United Independent Party Chair and 2014 gubernatorial candidate Evan Falchuk filed paperwork on Jan. 22 to create a ballot question committee to push for a statewide referendum on whether Boston should host the 2024 Olympic Games.  

The filing came after a Jan. 21 meeting where the Boston 2024 Olympic committee released more details on its bid.

"Boston 2024 officials seemed to be glossing over the more difficult issues hosting the Olympics most definitely will entail," Falchuk said in a statement.  "Raising critical questions about the billions the games would cost, as well as security and traffic concerns, doesn’t make anyone a ‘naysayer.’ It makes us taxpaying, thinking adults who see the value of putting things like our seniors, veterans and kids in school above something like hosting the Olympics."

In a press release distributed by the United Independent Party, Falchuk and his party raised concerns about the cost of the games – and how much of it taxpayers will end up shouldering- whether the games and infrastructure required would provide long-term benefits to the city and why so much secrecy surrounds the bid.

"Organizers, including Boston 2024 President Dan O’Connell said, in the days before the event, we would see ‘exactly the presentation’ they made to the U.S. Olympic Committee, including ‘the same cast of characters’ who were in Redwood City, Calif., in December when the bid proposal for Boston was first presented behind the scenes.  Oddly, missing from this Jan.21 meeting were two of the key players at that secretive California meeting: Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and University of Massachusetts-Boston Chancellor Keith Motley," the party wrote in a press release. "What else, exactly, was presented and promised on behalf of Massachusetts taxpayers behind those closed doors in California that Boston 2024 still chooses not to share with the public?"