Assembly Select Committee on 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Good morning. I would like to call this Assembly Select Committee on the 2028 Olympics and Paralympic Games to order. But I would like to start by saying good luck to all the Paralympians in Milan. Today is the opening day and so let's give them a hand and we know we're cheering for America.

My name is Assemblymember Tina McKinnor and I would like to welcome everyone to the first hearing of this Select Committee, the first of many as we prepare to welcome the world to the greater Los Angeles region in 2028 to host its third Summer Olympics and first Summer Paralympics in history.

I also serve as the Chair of the Los Angeles Los Angeles County Legislative Delegation and would like to welcome the legislators from across Los Angeles county to the hearings today. Let's give them a round of applause. Additionally, I would also like to recognize the Assembly's Art, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Chris Ward.

I don't know if he's here yet. And the Senate Special Committee on International Sporting Events, Olympics, Paralympics and World Cup Soccer chaired by Senator Ben Allen. And welcome to all the Senators from that Committee. It has been over four decades since Los Angeles has hosted an Olympic game.

Four decades since Carl Lewis met Jesse Owens 1936 feat with a four track and field medals. Four decades since Mary Lou Retton historic gymnastics all around title. Four decades since Michael Jordan led the US Basketball team to gold. Four decades since the game's debut of the rhythmic gymnastics, synchronized swimming and women's cycling road race.

The question is often raised, how can Los Angeles top the widely successful 1984 Games? Well, if you know anything about LA, you know that we love a sequel. Future hearings will explore the preparations underway for the 2028 Games. And I encourage the public to tune in on Monday, April 6th for our next hearing at the State Capitol.

You in Sacramento where legislators and the public will receive a public update on the collaborative work being done to prepare for LA28. Today's hearing is an opportunity to learn firsthand about the lessons and legacies of the 1984 Games. Where are the 1984 Olympians now? What was the legacy of the 1984 Games?

What were the short and long term benefits of hosting the 1984 Games? What can we learn from the 1984 Games as we prepare for what new legacy Los Angeles will leave the next generation of Angelenos? One of the clear legacies of the 1984 Games is this beautiful auditorium we're sitting in today.

The LA84 foundation has and continues to build the legacy of the 1984 Games. And I want to thank their leadership for hosting us here today. Let's give them a round of applause.

I also want to thank all the panelists that have joined us and look forward to learning more about your work to bring Angelenos and all Californians together through the incredible unifying power of sports. So welcome. Now, are there any Members that would like to make an opening remark? Mr. Allen.

Well, thank you so much. Thank you, Chair McKinnor, appreciate our wonderful partnership both in terms of our two committees. We have a Senate and Assembly side committees working together on statewide oversight.

There's a significant state backstop associated with these Games, and our leadership and the Governor care a great deal about the success of these Games, but also want to thank Tina for your continued leadership as the chair of our LA County delegation and being really strong advocate for our region. We've certainly learned a lot about the 84 games.

I remember it as a little kid. This is the Games they called the Games that saved the Olympics, because, as folks may know, the 1976 Games in Montreal, I think, has just come out of debt because of their spending plan and mistakes made and challenges. The 84 Olympics, of course, used the existing infrastructure and did so.

Of course, at the time, the IOC negotiations were a little more favorable for cities, and they were able to get a lot of revenue that they've now plowed into this wonderful foundation that has been promoting and supporting youth sports programming throughout the Southland ever since. It's been a wonderful, real legacy for our region.

And I think we're all hopeful that the 28 games will provide a similar legacy. Infrastructural, cultural. It'll be something that we'll all be able to look at with great pride and an opportunity for us to showcase our incredible region to the entire world.

We all know that our region has suffered from all sorts of challenges over the past few years, and it's been a tough couple of years. But this is a chance for us to shine and get back into the global spotlight where we deserve to be.

So we're really excited to be here and to really reflect upon the legacy of these extraordinary 84 games and see whatever we can do to learn from them and ensure that the 28 games are just as successful, if not more.

And I'm just really excited about the work that we have ahead to help to make sure that this is a really wonderful, successful experience for everybody, for everybody in our region, no matter what the background.

Thank you, Senator. We would like to now welcome Renata Simril with the LA84 foundation and Play Equity Fund to offer some opening comments.

Assemblymember, Good morning. And Members of the Select Committee and everyone, welcome to the LA84 foundation campus. We affectionately refer to the house that the Olympics built. There is a tradition here at the L84 foundation that we pause to recognize any Olympic or Paralympic athletes that are in the audience with us.

And so if there is an Olympic or Paralympic audience Member in the audience, if you can stand or raise your hand, thank you. Can you share what Games and what your discipline and your name? Because as we know, the athletes are what makes the Olympic movement what it is.

It is truly an honor to host the California Assembly and Senate select Committee on the 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Thank you for being here and thank you for taking some time to learn about the legacy of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, which I'll share more a little later.

You know, for us, there's something special, especially meaningful about having this conversation here. As you said, Assemblymember, L.A. 84 exists because of what was made possible by the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. And for more than four decades, we have worked to carry that legacy forward in service of the young people and communities throughout Southern California.

And as you said also so aptly, that Los Angeles is a city that always seems to find a way to show up. We do it with creativity, we do it with resilience, and we do it with a kind of belief that even in complex, challenging times, big things are possible.

That is part of the city story, and it's part of why looking back matters. Not just to understand what made those Games successful, but to understand what it took to turn a global moment into something lasting and meaningful for the place that this people, for the people that call this place home.

So we are truly grateful for your leadership. We're grateful for your curiosity, and we're grateful for the opportunity to welcome each and every one of you here today. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for being a great partner on this journey.

My apologies. There's a video. We wanted to cue the video just to give a little bit of perspective before we start.

If we have somehow brought this world a little bit closer, then we have indeed successfully staged an Olympic Games. And in a small way, perhaps, we have secured a better future for all the children of the world.

That's what play equity is to us. It's about fairness. It's about access, it's about opportunity, and it's about ensuring that every kid, regardless of where they come from, regardless of what they look like, regardless of their sexual orientation, regardless of their income, that they have the opportunity to experience a transformational power sport play movement.

Thank you. And again, thank you for being a great partner from the very beginning. Appreciate you. And so we'll start with our first panel, impacted youth. Lamel Rivera, Student athlete, Head of Los Angeles Youth Organization. You may start.

Good morning, Assembly Members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today and to share how the legacy of the 1984 Summer Olympics has impacted me and my community. It is truly honor and a blessing being here. My name is mo Avera. I'm 17 years old.

I'm a senior at University Prep Value High School and I've been involved in the youth youth programming at Heart of Los Angeles. Hola. For the last two years now. Hola. Has been a great recipient and partner of the LA84 foundation, receiving support from our after school program for athletics as well as music and arts.

Because of that partnership, I have directly benefited from the legacy of the 1984 Summer Games. Thanks to the foundation support, I have been able to have the opportunity to fully commit myself to basketball and volleyball. Participating in sports is not just about excelling on the court now. These programs are essential for me, my friends, personal growth.

They shape us to who we want to be now. Sports shaped the person I am today. They taught me that what you put into something is what you will get out of it. They showed me that every obstacle or loss on your road to success will make that success feel even greater.

They kept me out of trouble while also shaping my communication skills, allowing me to network with my peers and also other amazing athletes. They brought me to places that I never thought I could go. They also helped me find my ambition to be the best in everything that I do.

If it wasn't for sports, I truly don't know where I'd be in life or who I'd be as. Sports are a huge part of the person I am today and the person I want to become.

I want to be able to inspire the next generation and be able to be a leader to my peers and the people around the world.

As we look ahead to the 2028 Summer Olympics here in Los Angeles, I hope we not only celebrate a successful global sporting event, but also continue to invest in the kind of community programs that change lives long after closing ceremony. After all, we are the city that we are the city that creates dreams.

We're the city that makes amazing athletes and makes amazing people. I look forward to being part of the 2028 Games in some way and witnessing the life changing opportunities that will follow because of the continued investment in young people like me. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Young man, I have one question. What would you like to see the Olympics leave behind?

For example, I come from an underserved community. I come from Pico Union. So one thing that I would like to see is I want to see more people off their phones. I want to see more people coming out. I want to see more people inspiring the next generation, finding their ambition, just really being who they are.

I don't want to see our generation, the future generations, on their phone. I want to see them communicating with each other. I want to be able to see a lot of people just striving to be the best that they are in everything that they are. Whether it comes to sports, arts, whether it comes to cooking, just everything.

I really just want to see the best out of people. I feel like that's the whole point of life, really fulfill yourself. And I feel like LA is where that happens. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's give him a big hand. So we'll have our panel come up to the table and sit, please. Richard Perlman, the Sports examiner President, press organization and editor in chief. Official report, past Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee staff. That was a mouthful.

Bob Grazano, Graziano, past LA Olympic organizer, Committee staff and past LA84 foundation board Member. Thank you. And you guys can start.

Is this better? Yes. So as I was saying, back when I had hair, I was still Rich Perlman and I was the vice President in charge of press operations for the 1984 Olympic Games. Then the editor in chief of the official report after the games, my 38 pound child.

We have a little bit different way to salute people. Peter Uberath always asked, as Ranata did, if there were Olympians in the room. So knowing that there are some LAOC staff and LAOC volunteers in the room, I'd like to ask them to please stand up and be recognized. Thank you. We're still here.

It's a pleasure to offer you a very, very, very short summary of the Games that changed the future of the Olympic movement.

After the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and officials at the 1972 Munich Games and the 1,000,000,000 dollar Canadian construction deficit at the 1976 Montreal Games, there was one bid for the 1984 Olympic Games in front of the International Olympic Committee in 1977.

That was from Los Angeles, which won the USOC designation over New York, trying for the 10th time to bring the Games back after the success of the 1932 Olympic Games, which was the first Games ever to make a surplus from scratch, including as this is a state body paying back a $1 million state bond approved by voters in 1929.

That was the original funding for the organizing Committee.

This unprecedented leverage of being the single bidder allowed the volunteer Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, in close cooperation with Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, to force the International Olympic Committee to agree that the city of Los Angeles would have no financial liability for the Games, which would be organized strictly with private financing.

From the start, the Los Angeles idea for the 1984 Games was different, not only financially, but using existing or temporary sites for 18 of the 21 sports, the Olympic Villages would use student housing at UCLA and USC. With no other option, the IOC agreed in May 1978 to award the 1984 Games to Los Angeles.

I'm going to give you some dates here. Understand the time frame because the time frame in the early days was amazing. On March 261979 travel industry entrepreneur Peter Ueberoff was elected by a single vote as the President of the Los Angeles Olympic organizing Committee. The LAOC started out about $300,000 in debt from the bid.

Less than three weeks later, the LAOC had $2.5 million in the bank, thanks to a new television rights sales approach from bid Committee Member and noted television producer David Wolper. Within six months, six months almost to the Day that he was elected, Ueberroth signed the largest television deal in Olympic history.

$225 million with ABC for the US rights and host broadcast services. These were only the start of many more innovations. Uber and marketing head Joel Rubenstein completely revamped corporate opportunities around category exclusivity for the first time. Where? Moscow 1980. The organizing Committee in Soviet Union received $5 million from 325 sponsors and suppliers.

You can look it up in the official report. And this by the way, is at the official Soviet exchange rate, not the real rate. They received $5 million from 325 sponsors and suppliers. The LAOC received 126.7 million from just 99 sponsors and suppliers. Approach does make a difference.

