City Council - Post-Audit: Government Accountability, Transparency, & Accessibility Committee Hearing on Docket #0176

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Good morning, everyone. We are going to get started. So we're going to get everyone settled in. Karen, everyone's going to settle in and get started.

Great.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Julia Mejia, at-large city councilor. And I'm also the chair of the Boston City Council's Committee on Post Audit, Government Accountability, Transparency, and Accessibility. Today is October the 28th, 2025, and the exact time is 1013. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being live streamed at boston.gov. City-Council-TV and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, Files Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at cccgata.boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimonies will be taken at the end of this hearing Individuals will be called in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying, In person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. And if you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, shanepack at shane.pack at boston.gov. for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket 0176, an order for a hearing on government accountability, transparency, and accessibility of decision-making protocols in city government. Matter was sponsored by myself and Councilor Worrell and Councilor Anderson and was referred to my committee on January 8th, 2025. I am joined here today in order of arrival by my colleagues always with the best attendance, District Councilor II, Councilor Ed Flynn, and that's about it. I am going to have opening comments and remarks before we get started, but I just want to level set a little bit here so that we all know why we're together. So today I'm calling to order our hearing on government accountability, transparency, and accessibility decision-making protocols in city government as they relate to White Stadium. Today's conversation is about process, how decisions are made, who is included in those decisions, and what standards of transparency and accountability guides those choices. We are here to audit. The City's Decision Making Protocols. Let me be clear. Everyone wants to see a renovated White Stadium. This is about who gets to have a seat at the table. What we've heard again and again is residents feel left out of the decisions that most impact them. This moment is a test of leadership and accountability. The City Council and the administration has a chance to show that it's willing to listen, learn, and do better. I look forward to hearing from our experts, the NAACP, community members who continue to advocate not just for today, But for the generations that will inherit the outcomes of our decision. And so I want to reiterate, we're going to be doing a deeper dive and looking at the fact that there is an alternate Thank you. Thank you. I want to make sure that we're all understanding what we're here to do today and really grateful for everyone's relentless advocacy on behalf of This effort. So I'm going to ask my colleague, District Councilor to Councilor Flynn for opening remarks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the Thank you to the panel that is here. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you to the community leaders and advocates across the city that are here as well. I'm also here to listen to the advocates and the neighbors that are especially impacted by decisions here at City Hall. I want to learn more about this subject. I've been actively involved in this subject I'm here really to learn and listen out of respect for the residents, listen to you and to your concerns and how we move forward. And I think Boston is a city where everybody's voice should be heard and respected, especially impacted residents. And I want to say thank you to Councilor Mejia for bringing us forward today. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. I really do appreciate your advocacy and your participation. So I would, before, just because I do things differently, Before we get started, I think I'd like to set the record straight in terms of what brought us here today. So we have a little video. Ethan cut to the video. So, we've heard a lot about White Stadium, y'all, but I think it's important for me to utilize this time to set the record straight. If anyone knows anything about me, I'm always all about making sure that black and brown people in particular are paying attention and have a seat at the table on decisions that are impacting their lives. We hosted a nine-hour hearing to debate and in that hearing it was overwhelmingly black and brown people talking about a process that did not really uplift or affirm

On White Stadium, communication has been lousy. People who are engaged are supposed to be engaged in discussion of what the stadium should look like. and what should be done. Never got a chance to speak.

The fact that there was never an alternate proposal considered, black and brown people felt, don't we have the right to make decisions to how we want to utilize our tax dollars? It just felt like a blatant no. People are not happy with the transportation plan.

It's hard to make the traffic piece work for everything I understand about it, the studies I've seen. So there's some uncertainty. Sort of lingering over the project and what's best for residents in Boston, for Bostonians.

People are concerned with the parking.

Can anyone here imagine seeding land, trees, serenity in the public garden to a private for-profit concern? Huge burdens on traffic and parking? Of course not. People who live and work around the public garden have power, resources, and influence, and they are predominantly white.

There's climate issues. So cutting down 150 plus trees for a development that's counterproductive when we can renovate something that already exists. I'm all for renovations.

No one is debating that.

That doesn't mean... that a pork chop thrown in the middle of a pack of underfed communities.

We owe it to our constituents to make sure that we can get this right. And so whether you agree with the proposal or not, that is not what I'm here to debate. It really is making sure that there was a process that was equitable and rooted in the people that we serve. That's it. Plain and simple. So I just want to level set. that this is we've been at this now um almost a year and we're still at it and so our hope and our time together today is to really allow the public to share their concerns regarding the lack of alternate proposals and participation. So glad that we got that. And you can catch the rest elsewhere. We got some more videos for you later on today. All right, so let's just get started. Joining us today is Shannon Friesen, who is a retired appellate court judge. who will be joining us virtually. We have Mr. Dan Adams who is an architect and worked on the alternate plan. And joining us virtually is Andrew Symbolist, who's the economist. We also have Ed Burley, who is representing the NAACP. And we're also really lucky to have who will be joining us later on in our time together will be Catherine England who will be joining us virtually from the NAACP, the National Boards of Directors, Big deal there. We also have Renee Stacey Welch, a resident, and Bermina Cherry, who is also a resident. So just kind of want to give you all the lay of the land who's going to be here with us today. And we have public testimony. in person and virtually. So without further ado, I am going to hand it over to first Sharon, Shannon, if she's, if they're ready to go. Shannon. who I see. Okay, because I see Andrew. Andrew, you're not next. We're going to get to you in a second, okay? Sure. Okay, sorry. Okay, so Shannon, you are in the Zoom room. So you may need to do something like accept to join the panelists and then go off mute. and we'll do three, two, one. And because I worked in television, we're gonna keep the show moving and we're gonna go to the next contestant which is virtually so Andrew I'm going to switch things up I'm going to go to you and then Shannon my hope is that um by the time Dan goes because we're going to go virtual then in person And then back to virtual, we hope that we can get the technical issue resolved with Shannon. So to keep things moving, I'm going to move on to Andrew. Zimbalist, and I hope that you will correct me with the correct spelling of your last name. And thank you for being here, and you now have the floor.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman. My last name is Zimbalist. Two years ago, the initial city budget for the White Stadium rebuild project cost $10.5 million. The budget estimate then rose to $50 million in July of 2024 for the city's share. And later last year, a new budget sum had it up to $91 million. Four months ago, a document that came from City Hall referenced possible project costs at $172 million. Of course, the ultimate price tag is only part of the picture. Even if the cost stayed at $91 million, there are serious reasons to question the feasibility of this investment. Consider the following. First, The National Women's Soccer League, NWSL, goes from mid-March through mid-November and does not allow football to be played on their natural grass fields during the season. This means that other than a possible post-season game, the new White Stadium would not be accessible to Boston's high school football teams. Rocco Zizza, coach of the Boston Latin Academy football team, one of the teams that had been playing at White Stadium, stated, quote, that always has been our home field. We're basically a team without a home now, unquote. Second, the proposed lease between the City and Boston Unity Soccer Partners, or BUSP, is for only 10 years. Such a short lease for a new stadium is unheard of. Typically, a city invests mega bucks to build a new facility. The team signs a 30-year commitment with possible extensions. If the new NWSL team is a success and the team wants a larger stadium in 2035, The city will be left with a modern stadium to operate and maintain on its own, or perhaps to make another investment to expand the stadium and its revenue generating features. Third, and relatedly, the 11,000 proposed capacity of the new White Stadium is too small It would be the second smallest stadium in the NWSL, slightly larger than the one in Cary, North Carolina, and there are discussions underway for a new 20,000-seat stadium for that team in downtown Raleigh. The median size of all NWSL stadiums today is 21,100. Boston is a major market with a deep sport culture. It is also a politically progressive city that has great potential for professional women's sport. 11,000 seats might be sufficient in the first couple of years of the new team, but one can only hope that it would become notably insufficient in short order. The new team has already agreed to share Gillette Stadium with the MLS team during its first season. Why not share the new MLS stadium slated for Everett in subsequent years? Nine NWSL teams share a stadium. with the local MLS team. MLS is, of course, the men's soccer league. Sharing a facility with the New England Revolution would provide the best alternative for the promotion of women's soccer in Boston. and also, by a long shot, the best financial option for the city. Fourth, Boston public schools do need a renovated facility. Depending on the features and size, a first-class field with appropriate stands and lockers should be possible to build. in the $5 to $15 million range. An extensive and impressive renovation of Cauley Stadium in Lowell is projected to cost $8 million. And notably, a 2025 study estimates that a high school football stadium would cost between $690,000 and $1.63 million to build. As you will hear shortly, it is also possible to provide a top-of-the-line sports facility center at $65 million. This would likely be the best endowed high school sports facility in the country, and it would cost the city $30 million to $110 million less than the VUSP project. Fifth, for a variety of reasons that I'd be happy to address during the question period, it is virtually a unanimous conclusion of the scholarship that sports stadiums do not promote economic development So the claims to this effect by Boston Unity soccer partners must be viewed skeptically. Sixth, Boston has a long and proud history of 100% privately funded sports stadiums. privately funded sports stadiums. Gillette Stadium, the Boston Garden, Fenway Park were all fully privately funded by the team owners. And the proposal for a new soccer stadium in Everett also calls for 100% private funding. Seventh, as residents in Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, and Roslindale have expressed, there are significant concerns for the environment for noise and traffic pollution and for parking that have not been adequately addressed. Boston is experiencing a budget crisis. Its resources must be deployed judiciously and cautiously to meet the city's most pressing needs. In my judgment, the BUSP plan for a new stadium does not meet this standard. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Andrew. And you did it well beyond your time. Great. All right. So we're going to go now to the folks who are here. in the Chamber. Dan, you are up next. Dan Adams, the architect on the project that's going to present the alternate plan. And you have the floor.

Thank you. My name is Dan Adams. I'm an urban designer at the design firm Lanning Studio, and I direct the School of Architecture at Northeastern University. I was sort of asked to help. Thank you. Thank you. Recreation Facility that would support local uses of the community and the neighborhood and Boston Youth Sports. On the slides is a collection of images that My firm, my design firm has put together. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. So to really kick off this effort, We, of course, return to the Franklin Park Action Plan, which was a multi-year effort to engage community members of visioning for the park. and it looked at the entirety of Franklin Park and throughout that report I'd say many key goals were apparent. One is of course respecting community access for Recreation and Community Access to Natural Resources, like the shade of trees, and the ability to freely move through the park and engage with all these resources. That would, I'd say, be the sort of most ubiquitous hope for Franklin Park. The report was divided into sections and they honed in a bit on this specific area. And in this area, Franklin, Park White Stadium, and Playstead, I'd say sort of the most driving ambition was the idea that these facilities should become more open and usable for the community. In particular was a really highlighted ambition that the Playstead and White Stadium itself would be integrated so that people could come to the park and recreate in diverse ways, maybe bring their entire family and engage between the Playstead and White Stadium. Next slide please. The current proposal sort of out of necessity for supporting professional events really has to become a much more sort of gated operation. that has controlled access points and ticketing and a lot of programs focused more on revenue generation. So, for example, even looking at this image on the screen, you can see how the stadium itself becomes and the activities of the track and the field encased by the track become really separated from the place that which is really a very sort of direct opposition to what community members had long expressed about openness to these resources. You also sort of get a sense of the scale of architecture, which is much more significant than let's say the scale of the trees or the natural landscape of the area. Really changing the sort of character of the park which again I think is not in line with certain aspects that the Franklin Park Action Plan had identified of really respecting the historic quality of the park and the natural qualities of the park. Next slide please. So what we looked at was a scenario where we really tried to focus exclusively on public uses, eliminating the revenue generating sort of private uses, and then If we preserved all of the public benefits in the stadium, how could that be composed differently on the site, which was in sort of greater compliance to what the Franklin Park Action Plan had called for? Next slide, please. When we originally looked at this, we were looking at it from a perspective of trying to preserve as many of the trees and simply renovate the west grandstand, which certainly would have been a nice alternative to consider. Subsequently, the stadium was demolished and a large area of the site was cleared, including sort of trees and vegetation. And so we moved on to a new scenario. Next slide. I should identify that what you do see in that image is the preserved facade wall of the west grandstand, which is there, you can see, reinforced against wind load by all that scaffolding. that has been preserved to keep some of the historic quality of the stadium where everything else has been demolished. The scheme we've worked on has similarly tried to continue preserving that wall. Next slide. So looking at the current stadium program, there's a list of things that could be identified as having Public Benefits. So this would include things like some of the seating, the track, the fields, things like locker rooms, weight rooms, sports medicine facility. We took that list and preserved all of those components. Next slide, please. And then subsequently stripped out all of the things that were not part of those public benefits, exclusively served private. Next slide. And so that includes things like The bar and lounge or restaurants or sort of excess seatings that just simply isn't needed by the public sports event. Next slide. What's shown here is sort of a simplified budget breakdown where you worked with Vermeulen's sort of a well-established local cost estimating group to evaluate these costs. and came up with these sort of big bucket items, which is just to say what are the major components that if you preserved all these elements of public use, how they get allocated on the site in their rough budget, So you can see that the west grandstand is about 40 million to preservation of the track seven and field then addition of some additional east grandstand and general landscape improvements. Next slide, please. Totaling in at about $64.5, $64.6 million. We also looked at this from a perspective of how you'd really want to phase the construction so that you get the track and the field back to use as rapidly as possible for the community, given that there is currently no use of the track in the field. So we looked at the idea of initial phase of around $12 million to get the field and the track and a small amount of seating up and running so that the schools could start to use that facility immediately again. Next slide, please. And so the next images are a series of just comparative images where you'll see sort of in red the footprint of the current and many more. In red, the footprint of the current proposed stadium. Next slide, please. Here you see some of the ambitions of how we could really unite the stadium there in the background with the basketball courts in the foreground for simple landscape. Connections, Improving Tree Cover. Next slide. versus the sort of footprint of the stadium. And again, a little bit of that divided character that inevitably the stadium creates. Next slide. Similarly, looking directly from the playstead, How sort of the landscape could be formed to create seating areas, picnic areas. Next slide. We would think about this, of course, seasonally throughout the year, how different people could use this. Next slide. versus the sort of impact of the stadium. Next slide, please. And then thinking about how things like the event spaces Meeting rooms, athletic like weight rooms, sports medicines could really be scaled to be accessible to the public and used for all sorts of events. Weekend activities are to support youth programming. Next slide. Next slide, please. And I think, again, this will sort of conclude here, but just to say sort of really, again, looking at a design concept of how Public uses could be preserved. The goals of a naturalistic connected landscape could be advanced. versus sort of the more inherently large-scale architecture of this stadium and the divisions that that creates in the landscape. Next slide, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Thank you so much. And I want to note for the record that there is another hearing order that is solely focused on the alternate plan. This is not the hearing for it, but I wanted to set the stage so that people understand that this is about decision making, protocols, policies, and procedures. and this is just a glimpse at what the public didn't have a chance to really unpack. So I wanted to create some space within this context to be able to just showcase what is possible when we create space for people and many more. I'm chaired by someone else and sponsored by someone else where we can go into the weeds. But just for the sake of this exercise, wanted to allow people to see what is possible if we had a decision and a seat at the table. So thank you so much, Dan, for unpacking all of that. I do have questions for you, so I'm not releasing you just yet. But I just want to know for those folks who are tuning in that it was why we went through this process. Thank you. So I was told that Shannon was now available to join us via Zoom.

