As Chicago tries for 2016 Games, activists push for cleanup
Source: Belleville News Democrat (Original Article)
CHICAGO — The way activists see it, there’s no better time to pressure City Hall into cleaning up trash-strewn alleys and lots in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods than when it’s putting a shine on its pitch to win the 2016 Olympic Games.
So on Thursday, members of Action Now led reporters, photographers and an official with the city’s Olympic committee on a tour of areas they say aren’t kept nearly as clean as picturesque spots like the lakefront and trendy and upscale neighborhoods.
“We see the Olympics as a vehicle to bring moneys to these blighted areas,” said Denise Dixon, Action Now’s executive director.
She said it can only help the city’s chances to win the 2016 Games if it cleans up what she calls neglected neighborhoods before representatives from the International Olympic Committee inspect Chicago sometime next year.
One Chicago Olympic committee official isn’t so sure that the kind of litter he saw Thursday will matter to the IOC that must choose between Chicago; Tokyo; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Madrid, Spain.
“It’s hard to say how much this will register (with the IOC),” said Gyata M.J. Kimmons, director of community relations for Chicago 2016, as he stood near a lot piled with chunks of carpet, boxes and other trash. “This is hardly the slums of Rio.”
Besides, said a city official, the areas Dixon talks about are being served as well as any areas of the city.
“To say they are not getting services or there’s an imbalance of service is totally misleading,” said Matt Smith, a spokesman for the city’s streets and sanitation department. Smith pointed to statistics that show the neighborhoods Dixon says are underserved receive as much attention from the department as anywhere in the city.
Further, he dismisses the so-called “Olympic 2016 Trash Tour” as grandstanding by a group taking advantage of the international attention that Chicago has received and will receive pumpkin carving pattern as part of its Olympic bid.
Dixon …continue reading