The less is more concept revolutionized sports and event marketing and continues to this day. Sports venues were almost all existing. The 23 sports at the 1984 Games, including two demonstration sports that were added, took place at 27 sites, 24 of which were either extant or temporary. The LAOC built three venues.

The cycling velodrome at Cal State Dominguez Hills, now the site of the Dignity Health Sports Park. I think chairman is very close to your district, right across the freeway. Right. A swimming pool and diving site at USC that's still in use today. And a shooting range in Chino, also still in use today. Privately owned.

The visual look of the Games, which you can see here around you, was completely reimagined in 1982. Originally it was a red, white and blue scheme. Not after 1982. It was reimagined to incorporate bright, vibrant Mediterranean colors and use inexpensive materials such as construction scaffolding. Developed under the direction of Executive Vice President and General Manager Harry Usher.

Why Peter is colorblind? Festive Federalism unforgettably used 3 million square feet of colored nylon, 21,046 street banners and 35 miles of fence fabric to decorate not only the Games, but the entire Southern California area. The organizing Committee staff grew from 11 at the end of 1979 to 1,750 by June 1st of 1984.

But the revolution was using volunteers as the primary workforce, a concept that was met. The only word is disbelief by the International Olympic Committee and others. But 33,500 volunteers helped the 1984 Games run superbly. And the use of volunteers has now become the norm for sporting events of all sizes, all types and all around the world.

The LAOC also ignored old ideas for arts and youth. The usual games time art program was expanded to a 10 week Olympic arts festival with 432 performances and 31 exhibitions attended by 1.26 million people.

The usual two week youth camp for 300 kids was replaced by a four year program of youth sports and educational programs that touched 1.25 million youngsters between 1981 and 1984.

A never before tried National Olympic Torch relay beginning on May 8th, 1984 and running 9,375 miles across the US for 82 days raised more than 10.95 million for three youth sport organizations. The LAOC got nothing out of it. We paid a lot for it, but we didn't get anything out of it financially.

The LAOC championed the addition of 11 new women's events including the women's marathon. Sold a record 5.72 million tickets. Bob sold a lot of those himself and 5.70 and stave okay. And staged a safe, secure and wildly popular games that revitalized the Olympic movement. It also made money. The original budget forecast was 368 million in revenue.

That was the original bid 1977 and 78 and a $21 million surplus. 368 revenue, $21 million surplus. The reality was 768.6 million in revenue and a surplus of 232.5 million. Of which 40% went to the U.S. olympic Committee, 20% to the U.S. national governing bodies and 40% went to found the LE84 foundation where we are today.

This is a short summary of what was done. I'm happy to answer any of your questions.

So my name is Bob Graziano. I'm glad I let Rich go first to give the history of the Olympics because he did a superb job of doing that.

What I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this morning is just kind of my personal experience of having worked for the 19 for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. So I was a very, very, very young professional, very young. And I was a CPA at Ernst Young.

I graduated from USC, got my CPA and one of my clients at the time was the Los Angeles Dodgers. So I was working with Los Angeles Dodgers, doing their audit, doing their tax, doing their ticketing work. So I was, we were creating a ticketing system.

And this is, this is key because I think one of the things that the 84 games did so brilliantly was it pulled professionals from the industry to come in who were subject matter experts in their field to work for the Games.

Because you know, you think about it when you go to work for The Olympics, you know, you're out of a job in a certain amount of time, in a relatively small, short period of time. So how to put together a skilled group of professionals to pull off the Games is really important.

So the head of ticketing at the time called me. He had agreed to, with his former partners at EY to have me take a leave of absence, which I did. I came over and I worked for the Olympics for the year in ticketing, selling all 6 million tickets. No, just kidding. But so I worked and.

And one of the things that struck me and it was, you know, when people ask me about my experience there, it was probably the most time demanding job of my life because we were all working seven days a week, 15 hours a day. It was very entrepreneurial.

So at the end of the day, everybody wore a lot of different hats and had to do things because, you know, Peter, being the entrepreneur that he was, wanted to run very entrepreneurially. There was not a lot of bureaucracy. You know, we were doing things. We were kind of building the airplane as we were flying it.

Whether it was creating ticket distribution centers using big floppy disks to try and get inventory out to the communities, or whether it was creating a ticket distribution center when we realized the people we were sending tickets to were coming back and we didn't know what to do with them.

So it was very entrepreneurial, which was really energizing, which is why I decided not to go back after my leave of absence to eat EY And I ended up working with Los Angeles Dodgers for 18 years.

I started off as CFO, was EVP of business operations for two years, and then I was President and chief operating officer of the franchise for six years, where I had the pleasure of working with Senator Durazzo as she was leading the AFL CIO and unite her E. But one of the things that I think people often do not talk about when they're Talking about the 84 Olympics is the legacy that was created by people like me.

And there's lots of people like me who then went out and did other things in Los Angeles, but brought the values and the lessons Learned from the 1984 Olympics back into the jobs they were doing.

And the other thing that isn't often talked about is how people today who were involved with the 84 Olympics still view it as probably one of the most critical points in their career. I went on after the Los Angeles.

During my time as Los Angeles Dodger President, I became chair of the board of the LA Sports and Entertainment Commission, which I still do today. It's been about 20 years. The LA Sports and Entertainment Commission is the entity in Los Angeles that Dick Reardon created primarily because he saw the power of sport on community.

He created that entity to bid on and host major sporting events in Los Angeles. So I'm on the World cup host Committee, I'm on the Super Bowl host Committee. And we are. And that's critically important because we are working in close collaboration with the LA28.

We have a standing monthly call with Reynold Hoover and his team on lessons that we're learning and things that we're dealing with leading up. I think we have 97 days left till we host World Cup in Los Angeles. But it could be things from visas, it could be DHS funding, which is a little bit challenging now.

It could be how to deal with volunteer programs, which, by the way, Louisiana Sports and Entertainment Commission has decided future FIFA is going to handle our volunteer programs. Because just for point of reference, Louisiana Sports and Entertainment Commission is a small 501C3 with 15 people that are doing all this work.

But we're letting FIFA handle the volunteer program. It's something that the Committee should focus on because the challenges of getting unpaid volunteers for World cup, Super Bowls, etc. Is. Is significant.

So I think when you talk about the importance of the volunteer program, it is important to figure out how to have unpaid volunteers, because LA Sports and Entertainment Commission so, you know, is completely privately funded. It's a completely privately funded organization.

We've created an organization within it, an initiative within it called Champion La, where private funders have created, come in and helped us host these games. World cup is going to cost us about $130 million, which in comparison is relatively insignificant to the Olympics.

Federal government has come in with some public money to help on public safety and security. But it's really been incumbent upon the leaders in Los Angeles to come together and put their private dollars forward. Part of the reason they're doing it, many of them remember 1984.

And then I guess the other important piece is two more points and then I'll stop. Is one of the things that LA Sports and Entertainment Commission is doing and the World cup host Committee and super bowl host Committee and LA84, or the 84 Olympics did it famously, is try to make sure you use these events to bring the community together.

So be it through fan zones or we're doing a big fan fest at the Coliseum at the beginning of the game. So make sure that those. I mean, there's a finite number of tickets, but you Want everybody to feel as though they are a part of the Games, whether they can actually buy a ticket for the game or not buy a ticket for the game, but bring the communities together.

And then the other thing that we, that I've worked on in my role as chair of the Los Angeles Business Council Institute with Mary Leslie is a compete for LA program, which is really to try and make sure, and we did this with Sports and Entertainment Commission on the Business Connect program.

Try and make sure as much as we possibly can, that this huge economic benefit, either be it from World Cup or super bowl or the Olympics, is an equitable economic benefit, that the small business community has a chance to participate from a business perspective in these massive events that are coming to La.

And I know Eric Aldridge, who used to work with me at the Dodgers, who's vice President of Impact, is very focused on this. I know LA28 is focused on it.

It is something that I think we have time to do and I think everybody is really interested in making sure at the end of the day that everybody feels they played a part in these, these 28 Olympic Games. So thank you.

Thank you. So now we'll bring it back to the Committee. Does anyone have any questions? I could start down this. We'll start this way, Senator.

Thank you both for that great history and a summary of it. Bob, you just mentioned the equitable economic benefits across the board. How did you approach that, give us some concrete ideas?

I know we're in a different world today, decades later, but nonetheless, what was your approach about how to do it, sort of principles that you used to guide you.

So I think, Senator, I think it's more, it's more organized today than it was back in 1984 and going back to the 22 Super Bowl. When the NFL came into the market, they brought with them because we really didn't have it yet.

They brought with them this program called Business Connect, which was try to have a group of businesses that the NFL could tap into small, medium, diverse owned businesses in Los Angeles.

I think a big part of this, which is why LABC is focused on compete for LA and why LABC worked very closely with former Councilman Krikorian to improve the RAMP program or to do the RAMP program in Los Angeles.

I think it's really a matter of making sure small businesses know about these programs, have, have relatively easy access to them. The Business Connect program is a small program that the NFL did that LABC or that LASEC is still carrying on. It's a small program, probably has 250-300 businesses in it.

Compete for LA is going to be a much bigger thing that should last well after the Olympics and should be a database of businesses that can do this. So it's really got to be a very structured, deliberate approach. It can't be just haphazard.

Thank you, Senator Richardson.

Yes, thank you very much for the presentations. Thank you. Thank you for the presentations that were made. I think, though, we're going to have to add to the introduction anyone who's tried out for the Olympics in addition to Olympians. I tried out for the Olympics in 1980 for basketball, and that was the year, unfortunately, we boycotted and politics got in the way of sports.

And I think, unfortunately, we may see similar things given the fact that we're participating in a war as we speak, that hopefully politics won't get involved and prohibit countries from participating. So, that being said, my question is building on Senator Durazo.

I don't know that today will be the venue for us to get into how we plan on ensuring that there's equitable economic benefit. That's something I'm very interested in, seeing how that's going to translate into our community, because I'm not seeing it as of yet, and that's not the feedback that I'm hearing in the community.

Additionally, I wanted to build on our question of asking about volunteers. I know that there was an email sent out and, you know, people could register if they wanted to be volunteers. But what other things did you do to engage volunteers and also for, you know, these special events. How did you give out tickets?

Meaning not necessarily people who could pay for them. How did you reach out to other groups to make sure that they had these opportunities?

Are you talking about in 1984? .

Because I'm assuming you're not doing it now, or are you?

We are. We are. Well, why don't you talk about how we did it in 84 and I'll talk about how we're trying to do it with the events leading up to the Olympics.

In terms of the. Hope you can hear me. In terms of the LAOC, we faced completely different environment than you have today. Today you have an International Olympic Committee, which is worth billions of dollars. They were worth virtually zero when we started. Think about that. The IOC.

You have the Internet, which has completely revolutionized communications. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have cell phones. We didn't have email. We had none of those things in 1984. Our goal and what people told us Bob will remember what people told us is that the 84 games wouldn't happen without government financing. The Games are completely impossible.

The last Games would be Moscow. We were told this repeatedly. So that was a tremendous opportunity for us to go into the community and to tell people, you can be part of history because we are going to succeed. And that was a major driver of people wanting to be volunteers.

The other thing which people did not understand, especially the Europeans, which is most of the IOC Members at that time, is that volunteering at all kinds of levels, youth, professional, community, religious, you name it, has been a part of the Southern California community since it was founded. That's part of the way that people live in California.