Good morning.

Good morning. I hear you, but I don't see you. There we go. All right, Shannon. Just everybody's probably wondering why I invited a retired appellate court judge to this hearing. Let me just set the stage again so that people I'm claiming the narrative here. I think it's really important for us to understand decision-making protocols, policies, and procedures across all levels of government and branches, and oftentimes we get to a certain space and place and we believe that we have no power. and I think that it's important for people to be educated and to understand all the different levels of power when it comes to decision making and so I'm really excited to hear from Shannon about some of the back and forth that we've had, a number of different issues as it relates to the City of Boston. Happy to continue to work in partnership with you, Shannon, and you now have the floor. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilor Flynn, for allowing me to speak this morning. The audience may include folks who know me, but perhaps a lot of folks who do not. My name is Shannon Friesen. I am a retired Superior Court Judge in Massachusetts and Boston Municipal Court Judge in Massachusetts. And I came off of the bench last year. So I spent my last 15 years doing that work for the Commonwealth. Madam President, you promoted me. I was not an appellate judge, but rather a trial court judge. So we were I was at the ground level in the trenches, so to speak, which goes along with my background. I am also a United States Marine and judge advocate. I'm also a teacher and mentor to new lawyers and law students and a recently new author as well. So the reason that I want to talk today just a few minutes about this issue is because the Decision-making that Councilor Mejia discussed has legal implications. And I just want to address briefly the possible legal implications of the decision that the city has made, is making, and is carrying out. The lack of community involvement and lack of community leaders at the table in the decision making in this goes beyond slight and insult and Just, you know, an affront to the community. It actually is not just about this stadium and not just even about Franklin Park. It's really at a broader level about whether in 2025, at a time when civil rights protections are being rolled back across this country, whether Boston will add its name to that retreat or draw the line here, right here in Franklin Park. The context in which this plays out in is somewhat ironic, but also makes it so much more important that we get this right in Boston. And as has been discussed and will be discussed by people who know a lot more about it than me, so many of those steps were foregone, gone around, skipped altogether. And those... Decisions and actions do have legal implications, but like we see on the national front and in other states and commonwealths, it's all about whether folks are willing Will we be part of the willing to make what should happen and what should have happened actually happen now? So there are, of course, why the council has and Councilor Mejia has put this hearing together. Local and city implications to the community being completely left out of this. and the say of the people being ignored, but there are also state and federal implications as well. and I'll just touch on those very briefly. There are statutes at the top, the United States Constitution and stemming down from that, both federal and state statutes that are applicable to this situation in my view. As we have seen during this current administration, generally the protections of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act have been depleted, starved, or are starving for oxygen. The way in which this statute has been used and utilized to to prohibit discrimination and any programs that are federally funded, it's been pushed aside and no longer being enforced at the federal level in the way that it has. That does not stop however any Private Citizens and Organizations. from utilizing this statute. Title VI forbids racial discrimination in any program receiving federal financial assistance. That includes, of course, Boston Public Schools, which formerly owns and operates White Stadium. They received substantial federal assistance which brings the entire situation under that federal purview if it is The will of the people is such that we make it happen and bring it to the intention in this way, in a legal way. So it's not to say that this is the only solution or that everyone now should go out and sue, but it is to give everyone some insight into What can be done? Why is this wrong just not internally by our gut, by our feelings about this park and the stadium? and many more. Why it offends the law that the path that has been taken has been taken. It's not just Title VI. We also have environmental justice, something called environmental justice, that at the federal and state level aims to correct some of the historical ways in which communities that are black and brown have been put upon. put upon, taken from, and this is, in my view, a taking of a huge asset to communities that are largely black and brown.

And

These civil rights issues aren't just fall out of the sky into our living rooms. They are always ones that are fought with blood, sweat, and tears and have to be created and built to Thank you so much for joining us. and Trees. It is a deeply rooted pattern that this falls into that also denies the residents equal protection and due process. So these are the sort of grand themes and laws that govern us all. Don't just govern us with regard to White Stadium or Franklin Park. But in everything that we do as a city and as a commonwealth, we still have to do it in light of these rights that residents do have. Of course, Massachusetts has its own version, Massachusetts Civil Rights Act and the Massachusetts Equal Rights Act. These are also statutes within the Commonwealth protecting folks from discrimination, and from agencies and people acting under the color of law in a way that discriminates. And so sort of making this Thank you for joining us. aspects of this of the issue today this has already been a fight and is a fight and so what I ask is that we Look beyond the politics of this and look at this in a legal framework. and what it means to Boston, the Commonwealth, and what it means in this national moment when we see so much being peeled away that folks have worked, bled, sweat, cried, and died to achieve in this country. Boston should be setting the tone for that not being the pattern that is engaged in within the city, starting with White Stadium. Again, it's not just a stadium. but it is about the treatment of the people and whether or not the people are willing to come forward and say no we're not going to do this this time and we're going to use every avenue and strategy that we have to change course. So I'm happy to answer any questions if that be the case, but I'm going to leave my remarks there.

Thank you. Thank you, Shannon. You know, virtually sometimes it's hard to see, and you were flowing, I didn't want to cut you off, but I really do appreciate just the information, the facts that you shared here, because oftentimes we don't know what we don't know, And I'm certainly not a lawyer. I'm an activist and a community organizer. and sometimes people tell me things that I just believe because I don't know any better, right? So this is why it's so important for us to get things on the record and to have a better understanding so that those folks who have been following us Believe what they hear, just because somebody said it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. So to be able to have this from a legal perspective and the lens around civil rights, I think it really helps our audience understand what is at stake here. So thank you so much for that. All right, so we're gonna move on to Ed Burley from the NAACP. And then what we're gonna do at that point is I'm gonna open up for my colleagues for questions before we move on to the community panel. And I want to acknowledge that we have been joined by District Six Councilor Weber as well as At-Large City Councilor Erin Murphy. So with that, Mr. Ed Burley from the NAACP. You now have five minutes and the floor, and because you can see me.

Oh, five minutes, okay. Oh, don't even try it. No, no, that's good, that's funny, that's funny.

That's right, and everybody went over, so I'm sure you will too, so.

No, I'll try to keep it tight. So I'm here, NAACP. My role is chair of legal redress, and I'm also co-chair of the education committee. Royal Smith, our president, is going to be here later, as is Kathy Eglin, who is a chair of the environmental segment for the National NAACP. I'm going to, everyone has said such good stuff that I'm going to sort of play off of it a little bit. And as Councilor Mejia said, the point here is to provide options, you know, about the decision making, missed opportunities, and sort of missing pieces. I think one thing that pops out with the public option is that both Boston public school football teams as well as soccer teams could play there you know all August, September all all fall along. And so that's a huge benefit. And it's not just football. We talk about football, but soccer also happens in the fall. The soccer championships just happened last week. So there's opportunities, a lot of opportunities for football and soccer to happen there. So that's one big benefit. And to the theme of this hearing, One of the issues is what sort of myths with the truncated process? Like we know that part of the reason this happened so fast is because in order to have a Get awarded a soccer franchise, you need a place to play. And that had something to do with why things went so fast. That was a piece of it. And it wasn't a best practice around the procurement. I think we can sort of look at that. But at this point, the franchise has been awarded. There's going to be Boston Legacy here in Boston. The question is, where are they going to play? Is it going to be White Stadium? Is it going to be someplace else? But that step, that's been done. So that's accomplished. And I think it's important now, NAACP, we think it's important to take a step and look back at sort of what are the ramifications of this? Because Franklin Park is a jewel. We all recognize that. Central Park, and Franklin. White Stadium's an important piece of it, but White Stadium's not more important than Franklin Park as a whole. So it has to be proportionate how we handle it, and we have to be careful. So two things, just about two options that are unexplored with the current proposal. One is Dr. Zimbalist mentioned So what are the lease terms? And he mentioned that at the 10-year mark, the soccer team now named Boston Legacy has the option to renew the lease. And they have two leases. Extension terms that are built in where they could go to 30 years. From Dr. Zimbalist's perspective, he He feels like that's a short lease and it suggests they're going to leave and he's talking about whether all the buildings should be around a tenant who very likely could exit. One of the things the way we look at it is because Only the soccer team has the discretion whether to extend the lease or not. The city doesn't have any power in that relationship. So if the soccer team wants to extend it, they can. If the city feels like, hey, the traffic piece isn't working out, there's a television, we're subject to national television broadcasts, and the way that's playing out in terms of White Stadium isn't how we plan, if the city has concerns under the terms of the lease, at least the way I read it, Ben, you can tell me if I'm wrong, is that it's powerless to do so, okay? So what that means is Not only is it 10 years, it's 20 years, it's 30 years. where the city virtually by the terms of this is powerless if they wanna stop, if they wanna exit, if the public interest isn't being met. So that's one way we feel like the public interest is unprotected. by the way this would happen. And there's a lot of uncertainty. Nobody can predict the future and that partnership could go as they envision or it could not, right? Another way we feel like the public interest is unprotected. Right now, under this plan, the city is supposed to pay 100% of of their half of it, which is the East Grandstand and the track. As the judge said, because the stadium is such a key piece, if you have a franchise, that's such a key piece of being able to work it, and Franklin Park and White City were so valuable, we don't think it's in the public, it would be in the public interest, even under this, for the city to pay it all and for we feel like the soccer team, should pay at least half of that, even as it's proposed here, at least half of that, because of the overall benefits of the deal that they're getting and the trade-offs for Boston Public Schools No Fall Sports, both for football and for soccer, and some of the other trade-offs, and the impacts, okay? So those are just three things, because I think there's a lot of talk around You know, what are you complaining about? What's this? What's that? Okay, so those are sort of two examples with the way the plan is being done now. There's no cost control for the city. And also, we don't have any rights if we want to stop it after 10 years. We don't have any rights at all. So those are two big things. And then the benefits of having the public option is obviously in the fall, both football and basketball can play, it's cheaper. And so those are some of the things that we feel like Given that there's changed circumstances, given that the traffic transportation plan, which is sort of a condition precedent, hasn't been resolved yet, and given that there's threat of New litigation as well as the appeal, it's a good time to take another look at this and make sure we're doing it right. Make sure we're doing it right. And it's too important not to be as careful as we need to be. There's one more thing. I do want to acknowledge that the Franklin Park Coalition, what they were given, they have worked hard to try iron out the details. In my understanding, they still haven't ironed out the transportation piece. and the Franklin Park defenders and the ENC have been pushing very hard from the outside to try to get a better result for the people of Boston. Let's see, was it close to five?

