Summer time, so here’s a rerun. FWIW the FBI is now on it: 12/13/2015 update: Jeff Manning’s new report in the Oregonian, here, lays out what is known so far, and quotes the French Ministry of Justice: “The object is to determine the conditions under which the hosting decision was taken,”…
Posts tagged as “Track and Field Championships”
When the 2012 Olympics came to London, the town’s graffiti artists took to the city’s walls to mock the corporate pomposity of it all. As the Guardian reported, London’s government did its best to eradicate these troubling works of artistic sarcasm, which was not hard to do in a country…
7/27/2018 update: The RG’s Austin Meek reports today that Travel Oregon is claiming the federal investigations into the awarding of the 2021 IAAF championships to Tracktown will not prevent Travel Oregon from giving them $10M in state funds:
“It is Travel Oregon’s perspective, barring DOJ counsel to the contrary, that language included in future contracts referencing ‘pending investigations’ relates to any investigations in which the successful applicant/awardee is named as the subject or otherwise included as one of the subjects of that investigation,” [Travel Oregon spokesperson Linea Gagliano] said in a written response provided to The Register-Guard.
The Oregon DOJ declined to comment. Meanwhile there’s still no budget for how Tracktown/Oregon21 proposes to spend these state funds.
7/25/2018: Back in early 2016, after some serious log-rolling and arm-twisting, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill to raise the hotel tax and have the Oregon Tourism Commission, a.k.a Travel Oregon, run a grant process to give Vin Lananna’s Tracktown at least part of the $25M in public money that John Kitzhaber and Kate Brown had promised them. For a taste of the politics, here’s Saul Hubbard in the RG:
Cash trail leads to track subsidy
Posted Jan 5, 2016 at 10:01 PM
When Vin Lananna, president of TrackTown USA, and Paul Weinhold, president of the University of Oregon Foundation, first contacted then-Gov. John Kitzhaber in mid-2014 to request a $40 million state subsidy for TrackTown’s bid to hold the 2019 track world championships in Eugene, they were met with coolness and skepticism, newly released emails show.
After Lananna gave an in-person pitch to Kitzhaber on July 7, Kitzhaber economic policy adviser Vince Porter sent a scathing assessment of the request to the governor and his top advisers.
Talks should continue, Porter wrote, but “there are a lot of hurdles to get over before it becomes much more than a pipe dream.”
Nonprofit TrackTown’s request contained “probably as much as $20 million that we would never want to consider subsidizing,” he added. “I don’t think the state should be even considering something larger than $20 million” to help fund the event in Eugene, he wrote.
The subsidy request — which would require three-fifth votes in both chambers of the Legislature — also was met coolly by Salem’s two most powerful legislators, Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek, both Democrats, Porter’s emails indicate.
Yet, only five months later, Kitzhaber publicly pledged to “use all the means at my disposal to deliver the financial support needed for the championships” in a video message he sent — along with then-Secretary of State Kate Brown — with TrackTown’s team to the International Association of Athletics Federations bid meeting in Monaco in late November.
For the first time in that video, Kitzhaber endorsed a specific amount: the full $40 million. Getting the governor to publicly state the $40 million was a priority for TrackTown, Porter’s emails show.
What happened between Kitzhaber’s initial resistance and his endorsement? His campaign coffers were swamped to overflowing with donations from people who want the track world championships held at the UO’s Hayward Field.
The emails show that Kitzhaber’s apparent reversal coincided with almost $400,000 in campaign contributions he received during a 42-day period in September and October 2014 from athletic apparel giant Nike, its co-founder Phil Knight and its CEO Mark Parker, as well as four members of the UO Board of Trustees. …
He has, however, resigned as TrackTown President, right in the middle of planning for the 2021 IAAF Championships, and a federal investigation. Ken Goe has the scoop here: Lananna led the successful bid for the 2021 World Outdoor Championships, which are scheduled to be at Hayward Field. The bid is…
Update: A press release, explaining that city officials will be present to discuss the arborcide. Contact: Michael Carrigan 541-844-4677 Jim Watson 541-520-8942 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Tuesday, June 19 Protesters To Gather at Hayward Field East Grandstand Tuesday Community members will hold a vigil at 2:00 PM Tuesday to protest the…
UO will permanently close 15th, build plaza for Slusher’s Schlong. The RG has the story here, With the usual PR flack BS: Closing East 15th Avenue would result in the loss of 115 parking spaces used by students, employees and visitors, said UO spokeswoman Molly Blancett. “Based on our most…
Ken Goe has the story here about the 2020 USATF championship. Apparently this means UO and Eugene can now piss away millions bidding for it. Or maybe the feds will turn up something on Weinhold and Lananna first.
Just in case any UO students, faculty, community members, the UO Senate, ASUO, the Eugene City Council, the Mayor, the Campus Planning Committee, or most longtime Eugene track and field fans had any illusions about what JH and the UO Foundation think of their importance. More in Meerah Powell’s Eugene…
4/23/2018: One of a series of op-eds and stories this week showing the disagreements over the $200M proposal to teardown and replace Hayward Field, and the secretive process Nike and UO are using to design and build it: In the RG: Bill Bowerman, my dad, contributed a lot to putting Hayward…
The Oregonian and the RG have had a series of stories about the secretive plans to tear down Hayward Field’s east grandstand as part of the effort to put a 30,000 seat stadium on Agate for the state-subsidized IAAF 2021 track championships. http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2018/03/hayward_field_renovation_plan.html The original design by architect and Nike…
UO wants the Eugene planning commission to give it the right to put 4 astro-turf playing fields with lights just south of the Willamette river. They claim this is for intramural Rugby and PE and Rec classes. I don’t buy it. I don’t have the Rugby participation data, but it’s…
2/20/2018: Austin Meek has the latest on the Lananna and Tracktown in the RG here. No word yet on whether the feds are also interviewing the UO Foundation CEO Paul Weinhold, who also played a key role in the IAAF bidding, as reported by Diane Dietz in the RegisterGuard back in 2014: The…
In the NYT today: … The Justice Department is exploring possible racketeering, money laundering and honest services fraud charges related to two track and field world championship events and the business executives who have consulted on bids for various other elite competitions, according to one of the subpoenas, which was…
A teardown seems a bit extreme. I wonder what sort of city approval this will require. Ken Goe has the report in the Oregonian: An IAAF team has been in Portland and Eugene this week to discuss preparations for the 2021 World Outdoor Track & Field Championships. The championships are more…
This seems weird, even by the standards of the IAAF and Oregon: The Secretary of State’s records are here: They seem to have had a little trouble settling on the name.