So part of the way people live in the United States. This was totally foreign to the international federations and to the ioc. Again, very little communications, right. In those days, what we did is we energized on two different levels.

We had an advertising campaign which was mostly promotional announcements on radio and television, which said, if you want to play your part in history, we want you to do so. And then we went out on the staff level in two different ways.

So in the venues where you had sports and venue operations, let's take Anaheim, which is where the wrestling took place. That's as far south as we went. The folks who were running the wrestling competition went out into the community and were recruiting from the community.

And I should say, in terms of economic impact, we had a pretty good grip a year out now. The LA28 is not a year out now. Everything was later because the communications weren't as fast. We had a pretty good idea, year out of what we could buy from our sponsors and suppliers who we'd already contracted with.

We had a pretty good idea about large things that we could buy in bulk nationally. But then our logistics group, venue group, sport group, let's take Wrestling in Anaheim as an example, would go out into the Anaheim community and say, we need these things. Who in this community can supply them?

And it was not through anything like ramp. It was word of mouth. Is there some guy over here who has an extra mile of fence fabric? We need all the fence fabric we can get. And then we would go to that guy and say, we're using. Well, the price is X. We're using for the Olympics.

Okay, I give you a discount. 10% off. Can you give us cash? And the idea is yes. And we sent a truck and we got the stuff, and that's how it worked. And if we needed food service and we didn't have it Supplied by one of our sponsors, suppliers.

We went out in the community and try and find somebody who could give us food service. Not for free, we paid for it, but we couldn't have the same thing every day.

I can tell you I had a staff revolt at the main press center because the food service that was provided to us was on a five day rotation and we were open for 45 days. We were sick of those turkey sandwiches, let me tell you, because I was eating them, same as with everybody else.

But we went out into the community and said, okay, we're going to have a seven day rotation, ten day rotation. We need lunch, we need breakfast, we need snack, whatever it is. And we bought it from the community. Cash on the barrel hit because we had the cash. And then the individual departments.

I had 1378 people in press operations at 36 different sites. I think we used 40, quote unquote volunteers that came in through the volunteer program. We recruited our own people. We recruited journalists who are not going to be accredited for the games. We went and found journalism students.

We went and found people who wanted to be journalism students. We found people who wanted to be involved in television, in film, anyone who had any connection or any interest in media other than performers. We didn't need performers, we needed people who could help us.

So the structure of the organizing Committee was if we were going to succeed, we in our Department, press operations was mine, his was ticketing. We had 64 departments, all were responsible to make sure that, that their departments worked. And so that meant go out, find your staff, find your stuff, make it happen.

And that was one of Peter's favorite phrases, make it happen.

Yeah. So I mean, and when you look at where we were then in terms of how we did procurement versus where we are today in terms of where we do procurement and I would just caution you what happens at the Olympics. I mean, I started at the Olympics in January of 84.

It is a very, very slow growth until you get to this inflection point. And then I think the LA28 today has like 500 employees. It'll grow to 4,000. It's buying things, but it's not buying things today for two. I mean, there's a shorter time frame on this.

And so I, I don't, I think there's some frustration that I've heard as well about not buying from local businesses, et cetera. They're not buying a whole lot of things today for two years from now yet because they don't even have the departments formed yet because I mean They've got a very, very relatively small staff.

So I think there's still a lot of opportunity. I know having talked to Reynolds, having about. Talked, talked to John Harper, having talked to Eric Aldrich, there is a significant focus on procurement efforts, equitable procurement efforts in Los Angeles. Eric's working with Los Angeles Business Council, with the Chamber of Commerce, et cetera, to make sure that happens.

In terms of volunteers, the Sports and Entertainment Commission has no volunteer. Every single person that's working with us, we're paying. So, I mean, so the fact of the matter is we have to pay all the people that are staffing the fan fests and the fan zones, et cetera. We have to pay all those people.

We have no choice because we're required by California labor law to pay these people. So I think that, you know, when you look at volunteers, I think you have to figure out if you're going to put together a group of 304050,000 volunteers, how you do that in an economic manner where you don't put.

I mean, because at the end of the day, you know, LA28 has to break even. I mean, they've got to break even.

So, you know, they've got to figure out a way to, you know, pinch every penny they possibly can to make sure at the end of the day, the city and the state aren't eventually on the hook for all of this.

Thank you. Absolutely. I agree. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you so much for this historical context. I think it's always good to learn from the past so that we don't commit some of the same mistakes, but also that we have the successes that obviously we had in the 84 Olympics. I'm Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. This is my Senate district. So welcome to the mighty 28th district.

And I was really struck by the projections and the actuals that you laid out, Mr. Perelman. And I wanted to have a little bit of an understanding of what were some of the pieces in place that would result in nearly tripling the revenue side and also this incredible surplus that was as a result of the initial Games.

The reason I say that is we legacy is so important and we are putting this Olympics on at a time when the California state budget, as you know, is going through some incredible challenges as we deal with our national implications, the small businesses to our city and counties, to our state.

This is going to be a collective effort for all of us to ensure that we make the kinds of investments that are going to be necessary to ensure success. But what gets left behind is going to be incredibly important.

And I think the good Senator from Englewood who talked about our concerns about who will come, how they will come, and will they come with lots of money to spend is something we want to make sure we do everything that we can to bring them here.

But I think it's also an understanding what were, in your view, and I want to talk more around the organizing Committee, but also in our entrepreneurial sort of thinking about the Olympics.

What were some of the things that you think were put in place to ensure that we were doing the right things that brought that level of surplus back to the organizations and then come back into the community?

And also what are some of the entrepreneurial sort of steps we can put in place to support the small businesses so that they can also see those dollars come back from those sales tax that will hopefully be spent by the millions who will come to our area.

So if you could talk a little bit about the projections, the actuals that came in and what are some of the things that we need to be thinking about for small business, but also in how we are making investments to ensure those dollars come back to our communities.

Well, thanks for the question. It's. You have 23 hours. We can talk about this.

I know you're the right person. A good journalist can always break it down in a short amount of time.

in terms of projecting 368 million and ending up with 769 million. This was a combination of three things because the organizing Committee only had three significant elements of revenue. It's different today. We had television rights and which we completely revolutionized.

David Wolper, working with Ueberoff, completely revolutionized the way television rights are sold. And as soon as we got done with our television rights sales for the 1984 Games, the International Olympic Committee immediately took it over themselves because they saw what we did and they just started replicating it.

And they sold an unbelievable contract with ABC for Calgary, which ABC regretted for decades to come. It's one of the reasons they're not in the Olympic business anymore because they overpaid dramatically. So we knew what we were doing and we did it even better than we hoped that we could.

The rights for Moscow, for the U.S. i think, were 80 million. We got 225 from ABC. That money comes from the IOC now. And a lot of it comes most of the money. People complain constantly that the IOC never spends any money.

What they do is they give most of it to the organizing committees, which is the same as in our day, except we got it directly. So that was one, the first area. The second area was sponsorships. I explained Moscow had 5 million.

Montreal, another North American economy, had about $76 Canadian, which was almost the same as the U.S. in 76. It was almost 1 to 1, had about 22.2 million. We had 126.7. Because we recreated the sponsorship program, we completely created a new program. One of the things that was done very effectively was to tell corporations.

Much harder today, but to tell corporations, hey, you have an opportunity to tell a story that has not been told for 52 years. Because the last Olympic Games in the United States Summer Games was in 1932 before World War. Now I have to go back in time. The transcendent experience of World War II changed everything.

And so that was another millennium. To most of us who were growing up in the 70s and the 80s. That's what our parents went through, our grandparents, in my case, parents went through. And so this was a totally new concept for corporations. It's much different today. It's much more complicated today.

Again, the communications infrastructure and technology have changed that. The third thing that we had was tickets. And we had, I think, and this is. Was driven primarily by Peter. I think we had a very interesting approach to tickets today. It is called the barbell or K approach to tickets.

We had a lot of very, very, very inexpensive tickets. Very inexpensive tickets. So your question is, how inexpensive were they? I can tell you because I Knew this question would come up. We had tickets. Forget the ceremonies for a minute. We had tickets for the sporting events. A low of $3. The high.

Now this is 1984 dollars, remember, and a high of 95. So the Michael Jordan gold medal basketball game, the most expensive ticket in the forum was $95. Okay, now it turns out that when you look at the ticketing. Here we go. The ceremonies were totally different. And we had both in the Coliseum.

And there were three levels in the ceremonies. 50, 100 and 200, for which we were ripped continuously for about a week in the Los Angeles Times. Horrible. How can you possibly price tickets at the opening ceremony with a low of $50 and $200 is totally outrageous. Needless to say, it sold out very quickly.

Tickets at $5 or less. I'm ready for you. Tickets at $5 or less were available in 13 sports and one discipline. Tickets at $10 or less were available in 18 sports out of 23 plus three disciplines. These are parts of sports. And tickets over $10 were available solely in four sports.

Gymnastics, judo, which was the first sport to sell out, is in a small arena. Modern potathlon, which was in a kind of a country club and very few people could go. And swimming, which was at usc. You could go and you could have walked up and bought a ticket to see Carl Lewis run in the morning.

Prelims in track and field at the Coliseum for $8. Now, what is the conversion rate between then and now? It's about 3.23 times. So a $3 ticket is essentially $10 today. Now, our budget, our gross was $769 million. Right. Louisiana 28 is looking at $7.145 billion. So totally different order of magnitude.

They have 36 sports, largest games in history. We had 2321 core sports. And we had baseball and tennis as demonstrations. So the scale was totally different. LA28 has decided that it wanted very large games. It's going to have the largest number of sports in history. 36. It will have the second largest number of athletes in history.

11,198, plus or minus. Tokyo had a few more. Our goal, because we were totally private. So if we didn't make money, our vendors are the ones who are going to be funding us. And they were not interested in this.

So to use what I call the Paul Mason wine, if you remember Paul Mason wine a long time ago theory of finance, we spent no dimensions before its time. And to show you how disciplined we were, I was a Department head. I had in 1984 dollars.

About a 10.5 million dollar budget cash, about 9.4 million cash and about 1.1 in in kind. I could not sign a requisition for more than $500 until nine months prior to the Games. There was one person in the organizing Committee who could sign a requisition for more than $500. And it wasn't Peter.

It was Harry Usher, our Executive vice President and General manager who's passed away now. As one of the most brilliant minds I ever met, of course he hired me. That's one of the reasons, I think so. We were extremely financially disciplined and our goal was just to make the Games work.

We were not trying to put on the greatest show in peacetime history. That was irrelevant to us. We wanted a good show for the athletes. We wanted a good experience for people who came. And when we talk about caring, people didn't want to go to Fan Fest. They wanted to come to the competitions.

They wanted to see the Olympics. And that's why we had $3 tickets. Now LA28 has said that they're going to have a million tickets at $28. I think that's great. And they'll have a lot of tickets that are more expensive.

Our budget was based, our community outreach was based that if you wanted to go to the Olympics, there was a ticket that you could afford at $3 or $5. Thirteen sports you could buy a ticket. Yep. Preliminaries wasn't finals, but there were finals tickets that were $20. So all the tickets for Modern Pentathlon.

I said Modern Patathlon is one of the few that had tickets for more than $10. Modern protathlon tickets for 14 bucks and you could wander around. It was five days. You wander around. Contra Costa, all you wanted $14 you got in the whole day and you stand anywhere. So it was a totally different environment.