No, it was over five, but that's okay.

Okay.

But you know what? We don't have a lot of conference here today, so you took it. have taken up some of their time and thank you. And again, for those who are tuning in, this hearing is specifically around the protocols, policies, and procedures around the decision making. And I think that some of the things that we're hearing It's important to get it on the record because that is part of the process right so to have this audience to be able to really unpack the diversity of perspectives is a good practice in city government which I think we saw in our hearing in January and the multiple hearings that we've had since then that these opportunities really help us continue to build. And so thank you so much for taking the time to reiterate again, once again, You know, the plus and minuses of everything. And I'm glad that you pointed to the resident lawyer in the family here on the council. So I'm sure that Councilor Weber will get into the legal ego mode and clap back with some things and some questions. of his own. So really looking forward to that process. So with that said, I am going to transition to questions from my colleagues to our panelists, and then we'll move into We're going to show some videos from young people as part of our first round of public testimony before we transition to the next panel. OK? So you all stay here. We've got questions for y'all. All right. So, Councilor Flynn, in order of arrivals, it will be Councilor Flynn, followed by Councilor Weber, then Councilor Murphy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, thank you to the panel for excellent testimony. Learned a lot from listening to the panel. Looking forward to the testimony from the public as well. I'm not new to this issue. I was probably the first elected official to come out in opposition to the city's plan. For many reasons. But one, I was listening closely to the retired judge and agree with her honor. And One of the things that struck me in her comments and her overall message was, this is a civil rights issue. I think that's what the judge was also stating, that this is a civil rights issue impacting residents in and around the Franklin Park community, many black, Hispanic, residents, families. But there wasn't really a public outcry from residents or from city councillors about the plan. It's probably easier to criticize a protest, and rightfully so, the federal government, than it is to get in the weeds about a local issue. which is discouraging to me because the job of city councils is to focus on local issues, in my opinion. But it's when city councilors don't stand up Thank you. Thank you. Part of the message the judge was talking about. Not sure if the judge is still on the I do want to ask the judges, is that accurate or what her opinion is? But I also do want to acknowledge the judge not only has an excellent record on as being a jurist, an educator, a veteran, but she's been an excellent leader on veterans issues across the state as well. I want to acknowledge her support for veterans and military families, but just wanted to ask her what her thoughts might be.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. I do agree with you. This is really- Oh, we can't hear.

Wait. Shannon, we can't hear you yet. Hold on one second. First, it would be great to see you. Maybe, and Ethan, if you can help us with that. There we go. If anybody knows anything about me, I want to make sure everybody can be seen and heard. You now have the floor. Go ahead.

Thank you. And thank you, Councilor, for the question.

Oh, we can't hear you now. We can't hear you that well.

She's muted.

No.

I don't think I'm muted. There we go. Now. Okay, great.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you for that question. I do agree with you. That it is very difficult for people to stand up right now. And we're really on overload in terms of sort of a blitzkrieg of attacks on rights in the country. And so this is sort of this microcosm here where Within the city, within the communities, there's some reluctance though to go up against power and more reluctance to go up against money. It seems impossible. But it is not impossible. And that is what the courts are for. They are for people to be able to fight on a level playing field. and for the laws to be interpreted with regard to that particular dispute. But I do agree that it's not just that people are not doing it I think it is hard to do right now. And we have to do more things like this hearing to get people to come together in a way that there can be an opposition. or as Mr. Burley was saying, even an alternative considered or alternative terms considered. There are a lot of options. And so, but without an actual conversation, without an audience with the decision makers, we don't get a say at all. So there's some part of this that is about willingness and courage and the willingness to use the tools available. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Honor. Before I ask another question, I do want to check, Madam Chair, my edit time.

Yeah, you can ask another question.

Okay, okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. And maybe my final question would basically be to either of these gentlemen that are sitting here. I guess the question is, why do you think that residents weren't heard or respected during this process when The buzzwords in government are transparency, accountability. Every progressive is talking about those words. But when it comes to communities in Boston, You know, their voices weren't heard, obviously, but even by city councilors, they didn't listen to impact of communities. But why do we talk about transparency, accountability, but then when there were tough issues, we kind of ignore them.

The architect is like, what? Do you want me to answer that?

I'll just comment that I think there were, you know, I will refer to something like the Franklin Park Action Plan, I think is a really beautiful document. It's one of the most extensive and impressive park planning documents that I've certainly seen in my career where the community was engaged for multiple years. And they made very clear what a lot of their priorities are. And that's why when we started looking at the alternative, that's kind of what we went back to is that a multi-year effort of many people was contributed to that. And I just think that really creates a nice roadmap of what I can't speak to why that process was broken. but I think it's helpful to know that there was a process and I can't speak to why it got broken.

No, it's a good question. Because you do look, there's a lot of continuity between the Franklin Park Action Plan and the public option. And obviously, the pro soccer sort of landed I think on the administration's lap as an opportunity, and I think they decided to go for it. And I think, you know, I have an article here where initially it seemed like this was gonna be 30 million in sort of smaller scale, This is from the Globe, July 2023. So, you know, things evolved, but it seems like the big mistake is just not comparing the option of doing a public-private partnership with the pro soccer team with a plan that more reflected the Franklin Park Action Plan and then having an open discussion about what seems like it's in the public interest. I mean, that would be, you know, that's what it looks like. Thank you.

Thank you. Isn't it also important to acknowledge, it was referenced in the question, that money has a lot to do with the way this is proceeded? So it's my understanding, for instance, that the Franklin Park area is part of a national development zone and there are capital gains benefits to the investors. mainly the amount of money you invest in the stadium gets to be deducted from your capital gains tax liability. It's also the case that they've retained little piece of the grandstand wall because that enables it to be classified as a rebuild, which subjects them to less regulatory hurdles to jump over. So I think from that perspective, it's understandable that certain members of the community sort of give up and they don't see an opportunity to build an effective resistance.

Thank you. Thank you. I do admire the community for fighting back and advocating for their point of view. Thank you, Madam Chair.

That's right. You know I let you, don't try that in my hearing.

I can't push it.

No, you already pushed two extra minutes, so don't try it. So... I appreciate you, but at some point I have to, you know, put the pause. Enough is enough, okay? But I'm going to, again, reiterate this is about decision-making protocols, policies, and procedures. You know, Professor, you just mentioned something really important and pivotal for us to really keep at the center of this conversation is that sometimes part of that decision making process is money and finances and who tends to gain. and benefit from that. So I just want to thank you for uplifting that. And I also want to acknowledge that There was a community process that, Dan, as you mentioned, and Ed, around kind of like at the end of the day, the community tried to get to the best place that they felt would benefit the community overall. But to Ed's point, something just fell on our lap, I guess, if you will, in the city to say, oh, wow, this is the win-win for everybody. So I think, again, I want to just continue to ground us in the fact that people are going to do what they're going to do. Weber, and sometimes we never know how they end up getting there and that's why we're having this discussion here today to better understand the process. So I'm going to now go to, and just so you know, Attorney Weber, Councilor Weber, I gave I'm going to give you two. I initially had six minutes, but I'm going to give you eight considering that your colleague did the same. I don't want nobody to say I gave somebody more time, so you got eight minutes.

Go. Thank you, Chair. Let's see. I apologize. I'm going to have to leave this hearing early. We have a zoning board of appeals hearing on the issue of putting in a family shelter in West Roxbury. I think that when we talk about that and we're talking about community process, sometimes that you have to look At the bigger picture, we've got families, 5,000 BPS kids each year experience homelessness. We have lots of people in West Roxbury who are saying things that are kind of similar to what I hear today. and this hearing about community process. And sometimes we have to compromise and work together to get things done that is good for our kids. Everyone in here knows that I have supported the stadium Partly for the same reason, I am supporting the shelter in West Roxbury because we have BPS kids. We've got a facility. that has been largely unusable for decades and we need to figure out a way to make that facility usable. I'm happy to work with everybody on the issues like the traffic and The lease and all this other stuff. But sometimes I think misinformation and rhetoric gets in the way of what is actually happening. And that is certainly happening right now in West Roxbury. and I hope it doesn't continue to happen here with White Stadium. So Professor Zimbalist, while you're on the screen, I guess, did I hear you say that the stadium is not expected to result in There's been a lot of independent scholarship.

on the question of the relationship between building stadiums and building arenas and economic development. And what that scholarship has found virtually unanimously, and that's very unusual for economists so widely to agree with each other, is that stadium building does not promote economic development, meaning it doesn't promote an increase in net increase in jobs or a net increase in per capita spending. And the reasons for it are, number one, what's called the substitution effect. When people, let's assume that there is a future White Stadium that's half professional, When people go there with their family and they spend, let's say, $150 for the night, that's $150 they don't spend at a local restaurant or the local theater or in some other capacity. And so there's no net increase in overall, I'm generalizing here, but there's no net increase in spending. There's an increase at the new stadium, but there's a decrease elsewhere. The total amount of spending is the same. That's the substitution effect. There's also the leakage effect. which is that a lot of the money that is generated at the stadium is now going to the owners of BUSP and it's going to the players. and the players if they don't live in Boston and the owners if they don't live full year around in Boston they're taking a large chunk of that revenue that's generated and spending it elsewhere. Whereas if you go to a local restaurant, the proprietor of the restaurant is much more likely to live in Boston and spend his or her income in Boston.

Yeah, Professor Simba, sorry, I apologize. Just because my time is limited. So I feel like this is a debate to be had when you're talking about an NFL stadium or a professional sports stadium that's being funded by the city for hundreds of millions of dollars, and the justification is that It's going to provide an economic benefit to the area and you've put the lie to that. But here we're talking about a facility that's for BPS. Like when we construct BPS schools, facilities, Do we have to do the same profit motive analysis? It just doesn't seem appropriate in this situation. We're not expecting to make money on the stadium. We're expecting to have a facility for our kids, and this is how to get it done.

Well, I think that's a great idea, but you're leaving out the half of the stadium project that is for the professional women's soccer team. Right. And so, yes, the analysis I was given, I maintain, would still apply. Instead of spending maybe $300 million, the city spends $150 million. So it's not as much as it might be. For a professional team in another league, but the same dynamic still holds.

Yeah, but let's say we're building the Josiah Quincy High School, Upper High School. We don't do an analysis of whether it's going to make money for the city. We put money into that facility because it's going to benefit our kids, correct?

Absolutely. Absolutely. But BUSP has maintained, they have an economic impact report that they hired out and they They say this is going to be an economic benefit to the local community.

Personally, I feel like when we're talking about these giant NFL projects or the Olympics and stuff, I think your analysis is spot on. I'm not sure if it applies here because we're talking about a beat, which is anyway, but I appreciate your Thank you. I had a question for Judge Frizen. I don't know if you're on there. I know you're a Superior Court judge because I had a case in front of you in Worcester on behalf of two police officers of color. You helped us with your rulings. Continue that case. I don't know if Judge Frizen is still on.

Yes, I believe so.

Yeah, I just, in terms of You know, we had a comment here about how we're focused on national issues and not local issues and you're focused on civil rights. I just, you know, we have a Supreme Court of the United States that says that ICE can detain people off the streets based on the color of their skin or the accent they speak with. Is that not a civil rights issue that affects Bostonians? I don't know. She doesn't need to comment if we can't get her on.

Your question is, is the ICE issue a civil rights issue?

Correct. I mean, you agreed with a question from Councilor Flynn. He's talking about national issues as opposed to local issues. Do you think that what ICE is doing that the targeting of residents based on the color of their skin is a civil rights issue that affects people locally.

Yes, I do.

Yeah, and so, I mean, clearly we're in, I mean, I'm sure nobody here agrees with what's going on. How people are being targeted. How are cities being targeted because of our sanctuary city policies? People are being deprived of you know, soon to be food stamps, that's a local issue. Something, you know, we've been in here in terms of listening to people, you know, I've been in here with a lot of folks who are in this room right now, several times I can, you know, I guess for Judge Frisen, in terms of civil rights issues, we've had people comparing construction of the stadium to policies like redlining and just as targeting and communities of color. Again, where I start with is this was a BPS facility. Two of your colleagues on the Superior Court have found that it'll continue to be a BPS facility based on the lease. The team is going to play their games there, but maybe they'll have a walkthrough. This is going to be a BPS facility. It's going to be used by the public. you know can you just I guess connect the dots I just don't see it as being on the same footing as as something you're talking about civil rights I don't know if you want to You know, maybe I missed the beginning of the hearing when Mr. Burley talked about civil rights litigation. Can you just connect those dots? Because I think I heard talk about civil rights, but I didn't hear... You know exactly where there would be a legal claim in relation to the renovation of a BPS facility.

