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Ka-ching! Boston’s mayor and other pols clean up with campaign contributions as White Stadium dispute escalates
Deep-pocketed backers of plans to plop down a professional soccer stadium in the middle of Boston’s largest park are letting their money do the talking.
The head of an effort to bring a women’s pro soccer team to Boston and her developer husband have showered key decision makers with thousands of dollars in campaign cash, Contrarian Boston has learned.
Jennifer Epstein, president of Boston Unity Soccer Partners, her husband Bill Keravuori, and some relatives have pumped more than $15,000 in campaign cash over the past two years into the coffers of key political players, state campaign finance records show.
And a major beneficiary has been Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who has championed Boston Unity’s controversial $100 million plan to transform White Stadium, a dilapidated facility used by the city’s schools, into a showcase for women’s professional soccer, with modern athletic facilities along with restaurants and shops.
The revamped stadium, in turn, would then become the home field for a National Women’s Soccer League franchise.
Pitching the plan as a win-win for the city, Wu has proposed chipping in $50 million in city money towards the project, with the renovated stadium to be used by city school athletic programs as well.
Boston’s planning department, in turn, was expected to sign off on key parts of the plan on Thursday.
Epstein, a member of a prominent development family that owns part of the Celtics, and Keravuori, a major developer in his own right, have contributed more than $4,500 to Wu since planning on the soccer proposal began in 2022.
But the proposal has sparked fierce opposition from residents in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain who live near Franklin Park, concerned the plan could flood local streets with traffic and turn a key part of the city’s famed Emerald Necklace park system into a semi-private space.
Rodney Singleton, a lifelong Roxbury resident who served on the community panel that reviewed the White Stadium project, told Contrarian Boston that the proposal is another example of the disparate treatment suffered by the neighborhood.
No one, for example, would ever propose erecting a professional soccer stadium on Boston Common or in the Public Garden, he said.
“It sounds terrible,” said Singleton, a member of the Franklin Park Defenders, which is opposed to the plan, of the flood of campaign contributions. The idea that “you can get what you want because you are a big wheel is really offensive.”
Boston Unity’s Epstein and her husband have also pumped more than $4,000 into the campaign coffers of Tania Fernandes Anderson, a local city councilor who represents residents living near the stadium and Franklin Park.
Further, Epstein and her husband have dropped another $6,000 into Gov. Maura Healey’s war chest, and $2,000 into the campaign account of state Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, a close ally of Wu’s.
Neighborhood residents and opponents of the White Stadium plan are suing to stop the project, arguing that it involves giving away public land and, as a result, would need a green light from state officials.
Probably the best-known investor in the Boston Unity group looking to bring a women’s soccer team to Boston and revamp White Stadium is none other than Linda Pizzuti Henry.
For her part, the Boston Globe Media CEO and wife of billionaire Sox and Globe owner John Henry hasn’t doled out any campaign contributions.
However, she already appears to have a good relationship with Boston’s mayor.
For the past two years, Wu has given her State of the City Address at the MGM Music Hall next to Fenway Park.
And John Henry’s Fenway Sports Group, which owns the music hall, waived the rather considerable $40,000 rental fee for both of Wu’s speeches, as Contrarian Boston has reported.
Nothing to see here: In what is becoming a dubious genre, the Globe runs another hit piece deriding critics of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Memo to Globe editors: Enough with the lazy cheap shots belittling Wu’s critics.
David D’Alessandro’s op-ed in the Globe on Wednesday is the latest example, with the former John Hancock CEO airily waving aside concerns about the mayor’s performance.
It’s all a simple matter of bruised egos and personal “pique” - of business chiefs mad because the mayor won’t chow down on a steak at Smith & Wollensky with them or put their numbers on speed dial, D’Alessandro contends.
Yet D’Alessandro does nothing to seriously address, let alone acknowledge, the rising concerns over Wu’s policies, and the damage they are likely doing to Boston’s reputation as a place to build and do business in.
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