Things didn't cost as much. All this technology costs millions and billions and it's required. So the question I think is to me is less about how do you find ways for people to experience the Games without coming. Find a way for people to experience the Games by coming.

And there are a lot of events that you can see for free. Walks, marathons, cycling, road races. There may be some others that can be arranged this way. I think all of those things are great and you want to try and do it.

I would offer you one small caveat because I've seen this in other Games, not in Los Angeles. I worked extensively on the Barcelona games in 1992, and there was a significant issue in Barcelona where people did not want to be bothered by the Games because the games there were so well organized. They were brilliant.

They were very intrusive into neighborhoods, not just on commercial thoroughfares. There were street banners in residential neighborhoods. There were programs that ran through residential neighborhoods, and the residential neighborhoods didn't want it. They wanted to be left alone.

So when we talk, and I hear this constantly because I write for the Sport, the sports examiner.com we cover this, I always hear everyone has to be involved. Everyone has to be involved. I can tell you there are millions who do not want to be involved. They want to watch it on television. Thank you.

Can I just add one thing to your question, which is I just retired as vice chairman from JPMorgan Chase, so. I know. I think part of your question was how do we make sure the small businesses are ready for this?

There is a tremendous amount of focus going on amongst the financial institutions now in conjunction with the procurement reform in terms of how do you make sure that. That businesses don't just have access to opportunities, but they have the capacity.

Building is going on to make sure that if they're tapped on the shoulder and come in, that they have the capacity and they have the capital to get it done. So I think many of the financial institutions in Los Angeles are tapping into that.

The Business Council, the Chamber, et cetera, are trying to not only create this database of companies, but. But also make sure that they're getting the requisite things that they need in order to be ready.

So thank you. Thank you for that. Assembly Member Rick Zbur, or did you have one? Or was it Assembly Member Tom Lackey? Was it Zbur? Assembly Member Lackey?

Yeah. I'm going to talk about something that's going to make everybody uncomfortable, and that's security. Security. And my second, it took me a long time to get here today, and there's no Olympics here. So traffic management. I mean, I'm a retired highway patrolman. It's going to be very, very tough. And I just wondered if you might have suggestions on either one of those topics.

I do. So the other thing that's happening, just so you know, is. And we can talk about how amazing the traffic was back in the 1984 Olympics. And it was because the community came together. Companies staggered work hours, trucks weren't on the roads, you know, during rush hour, et cetera.

For me, I mean, today with remote work, it shouldn't. I mean, we have so many tools in our tool chest to make sure that traffic doesn't become an issue as long as, as well as the great work that Stephanie Wiggins and Metro's doing, et cetera, there's a lot that's taking place to have traffic mitigation.

We did it before without technology. We can do it very easily with technology. In terms of security, the other thing that's happening is with World Cup, super bowl, et cetera, the same security team that's working with us on World Cup and super bowl is advising and working with the Olympics.

So and you know, we talked about federal funding and working with Cal OES and working with Fema, et cetera. So there's a tremendous amount of focus and coordination and collaboration that's taking place.

It's not to tell you we're not going to have surprises and not to tell you we're going to be completely buttoned up, but there's a lot of coordination that's taking place. People that are doing it for the super bowl and the World Cup, same people that are doing it for the Olympics.

So, and we've done that purposely so that that is being informed and that it's that people are not operating in silos.

And you know, one of the things that we as a region, as a state have to figure out, you know, continue to figure out how to do is how to work with the current Administration because they're going to provide a lot of the resources to make sure that we're safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Pearlman and Graziano, thank you for being today, as I sat here and listened to you, I hearkened back to when I first moved to Los Angeles. I moved the year after the Olympics and was, you know, a very young man.

And now the thing that strikes me in hearing both of your presentations is really how much the world has changed in this period of time. You know, it's interesting to sort of hear how the 84 Olympic Committee was looking at doing things for the first time.

And now these things have been sort of incorporated and sometimes captured by other entities in the Olympic Committee family. The biggest question I sort of had was is on sort of the case for funding.

I mean, we are coming out of a period where, you know, when you were raising money in 1984, this was sort of the first time you were looking to certain kinds of pots of funding and it was relatively low hanging fruit.

And now we're turning to the Los Angeles and California and even national philanthropic community to Fund a much larger budget in the context of the fact that we've got a lot of other needs, including the region just coming out of the Los Angeles and Eaton Canyon wildfires and the philanthropic community having to step up that those needs not yet being made.

So I was wondering if you could sort of talk a little bit about what the case needs to be made to the community about sort of funding the Olympics. If you could talk about what that case is.

What is the messaging that we should be thinking about in terms of funding that in the context of the other funding needs that our community needs?

Yeah, I'll talk about that briefly. It's interesting. And I'll talk about it in the context of World Cup and Super Bowl. My wife who started the center for Philanthropy and Public Policy at USC and I just put on an event at USC. It was really talking and the theme was Building Community Through Sport.

And it really was the first time that many of the major philanthropic organizations in Los Angeles saw the power to create change in the community through sports. So I think there's a growing awareness by organizations about investing in sport and bringing these sport events to Los Angeles creates better future, creates massive economic impact.

So I think there's much more of a willingness. We've got, you know, for Champion LA. We have several large endowments and foundations in Los Angeles that have stepped up to support it. I mean the goal at the end and the Olympics are a little different. The Olympics are a lot different than Super Bowl and World Cup.

Because super bowl and World Cup we have no inventory. We don't have broadcasting rights, we don't have tickets, we don't have sponsorships. We basically have to rely on the benevolence of the philanthropic community and individuals.

I think people have seen how important it is to have to show the world how vibrant and innovative Los Angeles is and how you can do that through sports. So it's not, you know, do we spend on the fires or do we spend on the Olympics?

How spending on the Olympics and how spending on World Cup helps create this economic engine in Los Angeles that helps us rebuild from the fire. So it's not just going to be so I don't think it's an either or. I think it's. They do different things.

But I think a lot of people are seeing how putting on a successful Olympic Games or putting on a successful World Cup will help us in our recovery efforts and help us in not just from a fire perspective, but will really help us in terms of kick starting our economy. So

a couple small things that you should know about history. The Laoc had A no donations policy. Peter refused to take donations and he and the board felt very strongly that any dollar that would go to the Laoc would be a dollar that wouldn't go to Cedars or to after school sports at Crenshaw High School or art programs.

So we refused to take donations. We sold things, but we didn't take donations. Sometimes we sold things for more than they were worth and that got a write off, but we had no donations. The other thing I want to point to is the youth programs, youth program concept was created out of nowhere. Dan Cruz did it.

A former teacher of our former LAUSD teacher who retired several years ago. And he was brilliant. What he did is he created youth programs from scratch and then we matched that with a sponsor who paid for it 100%. I think there's opportunities to do that with community programs where they can be a community champion, if you will.

Not necessarily part of the LA28 orbit, but doing something which could have a long lasting program. And I think these are the kinds of programs that the LA84 foundation does. I'm getting the pitch in here, Renata. That can be okay, that can be impossible, that could be coordinated. So it's something that can be brought up.

The real change in 84 is that we thought differently and out of the box and, and now these are common solutions. I think the same opportunity is here and there's enough time to implement them, but you have to be creative and you have to think about it.

Yeah. And the only other thing I would add was, is that with every major event we're bringing to Los Angeles, there's a legacy component. And the Sports and Entertainment Commission and the host committees are not trying to create those legacy components. They're relying on the experts, which is renata and the LA84 foundation to do it.

So we're bringing money in, we're partnering with them. And I was on both sides of the fence there. We're partnering with them and they're doing incredible.

You talk about the legacy of the 84 games, the fact that they're doing all the legacy work for Super Bowls, World Cups, College Football Championships, US Opens, LA84 foundation is doing all the legacy work on that. So the money that's coming into us, some of it is going to do that as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Senator Ben Allen.

Just a quick question, just quick. I wanted to follow up on a comment you made, Mr. Perlman, about the IOC giving directly to the bids, directly to the organizing committees. One of the things I keep hearing is that that amount has gotten is inadequate that we're being asked to put up so much more of the money through corporate sponsorship, et cetera.

Can you comment on that and how we should be thinking about that component of the financing?

Oh, I can comment. The way that the IOC does the sponsorship and television rights now is different because the amounts are so enormous. The IOC doesn't keep so much money for itself. They say they distribute 90%. That's not true. It's more like 78-80%, but about 80%.

They keep some for reserve in case you have a problem, like Tokyo, where you had to postpone games. And they have their own administrative costs because they do a lot of work there. The host city contract, which is public, says that LA28 is going to get $898 million in television rights fees. That's a fixed number.

They're going to. And I think it actually has been increased by 50 million. If I'm not. I think it's 1.048 now. And they're going to get 437 million from the IOC sponsors. So LA28 starts out with 1.4 something billion dollars in the bank, so to speak. The IOC gives them that and they told them that in advance.

That's what they're going to get. LA28 created its own program of we're going to have this many sports and this many venues and do these things, and then they're going to sell tickets, they're going to have domestic sponsorships where they've done very well. They've already got 2 billion in commitments out of a $2.5 billion budget.

And there's going to be other revenue. So from my standpoint as a journalist and as someone who's been working with many Olympic organizing committees over the years, they're on track to meet their budget now. I would challenge you and. And the chair. What is the government doing? LA City, state of California, who has skin in the game?

270 million in the state. Circumstance to confidentially, because you don't want to give away proprietary information which could hurt the organizing Committee. What are you doing to check on LA28 and be sure that the 2 billion really is 2 billion. Do you have accountants in there? I don't know.

But it seems to me that those are the kinds of things that you can do to try and find out where they are and not wait for them to tell you. It seems to me you don't use your partners for marks. Right.

So be a partner and show us the books and no one will say anything about it. And you will then know in closed session where you stand. We had open Board Meetings. I'm not aware that LA20A has had any open Board Meetings, at least none that I'm aware of.

And we had financial statements that were shared either quarterly or every half year. Louisiana 28's financial statements come out usually a year to a year and a half after the fact. So it's a long way. And they're doing better. I mean, their financial statements. And I write about this constantly. They're doing better and better and better.

So that 2 billion that's looking. Right. But nobody knows and you should know.

Well, thank you. I have some work to do and you guys know me, I'm pretty pushy, so I'm writing down all this stuff. And so I just want to. I'm going to leave my question since we the panel, the Committee asked some very good questions and they covered all the stuff I had to ask.

And so I would just say thank you guys so much for giving us all this history. We really needed it. Thank you. And if you could stick around, we'll have some comments from the public at the end. Next we'd like to bring up this panel will be on the lasting impact of the 1984 Olympics.

If we bring up Zev Yaroslavsky. Katie said I could just say Katie, why so.

Thank you very much. Thanks for the invitation to come. And I really want to piggyback on Rich Perlman's last comment, which was going to be part of my brief opening remarks. The legacy of the 84 games was a not only a break even Games, but it made a, it made a profit.

And it did so without any public taxpayer support. And I would just make a comment about the history of this. I know a little bit about it because I was in the middle of it in 1978 when we were bidding for the Games. There was no intention of making of privatizing these Games.

Mayor Bradley and the majority, the bare majority of the city council wanted the Games in the worst way. I wanted the Games in the worst way. I ran track at Fairfax High School. If I didn't have to go to Hebrew school, I probably would have been an Olympian.

