City Government
Boise Is The Best In The World!!
November 5, 2009 
Attention Sports Fans! Here’s some hot news that will shock you.
Mayor Dave Bieter is telling folks the #1 Sports Event of 2009 was held right here in Boise!
Here is an excerpt from the “Mayor’s Memo” for this week:
“…according to readers of SportsTravel, the sports world’s event magazine, the title of 2009 Sports Event of the Year goes to the Special Olympics World Winter Games, held last February here in Boise and in Sun Valley.”
Team Dave proudly proclaims the Boise Special Olympics beat out the likes of, The Summer Olympics in Beijing Super Bowl XLIII, Last year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and readers called it, “best organized, best attended, most enjoyable sports event in the world during the past year.”
We have poked fun at Boise’s ranking by various magazines in the past. Things like being “bicycle friendly” just prior to a slew of tragic bike accidents, business friendly just before Micron dumps a bunch of workers on the economy, etc. etc. Motor Coach Magazine once named the Riverfest a top festival in the USA just before it went broke. It is hard to comprehend the honor of “best organized, best attended, most enjoyable sports event in the world during the past year.”
The complete text follows from Team Dave.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Mayor’s eMemo
What was the best organized, best attended, most enjoyable sports event in the world during the past year? The Summer Olympics in Beijing? Super Bowl XLIII? Last year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game?
No, according to readers of SportsTravel, the sports world’s event magazine, the title of 2009 Sports Event of the Year goes to the Special Olympics World Winter Games, held last February here in Boise and in Sun Valley.
The Games were also recognized as Best Amateur Multi-Sport or Multi-Discipline Event. The awards, for events between summer 2008 and summer 2009, were announced last month at the Travel, Events And Management in Sports (TEAMS) 2009 Conference & Expo in New Orleans, the world’s largest gathering of event organizers and travel planners from the sports industry.
All Boiseans should be proud of this recognition — and even more proud of the event it honors. The Special Olympics World Winter Games were an incredible experience for more than 2,000 athletes from almost 100 countries who competed in seven winter sports, as well as for thousands of volunteers and spectators. And our community put it all together, under challenging economic circumstances, in record time.
A once-in-a-lifetime event like this deserves a lasting legacy, a way to carry forward the Special Olympics message to future generations. Next Monday, I’ll be helping to unveil a new exhibit that will help us keep the flame alive: the Special Olympics Cauldron, which burned throughout the World Winter Games last February, which will now have permanent home at the Boise Airport.
The cauldron will serve as an ongoing tribute to the city of Boise and all of Idaho as hosts of the games — and most of all to the athletes who amazed us with their skill, courage and heart.
Until next time …
DAVE BIETER
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Nov 5, 2009, 5:34 pm
I think we should send the Mayor out into the real world. It seems something has sucked out part of his brains. Maybe it’s years of living in the Boise Bubble. Yes, the Special Olympics was wonderful but it was not the biggest sports event of the year for goodness sakes!!! Along the same lines is the idea that BSU is BCS material. I love BSU, but people need to get real. Today the WAC announced it hired local pr firm Scott Peyron to help with the effort. For starters, this firm is the worst pr firm in Boise Idaho. Peyron must be Commissioner Benson’s third cousin or something. Something is night right here. That firm is going to do absolutely nothing for BSU but maybe cause a PR nightmare for the WAC. Case in point: Peyron made the story about himself not BSU. The story will doing nothing but harm BSU’s ability to move to the next level.
Nov 5, 2009, 7:46 pm
Just more of Bieter’s bloviating to put in his stack of talking points to sell the streetcar.
Nov 5, 2009, 9:32 pm
This reminds me of Bieter’s quote from when BSU played OU in the Fiesta Bowl, “When I went to the airport I saw that the security alert level was ORANGE, I knew that was a good sign.” Noboby told him that the TSA security alert level had been orange for several years prior to the game.
