Weekly Transcript Round-Up for 8/08/25
Federal Investigation at Main Streets?; Another White Stadium delay; Council fights over Mass & Cass; Deadline today for School Cmte seat; More Full Liquor Licenses for Boston; PLUS MORE
This week there was major news on another White Stadium delay and a new rent control proposal; a Council hearing that shed new light on the Main Streets corruption scandal & the possibility of a federal investigation into it; an application deadline for an open seat on the Boston School Committee; and an action-packed regular Council meeting that made headlines for Council in-fighting & saw the start of several important processes.
ANOTHER WHITE STADIUM DELAY This week Boston Globe columnist Jon Chesto reported that Boston gave Boston Legacy FC, the womens’ pro-soccer team that is partnering with Boston Public Schools to renovate White Stadium, a 6 week extension to make a $20M payment to the City, pushing the due date from August 1 to September 15. Chesto reports that the delay was formally agreed to by the team and BPS back on July 25. That date is important, because it means this delay was known, but not announced, on Tuesday, July 29 when Mayor Wu said in a radio interview that new cost estimates for White Stadium wouldn’t be available until the end of the year - that announcement confirmed reporting by Joan Vennochi. The failure to make this $20M payment on time should raise red flags, because it appears to be part of the $45 million Pre-financing Guaranty that was announced as part of the lease agreement, and which was required so that if “BUSP fails to secure total project financing or cannot advance the renovation, the City will have significant extra resources to renovate White Stadium.” It is also unclear if BPS had the authority to alter the terms of the lease agreement without City Council or School Committee approval.
RENT CONTROL BALLOT QUESTION GOES FURTHER THAN BOSTON HOME RULE This week was the deadline for 2026 ballot questions, and a question that looks to re-legalize rent control goes quite a bit further than the legislation currently on Beacon Hill about the issue - an enabling act filed by state legislators filed in 2025 and a home rule petition passed by the Boston City Council and signed by Mayor Wu in 2023. Here is how the State House News Service describes the newly filed ballot question:
The initiative petition would similarly limit annual rent increases to the cost of living with a 5% cap, according to a Homes for All Mass advisory. There would be exemptions for owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units, plus new buildings for the first decade.
Compare that to how Boston.com describes Boston’s home rule petition, which was passed in 2023, during the previous City Council term:
Limit year-over-year rent hikes to the change in the Consumer Price Index plus 6%, or 10% at most, whichever of the two figures is lower . . . six units or fewer, properties where the owner and tenant share bathrooms or kitchens, and for new apartment buildings and developments for the first 15 years after the city issues a certificate of occupancy.
The rent control bill heard on Beacon Hill earlier this week was weaker than either of those proposals, simply allowing MA’s cities and towns to enact their own rent control measures. The big unanswered question that BPI is hoping to see answered in the coming months: how would a rent control cap would affect the assessed values of the newly-regulated buildings? According to Brookings Institute, there is evidence, including from Cambridge, MA’s experience with rent control, that the policy significantly reduces the value of affected buildings. That would have enormous impacts on Massachusetts’ property tax dependent local governments, which are already in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
MAIN STREETS CORRUPTION SCANDAL DETAILED AT COUNCIL HEARING Back in May Three Squares Main Streets, part of a network of 20 Boston Main Streets non-profit organizations that function like a quasi-government agency, was accused of misusing $32,000 in grants. On Thursday, representatives of the City’s Economic Opportunity and Inclusion cabinet, including Segun Idowu, the cabinet chief, plus Boston Main Streets Foundation, the umbrella organization for Boston’s Main Street organizations testified before the Council. The biggest news coming out of this hearing was this exchange between District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn and Idowu that suggested there likely was a federal investigation into the corruption allegations:
Here is a transcript of that video - it starts at the 50:56 mark:
FLYNN: Okay. And and besides this report from the Wolf and Company, and so that that report is ongoing. It's not done yet. But is the federal government also doing an investigation?
IDWOU: We can't comment on any actions that the federal government may or may not be taking.
FLYNN: It is federal funds though that that were misused. Is that accurate to say? Correct. So it's only natural to assume that the federal government is doing an investigation on main streets in Boston. Is that accurate?
IDOWU: I think, um, councilor, if you would like to make the assumption, you are within your rights to do so, but we cannot, you know, speak to any actions the federal government's taking. We're here to talk about city actions.
Testimony at the hearing made clear that the scandal highlighted long-standing concerns about Main Streets’ model, which puts the burden of success for each organization on a single Executive Director. Both the Foundation and Idowu expressed support for changing Main Streets, but it did not appear that much work has been done thinking through how to fix the shortcoming and what change might looks like. Idowu cautioned - he is Speaker 3 & starts at the 1:34:46 mark in the transcript:
In terms of a structure that I'd like to see, I have not discussed this with the [individual Main Streets executive] directors who I know are watching right now, and so please don't take anything I'm saying is this is what it's going to be. But, you know, I have an idea of, like, consolidation and expansion.
COUNCIL’S REGULAR MEETING STARTS SEVERAL IMPORTANT PROCESSES The Council’s regular meeting on Wednesday, August 6, was the body’s first regular meeting since July 9. Councilors talked about a number of issues that made the news, including several different anti-rat efforts and open fighting over a resolution about Mass & Cass, that extended onto social media.
There were also a number of new issues that didn’t get attention in the press this week, but will in the coming weeks and months:
Docket #1427 on p. 92-106 is the 2025 Short-Term Rentals Report from the Mayor’s Office on Housing, an annual report that the City’s short-term rental ordinance requires City Hall to produce. Back in May 2024 District 8 Councilor Sharon Durkan filed Docket #1381 and in her speech said “we are not seeing this ordinance bear the fruit that we once hoped,” while publicly accusing short-term rental operators of being “repeat offenders for code violations,” - she is Speaker 11 & starts at 36:11 in the 2024 transcript. That docket was assigned to the Housing Committee, which is chaired by a co-sponsor of that May 2024 docket, District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon, but a hearing on that Docket was never held.
Docket #1411 on p. 57-59 from Mayor Wu would opt-in to a new state law that gives berr & wine license holders the chance to upgrade those to full liquor licenses, adding more full liquor licenses to the 200+ new licenses Beacon Hill approved last year.
2 new board members for the Zoning Board of Appeals - Docket #1412 on P. 60-61 and Docket #1413 on p. 62-63 - were sent to Councilor Durkan’s Planning Committee for an interview before they go back to the full Council for approval.
Two dockets about the the School Committee Nominating Panel also highlighted what could be a major issue in August: filling the open seat on the School Committee created by the resignation of Chantal Lima Barbosa. The first, Docket #1414 on p. 64-65, is the appointment of senior state education official Lauren Woo to the body, which is composed of a combination of representatives from BPS stakeholders, including the business community, unions, parents, and state education agencies, and which interview potential members and recommends candidates to the Mayor, who then makes a choice. The second, Docket #1442, an “order for a hearing to review expenditures associated with the nominating panel and the school committee appointment process,” was filed by Councilor-at-Large Julia Mejia and sent to Councilor-at-Large Henry Santana’s Education Committee - she is Speaker 2 & starts at 2:09:04 mark in the transcript. If a hearing on that docket is held, it would shed light on an important but little understood or discussed part of the process of picking members of Boston’s all-mayoral appointed School Committee.
LAST DAY TO APPLY FOR BOSTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE The nominating panel is important because it is currently accepting application for an open seat on the School Committee. The deadline to apply is tonight at 11:59 PM, and you can learn more here.
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