But the one thing that was going on in 1978, for those of you, all of you who are too young to remember, there was a thing called Proposition 13 that was on the ballot in June of 1978, right in the middle of this whole bid process.

And the politics of using taxpayer money for a non taxpayer event was an anathema. I want to give you a quote from somebody. I took a picture of it just before I left my house. Here's what Peter Ueberoff said in his memoir.

Even I was one of the vast majority who voted for Proposition 13 and later against taxpayer money being used to underwrite the Games. I believe then, as I do now, that there are many important programs much more deserving of government support than a sports event, even one as special as the Olympic Games. That was Peter Ueberoff.

And you don't need to go into a lot of detail about this. Basically the principle was he maximized revenue and minimized expenditures. And Rich put the detail to that principle. And that's what he did. And it wasn't because he wanted to, it's because he had to.

And so in 1978, while this Proposition 13 was roiling politically and this was ground zero, LA County Tom Bradley commissioned a poll in 1977, the Mervin Field Poll, that said 80% of the people supported having the Olympic Games here.

When asked if they would support it if the taxpayers had to pay anything towards the Games, it dropped to 35%. So there are a number of us, one whose name I will mention, former councilman Bob Ronka, probably nobody here remembers his name.

He was a one term city councilman who took on this cause of preventing the city from going into the same financial morass that Montreal had just been in two years before with this. I always thought it was a $500 million deficit, but maybe it was more. They just got through paying it off.

The city of Montreal and we were going to, we wanted to prevent the city taxpayers from being on the hook for this because the contract that the city has to sign with the International Olympic Committee is an outrageous contract.

It says basically the city is, the host city, is responsible for, for the staging of the Games from A to Z, including finances. If the Games are running in a financial deficit, it's on the city's, it's the city's responsibility to pay for this.

So in 1978, a bunch of us got together and said we're going to put an initiative on the ballot to prevent the city from spending taxpayer money on the Games. And we went to Tom Bradley. This wasn't something that Tom Bradley did on his own.

And we said, look, we'll negotiate the language of the charter amendment and let's put it on the vote of the council, we'll put it on the ballot. If we don't come to an agreement on that, we'll go out and get the signatures. And as some of you know, I became a pretty good signature gatherer.

Several initiatives that me and some of my colleagues put, put on the ballot over the years that I was in public service. Tom Bradley was not, was no dummy. He knew what was going on politically. He saw what the polls were showing. Not the polls. The election results were on.

Proposition 13 in June of 78 was overwhelming in the city of LA, almost 70% of the people voted for it. It was a middle class tax revolt at the time. We've been living with the consequences since then. But there were a lot of consequences at the time. And he did negotiate with us.

And we put together a language which we then put on the ballot which was approved by over 70% of the voters of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we only applied it to the 1984 Games because none of us thought we'd live long enough to ever see another Olympic Games here, myself included.

I'm probably one of the few and probably all in this room who were involved in the Olympic Games 40 some odd years ago. And that's how we got to. That's the biggest legacy.

One of the biggest legacies of the Games was that we were able to stand up to the International Olympic Committee which threatened to pull the Games from us or not to consider our bid. There was another city, by the way, that was on the perimeter of bidding in 1978. 77. 78.

And that was the city of Tehran, Iran. Now they had a little revolution going on, so they were not taken seriously. And the President of the International Olympia Committee threatened to. If we didn't sign the contract that basically signed away, they gave a no limit guarantee to the IOC that we would cover the cost of the games.

They'd go back to. And we said, where? Munich. Want to go back to Munich? You want to go back to Montreal? See if they'll bring you in. Moscow was a real winner. We're the only game in town.

And we used that leverage and Lord Killarnan who was in the President of the International Olympic Committee, caved and it all worked out. Now the reason Rich is the first person other than me who's ever said publicly that the vote to hire Peter Ubrath was he won that appointment by one vote.

The reason that he got that is because he was an entrepreneur. He was a young 40 something guy who turned a travel agency into this national travel conglomerate. And he was what the situation demanded. The other guy who was in the hunt was a corporate guy. I won't mention his name, he's no longer with us.

But that's the kind of person you would have had if you. If the city was responsible for the Games. But because this went because the voters had voted to prevent the city from spending any taxpayer money they had to privatize the gains and they picked on Peter Ueberoff, who turned out to be.

Exceeded everybody's expectations would be the understatement. Let me just say a word about the guarantee because the state of California is also part of that guarantee.

If I wanted to build an apartment building down the street and you were the bank and I went to you and I said, I need to borrow $30 million to build this apartment building. And you would ask me a few questions. One of them would be, how are you going to pay the loan back?

And I'm going to tell you, well, I'm going to pay the loan back because I'm going to charge so much for a one bedroom, so much for a two bedroom. I'm going to charge so much for the penthouse. And you know, here's my budget, here's my contingency plan.

And you would say that makes sense or that doesn't make sense. And I want to see, you know, you got to put more in there for construction, more in there for labor, more there for materials. You're underestimating. And if you don't do it, we're not going to lend you the money, okay? You're the banker.

The city of Los Angeles is the main banker. And I'm not, I'm not in the city and I'm certainly not in the state. I don't know what the city knows about what the revenues are.

We can sit here and say, zero, they got a 1,000,000,002 from, from Delta Airlines and this and that and that, but nobody knows for sure. And I would, I would say here, I would bet my firstborn. Just don't tell them I said this. Her I said this.

I don't believe that anybody in the city knows exactly what the books are. Now, we didn't know what the books are in 1984 is that.

But we didn't need to know because we knew we were protected and that Ueberroth would have to make it work because he knew he couldn't go to the city and say, hey, I'm broke. We can't do anything for you, Peter, because we are precluded by the city charter from doing that.

And so he used that leverage with all of his sponsors and his corporate sponsors. And you know, I always tell the story about the competitive bid between Fuji Film and Kodak Film for to be the official film. Remember what film was the official film for the 1984 Games. And Kodak thought they were the home, the hometown favorite.

You know, they could low bid it and Ubro gave it to Fuji because they outbid Kodak. And that sent a message to everybody who was bidding. There are no hometown favors here. He's maximizing revenues, he's minimizing costs.

And you guys, the state of California, whoever is responsible for this, whether it's the Legislature, the governor's office or both, and the mayor and the City Council need to know and you know, yes, you should not jeopardize the confidentiality of bids and stuff like that. But somebody in the city has got to know where they stand.

Otherwise, come July of 2028, there's going to be a big Bill put on the city's desk and probably on yours. That's all I'm going to say about that. I want to talk for a second and then I'm going to stop. On the legacy, there are a lot of legacies, big ones and little ones.

One of them, one of them was the arts festival. Sadly, we don't have an arts festival this time. Not on the scale that we had in 1984. We have an LA Opera Company today celebrating its 40th anniversary because of the 1984 Olympics. Arts Festival. Placido Domingo came to town.

I don't know if there was a three tenor thing. He was here, he was performing. He saw that LA had no opera and he said, this is ridiculous. It's the second largest city in America, biggest metropolitan area in America. It should be able to support an opera.

And we got the opera and opened in 1986 because of the Olympics Arts Festival. And I'm proud to say I serve on the opera board.

And one of the reasons is because of the story of how that opera emerged Pacific Standard Time, which was an arts festival, by the way, There was a second arts festival in 1987 to replicate, to kind of keep the momentum going of the 84 Arts Festival. It couldn't be sustained over time. The Olympics were very special.

And the 87 was not quite the 84 situation, but Pacific Standard Time, which was overseen by the. By the Getty and a lot of other cultural institutions. Everybody in town became a huge, huge exhibit. And I say exhibit, it wasn't in one location. It was all over town. That was a product of the Olympics Arts Festival.

So on the arts and culture front, Mr. Arts and Culture chairman, my Senator, Ben Allen, Maybe the biggest legacy of the Games had nothing to do with the athletics. It had to do with the arts and culture piece. And there's a lot more.

And if you wanted, if you put it on a graph, you know, when did L A really start to rise? Rise is the wrong word. To accelerate its footprint in the international cultural world, I would say, look at the 1980s contemporary art. I went to see a Kabuki theater performance as part of the arts festival.

I did not want to go. Barbara wanted to go. So of course I went with Barbara. It was fantastic. I became a big fan of Kabuki theater. I would never have seen, we would never have seen that in LA but for the concentration of international community coming here. So that's one of the legacy.

I talked about the financial piece. I want to talk about the personal legacy that had for me. I'm the oldest living male of my family at the age of, believe it or not, 77, my dad dropped dead of a heart attack in 1970. All of my male relatives, close and distant, never made it past 70.

I went down to La Brea and what was then Rodeo Road, Obama Boulevard now to see the women's marathon on the first Sunday of the Games. I think it was the opening ceremonies was on a Saturday night. I think if my memory serves me correctly, the next day was the women's marathon. A Week later, A week later.

But it was a Sunday, right, Rich? So a buddy of mine and I jogged from my house near Beverly La Brea, four miles down to Olympic and Rodeo Road. And here comes Joan Benoit now, Joan Benoit Samuelson, cruising down, heading for the Coliseum. It was mile 21 of the race, and I was just getting started running again.

I was, I ran in high school, as I mentioned, and then I stopped, and that wasn't good for my health. I saw her and I said, I want to do that. And so my buddy and I said, you know, It's July of 1984. Let's plan on going to the New York Marathon in October of 85.

And we'll do this, right? We'll do the training. That's what. And that, that started me off on marathoning. I did three marathons, two in New York and one here. And I jogged until Covid hit and I pulled the hamstring.

But I believe, honestly believe, that the reason I'm sitting here today alive and not in the ground with my dad and my other relatives is because I was motivated by the 1984 Olympics and Joan Benoit Samuelson specifically to do that. That's a legacy for me.

I guarantee you that I'm not the only one who was moved by some aspect of the athletic events and who said, I want to do that.

Some of them actually became good at it, and some of it, like me, just did it for myself, just to, you know, running is one of the great sports because you compete against yourself. You don't necessarily compete against somebody else. And those can't be measured, those can't be counted.

But I'll tell you, talk to, as you go around the state and go around LA in Southern California, talk to people who were around then and ask them how it changed their lives. I want to say one last thing in response to your question. Assemblyman or Senator? Assemblyman. Okay.

On the transportation, the one thing that I was paranoid about and panic stricken about back in 1984 was that the traffic would be a mess. It turned out I was dead wrong. As shocking as that is, Maria Linda Durazo will tell you I was never wrong. I was dead wrong.

First of all, a lot of people left town because they were, like me, afraid this is going to be a mess. Well, it wasn't a mess. And a lot of people, for a lot of people, it was a staycation. Everybody stayed home. Nobody went to work.

I mean, my office was functionally closed, and everybody was going to the Games. The events were in the morning they were in the late afternoon and it was one big festival. And I did an analysis when I was in the city. What was the effective reduction in traffic? Because there was no traffic.

The difference between stop and go and free flow was about 3 1/2 to 4% reduction in traffic. That's all it took. And that's what happened. Aside from everything else, the Olympic Committee had all kinds of transportation corridors exclusive for buses and all that. That all contributed to because you couldn't park anywhere.

There was no place to park at the Coliseum. You had to take public transportation and they provided a public transportation. So Mayor Bass, who has said this is going to be a no car Olympics, people say she doesn't know what she's talking about. Actually she does know what she's talking about because it was done once before.