With that, mayors are supposed to be cheerleaders for their city in good times and in bad. Hyperbole is part of the job, otherwise they would never be elected or re-elected and couldn’t relate to an uninformed electorate that oftentimes believe the hype and phony rankings when they cast their votes.
Idaho cities (with a couple exceptions) do not have any type of chief executive or city manager to run the real operations of the city and keep it in check with reality while the politicians flaunt their relative lack of knowledge of how things really function.
Nov 5, 2009, 9:43 pm
Why would anyone be surprised here? Bieter has made a career out of taking credit for someone else’s efforts to try and make himself look better! That great sucking sound is his administration draining the life out of this city!
Nov 6, 2009, 1:56 am
Much ado about nothing-your article not Team Dave’s. The Special Olympics were a great honor for the city of Boise to host and one that Boise did quite well.
EDITOR NOTE–Clancy, no argument. But c’mon you gotta chuckle over “biggest and best in the WORLD!”
Nov 6, 2009, 8:45 am
Oooookaaaay. I mean, isn’t this kind of thing the mayor’s job? Didn’t mayors Coles and Kempthorne, and their predecessors, do the same thing?
Yes, there is definitely hyperbole in there, and I understand that the point of the original post is just that. I, too, laugh at how Boise makes list after list. But the comments show that some folks will make anything and everything a referendum on the mayor.
I don’t agree with all of Mr. Bieter’s positions, including the trolley. But I don’t fault him for using a successful event to tout Boise as a destination/event city in the hopes of drumming up more visitor money in a recession. And hey, an e-mail is as inexpensive as it gets. So how can the folks who regularly moan about property taxes and reckless government spending attack him over this?
I’ll take 1,000 stars-in-my-eyes press releases over a new convention center; wouldn’t you self-styled fiscal conservatives/libertarians/protectors of freedom say the same?
Nov 6, 2009, 10:12 am
db–
You make a LOGICAL point citing Coles and Kempthorne. Just look at how respected and admired those two leaders are today!
Would you like your kids to grow up and turn out like them? G-Man may not be kind, but he is LOGICAL.
Nov 6, 2009, 3:59 pm
I think you’re a jack a**. Why don’t you give the guy a break? I think it was an honor for the special olympics to be held here!!!! Don’t you have anything better then to put down people and the city of Boise? Also, putting people’s pay on the website????? You gotta be kidding. Don’t you have anything better to do. Why don’t you deal with your own life first.
Nov 6, 2009, 5:27 pm
The Special Olympics were such an honor I am still getting calls from the organizers to help pay for this project. How much did it cost and how much did it bring into Boise. The calls I keep getting say it ran in the RED and still has outstanding bills to be paid or certain vendors will get stuck holding the bag.
Mayor Bieter was heard to say on KBOI this morning the election was a referendum on the Trolly Folly. The low turnout at 17% says people are fine, in fact, overwhelmingly in support of what is going on in Boise. Otherwise it would have been a case of tossing the rascals out.
“Silence Is Golden Let’s All Get Rich.”
Nov 7, 2009, 9:52 pm
Isn’t Peyron the firm that screwed over the Special Olympics? A board member of the Special Olympics told me that Friday night. What WAS the WAC and Gene Bleymeir thinking? Did they not reference the firm? If you go on their website, they have only 2 or 3 current clients. How did this happen?
Nov 9, 2009, 10:14 pm
Ever read the Peter Principal? When leaders rise to their level of incompetence they get PR firms because no one can relate anymore.
Nov 25, 2009, 5:52 am
I could have been VERY excited about the special olympics in Boise. My eldest and youngest sisters are both mentaly challenged. They have both participated in the special olympics in years past. Unfortunately, there happened to be an incident in Boise at about the same time as the Special Olympics that put quite a damper on my excitement. There was an older man in the valley who had sex with 2 young, underage girls and got away with it without even having to be a registered as a sex offender! At that time, I just wanted to shout from the rooftops “Welcome to Boise, where it’s legal to have sexual relations with 15 year olds!”