Sure. I'm not sure. Okay, sure. So thank you for that question. And, you know, when we, again, we're talking about it in its skeleton terms as the renovation of a BPS facility. But I think that when you hear from the community members, this is occurring, it's not occurring in a vacuum, right? So if you had This one thing occurred in which the community's input was excluded and the community is a protected class, largely being Minorities. That would perhaps look and feel different when you look at it in the context of civil rights, but I think the point here is that it is in a context and it's in a context and part of a pattern in which not just White Stadium, White Stadium has been severely neglected over the years. So I did not, you did not miss it. because I did not go sort of in depth about that history. But the stadium and the park in so many ways have been neglected in the city of Boston as compared to other public parks and public assets. And so within that context, it is now feels to the community like, There's this discovery of this place that a private professional sports team can just use because it's just free to be used. And that is absolutely not. How the residents and the communities abutting this park and users of this stadium feel and it is not what has happened. So even though I think there's some Spin that well this you know this is still going to be used by the schools when you look at the changes that will be made they are significant to to the use and Though there will be money poured into this stadium, the use of it, the access to it is going to change pretty drastically. So, and I'm not the best person to state all of what will change. I think there are many more people in the room and in the hearing that can talk more in depth about that. but I think it is within that context that we talk about it being a civil rights issue. It's about who's affected and it's about a pattern of conduct towards those affected.

Yeah, I know I'm done. Just one quick comment. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate all the extra time. And I appreciate everyone being here. I just thank you, Judge Frizen, you know, you're You know, obviously know what you're talking about. And I just, I feel like based on that reasoning, you know, the, I mean, to me, The discrimination, the people who would be liable would be Mayors White, Flynn, Menino, Walsh for neglecting that area for decades. And I would want to get answers from them why they left and many more. Transportation plans in the works, and I'm certainly going to work with everyone here. We'll all meet in Walt's living room or wherever else in the community. I'm happy to talk, and I appreciate everyone's concerns. Thank you very much, Chair, for letting me go on.

Before I move on to Councilor Murphy, I want to just clarify a few things because when we're talking about facts, having worked in the education space, facts, A lot of the parents that I worked with did not want to improve their schools because they thought they were going to get gentrified out of their neighborhoods. Facts. When we're talking about what's about to happen, At White Stadium, that's going to displace a lot of families, and that number is going to go up from 5,200 young people who are homeless to a lot higher. Facts, right? So when we're really talking about what is happening here, we have to be really careful in comparing Different scenarios to this one. As the chair, I just want to be really clear. We all want and know that White Stadium deserves to be renovated. And I want to reiterate for the record again that I am all for that. But what I am concerned about is the protocols, policies, and procedures that got us here and why so many people still to this day feel like they have not had a real voice in the decision-making process. and while some folks can just drop in and drop out, the fact of the matter is that this is a conversation of privilege and the folks who have had The mic and the opportunity to shape the direction of this situation, no clapping in the chamber, have not been engaged into the point in which we are now seeking justice because now this is about civil rights. And so we can't neglect that as facts. And so I just want to make sure that for those who are tuning in that you understand where I'm coming from with that. So I'm going now to go to Councilor Murphy, and you have eight minutes.

Thank you, Chair. I keep changing what I'm going to start off saying because you're saying good things, but your comment about people who drop in and drop out, when I look around this room, all of you I wouldn't say dropped in but showed up stayed with it and you've been here from the beginning and despite many roadblocks and disappointing decisions and many times feeling as though the city has made decisions for you, made it seem as though they knew better than you. You stayed through it, so thank you for that. Also want to acknowledge, if it hasn't already, I know all of you are just amazing community Members here, because you care about where you live and what is the future after you're gone for this neighborhood, this city. But thank you, Louis, Elisa, for always showing up. Supporting these important issues and I see Senator Wilkerson, thank you for being here and everyone who's here. like I said from the beginning. I'll read my little statement. I know that this is the committee that's really digging in. Thank you, Councilor Mejia on you know we talk about transparency and accountability but what does it look like and does it actually happen because oftentimes we just hear lots of buzzwords or insults but I think Everyone in this room who's here now is smart enough to kind of see through that and continue to do the right thing. So Boston does its best work when decision-making is transparent, accountable, and accessible to the people Most affected. And one of the reasons I say this when I'm asked, like, why did I run for office? Why did I want to be City Councilor, no longer a classroom teacher, which is a job I loved all those years I did it. I really do believe that my job and our job here is that conduit for the residents to City Hall and oftentimes There are neighborhoods and residents who feel as though the administration is out of their reach. So I do believe it's our job to make that connection. and speak up and lift up those voices. And it doesn't have to always mean that I 100% agree with what they may be fighting or advocating or how they want to get to the end result, but I do take that role very seriously. And too often major policies and projects move forward with limited notice, uneven participation, and unclear lines of responsibility. Residents deserve predictable process, plain language explanations, translated materials, published data, and real opportunities to shape the outcomes before the decisions are made. And I believe that this, like many other decisions that have been made, like, you know, just so many other decisions across the city where it's You feel as though it's too late, but I know that you all know that it's never too late. We should always keep fighting for something we believe in. Pacific examples have raised public concerns. The White Stadium project's cost escalation and operating plan prompted repeated questions about transparency and neighborhood impact. You've heard these concerns from me before, and I opposed the current approach and called for clear plans on specifically traffic, parking, and community access. And I know that it's been said by Councilor Flynn and Mejia I 100% agree that our BPS students, our city kids deserve the best. They always do. but at what cost and we could have given them the best without selling out to a professional soccer team. Today's hearing is about, I believe, fixing the playbook, clear standards for engagement, data, timelines and accountability across all departments. I also think it's important to acknowledge that when a community, when residents feel as though Things are being done to them. And I use my platform and my role as an at-large city councilor to pause, ask questions, demand that we do it right. That in no way should be attacked by other colleagues. I think it's important and oftentimes too we use You know, these scare tactics that there's an emergency or we can just not follow the rules because we need to just quickly do something. So I think we need to Not use the federal government scare tactic to just force things down neighborhood and community throats. I think it's important that we take a deep breath, we do the right thing and we continue to make sure that no matter what the project and no matter what neighborhood it's in that the same respect and the same guidelines are followed across the city so I'm just here to continue to support and uplift that process. So thank you, Council Member. Thank you. Okay, there's no... No, I'm good. No specific questions. Just thank you for continuing to... advocate for the residents who deserve the best. Thank you.

So I want to make sure I know for the record that I did not cut off her time. You did not. No. She yielded the rest, and I'll take it for myself then. So thank you. I'm just going to go in just because we have folks who are signed up for public testimony. And we also have another panel. And I want to be mindful of everyone's time. And so I'm going to. I have a lot of questions and I'm gonna also time myself. And so, I think, you know, judge, I'm gonna go first to the judge just because I know your time, I see you on the screen and I wanna make sure that we capitalize on your time. And I'm just curious from your experience, what should transparent and accountable public decision-making processes look like when a major public asset is involved. So I'm going to ask you that question. And then the second question that I have is, how do courts generally view or expect government bodies to demonstrate fairness and community consideration in their decision making? Process. And then, Mr. Adams, I'm going to ask you, just so that you can start formulating your thoughts, just because I want to keep moving here. Can you just, from a design and planning standpoint, how would the city evaluate multiple design and development options before settling on one? It would be helpful to understand how we get there. And when you look at the city's process so far, where do you see missed opportunities for transparency and collaboration? And then from your perspective, and given that you've likely reviewed the proposed public-private plan, Why do you think that this approach was put forward? I just would be curious, who stands to benefit the most? And what do you see as the main economic advantages being presented? It would be really helpful from your perspective to understand that. And then from your perspective, what would it take procedurally and financially for the city to seriously consider a fully public plan alongside other proposals? So those are your questions, so you better write them down. And then, okay, so, Andrew, since you had a lot of airplay here, so I'm going to ask you one question, okay? And this is really about when assessing large public-private projects like this one, what does financial transparency mean? standards, in your opinion, should the public expect? And then Mr. Burley, there's multiple questions for you, but I think from the NAACP standpoint, What messages does this process send to communities that have historically been excluded from major city decisions? I'd love to hear that from the historical perspective. What steps should the city take to rebuild trust with black and brown residents who feel their voices have been sidelined? So those are going to be your questions. So I hope everybody's prepared to answer them because I only got three minutes for that. So we're going to start off with Judge. You now have the floor.

Thank you. Just to answer your question. To answer your question about what does it look like if the municipality or government agency is doing what it needs to do legally with regard to those communities when a change or renovation or something like this project is going to happen. I think at the most basic level, I'll be very brief, is that the city comply with due process, both substantive and procedural. That is what the courts essentially are looking for. Did you give the actual procedural allowances to the communities affected? So whether that entails meetings and hearings, any type of votes, whatever the local and state provisions are required, that includes any environmental justice assessment, any racial disparity impact assessment. These are the things that have been codified So they are part of a rule, a regulation, a statute. Those should be strictly complied with to ensure procedural due process is allowed these communities that are affected. and in terms of substantive due process starting with procedural due process gets you more than halfway there to substantive due process which is about really the effects And so when we talk about a seat at the table, that is what we're talking about. And that is what the courts are looking for. So it's not going to be outcome driven. Did you do the right thing based on which plan was enacted? But it is about the process itself and whether or not folks have been heard.

Thank you. And based on the nine hour hearing that we did, you know that that was, I think, one of the most I think the most time that we've really spent getting things on the record from community. So the due process was definitely flawed. Okay, thank you for that. We're moving on to you, Mr. Adams, and you gotta sum all of that up, okay? Just a little button.

I think the key term that I would be most familiar with in my practice on working on large infrastructure projects is alternatives analysis is a very typical procedure enforced at the federal and state level. where environmental, cultural, physical impacts of alternatives are evaluated and shared publicly. Almost I think every project I've ever been involved with Thank you. It's to establish a baseline condition, things like, what's current traffic patterns? What's current heat island defense because of current trees? and so on. You sort of asked that kind of, so to me, it's just that the circumvention of an alternatives analysis process in advance of an RFP is unusual. because the alternatives analysis would have deemed a valuable alternative which would have then be publicly shared as a baseline for an RFP. And so I can't. I can't speak to why that was circumvented here. Other scenarios that is just who stands to benefit and what sort of the I think there's just sort of a fundamental scale question with the current proposal is it's a very large facility that sort of outsizes the demands of a A youth or school or neighborhood use. So there's just a significant portion of what's being presented that has no benefit to the community and to the schools and to the youth. It's a very large structure for the benefit of professional sports, which is why in the alternative, the approach we took, I think many people would say even what we're presenting is frankly too large, too much of an investment I think that right off the bat says there's about $130 million over billed, which is taking away other things like public park space and trees and leisurely activity that the community could benefit from.

Okay. And because I'm the chair, I'm using my own discretion. It's my hearing. So I would like to give Mr. Burleigh an opportunity to Answer the question, but I do have a quick follow-up because in this plan that we see here, and I really love the color scheme here, go and stop. So I'm just curious, the private beer garden, the sitting capacity for professional soccer, the additional utilities, circulation, and restrooms for additional capacity, Private Storage Areas, Private Event Media Center, Private Professional Locker Rooms, Private Professional Medical Rooms, Private Club Seating, Private Stadium Operation Rooms, Bar and Lounge. When you say private, that means that doesn't belong to us?

It means from our analysis, we do not anticipate that the public would have access to those resources.

Oh. Okay, so just so the record for the folks who are tuning in, this is what we're paying for, but that we won't really have technically, may not have access to this unless we pay to get in.

I don't know.

Well, I don't think we have access to the professional locker rooms because nobody could just run into a locker. I wonder, will our students have access to these professional private locker rooms? No?

I wouldn't think so.

Okay. Okay. That's really interesting. So we're paying a lot. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Okay, Mr. Burley.

I think it's easy sometimes as a leader to fall in love with an idea. and then pursue that idea. And I think it's important for all leaders to test that out by taking it to people who are gonna be impacted by the implementation and testing it out and see It really is a good idea. I think you have to do that. And I think the idea of combining the two, while it solves some problems, it creates others. and so I think it has to be handled extremely carefully. And hopefully this hearing will lead to an opportunity to try to do it better, try to do it better.

Thank you for that. Mr. Andrew, did you already?

Yes. So very quickly, for financial transparency standards, Number one, I agree with everything Dan said, Dan Adams, and I think it's important to evaluate the alternative uses of the money. So if the City Council has voted to say $91 million is an okay number, And they compared that to the Lowell Stadium, which is an excellent rebuild for $8 million. That means that the $83 million extra that are being dedicated to this project What else could happen with that money? Either to benefit the schools, maybe to avoid a tax override, maybe to build public housing. There are alternative uses of that money that are important, particularly in a city as constrained financially as Boston is. Next, I would say Mayor Wu should be sharing the data that she intimated was already there in City Hall. The $172 million was released by accident. She says, don't worry about it. It's the worst case scenario. Well, what is the moderate case scenario, Mayor Wood? What's the lowest scenario? Give the public the information and the city council the information that they need to make a rational and sound decision. And finally, I would say be very careful about cost overruns. What tends to happen in these projects is that there's some initial public approval based often on an incomplete budget or in an intentionally understated budget. And once there's that approval, Then the project starts adding bells and whistles. And what was initially a $50 million project becomes a 91, becomes 150 and whatever. So I think there has to be great caution and that the stadium component here Right now, as I understand it, it's been budgeted as part of the capital budget for Boston Public Schools. I think that the stadium deserves a separate budget. It's a lot of money and it's very important.