It was basically a no car Olympics. And unless you were the mayor or a councilman or a supervisor or a state Senator, you had to take public transportation. There was no parking for you at any of the venues. So I'm confident that that's not going to be an issue. On that I would bet my firstborn. So I'll stop with that.

Thank you. Thank you. I just want to give a couple of Members who didn't get a chance to speak. Assemblymember Mike Fong,

Madam Chair, and thank you so much to Supervisor Oslofsky, to the councilmember, to all of the panelists here earlier today. Just want to uplift a couple of comments from my colleagues earlier on the equitable economic benefits as the Assembly representing the West San Gabriel Valley and a small portion of Los Angeles.

We want to make sure that the economic benefits throughout LA County and throughout Southern California and also in terms of legacy impacts. Just a quick question in terms of we mentioned the I know I heard a number of things about volunteers and folks getting engaged.

I have a number of my cities that are very excited about the Olympics coming up and wanted to get your thoughts on when you were serving on the City Council back then and how, whether it's your council district or your various colleagues, what are some best practices in terms of the host part of it, as you're hosting folks from different countries and things like that.

I represented Westwood, which was one of the main venues, both athletic venues. Poly Pavilion was the site of the gymnastics competition, among other things, and it was also the Olympic Village. And you all from Southern California, you know, the Federal Building in West LA, it's this big monolith on the side, on either side.

It's just all marble or it looks like marble. It's a white surface, no windows. So it makes one big video screen. And we turned that into a nightly entertainment venue. It was done. We sponsored it, but it was done by the community. And every night. And it didn't draw thousands of people, but it drew hundreds of people.

And we had some, you know, performers and things of that sort, videos of events that took place the night before and projected it onto the side of the Federal Building. It was. It was a kind of a granular thing. It wasn't sponsored by the Olympic Committee. It wasn't. It was something we did in that neighborhood.

And really it was done to involved the neighborhood in this. Because that neighborhood, like Exposition park neighborhood, were two of the mainly impacted communities because of all that was going on around there. That was one.

I would say, generally speaking, There will be legacies or benefits that will come out of this that you can't predict right now, that they will just come kind of. It will come from the ground up and people will want to be. Will want to be a part of it in some way. Let me stop with that.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I have one question as well. What was the impact that the Games on Los Angeles global reputation and its ability after the 1984 Games to attract to tourism? And how did that help the economy for Los Angeles?

You know, it's interesting. I wrote an op ed piece back then about the Olympics. You know, the downtown business establishment had this inferiority complex about L. A. They were always. This is my opinion, not asserting this as fact.

It's my perception that going back to the late 90s, 19th century, when San Francisco one time was the capital of California, I think, and it certainly was the corporate center of California, there was always this inferiority complex that we're better than them, even though we never hear people in Dodger Stadium say, beat the Giants.

But when you go to. When the Dodgers go to San Francisco, beat la, beat LA the whole state does this. San Diego does this too. It really ticks me off. But the whole country. But I believe that.

I do believe that Los Angeles did not need the Olympics to demonstrate its bona fides as far as the city is concerned. Look after the Islamic revolution in Tehran in Iran back in the late 70s, I remember a constituent of mine who was involved in the production of the TV show Baywatch. He says, you know what?

The biggest. The show that has the highest ratings in Iran, in the Islamic Republic of Iran. I said, I have no idea. He said, baywatch okay, so the whole world knows who we are and they see it for whatever is through their eyes. We should not be doing this because we need to promote the city.

I don't think it did promote the city in any significant way. You know, tourism was down in LA in the summer of 1984. People didn't come here who otherwise would have come here for a vacation because they didn't want to be caught up in the mess of the Olympics. Same with me.

I wouldn't have come to LA because I would have thought like you did, it's going to be a traffic mess and God knows what else of a mess it would be. So I'm not sure. You could ask the hotel industry how they.

If they're still around from back then, how the, you know, was this a boon to them or not over. Because the Games were like two and a half weeks, three weeks bookended. The summer is three months. And so I don't think that that was unnecessary. That's not the reason to do it.

I think the reason to do it is. And I say this is, as an amateur athlete and a fan, we can do this stuff well. And there's no reason in the world why these Games should not make a bigger profit than they made last time, despite the fact that they've re juggled the revenue side of everything.

I'm puzzled by how we go from a $500 million cost to run the Games in 1984 to what is now estimated at over $7 billion in 2028. And I'll tell you what I did. I did. I got an app. I said, what is $500 million worth today?

This was last year, and it came out at slightly more than $1.5 billion. Okay, let's say double. Let's say it's $3 billion. Let's say it's quadruple. It's $7 billion. That doesn't make sense. So again, you guys got to look at this. The city has to look at this and say, where's that money being spent?

And where are you going to get the revenue to pay for it? So I. But the reason to do the Games honestly is for the athletes and for the fans who appreciate the athletes. And there are lots of them, as we just saw in the Winter Games.

And, you know, I got up at 5 in the morning, had my grandchildren over for a sleepover, two of them, seven and five. And they knew about this. You know, the hockey game, the men's hockey game. And my granddaughter, who's five wakes up first. She's a very early riser.

And I was already in the den watching the game. I don't know, it was the men's game, it was five in the morning. And, you know, she said, what are you doing? I said, I'm watching the hockey game. zero, let me go get Josh.

And she wakes him up, six o' clock and says the hockey game is on. And he doesn't get. He's like me, he just wants to stay in the bed for the whole day. He just jumps out of bed and runs out to the Games. It was. It was a moment in time. A picture that's etched in my.

It will be etched in my memory. This is what the Games really are all about. And it should not be about exploitation, about exclusion. It should be, everybody should be a part of this. And the 84 games were. But they could have been better in terms of inclusion.

And I think a lot of the communities you'll hear from and that you represent will tell you that. But if I can just say one last thing on the Olympics of 84, it was. I've lived here all my life. It was the best two weeks that I can recall. It was one big street festival.

And if you were a fan and you got tickets, great. But even if you weren't, it was just the pastels, the artistic stuff. It was one big giant festival. And the arts festival was not two weeks, it was all summer. So it was a big, A bigger deal.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. And if you also could maybe stick around a little while in case we have some questions for you at the end.

I have a doctor's appointment at 2:00'. Clock.

Well, then you have to go. I don't blame you. So we're going to bring. Next, we're going to bring up Renata Simril and Renata Pava. And I know I'm messing up everybody's name. And Derek Fisher, I have that one kind of, because I watch Derek Fisher all the time when I was coming up and Derek Fisher.

So they're going to talk about the Olympics, the advance, advancing play equity from 1984 to today, and the legacy in 2028 and beyond.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Thank you, Members of the Select Committee. Thank you again for convening this history, this convening here on our campus. And thank you to the previous speakers and to Derek, who you'll hear his remarks shortly.

You know, he truly, to my mind, embodies what it means to carry a legacy forward and Certainly we are a youth serving organization. Just a special thank you to Lamil Rivera for sharing his lived experience today. Because legacy for us is ultimately measured by how we positively impact the lives of young people.

You heard this morning, it was because of the innovation and discipline that you heard from Bob, from Rich and from zev that the 84 games didn't just break even, they left a profit. And just a reminder that profit was $232.5 million. But I think importantly, there was a second decision made.

And that decision matters just as much as hosting the game. Rich mentioned this a little bit. The surplus was intentionally distributed to create lasting impact. 40% stayed here in Southern California to launch what we know now as the L84 Foundation. 40% helped establish the U.S. olympic Committee's foundation and endowment.

And they have for 40 plus years been supporting Team USA and the broader Olympic movement across this country. And as was stated, 20% went to the International Olympic Committee. So yes, 1984 was a moment, but LA84 is what happened when a city decided that that movement should be a mission.

We were proof that you can celebrate a global moment and also build something that lasts after the world goes home. And that brings me to a simple idea. The Olympic Games weren't just a successful event. It was a civic decision.

A decision that proved Los Angeles could do something big and then to make sure something good lasted after the Games went home. And I so appreciate Zev recognizing that. The LA84 foundation is just one expression of the many legacies that were left in the city of Los Angeles.

We can talk about innovation, the transportation, improvements, the opera, the cultural arts. But with LA84, for example, I just want to, if LA84 is one example, I want to share a little bit about our work, you know, and I think it's been mentioned about spectacle right in our summit coming up April 2nd at the JW Marriott.

The title of that summit is Beyond Spectacle Play. Because it matters. And we are grounded and rooted in the word olympism. And when people hear the olympism, they think about the opening ceremonies or the closing ceremonies. They think about the flags, the medals or the flames.

But the version we steward here at the LA84 foundation is more practical. Olympism is values in motion. Friendship, respect, excellence and showing up in real life. It's not what just happens on the field. It's what happens because a kid had a safe place to play, a coach who cared, and a chance to belong.

And for me, this work is personal. I grew up in Carson just down the 110 freeway. And I'm a product of public spaces and community programs. Places where kids learn confidence, teamwork and identity long before anyone is talent scouting. I've worn a uniform in service of this country, and I've been in rooms where big decisions get made.

But some of the most important leadership lessons I've ever seen happen are without a microphone. They are on the playground, in the gym, at recess, when kids figure out how to become teammates. That's why I often say the place that makes me feel most patriotic is the playground.

Because that's where you see our shared humanity in real time. So what have we done with the legacy of 1984? At L84, we've modernized Olympism, moving it from a global philosophy to local promise. First, we invest in access. For decades, we have supported community based organizations so more kids can play. But access just isn't an open gate.

It's cost, it's safety, it's transportation, it's the presence of programs that welcome girls, kids with disabilities, and kids from every neighborhood with dignity. And in our 42 year work, we've supported over 4 million young people, 200 million coaches, trained, 2,500 organizations supported. And that 40% investment that came to found our organization was about $93 million.

And over that four plus decades, we've invested almost over $400 million back into the Southern California economy. And I should pause there to say a third decision that was made from this board was in 1992. We originally wanted to spend down that $93 million.

But in 1992, as we were recovering from the civil unrest and Adams and Western was one of the flash points where it was on fire, that our board wanted to make sure that we were a gift that kept on giving and that we decided to invest the remaining of those funds into an endowment. And.

And we have lived off the investment income ever since. And that has allowed us, as I said, to become a gift that keeps on giving. The second piece of work that we do is we invest in truth.

We've built a research and learning agenda that tells us what's working, what isn't, and who's being left out so that we can lead with confidence and accountability. And one of the other functions of the foundation that most people aren't aware of is that we have a research library for youth sports, sports history and Olympic history.

And we've had hundreds of books, documentary films, research papers using our research library's first person research. And then third, we move from programs to system. And that's with the founding of the PLAY Equity Fund about eight years ago. And that's olympism, translated into fairness, a fairness standard. It asks the question if the Olympic values require.

It asks the questions of what the Olympic values require. If sport and play build character, who gets the chance to build it? And that's why the efforts of AB749, which we co sponsored on the play equity Fund side, California's Youth Sports for All act matters.

It's a signal that we're not just funding programs, we're building the policy conditions for access, quality resources and participation to ensure this is olympism in action for us. And Pierre Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympic Games, put it plainly. The most important things in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part.

And that's what LA84 has done for over 42 years. It's proved the idea that taking part isn't just a sports idea, it's a civic idea. And listen, we can celebrate spectacle, of course we should. And we're living right now, living that right now. As was mentioned. Assemblymember.

