May the White Stadium undertaking be Michelle Wu’s Large Dig?
It already has all of the makings of a boondoggle: price overruns, conflicts of curiosity, lack of fashionable help and little public scrutiny.
Wu has vowed to fund the town’s half of the $200 million renovation to host a brand new ladies’s soccer group “no matter what it costs” – a head-shaking assertion that displays her dictatorial model and being out of contact with the taxpayers. Even Tom Menino, who critics used to name dictatorial, wouldn’t say one thing like that.
The one factor saving Wu is there’s a small likelihood the revamped stadium in Franklin Park might by no means be constructed as a consequence of a lawsuit filed by native residents – however the mayor has vowed to steamroll it via anyway.
“We are going to pay for our half of the stadium, no matter what it costs,” Wu stated. “But we’re about to begin construction and we feel that the estimates that we have are going to be in the ballpark of what is needed, and that this overall is going to be a deal that is worth it for generations to come for our city.”
State officers used very related logic to push via the $24 billion Large Dig undertaking, even after it grew to become clear the value tag was practically 10 occasions greater than initially estimated.
When the town’s share of a rehabbed White Stadium practically doubled to $91 million, the announcement got here not from Wu however from the obscure public services fee. A lot for transparency.
The run-down, century-old White Stadium is slated to be the brand new residence for a Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League group with the awkward title of BOS Nation Soccer Membership. The group is meant to share the stadium with Boston Public Faculties groups.
The possession group of the group, Boston Unity Soccer Companions, consists of amongst its traders Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry, spouse of Globe proprietor John Henry.
That has put the Globe in a clumsy place of being completely within the tank with Wu and writing a few undertaking that the reporters’ boss has a significant monetary stake in – a transparent battle of curiosity.
Is the liberal Pizzuti keen to let the taxpayers of Boston take the hit for the stadium?
Will Wu power it down the throats of residents simply because the Globe and Pizzuti need it? The Globe CEO ought to at the least be compelled to reply questions on it. If she’s working a significant newspaper, she needs to be held accountable.
Wu made clear the town was keen to put in writing a clean verify for the stadium even after the Legislature cleared the best way for a brand new soccer stadium in Everett for the New England Revolution. Residents and critics level on the market’s no want for 2 soccer stadiums and that the ladies’s group may simply share the stadium in Everett with the boys’s group.
Wu’s feedback additionally got here regardless of a looming price range disaster for the town of Boston because of the skid in downtown actual property, which funds a lot of the metropolis’s price range.
May her “no matter what it costs” remark be a sign that the pregnant Wu just isn’t going to run for reelection? It appears a silly factor to say for a mayor who shall be judged by voters subsequent September.
Wu has already made clear she plans to take a number of months off after her child is born – she’s delaying her State of the Metropolis deal with till March.
Meaning the town will at the least for some features be within the fingers of Metropolis Council President Ruthzee Louijene, who’s performing mayor within the case of Wu’s absence.
Will Wu resolve to formally move the torch to the council president and take a job within the profitable personal sector? If that occurs, Ruthzee can have a significant heads-up on her opponents, who might embrace Metropolis Councilor Ed Flynn and philanthropist Josh Kraft.
