-day visit to size up the city and its bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

Adding to the tensions as the International Olympic Committee evaluation commission members flew into Chicago's O'Hare Airport was the expected indictment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and others on corruption charges later in the day, not the sort of image any city would be eager to cultivate.

Chanting "no contract, no Olympics," more than a thousand off-duty Chicago police officers formed a picket line ringing City Hall in the late morning to demonstrate their anger over troubled labor negotiations with Mayor Richard Daley's administration.

The protest occurred just hours before the first three members of a 13-member IOC delegation arrived at O'Hare, and later at the Fairmont Chicago, headquarters for their visit.

At 5 p.m., No Games Chicago, a group opposed to spending money on the Olympics rather than on basic needs such as housing and education, is expected to rally at Federal Plaza.

A third protest is expected during the visit, staged by Communities for Equitable Olympics, a coalition that is angry the City Council did not approve an ordinance requiring specific levels of community hiring, minority contracts and affordable housing prior to the visit. Plans for protests were being developed Thursday, a coalition spokesman said.

Asked about the prospect of protests during a press conference Wednesday, Daley said, "Everyone has the right to demonstrate. Let them demonstrate." Independent observers say protests have become quite common when cities are preparing to bid for or host Olympic Games.

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The first IOC member to arrive at the Fairmont was Nawal El Moutawakel, the evaluation chairwoman, from Morocco, who was riding in a black Suburban with Daley and Donna De Varona, a U.S. gold medalist in swimming.

Mounir Sabet, from Egypt, arrived next, with an Arabic-speaking member of the Chicago 2016 bid team, and Alexander Popov, from Russia, was third, riding with Olympics expert Charlie Battle, a consultant to Chicago 2016.

The entourage walked past a scrum of media at both locations, but did not comment.

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Chicago is the first stop on the evaluation committee's itinerary. It will visit Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid in the coming weeks, and the full IOC membership will select a host city from among the four finalists on Oct. 2.

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The police demonstration turnout seemed to please organizers, who were contemplating diverting some of the demonstrators across the street to Daley Plaza.

Police officers are angry that contract negotiations stretch on for years and this year Daley pulled a pay raise offer off the table and made the move public.

The demonstration drew the presence of the national Fraternal Order of Police President Chuck Canterbury, who flew in from South Carolina.

"These guys are expressing their constitutional right to be out here," he said, noting Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. that requires its officers to live in the city limits. "These officers are all citizens of this city, and they have the right to be here."

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