Just weeks ago, the world gathered around the 2026 Olympic Winter Games. And starting today, as you mentioned, the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games. And we do what we always do when the Olympics come to town. We root for Team Usa. We cheer, we applaud, we come together.

But our shared responsibility, our collective shared responsibility, is to turn an Olympic movement into lasting legacy. To prove what works, to back the community partners doing the work every day, and to make sure that the impacts show up in real ways and touch real lives, health, belonging, opportunity far beyond the field of play.

And that brings me to my close. We all know that Los Angeles is preparing to host its Third Olympic Games. And that is very rare air. There's only three other cities in the world who have done that. But for us, the real opportunity isn't that the world will watch us once again.

The real question is how can we choose again what this moment will mean for the people who live here in the state of California, in Los Angeles and in the world. So I see the charge in front of us is not simply to honor 1984 with applause.

It is to honor us with ambition and to hopefully build upon it. Thank you. And to Renato, my brother from a Brazilian mother. Renata and Renato.

What a coincidence. Renato. Renata in the same panel. Hi, everyone. My name is Renato Paiva. I was born in Brazil. I'm a proud American. I was A former professional squash player. Squash, not the vegetable, the sports. And I also coached Harvard nakocha here at USC.

And in 2006 I started Access Youth Academy which is a non profit organization that help low income students using education and the sport of squash to change their lives. Our work is done in a 14 year span, so it's not a quick fix. We believe that education takes time.

So 14 for the first phase, from 10 years old to 18, we see them every day where they study with us for an hour and a half and they train, they don't play, they train squash for an hour and a half. That's phase one for eight years.

Phase two, when they go to college, we support them while they're in college. And then the phase three is two years post college when they're getting their first job or they're going to grad school. We have some great stats.

We have 100% graduation rate in our program means every kid that came through in our history went to college 93% debt free. Our kids very closely don't have any debt when they come out of college. And we have 50 national titles and our kids are attending schools like UCLA, USC, Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Yale and many others.

In 2006 when I started I had 18 kids. I was the only employee, employee one. And now in 202620 years later, we are getting close to a thousand kids. Our program is not for the masses. Squash, as you can imagine, it's not for the masses, but we get into great numbers.

Headquarters is in San Diego, but I'm here in LA because of the LA before foundation. When I came to Renata three plus years ago in San ... We need to expand to LA and she says I'll be your first supporter.

And she gave us some money and we are now in the process of buying some Land and building a facility here that we can serve only in LA. Thousands of kids. I want to say that the LA84 foundation pLay equity Fund is the only reason we are in LA.

Because the belief that to come here came from a conversation, a partnership that we had for many years and now squashing the Olympics. That phrase didn't exist until late 28. I was part of the bid for the Olympics in 2012 in London and I was part of the bid in 2016 for my country Rio.

We did not get in and then we got in now 2028 and it change transformed this sport that once upon a time was meant and it was seen as elitist and played Wall street people only. That's not the case anymore, at least in my world. We, in my program, 73% are kids.

Most of them are Latinos or black and brown. And we have transformed the sport. The urban squash movement is, is here with us, but also in 24 other cities in the US and 25 countries around the world. Squash is changing because of work, like we are doing.

How does the LA28, the legacy of the LA84 to LA28 is transforming our sport in a few very tangible ways. The motivation with our youth, Our kids only think about being Olympian now. That's it. All they talk about is, I want to be an Olympian. That's number one. Number two is awareness. Visibility is what comes with awareness.

No one knows much about our sport and things are changing. Example is I'm here today. So things are changing. We're talking about in the LA28 Olympics, we will be at Universal Studios. Squash, for the ones that don't know much about squash, is like racquetball.

But our show courts, the way we play professionally is in like a aquarium type of deal, all glass walls. So the Universal Studios are going to put our glass courts in the Back to the Future lot. And there will be 3,000 people watching our sport. And that is transforming everything about squash, also changing our sport through funding.

My job is to fundraise, to have our kids to play. And I knock people's doors and say, can you please support us? And they say, who are you? What are you talking about? Squash. What? And now it's changing because I lead with education, I lead with Olympic sport now. And that changed the conversation.

And last but not least, you changed with the interest with the communities. So when I knocked in schools, we started with one school partner. Now we have 38 school partners. When we go to principals and say, hey, we are an Olympic sport. And they go, absolutely. Less chat and then parents and kids.

So thank you for the opportunity to talk and I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you, Renata and Renato. Thank you, sir. Yes. Hi, I'm Derek Fisher. I am really honored to be here today in front of the the Committee and the chair. I am a former professional basketball coach, a current high school basketball coach and some years ago, former professional basketball player.

Depending on what part of California you're from and the constituents you represent, you may not have liked me during some of my former professional objectives, but I can promise you we're on the same team today, if that makes sense. No, thank you seriously for allowing me to be here and just spend a couple minutes.

I will be brief and Efficient. None of us should be hangrier than we already are. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak just about the importance of continuing the Olympic legacy and, and applying the lessons learned from 1984 as we look ahead to 2028. I didn't play for the Lakers in 1984, just to be clear.

I did play in the. Most of my years were in the 2000s, guys. Okay, so don't confuse me for other great Lakers players. But sport has definitely fundamentally shaped my life. I, I played multiple sports as a kid. So when we think about what LA84 has meant here in Los Angeles, it's not just about basketball for me.

I played soccer, I played baseball, I played football. I was a Member at the Boys and Girls Club, my local Boys and Girls Club. Those opportunities were free and available to me. There wasn't a pay for play, private training environment that I grew up in.

And that is a really important aspect to hold onto as we have these conversations. And so some of the academic and career pathways wouldn't have been possible for me, just like they wouldn't be or won't be for many young people if we don't continue to do this important work.

And I'm coaching in high school now and I'm deeply committed to making sure we pass along the power and the impact that sport can have. And not just about raising more professional athletes.

It's more so about the overall well being and young people learning how to be successful and how to work through adversity and how to deal with failure. We lost a difficult playoff game in the state playoffs last night. Our season's over. The locker room was full of tears.

But they're also getting stronger and they're going to learn how to battle back from this. And sometimes sport is the only vehicle they have to learn those lessons. And so it's just really important work here.

And so through my work with Renata and LA84 foundation and Play Equity Fund, which is a legacy organization from the 1984 Summer Olympics, my passion is turned into advocacy. Like, I love doing this. I'm not on the budget, I'm not a line item. There's no appearance fee for me being here. Yeah, no.

I'm one of the many volunteers that Los Angeles will have. And so. But yeah, legacy is something I think we should celebrate and it's something that we build intentionally. It's not an accident that we're sitting here today.

The intentionality around the decisions that RHNAta mentioned, that decision to either draw down on the funds and spend out or still be sitting here today. And so that intentionality is important.

Over the past 18 months, I've supported the Youth Sports for All act here in California, AB749, which thank you for the support and the effort that you put into getting that onto the floor and support it.

And that legislation is a forward thinking because it, it looks at the youth sports ecosystem as a whole and addresses systemic barriers that prevent too many kids from accessing quality programs. You know, like I mentioned earlier, without those programs being accessible, many kids I was, I'm still only 6:1. I'm not 7:1.

I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm not the prototypical NBA player prototype.

And so without accessibility to sports and play and movement, a guy that's still only 61 would not have been able to learn the skills necessary to change my family's life, change my life, and then be a part of this legacy that we're building here in Southern California and Los Angeles.

So AB749 establishes a blue ribbon commission to examine the current landscape of youth sports and make recommendations for creating a centralized entity to ensure that fair access for all youth across the state. And it's about building structure, accountability and long term sustainability. The commission's recommendations are ironically due in 2028.

And so just as the eyes of the world will be on Los Angeles in 2028 and so I would offer this Committee that there may be no greater post games legacy than establishing a permanent statewide entity with real authority and investment power to ensure that every child in California has access to sport and play.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. You know, it was my honor to author that Bill last year. And so to hear you talk about it, it was really great. By the way, when I was presenting the Bill, I did not know that you were going to be sitting next to me.

And so when I looked over and saw you, I could barely speak. But I made it through there. And so I think that we have a couple of questions. Senator Richardson.

Okay. I'm going to start off my comments by saying I know a lesson in life is not to shoot the messenger. So I'm going to be as respectful as I possibly can. Number one, first of all, I want to commend Assemblymember McKennor for bringing us together today.

I would say hopefully one of the first action items that will come out of this meeting is that we'll adhere to the advice of several of the panelists who spoke earlier and that we need to have a subsequent meeting to get into the details about the money.

And they've already stated some of those items and I just want to concur with them and urge at our most earliest opportunity. I think we have much homework and work to do.

That being said, I did see in the video where I think it mentioned there were was it 4 million youth, I think, that have been involved and 2,500 nonprofits. Could you please provide to this Committee the zip codes of where those 4 million youth are coming from and the 2,500 nonprofits? I have to take some responsibility myself.

I've only been back in the California Legislature a year and have been quite swamped with leadership responsibilities and Committee responsibilities. But I must say that I too bear the burden of some of what I'm seeing and what I mean by that and no disrespect to you, sir, no disrespect.

I wish you well in advancing and all of that. But it's quite disturbing to me to see a San Diego based organization here presenting and not a Inglewood, Los Angeles, Watts, Carson, San Pedro, Wilmington. I've probably driven by to get here 100 youth organizations that are vibrant and doing good work that should have been at this table.

Also, I'm not saying that they're not a part of the program. I'm just saying that it speaks to what I hear in my community, that the engagement of all of our community, which I applaud, you guys are using all the right words, equitable. So I know that it's there. I know that you get it and I'm sure you're all working on it.

However, we need to see the substance of that, which is why I've asked those two questions to provide the information by zip code of where the 400 million youth are and where these 2,500 nonprofit organizations are finally building on this idea of equitable in our community. I'll give you a perfect example.

In the city of Inglewood, where Probably at least 30% of the Olympic events that are going to take place do not even have a YMCA. Do not have one, have not had one for 20 or 30 years. So to me, when we're talking about youth engagement, lasting legacies, those are the things I'd like to see us focusing on.

And I realize you're a part of the foundation, so I'm not going to shoot the messenger and understanding that the organization isn't controlling all of LA28, I get it, but I think we have to drill down a little bit better.

And I would say that when I've had conversations with organizations like Intuit, SoFi and beyond, and I'm asking them, where's the local hire with the renovations and all the things that we need to do to prepare? And I'm told that we can do it. And those of us at this table, we know we can do it.

But the question is, why aren't we doing it? Where is. You know, I get it that our local businesses may not be being tasked to provide the food, for example, or the footballs or the whatever it is, but are they on the list? Are they getting ready?

And one of the gentlemen pointed out, zero, well, you know, Erica's working with the Chamber and bizfed, and these are groups I work with. But I gotta tell you, the businesses in my district can't afford to be Members of the LA Chamber and LA Bisfed and so on.

So we really have to reach beyond the obvious and figure out how do we get all those other young people businesses engaged. So I applaud your efforts thus far. I'm sure for the last two or three years you've been doing an incredible job of getting us up to speed and getting us going, which is no easy task.

But now that that foundation has started, we have to build upon that and to make sure that that equitable outreach, in fact does happen while we have a limited period of time left to make that happen. So. So again, I take on the ownership of not being as President, not ensuring, maybe some of those things happen.

