Franklin Park - White Stadium Renovation

Wonk said:
Ironic, women's soccer is a close second and the leader for girls. And while we're at it, let's close all the DCR ice rinks, too.
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I don’t disagree. We should be pushing children into physically intensive but non brain-damaging athletic pursuits like track and field, rowing, racquet sports, basketball, baseball, and others. I think that soccer can be salvaged if heading is banned, but American football and hockey should be eliminated entirely.

This isn’t some hyperbolic or crazy position. We’re letting kids develop CTE before their brains are even done developing.
 
Jeremi said:
This isn’t some hyperbolic or crazy position. We’re letting encouraging kids to develop CTE before their brains are even done developing.
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Avid football fan, but, yeah. Let's not beat around the bush. I strongly believe that schools sponsoring sports is in most cases positive but an examination is due on whether that holds up for some of the more violent contact sports.
 
Regarding football, I loved playing it in high school. I was nevertheless quite glad that none of my kids had any interest in doing it when they were the right age. And if we had known back in my day what we know today, I doubt very much that I would have played (father was a pediatrician). Eliminating heading for youth soccer would be a big safety enhancement, but most of my excitement about this project is the huge improvement for so many other high school athletic opportunities.
 
Out of all the things happening in the city, I find this 'debate' very interesting. It feels almost manufactured by media outlets who cannot wait to write the next clickbait outrage article using a couple people as proxies. Like none of my neighbors talk about it or even care. "Oh, a new stadium that's cool". (but the traffic!)
 
The pictures of the people opposing the stadium never surprise me, must be an average age of 65. It feels like such a microcosm of the larger issues that city planning and community meetings face today. A group of very vocal elderly, car-favoring NIMBYs who have the free time to hyper-focus on a project, show up to all the meetings, start a lawsuit, and go to small protests every few weeks. The vision they have for a place is what it would have looked like 50 years ago. While time has basically stopped for them since they bought their house, the younger generations are actively struggling through the lack of progress that the city/state has made in terms of housing, transportation, energy, public school investment, etc.

I've been to as many meetings as I can for this project (a bunch of times I'm not even aware that a meeting was happening and I hear about it in the Globe or on the Boston City YouTube), and every time it's the same 5-10 seniors who are saying the same thing.

- "I speak for the trees" (A bunch of those trees are dying and legally the plan is to add 100 more trees than those taken down over 10 years)
- "How will I park at church on the 6 Sundays a year when there will be an early Sunday game" (This stadium will be actively hostile to people trying to drive in and young people who are more likely to attend the games are also less likely to be car reliant in the city)
- "There has been no community input!" (Sir, you've said this at 5 straight meetings now, this is literally community input)
- "A private company should not own a stadium in the park" (The city owns it, and BPS will get the most use out of it. And a soccer team in the city will be a great community asset)
- "This is not what Olmsted wanted" (The area of the park was originally supposed to be a place for people to gather, it was an active part of the park. Do you see how run down the park is right now? Is that what Olmsted intended?)

There's no good faith, it's cater to me and my outdated views on what the city/world should be or else I will make it my passion project to halt progress for the next generation. At the meetings I've been to most of the supporters of the stadium are BPS students, teachers, coaches, and young families in the neighborhood. They talk about the lack of safety, the way the rest of the state looks down on BPS athletics, how this project excites them about growing up here or raising a family in BPS, how they will spend more time in the park, how they think that a local women's soccer team is a great community asset, etc. You often won't see them at more than one meeting but yet they are the ones who will be most affected. This sort of thing is true in community engagement processes around the city and It's the same with the federal government; a bunch of old wealthy individuals refusing to let go of power for the well-being of my generation.

Community meetings are important to some extent but we must understand that in many cases for Boston (especially this one) it's not at all representative of the community.
 
My friend works at a local business and is not someone normally plugged into development projects. She asked me, “did you hear about the new women’s soccer stadium?” I said yes, how’d you hear about that.

Apparently this guy associated with the project has been coming in and ordering 6 shots of espresso while talking on the phone about the project, and it happens enough that she has a general idea of the project and the drama surrounding it.

So yes, I guess the opposition is really haranguing them!
 
Has a new cost estimate for Boston's portion been released yet, or are they waiting for the bidding process to complete? The most recent version posted on the city website is the old $91m figure, but wasn't it reported that Dion Irish said it was up to $100m now?
 
Wonk said:
Has a new cost estimate for Boston's portion been released yet, or are they waiting for the bidding process to complete? The most recent version posted on the city website is the old $91m figure, but wasn't it reported that Dion Irish said it was up to $100m now?
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I heard it's up to $131M now!
 
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www.bostonglobe.com

AG Campbell all in on fighting Trump but silent on White Stadium - The Boston Globe

Both sides on the White Stadium plan have a legal argument to make, one that the AG could weigh in on if she chose. Instead, she has chosen not to.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Attorney General Andrea Campbell is all in on the headline-grabbing legal fight against President Trump, joining forces with other Democratic attorneys general to challenge Trump’s actions to cancel research funding, birthright citizenship, diversity programs, and gender-affirming care for transgender youth. But when it comes to taking a stand on the actions taken by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to demolish White Stadium in Franklin Park and pour at least $100 million of taxpayer money into the development of a new stadium that will generate profits for a women’s soccer team, Campbell is nowhere to be found.

An entire bureau of Campbell’s office has jurisdiction over every nonprofit and charitable organization in the state — and that includes the George Robert White Fund Trust, the public charitable trust that owns White Stadium and surrounding land. But Campbell has shown no interest in exercising jurisdiction over what has also evolved into a major political controversy. As a result, the Wu-ordered demolition of White Stadium is underway with nary a peep from the AG’s office about any applicable law.

According to Steve Crawford, a spokesperson for the Franklin Park Defenders — the group representing the activists and neighbors who are trying to stop the new stadium development — Campbell dropped by a July 17 meeting between her staff and the plaintiffs and their attorneys. According to Crawford, nothing came of that meeting. Since then, Campbell did not respond to two letters sent in January by lawyers for the plaintiffs, seeking her involvement in the case, which is scheduled to go to trial in March.

Asked about it, a spokesperson for Campbell said via email, “The AGO was approached at the outset of this case and chose not to intervene, because, as we explained to all involved, we did not believe there was a basis for the Commonwealth to do so — and that continues to be the case. The parties are well represented by able counsel, and the court is well equipped to decide the arguments presented to it.”
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