The City of Boston plans to allocate 50% of White Stadium renovation contracts to local minority- and women-owned businesses through its newly formed White Stadium Supplier Diversity Advisory Group.
Kelsey Bruun, the director of communications for the City’s Economic Opportunity & Inclusion Cabinet, wrote in a statement to The Daily Free Press that the new advisory group will not be awarding the contracts themselves.
Instead, they hope to create economic opportunities by helping local businesses navigate “procurement processes and securing contracts.”
“The Group will also strengthen partnerships with local organizations and provide ongoing oversight and accountability to track progress toward business participation goals,” Bruun wrote.
The group is composed of community leaders and small business organizations, including Ron Marlow, vice president for Workforce Development & Alternative Education, and Robert Wint, President of the Boston Caribbean American Association.
Both organizations declined to comment.
Boston residents pushed back against the $200 million White Stadium Renovation proposal at a City Council meeting in January, citing that the project would provide no economic benefit to the local community.
Andrew Zimbalist, a professor emeritus of economics at Smith College who spoke out against the renovations at the January City Council meeting, said the advisory group’s proposed actions could have a positive impact, but he still has doubts.
“These kinds of announcements are often made, but they’re not followed,” Zimbalist said.
Local community members also protested in February, as they believed the renovations and privatization would limit public access and be detrimental to the local environment. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a non-profit stewardship organization to protect parks of the Emerald Necklace, filed a lawsuit against the City regarding the stadium’s construction.
“Although we have urged ENC for months to abandon their lawsuit and join our effort, we look forward to clearing the way for the renovation to proceed,” a spokesperson from Mayor Wu’s Press Office wrote in an email to The Daily Free Press. “After forty years of broken promises and two years of community meetings, kids have waited long enough.”
The group aims to increase local business’s awareness of contracting opportunities through various events like contracting opportunity fairs and meetings.
Bruun wrote this would be an effective way to include the community in the renovations as it “represents Boston’s commitment to building infrastructure that serves the communities surrounding Franklin Park.”
“I applaud that they have that goal,” Zimbalist said, referring to the advisory group’s plan about contracting dollars. “It doesn’t begin to address the cost of a 100-plus-million dollars from the City for doing this.”
Steve Vaitones, managing director of U.S.A. Track and Field Association who oversaw the design and implementation of the stadium’s new track, commended the role the community has played in the renovation.
“They have redesigned the stadium multiple times based on community input,” Vaitones said.
Vaitones said he was brought in to ensure the track was made to best suit the needs of the community. He said the public was involved in changes to the construction timeline.
Zimbalist said otherwise.
“I know that there were a couple of meetings that were poorly advertised, hardly any people went,” Zimbalist said. “There wasn’t really any community education or discussion about it beforehand.”