Thank you, Andrew. Okay, great. So this concludes our first panel. And just to give people a run of show, what's going to happen next is I'm going to open up for public testimony because I know that some folks have been here. Waiting. So for the next 15 minutes we're going to spend time listening to the public and then we're going to transition into our second community panel just so that people know what to expect and I also want to give People and Opportunity to Speak that have been waiting. So I want to thank our panelists for being here, the first panel. You are more than welcome to stay. I'm sure you want to hear what everybody else got to say. But we're going to transition. So what I'm going to do is, because everyone's talking about young people, we have a youth liaison who managed to Thank you. Thank you. I'm out of order because they have a hard stop. So with everyone's permission, my apologies ahead of time, I'm just going to have Senator Wilkerson go first, then followed by James Mealy, Drew Curtis, Sarah Friedman, and Beth Abellay. I'm saying that so that you guys can get yourself in that order while we play the video so that we are moving things along and I can try to get as many public testimony before 12. Okay, so in the spirit of keeping things along, We're going to go to youth voices.

My name is Yoendi. I go to Madison. White Stadium should be reserved for BPS athletes so that way the games are in the center of the city and there's not so much traffic. because, for example, let's say the games were at my school, Madison, Malcolm X Boulevard would get very crowded. That is a very small strip. I feel like it's like gentrification. It's like in our neighborhoods, it's like the same thing where Leanne gets sold to real estate developers and gets used for things to make profit.

Hi, I'm Chris Snell. I go to the John D. O'Brien. I'm against them privatizing the White Stadium because for like as long as I've been in BPS it's been used like publicly for like all Boston public school sports and Boston public school sports already don't get much funding so I feel like Trying to take that field away from them wouldn't do anything but hurt them.

My name's Kaden. I'm at the John D. O'Brien. I don't think they should have demolished it because I do think it needs some renovations but I don't think it was demolished really. Maybe like parts at a time. It should be fully public. There's like private football leagues or teams that could go to White Stadium and practice. or have games like Pop Warner.

Ella Simone. I go to Dearborn STEM Academy. I think everybody should have access to it. I don't think it should be private owned. BPS students are kicked out of the stadium because of construction and off to Madison's Field. And it's very, very, it's crowded with all BPS kids. Especially during track season and it's just too conflicting.

My name is Persia, John D. O'Brien School. I think we should keep the White Stadium building public for the students. I think that's a way, like an outlet for us. and it's something personally just for the BPS students instead of sharing with another community.

Hi, my name is Esmeralda. I go to the John D. O'Brien. I'm heavily against the renovations at White Stadium because I've been there for sports games and graduations, and I feel like it's just a public space that a lot of BPS students use. and if you take that away from them, it kind of takes away a space that we get to use for different events.

Hi, my name is Glory Martinez. I go to Masquerade Community College. I think that White Stadium should be Only be able to be used by the BPS students for their football games or soccer games practices or anything like that I don't really agree with It being used privately I think it's taking away a gigantic resource for a lot of the youth in Boston. I went to BLA in high school and we had a lot of great memories at White Stadium. and I think it's honestly really disappointing to think that it could possibly be stripped away from a lot of BPS students.

All right, so we're going to move on, as I promised, just to make sure that we get community voices. We're, again, starting off with Senator Wilkerson, followed by James Mealy, so be ready to roll, and then Drew Curtis, and then Sarah Friedman, and Beth Abilay. Okay. Can I sit? Yeah, if you need to sit to be more comfortable. But I want to be clear, these are two-minute public testimonies and we have a big hearing happening at two, so I'm going to keep everyone to two minutes, even though I don't, you know I don't like to do that, but I'm going to do it. So, two minutes, everyone. And we will set the timer, just because you're getting comfortable. Okay, two minutes.

Councilor, thank you and to Councilor Flynn and Councilor Murphy for showing up. I'm so disappointed that Councilor Weber couldn't or wouldn't stay. because so much of what he said is just so off base. I'm going to talk really fast. In June of 2023, I was one of almost 20 people who attended the meeting at the Bowman Building, which was then a quarterly meeting that was scheduled by our former City Councilor with the Mayor. This project was on the agenda. In June of 2023, the question we ask is how come we've been reading about a community benefits plan already agreed upon with an organization when the RFP deadline was the following week in June. We've had so many meetings in the community. I want you to know this, Councilor Flynn, who talked about why there's no uproar. This is like the tree falling in the forest. Because the press doesn't cover what we do, people often assume we don't do. We've had so many meetings on this, many people whose heads are nodding in this room. In August, The Trotter School that was packed on this over a year ago. There was testimony from probably almost 40 people. There was one public testimony in support, and that was from Reverend Menard Culpepper, who was then a paid consultant for Boston Legacy, was the only one who testified in support. In August of this year, we held a press conference when the mayor made the statement that she would go to the mat for the community of Charlestown around environmental issues and transportation issues for a stadium that was being built in another town and that she was going to her seventh meeting and she has flatly refused to meet with the community that is most impacted. I live like so many of these people in this planned transportation zone. It doesn't make sense. Please, the protocol, policies, and procedure, the focus that you called this meeting on, have been non-existent. It's disrespectful. It is absolutely a violation. But I want you to understand what we believe is the level of complicity that must be at play here, the number of people who are being punished and retaliated against for raising questions. The Franklin Park Coalition meeting when we went had a vote and replaced them and the existing board walked out the door and the next day the chief of IGR called Our City Councilor and ask people, ask her, why do people listen to Diane Wilkerson? That's what we're dealing with. That's what we're dealing with. This is a civil rights violation. Our children will be sicker if this transportation plan is in place. Councilor, I appreciate it. You've had all these people testify. I don't know what he was talking about, but it had nothing to do with the protocol, policies, and procedure, which is the reason you call this hearing. We have a lot to say, and we can only say it to you because they won't talk to us. They will not talk to us. They have not talked to us. And so if we don't get to speak to you, we don't get to speak to anyone, unless we do what Judge Friesen suggested, and we're going to end up in court. Absolutely ridiculous. But it is a pattern. We're exhausted, but we're not going anywhere. We were here testifying on a hearing that you called on Shattuck Hospital. The very same thing. No one would talk to us, but they had a plan to build an 800 bed addiction campus in the middle of a community where they had already dumped 75 people from masks and casts and left them there. So this is our reality. Have another hearing, whatever you can do, because it's going to take us more than two minutes to tell you the real story. But we appreciate you inviting us to tell you what is really happening. This is a violation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So I want to know for the record, in case everybody's like, well, you let her go on. She is a former senator, so don't get mad at me, OK? She utilized her time. I hope that don't yell at me. Two minutes, OK? James, go ahead.

Good morning. My name is James Mealy. I'm a Boston resident, a Boston Public Schools graduate, and a member of the Franklin Park Defenders. Today I want to focus my testimony on the question of who benefits from the city's plan to redevelop White Stadium in Franklin Park as a professional sports and entertainment complex. The City claims many benefits, but a genuine public planning process to analyze those claims hasn't happened, as we've heard today. Let's consider benefits to three groups. The professional soccer team's wealthy owners, Boston public school students, and Boston residents. For the soccer team's owners, the benefits are clear. They get a subsidized home stadium in Boston using public park land and taxpayer dollars. Without these subsidies, the team simply couldn't afford a stadium here. Just the cost of land would be prohibitive. So their business plan depends entirely on the use of public assets. As for BPS students, the mayor promises great benefits, but the reality seems mixed. Students can use parts of the stadium only when the team isn't using it, and BPS football teams won't be allowed to play any regular season games there because of the professional team's concerns about field damage. In reality, the stadium's size and design reflect the needs of the professional team, not those of school kids, and many areas of the stadium will never even be accessible to students, like luxury boxes, lounges, and team office space. Finally, what do Boston residents get from the city's stadium plan? It's actually very hard to identify real benefits for the taxpayers and people living near Franklin Park. Taxpayers are essentially funding half the stadium, and we still don't know how much money will be spent. The city hasn't conducted traffic or environmental impact studies, so residents remain completely in the dark about the impact of an 11,000-seat stadium in the middle of their neighborhood. 20 professional soccer games each year will snarl roads and displace residents trying to enjoy their public park during the nicest months of the year. Don't Boston's residents deserve to know how this plan will affect their daily lives and access to green space? The mayor evidently doesn't think so.

Thank you. Thank you, James. Thank you. We're going to move on and I'm going to actually finish this sheet just because I know folks have been waiting here for a while and I want to be respectful. So we're going to do Sarah Friedman, followed by Beth Abelay, Diane Valley, Alan Ahern, Karen. Everybody know Karen. Karen. Marley Bowden, and Kate Phelps. We're going to finish this sheet in the interest of keeping everyone's time. Okay, Mr. Drew, Curtis, you now have allegedly two minutes.

Thank you very much. For almost 30 years, I've been able to see the stadium from my family's second floor window. I'm well aware, though, that on my block, the two properties that are most impacted are where black folks live, and they've lived there since I moved in, since before I moved in. They're right across the street from the stadium. I've spoken with a lot of people who don't think it's the right place for a private women's soccer league. I've also spoken to people in the coalition, Franklin Park Coalition, and elected. Folks like Councilor Weber who don't believe either that it's the right place for a professional women's stadium. What I hear from them is, It is the way to get this done for the kids. And I believe that that's not true. I believe that the city is better than that. Everybody agrees that it is both overbuilt and overimpacted for the needs of the community and underbuilt for the needs of the soccer league. And I want to know, and I think the point of this meeting is, we need to know, why is this the only way to get this done? That's it.

Thank you. Oh, dropping the mic. Curtis was like, and that's it, okay. That's a question we all have, Drew. We're trying to figure it out. Thank you for that. We're going to go on to Sarah, followed by Beth, then Diane, Alan, Karen, and Kate, just so that you all know what the order is. So you all can start preparing yourself so we can keep it moving. And then we're going to transition into our second panel. And remember, Sarah, I'm being generous, but at some point they're going to shut me down. So two minutes.

Okay, hi everyone, Sarah Freeman, JP, and a Franklin Park defender. As one of the panelists pointed out, one option is not a choice. I think one reason people feel so bad about This whole process is that it was announced as a done deal. Separate from, is it a good idea? Should it be renovated? Where should it be located? There wasn't. A choice in advance. That said, putting a pro stadium in Franklin Park, someone, I talked to a lot of people about this, someone said, well, should we put Yankee Stadium in Central Park? They wouldn't dream of that. Um... The other thing, Mayor Curley, we're paying the price now. Mayor Curley transferred a chunk within the footprint of Franklin Park to the schools, but at least it was still public. And what they're talking about here, you can call it a public-private partnership. I've done that a lot. The private money has never told me, but here's how it has to look. You have to cut down trees. They support. The public, what the residents are trying to do and maybe they get their name attached in the thank yous, but they don't require you to tear down a building and build it back much bigger. There's so much. I guess I'll put some of this in writing. One of the interesting questions that came up was why are people not protesting locally as much as nationally? I think a lot of people really value their relationship with the city and they see this project as a big priority and they don't want to create awkwardness or burn bridges with the city is at my limit. Thank you. I'll put the rest in writing. Yeah. Thank you, Sarah.

All right. This is the hardest part of chairing a hearing. As you all know, I'm all about giving people a voice. And so having to Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I want to thank the counselors for having this hearing about transparency, about accountability, because for this project, There really has been none of those things. As Dan had said, no comparative analysis, no analysis of alternatives. And from the beginning, all the public meetings that we had, every single one was siloed. You could talk about one topic, but not anything else. and we're still moving forward without any transportation plan and with no traffic analysis done even though from the very first transportation meeting and I went to all of them People were asking, they said, how can you do this transportation affecting so many areas without a transportation plan? And I even believe that The previous city council hearing that we had, the council had also asked about that and was requesting that. So when this administration claims transparency, and Openness and Communication, I call foul on that. So we really need to move forward and I hope we continue to examine this. Thank you. Thank you, Beth.

Okay, so we have next Diane, followed by Alan, Karen, and then Kate. Okay, Diane, it's good to see you.

