A stream of public testimony at the Boston City Council Ways and Means hearing on Nov. 17 focused on White Stadium and broader capital spending priorities, with several advocates urging the council to reject proposals they said would privatize city parkland and divert funds away from school facilities.

"It's just absolutely disgusting," Alan Ier, a Franklin Park defender, said during public comment, accusing the city of moving to substitute a billionaire-owned soccer venue for community athletic access and of blocking public records requests about costs. "We're almost like we're just being witnesses to this great injustice," Ier said.

Speakers including neighborhood advocates and parents asked why millions are being directed toward the White Stadium project while other school projects — including Madison Park and a list of crumbling school auditoriums and gyms — remain unfunded or behind schedule. Kate Phelps, a Roxbury resident, contrasted proposed stadium costs previously cited in public discussion with cheaper alternatives to rebuild BPS athletic facilities for student and community use.

BPS officials, including CFO David Bloom, emphasized that capital planning and specific White Stadium decisions are led in capital processes outside the operating budget; Bloom directed requests for detailed capital documentation and FOIA follow-ups to City Finance and other capital offices. He told the committee the White Stadium capital work is largely a capital-office matter and that staff in BPS do not run the stadium capital process.

Advocates pressed for alternative plans they say would save public money and allow more funding for school upgrades. The hearing included online testimony reinforcing those concerns and calling the subsidy of a private franchise over school needs an issue of racial and geographic equity.

The committee did not vote on any capital matter. Councilors and BPS staff said separate capital briefings and public-record processes would be the appropriate venues for detailed cost disclosures and oversight.