BOSTON — It's a real-life David and Goliath story that may end up putting millions of dollars into athletic facilities for Boston school kids: Roxbury and Jamaica Plain teens trying to find funds to finish a hockey rink promised 17 years ago discovered one of the community's biggest icons, TD Garden, may owe them big bucks.
These teens are from some of the city's most at-risk and impoverished neighborhoods and they haven’t had an ice rink in their neighborhood since the 1990s, although the project has been underway by two different developers for the last 17 years. But someone tipped them off that they should have had the funds long ago.
"It felt as if we were treated as we were unimportant, as we were kind of pawns in their own kind of game. They were just kind for the big company that looked down upon us when we were just trying to get a simple answer,” said Jonah Muniz.
Lorrie Pearson, Jonah Muniz and Mabel Gondres were at a city council meeting when a neighborhood historian tipped them off to the 1993 law that put into motion construction of the then-new $160 million TD Garden arena. Part of the provisions for its construction was that the Garden would have to host three fundraisers per year, benefiting the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Public records show it never happened. Not once.
Calls to DCR officials and TD Garden executives went unanswered.
"They kind of laughed at us and said the CEO of the Boston Garden isn’t going to come down and meet with you,” said Ken Tangvik, Director of Community Development for Hyde Square.
But after calls to the governor and mayor, now TD Garden is responding to the situation, releasing a statement that reads, "We are committed to supporting the City, State & DCR and are proud of the charitable contributions and programs we have all collaborated on for many years. Our philanthropic arms, Garden Neighborhood Charities and Boston Bruins Foundation, contribute over two million dollars in support of non-profit organizations and community programming every year. This matter was just brought to our attention; we are in early stages of discussions and are working on a resolution with DCR."
The kids hope their long overdue project will get finished, but say what’s more important is that even billionaires are held accountable for the laws they are bound by.
"We would like to see it go to that, but if it ended up going to any other projects, like ours, that would be nice too, we’re not really picky, we just want something done,” said Pearson.
The group has calls out to the attorney general, the mayor and the governor, and say they are hopeful a plan will be put in place to resolve this before long.