Thank you so much for having this hearing. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak. I live in Charlestown. It's a long way from White Stadium. But I can tell you that I'm so offended that if White Stadium can be taken over by private use, then no other parcel in the city of Boston is protected. In Charlestown, we're facing the same thing on Pier 5. We have White Stadium on the water with private equity trying to take that over. So the way that White Stadium goes is the way the rest of our city will go. We will be able to have private equity take public land for private use. And I really support the economist's view Then I've heard him testify before, there is no public benefit for these private enterprises. And these private equity and private firms take the benefit into their own pockets and the burden is put on the neighborhood. And I'm really concerned that there is no transparency. We need a full and independent cost-risk assessment of the fiscal exposure. I'm really worried about the City of Boston's budget. I'm really worried that we can spend this kind of money on something that has no public benefit. We are going to face increasing costs of living in our city of Boston. Why is this what we should do when the alternative is so much less expensive? and we need full disclosure on the cost projections, the leasing documents, who's in the game here for the operating agreements and the event schedules. It is misinformation to say the school kids can use this because who plays after November? Nobody. So we really have to get the real story out. So we need a rigorous public review of the process. I'm very concerned that MEPA Chapter Article 97 screening looks like it's being subverted. which seems to be the pattern in the city. So thank you for letting me speak and I hope more people will join the fight here. Thank you.

Thank you, Diane, thank you. Thank you so very much. We're now going to go on to Alan followed by Karen and then Kate.

Hello, my name's Alan Iyer. I live in Jamaica Plain right near the park and I've put hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours over decades in working in the park. And we're here to talk about process and this parkland, this cherished parkland and the playstead was sold off by Curley during the period of redlining and that was mentioned a little earlier, redlining. and I pretty much guarantee you there wasn't much process about that. Just compensation was required by the Constitution at the time which it still is in Article 97, I pretty much guarantee there was no just compensation for turning over this valuable piece of parkland. and now we're talking about process and I call them Mr. and Mrs. White Stadium. She's the controlling partner and he will be the developer of the professional side. Big developer in the city. They got the process. There was an email that was sent in November 2022 just before Thanksgiving and before Christmas. They had a contract. We've had one hot, angry meeting in public, and that was unpleasant for the city, so then they went to the Zoom or Pixel meetings, format. They had 62 of those, no chat, you know, and when you're done talking, you get your two minutes, when you're done, you're out of there. For 10 months, I've had a series of FOIAs to the city, which is also the Secretary of State got engaged, and there's no results. These are not like, you know, we're talking about what's this going to cost. I asked for pro forma financials, some of the BPS plans for their side of the stadium. No. Bonding Discussions, Traffic Modeling and Traffic Studying. None of that. 12 items that all made sense, what you would want to look at in a project like that. and no response other than, and some of these would take a few clicks of a keystroke. So these people are lawless. And just a note, 85% of the seating space in this stadium will be provided by BPS. It's either going to be on our track or so high it can't see the track. If we're going to provide that, there should be a great process and this has not been it. Thank you.

Thank you, Alan. Awesome. So we're going to move on to Karen and then Kate and then we're going to transition into our second panel.

In the interest of time, I'd like to allow the community to speak, and so I'm not gonna speak now, thank you.

Okay, thank you. All right, so Kate, you have the floor, and then I'm going to the second sheet in that case, so I'm gonna then move on to Melissa. Melissa, come down. You'll be after Kate. So Kate, good to see you. You have two minutes.

My name is Kate Phelps. I'm from Roxbury. And thank you, councillors, so much for continuing this fight. You are our only voices in the city of Boston who not just listen, but take seriously the question of expenditure, of racism, of Environmental Protection, and the due process. And however you get this raised and whatever pause you can make in the part of this process, we appreciate. I would say one thing. I read this morning about Elon Musk building a tunnel under Nashville. Recently I was reading about A man named Donald destroying the White House. Earlier, we saw our mayor destroy White Stadium. If people are asking where is the outcry, I would agree with the judge. Speaking. As a white person, although I'm aware of the experience of black and brown neighbors, I don't think I've ever felt so disrespected and unheard and overwhelmed by the impact of lawless, ruthless, evil and illegal activities. Our sweet mare, who breastfeeds her baby at public meetings instead of speaking to us, makes a point of coming in with a plan Hiding the plan, carrying it out, and terrifying people who oppose her. You folks are standing up to a very powerful person in this city. Someone who fired the head of the Landmarks Commission by trying to do an environmental impact assessment on what is an overwhelmingly impactful plan. So I would ask you to continue your work. We will continue to support you. And I know, having spent with my colleagues many, many days out on the streets surrounding the park, that the more people hear about what's actually happening and they know there is an option, they're on our side. This movement is building. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. We're going to go to Melissa. And I just want to ask if Catherine from the National NAACP is in a Zoom and ready to go. So we're going to go to Melissa and then we're going to transition into our community panel. Melissa, good to see you. You have two minutes.

Thank you. I want to also echo our appreciation to Councilor Mejia and Councilor Flynn and Councilor Murphy for all Standing up for us because it's been a daunting process for the last two years and plus that we have been struggling to get the word out. It's been quite, we're up against a really great PR machine. And so the Franklin Park Defenders who I represent, again, my name is Melissa Hamel. I'm from Jamaica Plain. We have been doing our best on the ground level grassroots efforts. And just to reiterate what Kate had just said, for the last 12 weeks, we've been standing out on street corners surrounding White Stadium and handing out information and every single person who comes up to us and or talks to us through their windows as we're distributing flyers says we support you but we thought this was a done deal. Okay, this is what's so disappointing. This is Boston. This is supposed to be the shining city on the hill to represent democracy, and when we see Time and time again, this administration shutting us down. Again, reiterating what was previously said, the Trotter School, That was the only public in-person meeting that we had about this. And thanks to Councilor Fernandez-Anderson for holding that hearing. that meeting but the city was was frightened because we stood up and people were very were all vocal about opposing this, and they never had another in-person meeting after that. It was all Zoom meetings, Zoom meetings, Zoom meetings, control, control, control. And so my experience from the last 12 weeks standing out and talking to people has been that, yes, this is a movement that is growing. Once you tell people that you still have a chance, that you still have a voice, they want to be heard. So please continue the good work getting this message out. And I want to thank you once again. Thank you.

Thank you. So I've been advised that Catherine has not joined us yet. So In the interest of just completing this sheet, I'm going to go to a few more public testimony because I know you all have been waiting patiently. And then we are going to be moving on to our community panel. So a little bit more patience. Thank you. All right, so we have, last name is Graham, Djamil, okay, Djamil, Edwina, O'Donnell is the last name. So we have Jamil, Edwina, and the last name O'Donnell up next. Okay, so Jamina.

Thank you very much, everybody. I am really grateful for this opportunity to take a stand for something that means so much to me. Open green space cannot even be argued in our time for the intense density that's happening. and how are we going to navigate peace of mind and quality of life and the overall respect not just for ourselves and our convenience but the The habitat that the trees and the environment provide, this planet doesn't belong to humans. This planet belongs to everybody. And I am really just so grateful for the courage in this room. I also am really grateful for all the people who have been speaking about the importance of the bigger picture here. We have major issues. This is far more than a white stadium. They want to take the whole entire park from White Stadium to Shattuck. This is in Charlestown and in every town we see this happening. So this is a really big picture of basically what I call the modern day colonialism. and we do have a chance because we are here and thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, we're gonna move on to Edwina and then the last name is O'Donnell. So Edwina.

You now have two minutes and the floor. Thank you for being here. The thanks goes to you, Councilor Mejia, also to you, Councilor Flynn, and to you, Councilor Murphy. I really appreciate your taking such close attention, paying close attention to this issue. I'm going to do a little bit of history. I hope I won't take too much time. I grew up in Eggleston Square in a three-family on Washington Street under the L. Franklin Park, the zoo was our area, was our play area. My husband and I grew up there. We raised our children. We moved from Montebello and Washington Streets to Peter Polly Road. Our children played in the park. We knew the park. We used the park all through our lives. I moved away in 2020. Yes, 2020, when I moved back, one of the first things I did was register to vote. Let me tell you, I know what I'm doing come November. The history that I want you to have is that in the early 60s, the CYO Music Festival Archdiocesan program was held at White Stadium. I marched in White Stadium. The marching bands, the drum corps, the drill teams from around the city and suburban areas marched in White Stadium. We loved it. It was a thrill. Then the Archdiocese pulled out of the stadium and it moved the music festival to Boston College. I can figure out how and why. It was not long after that that the school department started disinvesting in White Stadium and maintaining the stadium, and the city stopped maintaining Franklin Park. You don't have to be a genius to figure out why this happened. The shades of white that surrounded the park began to change to light brown to dark brown to black. You cannot tell me that once this Taj Mahal is built for Boston unity, that when Boston Unity moves out to Brockton, which it's planning to do, look into it. Brockton is their home. Did you think that the Boston Public Schools is going to continue to spend money to maintain White Stadium? It won't. It'll follow the same course it did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate everything you, Franklin Park Defenders and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy are doing on this very important issue. Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to know whether or not we have Catherine yet from the NAACP chain. Let us know. So I also want to acknowledge that we have Royal Smith here, the president of the NAACP. Just wanted to acknowledge you and thank you for being here. I took me along and I was like, that's what I want to find out. You're making that eye contact. I was like, yep, that's him. I get better glasses because my eye contact is not that great. Okay. So I'd like to, O'Donnell is the last name. And maybe I'm not saying this right. Can you hear me? What's it say?

Can I say O'Donnell?

Yeah, O'Donnell.

I said it right. I can still see, but I'm still having a hard time. No, OK. I'll go in once, go in twice. I'm going to do one public testimony that's virtual just to respect. I know virtually usually feel left out, which is why it's, you know, want to honor people who are virtually too. So we have virtually, I understand we have Rodney Singleton virtually. So Ethan, if you don't mind, bringing, promoting Mr. Singleton to our panelists. And I also just want to thank central staff, Ethan and Shane. and the whole entire crew making sure that we stay on time and I am going to honor the virtual testimony and move on to our Once everybody else, because I'm still waiting for a few folks for the second panel. We got Rodney. Okay, Rodney, it's good to see you. Thank you for all your work. You have two minutes.

Thank you, Councilor, and thank you, Councilors, for hosting this. My name is Rod Singleton. I've lived in Roxbury now for 64 years. I remember urban renewal. I remember busing. and it was at its core about racism and It's unconscionable to me that we on the one hand acknowledge that old Boston systemic racism, and understand that that is exactly how White Stadium came to be where it is now. And then turn around and try to solve a problem of racism with more racism. It's just unconscionable that we are spending money for a private organization while my school, John D. O'Brien, and Madison Park crumble at their core because you can't figure out how to fund them, but you can figure out how to fund folks over in White Stadium, a private organization. This is fundamentally about equal protection and The 14th Amendment, which is what we fought over during busing, for God's sakes, when I was a kid. This has got to stop. We need to figure out how to make this fully public and not disrespect our current schools and our current kids and do right by them. I mean, this mayor, she came in on equity Resiliency, and affordability. You put that stating up, he is failing on all three. It's not going to be affordable because folks will be gentrified out of their life. There in White Stadium. She's cutting down 145 trees and it will be an unrecognizable park. So she fails on resiliency. Now, as far as equity, Here we are again fighting this busing problem and racism all over again. Listen, we don't need to go back to the old Boston. We don't. We need to go forward. And I appreciate you having this. And I appreciate that we're considering it. But I really wish you would just support the Emerald Necklace approach to this, which is fully public. And thank you for your time. And I appreciate y'all.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so I don't believe we have any more public testimony. And since we only have one, two, three, four, I'm going to finish public testimony just because some folks have been here since 10. And I just think that I want to be super mindful and respectful of everyone's time. So yes, I'm going to move up, but you're not next. I know, but you're not next. It's right here, my love. You're going to be after Lawrence. It's Lawrence, and then it's Colita. I got you. OK. Okay, so we're going to go to Lawrence, Kaliga, Luis Alisa, and then Marjorie, and then the community panel, and then the people online. You're at home. Sorry, I'm going to make you wait a little bit longer. I think the sheet is over there. We have one more person. We'll get you. Okay, sorry. Okay, so Lawrence, Kaliga, Lewis, Marjorie, and Christine. Okay, and you all have been so incredibly patient, which is one of the reasons why I'm rearranging everything to make sure that everybody has a voice here. Two minutes.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Lawrence Hutchison. I live on Montebello Road in JP. I'm a BPS parent, a BPS teacher, and a neighbor to Franklin Park. From the very beginning of this public process on this project, we've always been told it was too late to consider alternatives. It's been too late for a long time now, so I just want to say how grateful we are to you, Councilor Mejia, and to all of you in this room to keep trying to keep this conversation open and alive. It's never the wrong time to do the right thing, and at this point it feels like the right thing is to consider a public alternative. So why is that the right thing? I think for me personally, there's three things. Franklin Park is a park. It's not real estate. For those of us who live near Franklin Park, it's a life spring. I believe that public parkland should be protected from large-scale for-profit construction projects like this. I believe it is protected under the law from projects like this, and I'm very grateful to the Franklin Park defenders for their lawsuit. The second reason I think is the money. I think other people have spoken more eloquently to that issue than I can, but as a BPS parent, as a BPS teacher, and as a city resident, I think the money doesn't add up. And the last piece I think is the risk. I think we're looking for a short-term solution here. and 10 years, what happens next? Are we gonna have a new stadium that's gonna mold her for another 50 years? Are we kicking the can down the road here? The picture I've come to of this project is a white elephant inside a Trojan horse. I think there's so much We all believe that White Stadium needs to be fixed up for BPS. I hope my kids get a chance to play in the stadium. They're in elementary school now. We're so in agreement with that. But inside that, there's this large white elephant that's been slipped in. And I hope we don't build White Elephant Stadium. I hope we find a public solution. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. That was a good analogy. I'm gonna replay that later on. Okay, Kaliga, you've been so patient. Oh my God, Kaliga. And then it's going to be our very own Luis Alisa, and then Marjorie, and I believe Christine, and then that's it for the people who are here. Yeah, I can go have lunch after this. Louis belongs to all of us.

