Community leaders had to step up over the weekend to buy baseball hats for a South Boston high school varsity team due to a budget crunch at the Boston Public Schools, which led to criticism about the city\u2019s spending priorities.<\/p>\n
Bob Ferrara said he received a phone call last Friday night that left him \u201cbeyond disgusted\u201d \u2014 the school district hadn\u2019t delivered baseball hats to the Excel High School team ahead of their opening day game, which was scheduled for Monday.<\/p>\n
Ferrara soon learned that the hats wouldn\u2019t be coming on time, if at all, from BPS \u2014 which in January paused hiring and spending to try to close a $53 million budget gap<\/a> for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30. The school district has proposed a budget<\/a> with more cuts for next fiscal year, amid Boston\u2019s larger financial difficulties, which have the city facing a $48.4 million budget shortfall<\/a> this fiscal year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been coaching youth sports and high school sports for a long time in the city, so this is a disgrace,\u201d Ferrara, 62, told the Herald Tuesday. \u201cYou put a team that you know has nothing and send them on a field without baseball hats on. That\u2019s bush league. That\u2019s unacceptable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mayor is spending $130 million helping a private entity with a soccer team, and they can\u2019t come up with money to make sure these kids have hats on time?\u201d Ferrara added.<\/p>\n Ferrara was referring to the city\u2019s $325 million public-private plan<\/a> to rebuild White Stadium for a professional women\u2019s soccer team that has taxpayers coughing up $135 million<\/a> for the city\u2019s half of the renovations. The taxpayer cost was initially projected at $50 million when the project \u2014 which will see BPS student-athletes share use of the rebuilt facility \u2014 was announced two years ago.<\/p>\n After learning of the Excel High School team\u2019s predicament, Ferrara said he worked over the weekend to ensure new hats would be made and arrive on time for their first varsity baseball game of the season.<\/p>\n Ferrara said he made a call to a \u201cSouth Boston fixer\u201d and his former youth football coach, Robert Pacitti, who then called his friend, David Moynihan, who owns The Spot, a Southie store that does clothing printing and embroidery. Moynihan offered to make the hats free of charge.<\/p>\n The hats were embroidered with an \u201cSB\u201d logo within 48 hours, and Ferrara said he dashed out on Monday to hand-deliver them to the team in time for opening day, which was played at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School.<\/p>\n \u201cThey couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Ferrara said of the team. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t believe we pulled this off.\u201d<\/p>\n Ferrara said he doesn\u2019t know how much the hats set back the store owner, who did not respond to the Herald\u2019s request for comment. He estimated that it \u201cwasn\u2019t a tremendous amount of money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just the little stuff that falls through the cracks,\u201d Ferrara said. \u201cThe way I operate is 1,000 little things. You let one thing fall through the crack, what about the next thing? I\u2019m beyond disgusted that I get pulled into this stuff because it seems like I\u2019m one of the few people who can make things happen. It\u2019s pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n BPS did not immediately respond to the Herald\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Ferrara, who said he worked for Josh Kraft\u2019s mayoral campaign last year, criticized what he described as the city\u2019s \u201cnew way\u201d of doing things, which has led to \u201cfilthy\u201d streets and a lack of basic city services.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re totally reinventing the school system, because everything new is better, right?\u201d Ferrara said. \u201cYou can\u2019t fix what\u2019s old.\u201d<\/p>\n South Boston\u2019s Excel High School is closing at the end of this school year, as part of a BPS reconfiguration plan<\/a>. The district\u2019s plans call for renovating the high school and opening a so-called anchor school to occupy the building in the future.<\/p>\n