But consider me now a volunteer, one that is committed to making sure all groups are at the table. All groups like the youth groups that exist associated with Dignity, which is in my district, Sofi, Intuit, on and on and on San Pedro, where we're going to have sailing.

There's a lot of groups that I'm asking, are you hearing? Are you involved? And the answer is no. So again, thank you for what you've started and count me in on what we need to do to continue to build. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Senator. Just to just to, for me to answer a couple of your questions. Our next, that's going to be our next panel. We're going to actually meet with the LA28 folks, am I right? And the date is. What's that? April 6th in Sacramento. So your offices will get that.

And those are the questions we will address with the LA28 folks. Also, we do have a Y coming into Inglewood. They're starting to, they're working on it right now. We should have it before the Olympics, if I'm not mistaken.

Can I just make a clarification? Just, and I know it wasn't implied, but just very clear that the LA84 foundation is a completely separate 501C3. The LA28 Organizing Committee is a completely separate 501C 3. We're the legacy of the 1984 Olympic Games.

Understood. But my, and I'll address both points. My point is you, you have a new organization sitting here which says on the agenda, San Diego based. And he stated that for the record. And my point is, in 1984 we, you know, we had Olympics all in Los Angeles. And so my question is.

Or we can, I'm more than willing to have a follow up discussion and a meeting. But my point is why aren't I seeing San Pedro or Wilmington Boys and Girls Club, you know, that's advancing various sports. Why aren't they a part of this program?

And my apologies, I didn't clarify. Our geographic area is from Santa Barbara to San Diego County. So we serve the eight counties that make up Southern California. And there were events hosted in San Diego, in Santa Barbara, for the Olympic Games. It wasn't just concentrated in Los Angeles.

And so our charter was to serve those communities that hosted an Olympic Games. And then I think a point that I didn't emphasize is that we serve the lowest of income communities. So we're in Inglewood, we're in west, excuse me, Watts. We're in Willowbrook.

We're in the San Diego community in which Renato is working in is one of the poorest communities in San Diego County. And so our work is focused on equity as the core is how do we step into the gap for families who are on the margins, families who have multiple kids and can't afford sports.

That is the core of the work that we do. And I will certainly get you the zip codes and the kids, the geographic areas of the kids we serve.

Since you pushed, I'll push back. With all due respect. No, if I could just give me one moment, .

one moment And then we're going to close.

If you're from Santa Barbara to San Diego, LA County has more kids in it than those two put together. So my point is, again, that I applaud what you're doing in San Diego. I said that. My question is, what are we going to be doing regarding those other communities that we need to make sure are equally represented?

And regarding the Inglewood ymca, that's a recent effort that we just put together that we are building the funding for in this year's budget to make sure happens, which I look forward to working with you on. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Yes, Assemblymember Fong, this is our last question because we have to take a few comments from the, from the public.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you really for all your work and efforts in convening us here today for this really robust hearing. I'm grateful to our three panelists as well.

Thank you to Renata for hosting us here today and for your leadership and efforts at LA84 and the 2,500 organizations you're supporting throughout the greater region. And to Mr. Derek Fisher, thank you so much for uplifting academic and career pathways. We know there's a lot of work to be done in that space.

And one of the bills I'll be carrying this year is AB 2436 to really look at how we continue to support us Olympians that are training here in California within state tuition. So look forward to future conversations around that. And thank you so much to Renato and to the entire team and to everyone for these robust conversations.

Really appreciate their leadership as we prepare for LA28. Thank you, madam Chair.

Thank you. Thank you to the panel. Thank you so much. And again, it was an honor working with you guys this year on the Bill. So now we're going to take a few, few, very few public comments. If you have any comments, we're going to keep them down to one minute because of course we're running over.

And so the panel didn't actually have to leave. You guys can come back in case they have a question for you. Do we have any questions? Can you come to the mic, please? Thank you, sir.

My name is Steven Powers. I am a staff Member of LA84. I was Director of Entertainment and had the privilege and honor of booking all the entertainment for the athletes in the Olympic villages. I wanted to speak to a couple of things that I heard from. First off, it was very entrepreneurial. I was a subject expert.

I had been a producer of live events for a dozen years. It brought me to Los Angeles. That experience absolutely changed my life. I've been here the last 40 years in the media and entertainment business.

I'm disappointed to hear that there is no Olympic Arts Festival because my work is arts and entertainment and it is a very powerful medium for touching people and changing lives. And so I really want want to know how I can affect and contribute to that aspect of things.

And I just want to thank everybody because the Olympics is such a tremendous environment. And for me, the most profound realization was living in the Olympic Village during that time period because I worked, like everybody said, around the clock and seeing 120 nations come together and cooperate and as one world.

Thank you. I want to know why the festival is not going on either. So let's talk. We should have the festival. Come on. You guys could come up and line up at the mic so we could see just how many people we have. Thank you.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Daisy Garcia and my story is one example of the lasting community impact of the LA84 foundation and the legacy of the 1984 Olympics. I also grew up as a student in Pico Union.

I was born and raised right down the street and as a child I was able to participate in sports programs. Actually, every sport program that I participated in was funded by the LA84 Foundation. Those programs gave me more than just a place to play.

They gave me mentorship, structure and a sense of belonging during really critical years of my life growing up in a gang riddled neighborhood. And they essentially kept me in the gym and off the streets. Today I am proud to stand here not only as someone who benefited from that investment, but as someone continuing that legacy.

I'm now a grantee of the LA84 foundation, the Director of play equity at two youth centers in Los Angeles, and the founder and head coach of several gang intervention boxing programs including Homeboy Industries Boxing Program, El Centro Del Pueblo's Boxing team and Pico Union Boxing.

Through boxing, mentorship and community programming, we are helping youth redirect their lives towards education, health and leadership. As the Los Angeles Committee prepares for the LA28 Summer Olympics, I hope that we continue to prioritize investments that reach young people in neighborhoods like mine.

Youth programming that services first generation students, system impacted students and differently abled students make a big difference and change people's lives. The true legacy of the Olympic Games is not just stadiums or medals. It is the generations of youth like myself whose Lives have changed because someone believed that sports is an effective pathway to opportunity.

Thank you for your time and continuing to protect and expand that legacy.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, ma'. Am.

Hello, my name is Janae Blackburn and I work at the U.S. state Department, sports diplomacy arm. And we do two major programs, both in the fall and the spring, around Title IX and the ada. So I've been inside of sports, I've been working in sports.

I played volleyball at Baylor University, and I believe in the power of sport. But my question is, how do people in the community get ideas to the table? Right. So one of the things I think about as a professional is access and how hard it is to get a meeting, right?

To get an opportunity to just share what they're working on or what they think that there is a connect here. And so my question, and maybe this is for many people in this room, they have an idea, they have something that they want to contribute and they want to just get it in front of you. How is the best way to do that in front of us? Sure.

Call our office and make appointments. Okay. If she's asking us, is it. If it's us, the legislators, it's call our office and make an appointment. If it's LA28, then it's good luck. Well, we could, we could put you in contact. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Isabella Suleiman and I am the advocacy and community organizing associate with the Anti Recidivism Coalition. And I just want to highlight the incredible opportunity that the 2028 Summer Olympics and 2028 Summer Paralympics will create for formerly incarcerated or can create for formerly incarcerated and system impacted people across Los Angeles.

For many people returning home, access to stable employment and meaningful opportunity is one of the biggest barriers they face. The Olympics will bring thousands of jobs, training programs, volunteer opportunities and career pathways. And in construction, hospitality, logistics, event operations, and other growing sectors. With intentional planning and inclusive hiring practices, these opportunities can become real second chances.

When we invest in formerly incarcerated people, we are not only helping individuals rebuild their lives, we are strengthening families, communities, and the future workforce of this region. Formerly incarcerated people also play an important role in promoting safety and stability in our neighborhoods.

In many communities, they are trusted messengers because they understand the realities on the ground and can connect with others in ways that traditional systems often cannot. They can help interrupt cycles of harm, guide people toward opportunity, and serve as incredible leaders, credible leaders in the communities they come from.

Lastly, I kindly ask this Committee and all other stakeholders in this room to prioritize equitable access to jobs and training programs connected to the Games so that formerly incarcerated and system impacted people are not left out of this historic moment. For Los Angeles.

Thank you for your time and for your commitment to ensuring the benefits of the Olympics reach everyone in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm sorry guys, public comment, one minute. I'm going to. Because we've already gone 30 minutes over, so it's one minute comment. Sorry.

Okay. Hi, my name is Lynn Goldfarb. I'm the Director of the only documentary film on Mayor Tom Bradley with producer Alison Sotomayor. Our documentary Bridging the Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race contains a substantial section on the Olympics, the challenges and successes.

We have a vast archive of material, interviews with many people who are no longer, who are not still here anymore. And we would like to be able to share them with you and be able to create more resources for the Games.

Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to reaching out

our website is very simple. Mayortombradley.com .

thank you Thank you for that.

Hello, I'm going to try for 30 seconds but my name is Clayton Freck. I'm in the Paralympic space. So I've dedicated the last 20 years of my life to promoting the Paralympic movement.

And I just would encourage you all to think from a pretty nuanced perspective about legacy because on the Paralympic side I believe there's an opportunity to permanently shift how society sees disability through the right promotion and support for the Paralympics.

And so I'm offering myself to you and your staff and RHNAta knows me and very connected but in the athlete representation world. My son's a double Paralympic double gold medalist from Paris. I have a documentary on Peacock and I have a non profit based here in LA that is an LA 84 recipients. So 15% of our population has a physical disability. Let's take care of them.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Hi, my name is Atonia Yingifa. As a former Olympian and as a former assistant coach from UCLA, I just want to ask a quick question. How do we make sure that the athletes that we're serving are in the center of the decision making?

We would have to that. That I want you to come in april because that's LA28. Right for the. When we're talking about the Olympics. But I can tell you that the legislator Legislature is is because that's why we we did the Bill AB 1749 to have the new youth commission.

We also just put in funding to make sure this year that that that commission gets funded so that we could put young people, young kids at the center of the legacy.

Awesome. And just the food for thought moving forward. If we do have any former Olympic athletes that, you know, if you guys ever have another, like, conversation around that, we would love to give input.

I know, me and my teammates as well as other sports, like, we want to be a part of these conversations as much as possible. Just to give you our experience in the space as well.

Well, thank you. Thank you. We don't leave because we'll get your information today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, ma'. Am. Maybe consider what you extended her the offer, have her make a presentation to us of what she would recommend that we could do to include them.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think this is a very successful day. We went a little long, but we had so much to learn. The history, I didn't know a lot about a lot of the history, so thank you for that. But you know, the success of LA84 did more than host a world class Olympic game.

It created a legacy because of the physical discipline and community vision behind those games. LA 1984 generated a surplus that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into our youth, sports and community programs across Southern California for decades. That legacy matters as we look ahead to the 2028 Olympics and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.

The example set by LA84 should guide us. It demonstrates that major global events can be delivered responsibly, with transparency and with long term benefits for the community that hosts them.

LA28 has the opportunity to build on that success, not just by putting on spectacular events, but by leaving legacy for our neighborhoods, our young people and our public institutions. Our responsibility is to ensure that the promise of LA28 reflects the lessons of LA 1984.

The physical responsibility, community investment, and a commitment to a legacy that lasts long after the ceremonies close. With that, I'd like to thank all the Members that attended. Thank you, Members that stayed with me to the end, and thank everyone that attended, and especially thank all of our panelists. This meeting is adjourned.