Louis and Lisa. A lot has been said. I am disappointed that my counselor, Weber, did leave because he needs to hear some things. Murphy, Councilor Flynn, and Councilor Mejia, you have been heroes for us. I just want to acknowledge that. You give us hope to continue this fight. But we're here about the fact and Council Weber should hear this. that it is not misinformation that the only way to build back White Stadium is by having the park privatized with a for-profit sports entity. It is disinformation. The D is for deliberate. Because everybody here wants White Stadium. I have for four decades of my life wanted White Stadium to be rebuilt. and Alan Iyer is an architect. He's my neighbor and JP. He has formulated plans to rebuild White Stadium. and so has the Emerald Necklace Conservancy been behind some plans to rebuild White Stadium, which would save tens of millions of our tax dollars, which could go to our schools, and other needy needs in Boston. So we can build it back. We don't need that sports team. We don't need to use our tax dollars to subsidize a sports team and a beer garden and a jumbotron and luxury boxes and things that were mentioned that are not public and not for our BPS kids and for community use, which is what the trust for White Stadium specifies is the reason for White Stadium. That's all I have to say in addition. Thank you. Thank you, Colito.

Thank you. All right, the long-awaited testimony from Mr. Luis Alisa, followed by Marjorie, then Christine, and then I believe Taylor Andre is in the building. I saw you also sign up for public testimony. Two minutes, sir.

Well, you don't wait very long for that. Good afternoon. My name is Luis Alisa. I live at 68 Seavers Street, directly across from Franklin Park. I thank you, Councilor Mejia. I thank you, Councilor Flynn. I thank you, Councilor Murphy, for taking up this issue, not because it's an issue of race that affects Roxbury or affects Franklin Park. It affects the whole city. and so I appreciate you for having concern and commitment for the residents of Boston. This project is a fraud. The project is corrupt, it's abusive, it's been filled with lies. I'm now concerned that we have people who puppet or parrot the lies that have been told consistently. And any lie you tell consistently that's supported by a media that doesn't care, Then you get people believing it. This is not about the children of the Boston public schools. This is not about the residents of Boston, Roxbury, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, or, you know, Any place, this does not do anything. You've heard the professionals, you've heard from everyone. I'm a former president of the Boston branch of the NAACP. I've sued the city. I know what it is to open up the city. I know what it is to make it workable for everyone. I know what it is to work with mayors who care. You know, I've been a part of this process. I've served for governors and a president. I've built large projects across this whole country and in Europe. I know that this is a fraud. I know that for them to take $100 million from a project at Madison Park, it needs the school, needs the resources, and bring it down to support a private equity firm, an organization that has billions of dollars, that this is not about the residents of Boston or the community or Franklin Park. I support. I'm a Roxbury defender. I am a Franklin Park defender. I am a founding member of the Franklin Park Coalition. I still serve as the president of Garrison Trotter after 47 years with 20,000 voluntary hours in that park. I'm telling you, this is a fraud. and I hope that you continue your work to dislodge and bring to light the fraud and the corruption that has taken place. There have been 20 in March of 23 We saw this, and it's a fraud then, it's a fraud now. I thank you for your efforts, I beg you to continue.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And for those who are tuning in virtually, I understand that we have two public testimony, Dakota Jones, and Jacob Bohr, and I will be calling on you after the last two folks who are here in the chamber. Just wanted to acknowledge that you are on cue. Okay, so Marjorie and then Christine and then Taylor. Okay, so if you all can start making your way down so that we can keep the show going, that would be great. So Marjorie.

Yes, my name is Marjorie Skillman, and I'm glad all of you counselors, I'm happy to have you. I just voted here. The early voting. But I was born and raised in Boston and I didn't understand the cab voucher. situation and why it's only selected that the Hackney people are authorized. for the licensing or the RFP, whichever it is. And also, when I finally last month got my first vouchers, taxi, coupons, I was told there's only, I seen there's only five on the list that are authorized to, Transport people with the vouchers, which is excluding a lot of other folks who need the business to earn a living. That's number one. And number two, or three, is that When I called, I was at my granddaughter's house, and they said they didn't go to where I wanted to go, to the area. And I had to stop and think. And I'm like, well, I just wanna go, it's across town to my home. And they said, well, we don't go to that area. So there's only five on the list, which is, too small a list and number one was the Hackney people only authorized businesses with LLC whichever to do transportation it's excluding other people who need to earn a living and number three is that um Those five that are on the list won't even drive you to certain areas. They won't pick you up. Never mind drive you. They won't even pick you up to take you home, which is not that far. And so that is what I have to say. The transportation, and it should include the Franklin Park. It's gonna get worse when it comes to transportation.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Marjorie. I'm gonna have somebody from my team follow up with you. I think that it was great to get that on the record, but I think that it presents a different concern and issue that we need to pay attention to. So I'm going to ask Dulce or Kat to please follow up with Miss Marjorie before she leaves to get her contact info so we can follow up with you specifically on that. OK, Christine, and then followed by Taylor.

Hi, my name is Christine Acevedo. I live in Dorchester, land of the Wampanoag people. Thank you, Councilors, for having this hearing. We've been here before. The defenders of Franklin Park have been obviously doing a lot of work in stopping this. But obviously as a community, it has been extremely difficult to try to make our voices heard. Thank you for joining us today. Be disheveled instead of being done in a way that involves community input. Even though it's for the better to have a new stadium, what's been proposed is not what we actually want. I might be a huge soccer fan but this is not what belongs in Franklin Park it's really unfortunate that We haven't been able to get our voices heard in a way to make change happen. So many people have spoken and so many people have been fighting really hard and we will continue the fight and thank you so much.

Thank you, Christine. Thank you. All right, so we're gonna move on to Miss Tayla Andre, you have two minutes.

Tayla Andre, I live in Mattapan. I want to ask anybody who is for this project whether or not they've ever been to Foxborough during a Pats game. Has anybody ever been to Foxborough during the soccer games? If not, please take the next three weeks and go visit and sit in traffic. on a four lane highway, four lanes, not a one lane, not a two lane, not a residential, a highway. Additionally, every time I drive past White Stadium, I do not see someone who looks like me who is part of the development team Building in a community, I see Rhode Island plates, I see New Hampshire plates, I see Connecticut plates. But I don't see anybody who's supposed to be 50% Bostonian, 20% people of color, 10% women. I have yet to see a woman. First. Second. Third. Why are we... How are we having a conversation and they are actively on that field right now? doing whatever it is that they wanted. I'm trying to wrap my head around this because I remember going to see the Raiders play when I was a little girl at White Stadium. and the conversation was, we can't wait to get a concession stand. I'm 43 years old, I'm no longer that little girl and I'm still waiting for a concession stand. And if you've ever been to Foxborough, you already know what the stadium costs are. How much to get in there? How much is the food? Is the food even going to be quality for us to eat? No disrespect to Foxborough, but no, it's not. And so there's a lot of different layers to this that need to be discussed and if they're going to continue to build, can we at least get an auditor on site to figure out whether or not the minimums are met? And if not, then what fees and fines are going to be put into place and where is that money going to go to? Because I'd love to see it at Madison Park. So all of these kids that are not getting the education that they should be getting without being bused outside of the city of Boston can at least enter into a trade where we're looking at statistics, all of the trades needed and necessary at this time. Thank you.

Thank you, Taylor. And I want to acknowledge a few things. One is that we have a hearing at 2, which is also going to be packed. And we want to make sure that we give everyone an opportunity Do their public testimony. And so just want to be mindful of that. And I'm going to go to the two people who are waiting in virtually. So that was Dakota and Jacob. Bohr, South Dakota Jones, followed by Jacob Bohr. And I was just told that we have one more, which will be the last public testimony that just showed up. Connie Forbes, and that's it. I'm closing this public testimony situation down because we still have two panelists. And I'm going next to Dakota Jones. If you are ready to go, we're ready to listen. Followed by Jacob Bohr and then Connie and then our two community panelists.

Hello, my name is Dakota Jones. I am with In Order Business. We are a minority and woman-owned diversity consultancy based in Dorchester. I'm born and raised in Jamaica Plain, currently live in Roslindale with my family and have enjoyed Franklin Park and White Stadium for my entire life. I appreciate the comments Taylor just made about the progress that's occurring on site and the I'm so glad to have listened to the conversation around this project and I I understand the challenges, the frustrations, the disappointments, and the confusion about the project and the process. I'm here to speak only about what I know to be true, and that is about the procurement and the workforce taking place on the project. In my role as a diversity consultant, we are entrusted with bringing local minority women businesses to this project. I know there hasn't been a lot of Publication about what progress has been made already. The reality is we're very, very early on in the procurement process, but there have already been meaningful wins. We've brought on a minority-owned demolition contractor to do the bulk of the demolition on the East Grant stand. We've brought on even the small things that take place, Porta Potties, the temporary offices, the dumpsters, all those have been procured by diverse and local businesses. I'm so passionate about this work and about the students and about the diverse workforce. I want you to know, everybody here listening today, that this has been my life's work. If the work is going to go forward, I'm going to make sure that we are involved and that we have a seat at the table and that we are participating in the project. That's my focus. That's our goal. The entire project team, I know it may not feel that way or seem this way, but when I speak with the project team, it is the number one thing that we discuss. and we have multiple conversations throughout the course of the day. We've had public meetings and we have more public meetings taking place next week. So I hear all the issues and I acknowledge those. And I want to leave you with at least a little bit of positive hope around the fact that this project will engage Thank you. Thank you, Dakota.

And just for the record, again, I want to reiterate that all of the amazing work that Dakota is putting forth to ensure that we have Diversity and Equity and Inclusion in the Planning and Development process. We can still do all of that with you helping us do that with a fully public, I want you to know I'm making a commitment. to ensure that that diversity, the supplier diversity situation does not go away just because the private funding goes along with it. We as a city need to make that commitment regardless of the impact and the outcome. So I applaud you. I just want you to know I got you. And we're going to make sure that regardless, That should be the standard. That should be the norm in the way the city does business is making sure that it's equitable and that every person who is of color and women have an opportunity to build this city. Dakota. So trust me that just because we're having a conversation about the alternative plan, your vision for what equity looks like should not go down the drain with it. So I just want you to know that that should not be the narrative out in these streets. So for those who are tuning in, I said it on the record that I will make sure that regardless of what plan gets presented, that diversity supplier is front and center, okay? Got me? All right. Just letting you know. I said so. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, we try to flip the script, and I want to be clear. Okay, we've got the last one. Oh, no, Connie showed up later, so we'll go to then Connie. We're going to go to Mr. Bohr. You got two minutes. I want to remind everybody, we all believe that Franklin Park, the White Stadium, should be remodeled and it should be for our BPS students. We deserve the best of the best, but we should, I just want to be clear, That's not what we're here to debate. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Bohr.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mejia. This is an important hearing which follows You know, what's really been a long and quite engaged public and community process. There have been over 60 community meetings, public public meetings about The White Stadium redevelopment. And this is an important additional forum. And so I thank you for holding it. I've had the opportunity to review the ENC's proposed stadium alternative. And I have some concerns about it. Maybe I should first introduce myself. My name is Jacob Borah. I'm on the board of Franklin Park Coalition, which is an organization that represents park users and community members who care about Franklin Park. I grew up two doors down from Franklin Park and have used the park my entire life. I'm now a Roxbury resident. So I just wanted to talk about the ENC's proposal as I understand it. And I see a lot of shortcomings. It's easier to be against something than to be for something. There's shortcomings of the existing city's proposal that FPC is working with the city on. But when I saw the ENC's proposal, I have some real concerns, which I'll describe now. The stadium will be virtually unused during the non-BPS summer months. It will be way too hot without an awning. It is terrible sight lines for fans due to the eight-line track and keeping the stands at ground level instead of boosted up as in the city's plan. The loss of the Grove area is a real disappointment. It'll use plastic field turf, which is bad for bad for health and for the environment, releasing microplastics into the park. The opportunity to have had a professionally maintained grass field maintained by the professional team was a major benefit. The price tag does not include the 10 plus years of maintenance costs which BPS is not prepared to take on, but the soccer team will take on. It does not include the 10 plus years of operating costs which BPS is not prepared to take on. The ANC proposed stadium will do nothing to bring future funding into Franklin Park or create ancillary benefits around the stadium, whereas the city's CART proposal, which is being implemented, creates a stable revenue stream for the park via the dollar a ticket surcharge on tickets as well as the community investment fund. The E&C plan does nothing to address the transportation and parking challenges for BPS events, which is the major outstanding concern that I have about the city's proposal. Finally, the proposal is ugly and not as suitable for the beauty of Franklin Park. So that's my take. And calling this a fully public plan, which is consistent with the ANC's misrepresentation of the city's plan as a privatization of the stadium is unfortunately undermines ANC's credibility in this process.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bohrer. I really do appreciate that we got all of these great recommendations on the record, right? Because this is what public processes look like. So maybe some of the things that we heard on the record can be addressed and because we have not spent the entire $100 million, maybe we could use that money to make some of those additions and fixes and still keep it public. So thank you for all of that great content.

