
AG Andrea Campbell won’t get involved in Boston’s White Stadium bid challenge: “Absolutely no role in that debate’
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office said it will not get involved in the legal challenge surrounding the City of Boston’s controversial public-private plan to rehab White Stadium for a new pro women’s soccer team.
Campbell’s office weighed in on the matter Wednesday, in response to a rally by project opponents calling for the attorney general to “enforce the state’s public land protection and public trust laws” that they see being violated by the city and the Boston Unity Soccer Partners’ plan for the 76-year-old Franklin Park facility.
“We understand that there is a robust political debate about White Stadium and appreciate the many diverse perspectives involved, but our office has absolutely no role in that debate,” a spokesperson for the AG’s office said in a statement.
“We have informed those challenging the project in court that, while we respect their advocacy, we do not share their legal position because the state laws on which they rely do not prevent the City of Boston’s plans, as the Superior Court has already indicated,” a Campbell spokesperson said.
The statement from the attorney general’s office came amid a rally that was held outside her Beacon Hill office building, where project opponents hand-delivered a note to Campbell’s staff that outlined their enforcement request and the purported legal violations they see around the city and Boston Unity Soccer Partners’ plan.
The letter references the primary components of a community lawsuit — filed last year by a group of 20 neighbors and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy — which alleges that the proposed for-profit professional soccer stadium use constitutes an illegal privatization of public trust land.
Mayor Wu has denied the privatization claim, while pointing to a lease agreement that would see the city maintain ownership of White Stadium, which Boston Public Schools’ student-athletes would share use of with the new pro soccer team.
A Suffolk Superior Court judge, as noted by Campbell’s office, previously rejected the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction based on those claims, but the lawsuit is still pending in court, with a trial set for March 18.
“As attorney general, you have the duty and power to stop this project and force the Trust, at a minimum, to file a probate court proceeding where the attorney general could ensure compliance with the Trust and protection of the public,” Alan Lipkind, an attorney for the plaintiffs, wrote in the letter.
While Campbell’s office weighed in on the purported legal violations in the letter, and by extension the pending lawsuit, it didn’t appear to comment on potential public procurement law violations that have been raised in relation to the plan.
Critics of the public-private rehab and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft have accused Mayor Michelle Wu of engaging in a “secretive and rigged” procurement process.
Those accusations were raised after a Herald report shed light on internal city emails between the city and Boston Unity, which revealed negotiations to rehab White Stadium for a pro women’s soccer team were underway long before the city sent out a public request for proposals.
When that RFP went out, it very closely resembled the framework discussed between the investor group and city.
Boston Globe CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry is an investor in the team, but said last Friday that she working to back out of the group.
The AG’s office also enforces the state’s bidding laws, which require a public procurement process for city construction contracts, to “ensure open and fair competition for contacts paid with public money.”
Kraft has called for an independent investigation into whether the stadium bidding process violated procurement laws or policies. Mayor Wu has dismissed such assertions, saying the RFP process “followed all the standard timelines as established by state and city law.”
Asked by the Herald whether the AG’s position extended to potential public procurement violations, Campbell’s office did not respond.
Project opponents made it clear where they stand on the matter at the day’s rally.
“It’s an illegal lease,” Stevan Kirschbaum, a former Boston Public Schools bus driver, said. “We say pull it. This park belongs to us. Do not sell away our kids’ future and our kids’ kids’ future.”
James Davis, a resident of Egleston Square, which straddles Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, said he sees the mayor’s plan as “theft from the people of Boston,” while calling Wu, who he knocked doors to help elect in first mayoral bid, a “crook.”
“The recent emails that were leaked demonstrated that this RFP process was designed for Boston Unity, not for any other options that the community wants,” Davis said. “This is not the change that Mayor Wu promised when we were knocking doors for her. This is not a Green New Deal. This is a raw deal.”
In response to the day’s rally by opponents, who see the plan as a “giveaway” to wealthy investors, supporters of the project including BPS parents and coaches, issued a statement blasting the “Emerald Necklace Conservancy’s embarrassing pressure campaign against Attorney General Andrea Campbell.”
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Citing the court’s rejection of the plaintiffs’ temporary injunction request last year, the “Grassroots White Stadium Supporters” said the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, “in response, has repeatedly resorted to misinformation and planting lies about the project.”
The conservancy group “is now accusing the attorney general of inaction, hoping that their well-funded pressure campaign will change the office’s assessment of the law,” the supporters’ statement said. “AG Campbell is facing down much greater bullies than ENC, and its efforts are bound to fail here as well.
The supporters also touted the plan as a long-needed investment for BPS student-athletes.
The city’s public-private plan to rehab Franklin Park’s White Stadium has divided the community and is now projected to cost more than $200 million. Taxpayers are on the hook for half of the costs, a figure that’s nearly doubled in recent weeks.
The project, championed by Mayor Wu, has also become a central campaign issue with Krafter her challenger, who calling for a pause on demolition until the courts can rule on the legal challenge from the community. Kraft is the son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft,
Attorney General Andrea Campbell (Nancy Lane/Boston Herald, File)