Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft says public information present town’s bid course of for the White Stadium professional soccer rehab challenge was “rigged” and is looking for an investigation into whether or not Mayor Michelle Wu violated procurement legal guidelines.
Kraft was reacting to a Herald report that make clear inside emails between town and Boston Unity Soccer Companions, which revealed negotiations to rehab Franklin Park’s White Stadium for a professional ladies’s soccer crew have been underway lengthy earlier than town despatched out a public request for proposals.
“The details reported today regarding the secretive and rigged RFP process between Mayor Wu’s office and Boston Unity Partners is extremely concerning and demonstrates misdirected energy and the wrong priorities, with BPS kids left behind, a community feeling ignored, and Boston taxpayers holding the bag,” Kraft mentioned in an announcement launched Tuesday by his marketing campaign.
“In light of this new information, I am once again calling on the mayor to immediately pause the demolition underway at the stadium. In addition, I am calling for an outside independent investigation into the mayor’s actions to determine if procurement policies or any laws may have been violated,” he mentioned.
Massachusetts common legal guidelines require a public procurement course of for metropolis contracts for provides and companies, and development initiatives estimated to price $10,000 or extra, to “ensure open and fair competition for contracts paid with public money.”
Town’s public-private plan to rehab Franklin Park’s White Stadium has divided the group and is now projected to price greater than $200 million. Taxpayers are on the hook for half of the price that’s practically doubled in current weeks.
Chatting with reporters after an unrelated occasion, Wu pushed again on Kraft’s assertions that the bid course of for the challenge was rigged, saying that such a declare was “inaccurate.”
The mayor acknowledged, nevertheless, that discussions between her administration and the personal soccer buyers came about forward of town’s launch of an RFP.
“There was a full RFP process that followed all the standard timelines as established by state and city law,” Wu mentioned. “Of course, we were contacted by the members of the ownership group when it came to the opportunity to keep the city in the loop about the potential to bid for a new team.”
Wu mentioned town usually has a historical past of supporting skilled sports activities groups.
“Sports franchises, especially professional women’s sports franchises can anchor so much, in terms of mentorship and opportunity here in the city, and so we’ve been very, very excited to support on that front, and we’ve had conversations about what a partnership could look like,” Wu mentioned.
Kraft, a son of the billionaire New England Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft, mentioned, nevertheless, that public information reveal the “extent of misplaced priorities at City Hall,” whereas citing remarks Wu made in her letter of assist for the soccer buyers’ enlargement bid that was despatched months earlier than town’s RFP was launched.
The mayor wrote, partly, that she had “empowered every department in my cabinet to work closely with the applicants to identify the best location for a state-of-the-art facility.”
“While Mayor Wu has claimed that renovating White Stadium is about serving BPS student-athletes, this rigged process reveals it was never about the needs of BPS kids but about supporting the wealthy private investors and their pursuit of a stadium for a professional women’s soccer team,” Kraft mentioned.
Inside metropolis emails obtained by the Herald present Boston Unity Soccer Companions first reached out to the Wu administration about their plans to carry a brand new skilled ladies’s soccer crew to Boston in September 2022, when the for-profit group indicated their intense curiosity in Franklin Park’s White Stadium because the crew’s future house.
These emails present the eventual phrases of town’s RFP began to be formed by means of seven months of conversations between Boston Unity and metropolis officers. These personal talks came about forward of town’s formal RFP launch to potential bidders in April 2023.
When that RFP went out, it very carefully resembled the framework mentioned between the investor group and town.
Boston Unity was chosen for the challenge after submitting the one bid in June 2023. Eight months earlier, Mayor Wu had submitted a letter of assist for Boston Unity’s enlargement bid to the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League.
Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry is an investor within the crew, however mentioned final Friday that she was working to again out of the group.
The challenge, championed by Mayor Wu, has grow to be a central marketing campaign challenge with Kraft calling for a pause on demolition till the courts can rule on a authorized problem from the group.
The lawsuit, set to go to trial March 18, alleges that the challenge’s proposed use would illegally privatize public belief land. The mayor has denied the privatization declare, whereas pointing to a lease settlement that might see town retain possession of the stadium, which BPS would share use of with the brand new professional crew.
“It’s about time that what’s been done in the dark is now coming to light,” Louis Elisa, president of the Garrison-Trotter Neighborhood Affiliation and a plaintiff within the lawsuit, mentioned in an announcement.
“These documents clearly show what we have suspected all along: the rush to tear down White Stadium and permanently damage Franklin Park is being driven by the needs of a few wealthy sports investors and by the soccer league’s deadlines.”
Elisa mentioned the “city and the team deliberately denied the community a voice until this backroom deal was done.”
“Further tree-cutting and demolition must immediately cease until questions about the legality and integrity of the project are resolved,” Elisa mentioned. “It is past time for the appropriate state and federal officials to step in and investigate the secret negotiations that took place before the public bidding process even began.”
Opponents of the public-private White Stadium rehab plan to rally exterior Lawyer Normal Andrea Campbell’s Boston workplace Wednesday afternoon to ask Campbell “to enforce the state’s public land protection and public trust laws,” that they see as being violated.
The AG’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a Herald inquiry as as to if it plans to get entangled within the native matter.
The professional soccer crew is about to take the pitch in March 2026.