We're moving on to the last person in the building. Thank you. Connie Forbes here. I'm a person who lives about three blocks from the Franklin Park Location have lived there most of my life and enjoyed it. I'm going to speak specifically to the damage this park will do to my community. I've been told that they're gonna provide parking passes or permits for people to park in our own neighborhood on our own streets and that if I want to invite my family and friends to come to my house I have to get permission from someone that I have to get a parking permit for people and they don't guarantee they'll issue it. So I have a birthday party for someone in my family. I can't have guests. That's a violation of my rights as a resident of the city of Boston. I don't think that's fair. And there's no communication regarding the transportation plan, the parking plan. But no matter what, I seem to feel as a resident that we're not being heard and I'm hearing everyone here saying these same things but But I have neighbors who are moving away because they dread the impact of this park. And I can see it right now. We've not considered the impact. So again, I just want to make sure the rights of the residents who live there now, we should not have to change our entire lifestyle to accommodate something that is too big. And that's my, one of my, I mean, everything else is correct. The trees, we need them for environmental purposes. The health in our community is some of the worst health conditions in the entire city of Boston. between COPD, asthma, everything else you can think of, we're winning the race the wrong direction, diabetes, et cetera, lung conditions, et cetera. So I would like for us to really look at this project as being inappropriate in size and the impact that violates my rights as a resident and a taxpayer is important to be considered. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, y'all. So we're going to move on to the last two voices that we've been so patiently waiting to hear from. I believe one is Renee Stacey Welch who's going to be joining us virtually and I am Romina Cherry who's a resident who's going to be here in person. So, Romina, why don't you step in? And I also want to acknowledge that Catherine England from the National Board of Directors for the NAACP was unable to join us, but she will be joining us later in the fall for some good trouble. Okay, so in the interest of making sure that we keep this on time, I'm going to, is Stacy, excuse me, Renee, is Renee also on?

Good morning. Good afternoon. How are you?

Good afternoon. We're going to start with you, okay, Renee? And you got three minutes.

Thank you so much. First I want to thank Councilor Mejia, Councilor Murphy, and Councilor Flynn. You have done the most and supported us the most than anyone else on So first, thank you so much for your support. It's hard for me, I wanted to speak I'm wasting my time, but Ben Weber left the room and he left saying a lot of nothings today. He left and he walked out of that room. And as somebody who, once again, and I will say this again, serves at the pleasure of the people, he basically walked out of that room After he spit in the people's face with his comments. For him to turn around and share that he's doing so much for Boston Public Schools and the white statement is the best thing, and I'm paraphrasing, of course, He cannot say those two things, and then we spend 175 millions of our money for one asset. Makes no sense. So what he had to say was, Just ridiculous. That said, the White Stadium redevelopment, wait, sorry, demolition, because let's call it what it is. Okay, it's a demolition. There's one wall left. It's not a redevelopment. They demoed it. It's gone. The White Stadium demolition is framed as progress and modernization, but beneath that language lies a dismantling of a vital part of Boston's civic and cultural identity. Once a cornerstone of park, public education, athletics, and community life in Franklin Park, Whitehead Stadium is being rebuilt under an arrangement driven largely by private interest, not public need. What's being lost isn't just a building, it is a continuity of a public legacy that connected generations of Boston students, athletes, and families. Monetization in this case has become a pretext for erasing public history, my history. Somebody who's lived in this community for 50 years, who grew up in that park, who learned how to walk in that park, who learned how to ride her bike in that park, and actually who learned how to pick up trash in that park because that's what my grandfather taught me. We have now decided to give our public asset and have nothing in return. That's not true. We will have some things in return. We'll have traffic. We won't be able to have quiet enjoyment of our park, our communities, We won't be able to have, just as Connie said, we won't be able to have events at our homes during a game day because our family cars will get towed because now we have to plan our lives. around what happens in White Stadium. And I've been told that by a person in this community. Well, you can just plan your life around their calendar. Make sense? Yeah. It is important to understand that we do want Wright Stadium renovated. We want it renovated for us and us as a community, as our kids, the people who have been here, who care about here, who will stay here, okay? And I'll end by saying this. What begins as a win-win partnership for community and businesses often deteriorates into a familiar pattern of Performative Equity, where Black and Brown workers are visible at the start, but invisible in the long run. The issue isn't just individual bad actors, it is a lack of structural accountability to ensure that racial equity isn't temporary. It is transactional. Please understand this. This is a big mistake for our community. We have to do better. We have to be better. And what we need? We do not need people like Ben Weber, who in my eyes is a dictator. Saying what he said and walking out of that room, he needs to understand his role. He serves at the pleasure of the people. That is us. So he needs to get right. That said, I'm going to land my plane and take my purple luggage. Thank you for letting me speak today.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Renee. Appreciate your testimony. I'm going to go now to Breema Cherry. And I also have been advised that there is one more Person. On a virtual testimony and I want to honor all voices so we have acknowledged you and we'll loop you in once Rima is done with their testimony. You now have been so patiently waiting, you have the floor.

Everybody, my name is Bermina Sherry. I'm a Mattapan resident. And if we want to talk about community process, let's talk about it, all right? So as Kaliga has said, The city has purported that the only way to renovate White Stadium is through a private-public partnership with Boss Unity. creating this boss legacy thing that they're doing, the combination of the city and the private entity. That is not only disinformation, as Kaliga mentioned, That is also a logical fallacy. What a logical fallacy is, it's something that renders your argument invalid. That's something that we call a false dichotomy. You're saying that there are only two options. It's either you renovate it this way, or it doesn't get renovated at all. And that's not true. We have seen that there are alternatives. We have seen that there can be a public option. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy has showed us that. They have brought experts, they have paid for experts to determine how the architecture of the stadium could be maintained, determine pricing for it. and then also assess how the land would be used, all of these different things which is more, to their credit, it's more than the city has done because they even refuse to this day to even have an environmental review. An environmental review which is legally mandated through chapter 70 I believe it's chapter 70, excuse me, chapter 70 or chapter 90, at the state level. So they've refused to even have an environmental review, and they're stating that they have an arborist on scene to keep the... to maintain the green space and to maintain the health of the trees and the green space. But if you are refusing to have an environmental review, you're refusing to have experts on scene, even to have experts examine the transportation plan, They went out of their way to pay an expert to examine the transportation plan. They said it's not even concepts of a transportation plan. If you want to talk about community process, the city, along with Boss Unity, has come together to say that they have had dozens of community meetings, Dozens of community meetings. I know what community process looks like, because you know how I know what community process looks like? I've seen the city do community process well. The Franklin Park Action Plan. I read all 300 pages of it. And throughout the Franklin Park Action Plan, the one thing that remained consistent that all residents had been saying that they wanted is access. They wanted access to the park to maintain and to be grown. They want access to grow to the park. The city has been touting the Franklin Park Action Plan as their justification for the White Stadium renovation in the way that they are proposing it. What they won't tell you is that in the Franklin Park Action Plan, White Stadium is just a blimp of the main plan. The main plan revolves around all aspects of Franklin Park and the main thing that remains consistent throughout that plan is that the residents said that they want They want access. They want the park to remain public. They want the park to be accessible to all. They want for the park not to be pushed into the private sector, into private industry. They want it to remain for the public because they see the value of the public lands. They see the value of Franklin Park. They see the value of White Stadium. And even when they did mention White Stadium, they said that they wanted to be renovated. to maintain access. So they don't want you to know all of the things that have been listed in the Franklin Park Action Plan, which is a great plan. They've done community process well, which is why I refuse to accept that they think that these dozens of supposed community meetings amount for community process. I know what community process looks like. I know that they've been able to do it before, and I know that they can do it if they want to. but because they're just using good community process as a justification to speed rail their own project, Of course they're not going to do community process in the right way, in the way that they know how to do it. In two years, they went from conversations to complete demolition. For a project of this caliber, it warrants more. Two years should have been just talking about it. Two years should have been just talking about it. To go from talking to completely a stadium is gone, that's not what community process looks like. With the Franklin Park Action Plan, to the city's credit, they went to the people in a variety of different ways. They went directly to the people. They also found... They held sessions, in-person sessions. They also found ways to include people virtually. That is what Community Process looks like. This has not been that. And we will not allow them to distort the view and our perception of what we know to be true, what we know Community Process is. So an alternative is, it is possible. The ENC has showed us that it is possible, an alternative plan that is fully public. They showed us that it is possible, but that is only one alternative. We can talk more. If we actually put in the community process, we could have talked a lot and fleshed it out more. But the mayor's office does not even want to acknowledge the E&C, does not even want to acknowledge an alternative plan. So, of course, we haven't been able to flesh it out more than it needs to be. Thank you. I apologize for taking a little bit more than the time allotted, but that's all I have to say.

And it was important for me to allow you to finish your thought because you waited a long time to speak and you were one of our panelists and so I just want to thank you for your grace and your patience waiting your turn to allow public testimony to to show up, so thank you.

Of course, thank you for the work that you've been doing to highlight what the community actually thinks about what has been happening as it pertains to White Stadium.

Thank you. Okay, I've been told there's one more person. I don't know how y'all can, shut it down. No more. Okay, that's it. What the heck is going on here? Everybody keeps trying to call me. Come in late, everybody. All right, so I want to just acknowledge that we're going to wrap this up. hearing up, but before I do, you know, Councilor Flynn, you've had perfect attendance. You've been here the entire time. It would be really bad of me to not allow you to do a closing remarks. But don't, not too long.

Did you want me to speak for eight minutes?

Oh, try it. You will see what will happen to you. Go ahead.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, for the important work you are doing on this issue, not just today, but for the last Several years, you've really been the leader, Madam Chair, in making sure and fighting for the community and showing that their voices are heard, even though it has been challenging. I come to these meetings and listen because I want to treat you with respect. And when you come to this building and you come to the Ayanella Chamber on an important matter such as this, You deserve to be treated with respect. You deserve to be heard and listened to. I know this issue well and I came out originally and continue to be against it based on the lack of community process. I do think it would have been helpful if my city council colleagues were here to listen to you, to advocate for you. If my City Council colleagues were here throughout the years advocating for you, listening to you, but more importantly, respecting you, I think we'd be at a different place right now. Democracy is about showing up. but more importantly than that, it's about respect. It's about respect for residents and I do apologize on behalf of my colleagues for their lack of attendance and their lack of respect that they have shown for you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn, for showing up. As you do always. And I'll just end with, first of all, gratitude. It is not easy to keep showing up and hoping and praying we're going to get things right and always feeling like, oh, are we really going to Get what we've been literally asking for. And I'm committed to doing that work alongside community. I want to thank the NAACP, the Emerald Necklace, Park Defenders, my colleagues who were sounding the alarm before anybody was listening. Just want to just thank everyone for their relentless advocacy as a community organizer first, who just came into this chamber. I act with urgency and I know what it feels like to not be heard and I'm committed to making sure that I'm utilizing Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Keeping this conversation active. I don't believe in things being done, ever. I believe where there's a will, there's a way, but we need the political will to do right by the people. I reject the notion that we have only one way to go. We have a lot of money on the table and we could be a little bit more mindful of how we utilize those dollars, right? And we are not in a position where we can have a Fenway Park in Franklin Park. We can't. There's no reason for us to do this. And I've been clear about that. I've been vocal about that. And for me, it's never been about the politics of it. I know what it's like to be on the other side. and not being heard. And so for me, it's not about politics, it's about the people. And if the people really do have the power, then let's acknowledge that power and move with it. And the notion that we don't want to renovate White Stadium just because we are in opposition of what is being presented to us, that is false misinformation, right? Because it's easy to try to flip the script on people and make it seem like we don't believe that our kids deserve the best, but we do. But we are fighting for what is best. And what is best for our children and for our families is to not be put out of their homes. Okay, and not to be put out of a quality experience in a publicly owned facility. That is what is best for democracy because it demonstrates that we are upholding civil rights. I'm going to stand firm in my beliefs. For me, it's never been about politics. It's always been about the people. And so I appreciate the people showing up in your chamber. because it's your tax dollars that pays for our salaries, and at the end of the day, you're the boss of me, okay? And we see you, and we appreciate you, and we affirm you, and with that, before they turn off the lights of this hearing on Docket, 0176 is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching!