Quincy City Council: October 20, 2025

Good evening. We call the Monday, October 20th, 2025 City Council meeting to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Ash. Councillor Campbell. Present. Councillor Devine. Councilman. Councilman. President Cain.

Present. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Please stand if you're able. We'll observe a moment of silence. Please use this moment as you will. Please turn to the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, would you please read the Open Meeting Law.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived by those present, and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. First item on the agenda, please.

Presentation Debt Service Update, Mayor Thomas Koch.

welcome mayor thank you mr president thank you members of city council for the invitation to be here uh to discuss uh the city's debt and uh financial position a presentation uh hopefully everyone can see it so we go the table of contents tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the debt service by category the pension obligation bond is known as the pob district improvement financing, known as the DIF, and then the general debt line, and then some additional financial information on the back end. So we have two types of debt, short-term debt and long-term debt. And short-term debt is serviced by category. Bond anticipation notes, we call them bands. They're used early on in projects. And certainly in the downtown with the district, they use extensively, as they are allowed under the law, generally to get the projects going. And then down the road, we then do the long-term debt. on those. We basically only pay the interest on those, which is a great savings to us going forward. The long-term debt serves by category. So there's the general debt, which includes 155 million in MSBA, Mass School Building Authority, sponsored school construction projects, 100 million in self-supporting water sewer debt, meaning it's the rate payers that pay that debt. It comes out of the sewer and water enterprise fund. 50 million in Community Preservation Act spending and the projected savings over the life of the bond for the POB, So $168 million. The total debt service by fiscal year 630, you can see the graph, probably a little difficult to read, but as you can see, as we add debt, there's also debt that comes off. The shorter term debt, when we buy for capital needs, whether it's equipment, machines, that's limited, five, 10 years, five years mostly on capital for vehicles, 10 years on other stuff like IT, technology, and then of course, The buildings and so forth, we can go out 30 years. With special permission with the state, we could actually do a 40-year bond. But generally speaking, all the major building projects, $30 million bonds. So this shows you over the time. The diff is in the blue, which is the small on the bottom. The general is in the orangey rust color. And the POB is in the yellow. So you can see over time everything falling down, falling off as things get paid off. I want to talk specifically about the pension obligation bond. As some folks probably are well aware, the retirement system is set up under Mass General Laws Chapter 32, provides the retirement, disability, and survivor benefits through a system overseen by a five-member board, retirement board, which the mayor appoints one, the city auditor sits as ex officio, two that are elected, and the fifth one is chosen by the other four. The plan is funded through mandatory employee contributions so that people pay 9% plus 2% on earnings above $30,000 in their salary. That's credit to each member's annuity savings account. The city contributes annually based on the actuarial funding schedule with the goal of achieving full funding by 2040 in accordance with state law. Well, as you know, we did better than that. The pension obligation bond, actually, when we started to go through the process, We were made aware that then City Councilor John Keenan had actually submitted a council order which was approved talking about doing this kind of thing with a portion of our debt or all of the debt. Now it made no sense in 85 because the numbers didn't work, the interest rate and so forth, but he felt at some time in the future it could be helpful. June of 2015, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, GASB as we know it as, they introduced new reporting standards that required public pension liabilities to report directly on the governmental balance sheets rather than the footnotes shifting unfunded pension liabilities into visible long-term liabilities. In January of 20, I pulled in my municipal finance team to begin discussing and analyzing the work needed to do a pension obligation bond to fully fund our unfunded liability. In March of the same year, actually the March of the following year, we contracted with Milliman Consulting, one of the best in the business, to do some deep dive analysis on the potential savings of a POB for Quincy. In August, we selected Ramirez & Company, senior manager for the underwriting of our POBs, and they're an excellent company, top in the business. September 21, the initial administration of finance of the state had discussions with us of our plans. A&F has to approve such a move by any city or town. October additional plan of finance material sent to ANF with all the requests and all the questions we answered. And then October we received the final ANF sign off to move forward on the issuance of the POB. In November, same year, S&P rating agency presentation was made, and then November 5th, a rating was received. S&P Global affirmed Quincy's AA long-term rating and stable outlook on the new bonds. November 29th was the sale date, and December 15th was the closing date. It was fascinating because during that time period, other cities and towns were looking at the same thing, including the city of Springfield. This was all about timing. By August of 2022, the rates had doubled. We were able to get a rate of 2.62% in the pension obligation bond. Now, I want to just point out, it's not on the sheet. If you go to the next slide, thank you. We were pointed out on a number of occasions, you know, when bond agencies look at our city's finances, they also look at our assets, our capital assets. Are we maintaining them? It's not just about money in the bank. They also note, what are those financial liabilities that we have? And it was pointed out for several years that the unfunded liability of our pension system was a major liability. Now, just for the public's understanding that the whole issue of the liability is a question because they base it on if everybody retired tomorrow, everybody went, that's where you get the number and that's where the liability is. Recognizing at the time our system was only 43 percent funded, this was a move we could not afford not to make. I know that we came before this body and had some robust discussions on this issue. So the $475 million was approved. We invested it directly with MassPrim. I know, Council President at the time, you were concerned about how that would be invested. We were in agreement. We went directly to Prim with the state. They're one of the largest and most well-respected pension fund managers in the US with over $100 billion in assets. So the projected overall savings, as I mentioned, that was a projection, was $168.5 million throughout the life of the bond. So starting in 2026, the POB's debt service remains constant at 37 million. We've had incremental increases the last few years. But now through 2040, it remains at 37 million. Without the POB, the pension obligation bond, The contribution from the city to the pension in 2026 would have been 50 million, and it would have grown 5.4% each year until 2040. By the way, that 2040 date was set by the state, and that's something that every city and town, every retirement system, not every city and town has their own, they belong to, perhaps county ones, but they all have to meet that obligation of being fully funded in 2040. Now the speculation that that could move again, that the legislature could make that change and make a move should that be a problem for some communities. So the projected POB, debt service savings analysis, you can see there the contribution evaluation with no POB, which is the blue line on the graph, and then the debt service line. Again, the graph we were looking at at the time when we were analyzing our liability was that each and every year, as I mentioned, was going up some 5.4%, a number that was very difficult for us. So if you look at the the chart there on the left hand side, you can see what we'd be paying if we did not do the POB. This year's a $13 million difference. If you go out to 2034, it's a $40 million difference. Now I think I'm just gonna state the obvious that that would have created some really difficult times for the city. There was no way, even if we went to the levy limit, we could absorb such a hit each and every year during those years. So the savings analysis shows you how important this was to the city. This speaks to it again in a different graph, another form. The aggregated service cuts of the city And I would say that it's a combination of going to the full levy limit and the cuts we would have needed to have a balanced budget. And the aggregate would have been about 697 million. That's not chump change. That's serious business. And as we know around the state, this community is all around the state that are up against the levy limit. I'll get back to that shortly. The next bucket I want to talk about is the district improvement finance and the DIF. And I do want to say that our downtown program is flourishing, it's doing extremely well. And I give credit to former Mayor Phelan for the rezoning part of the downtown work, and then we went in creating the Urban Redevelopment District, and then we created the DIF District, again, District Improvement Financing. The city council obviously played a major role in this. We had a lot of discussions, a lot of meetings on this, and the city council authorized the DIV program, which allowed us essentially to take the new growth, not just a new building, but the new growth, the new growth in value in the district from all the commercial real estate to be counted in that, and that's how the law works. That next slide. It shows you general fund revenues have increased 4.1% since 07, while the DIF revenues have grown by over 1,375%. The same period, the downtown's assessed value has risen by 140.2%. And that's what we were banking on when we created the DIF with this body was that because of all the work going on in the downtown, all the zoning changes, and all of the investment that was happening both public and private, we knew that the tax revenue would grow dramatically in the DIF district to make it work. Now, as you also know, under the borrowing program, the borrowing for the DIF district gets paid for by the DIF. I don't know whose mics these are, but sorry. So the idea was, and we said it, I said it publicly a number of times during the campaign cycles, that the downtown was gonna pay for itself through the DIF program. In other words, we're gonna capture the new value, and all of the bonding we did for infrastructure for the downtown would pay for itself. Whether we talk about moving the Brook, the new Hannon Parkway, all the infrastructure program along with it, upgrades and utilities, all of those things, all of those items, the new bridge, the General's Bridge, et cetera, et cetera, all were, paid for with some state funding but mostly by our diff and that debt gets paid for by the new downtown and from all accounts the public from what i hear is thoroughly enjoying the new downtown it was a downtown that was dead and deplorable when we took over it was continued to be in the decline nobody wanted to be in the downtown and look what we've created in the new downtown We needed the public investment to attract the private investment. And the Hancock Adams Common was the first real public investment that people saw in the downtown. So when I went on to meet with investors, they were blown away by what they saw with the investment and the quality of both Hancock Adams Common and subsequently Kilroy Square with the garage. A couple of case studies here under the DIF. You can see West of Chestnut, which was built by Quincy Mutual behind the bank building there. It touches both Hancock Street and Chestnut Street. It shows you the left. Without West of Chestnut, those are the taxes we were gaining. You can take the column on the right, and those are the new taxes by the new development and the new values in the downtown. You can carry that right down through 2023. Pretty significant difference. Another case study would be One Chestnut Place. constructed by the O'Connell family, the largest residential building in our city, as far as height goes. And you can see again in the chart, used to be a little corner block of stores, the corner chestnut and cottage, and the big old parking lot that was there. You can see the numbers here, they speak for themselves on that graph. Now there's a number of other projects we could point to and there's a number of them coming online. You could be rest assured in every one of these, there's gonna be a dramatic difference for what we're collecting before the project and subsequently when the project is finished. I'll give you example in the global investors and that would be for the old time Quincy people, the old commons area, Coleman Sporting Goods, Put people newer to the city, it was the health store. But that section, that block, along with the land disposition agreement that we set up through this body, and also plan improvement in the planning department. So we were collecting about $43,000 in taxes on that block. with this new project, it'll be somewhere between five and 600,000. And that speaks to really every project. So even under the studies I showed you, where we had special tax programs in some cases, we're still way ahead of where we were and where we would have been. So not only does it pay for itself, But that extra goes into the general fund, goes into the TILT. So we're way ahead of the game with what's happened in our downtown. I did have a visitor a couple weeks ago, the mayor of Leominster, Dean Mazzarella, who is the dean of mayors. He's been mayor for 32 years. He brought seven staff members out and took a tour of the historic places, but we walked the downtown and showed him what was going on. We gave him all the information and back up. You know what he said to me? He said, boy, I would love to have one of these projects in Leominster. This is a extremely positive, productive program that we've been overseeing and has been noticed around the state. And a lot of communities are in trouble because they didn't embrace growth. We're not experiencing that right now. The third category, the third bucket, is the general debt. So we talked about the pension obligation bond as one bucket, the DIF as the second bucket, and then this is the general obligation. This would be all those other categories, including schools, investing in education. And I will say that, you know, we're looking at here a number of projects that are very visible when you go around the city. We've done four major school construction projects and another new one on the way with the squantum. In addition, we didn't really get into too much detail, but most of the other school buildings have also been recipients of a number of grants from the SBA on modernizing buildings, windows, boilers, roofs, et cetera. So this is the highlight of the new buildings. These projects were financed through a combination of local funding with bonding, but also we received state reimbursement at a pretty significant rate. So we have to deal with those capital assets. I mentioned that early on. If you don't deal with the capital assets, again, regardless of what you get in your savings account, just like at your house, if you let the leaky roof continue to leak, it's gonna damage a lot of other things in the building, in your house. Mortgage in your house is similar to what we're talking about with debt for the city. I would suggest in a respectful way that a lot of things were kicked down the road. The can was kicked for decades and we had to deal with it. and we are dealing with it. By the way, there's a direct correlation with values of property in the education system you have in a community. Absolute direct correlation, all studies show that. So not only do we have a clean city, a safe city, beautiful parks, we have an education system that is second to none in any urban district. I'd put it against any urban district in our state. So further breakdown on those, you can see the savings totals working with the SBA. The only one that isn't SBA in this project was at the Christopher Harris Center. We use ESSER and ARPA monies for that, which is federal money designed to help communities. I want to thank the county commissioners for sharing a county share of their part to help us support roughly $20 million in federal money to help build us to the Christopher Harris Center. Now, I think that's an important one to mention in a little bit more detail. It's the first special needs municipal built and owned and operated in Massachusetts. And I think everybody in this world should be proud of that. Before when you're shipping families off, kids go off for transportation, could be an hour or two hours away from where they're learning. That's troubling for a family when they're that far away. You get a call, the kid is sick, the child is sick. That's something that people think about. So we're bringing people closer to home in their own community. And the other item I mentioned as part of that was how much money we're gonna save over time by doing this. As you all know, it's very costly for outside special tuitions and transportation. So we're seeing over time now, it takes a couple of years because some of those kids that were outsourced, they don't want to disrupt that learning environment. So it's more of the kids coming in the system now that will stay within our system. and we're gonna be saving somewhere between three and four million dollars over the next couple of years. The school budget will be in much better shape, and that's even after counting debt service. So we talked about that, making this happen. It's the right thing to do for families with challenges. We should do everything we can to help them. with those challenges, but at the end of the day, it's a great business decision. We're saving some serious dollars in the long run, which then allows us to do other things in education. Under, if I can go to the next, infrastructure improvements. We've seen that all around. I know that the average person would like to do it between midnight and five in the morning and not make any noise, but the reality is, again, this body is a partner. We're up to about 44% of our streets have completely been redone over the last decade or so. That's a pretty remarkable number. We have hundreds and hundreds of streets and 247 miles of roadway, and they all need work. We've had an engineering company assess them. We tackle it each year. Al Grazios and his team do a phenomenal job doing that. We get about a million nine a year under chapter 90. The last contract we just opened was eight million in itself, phase three of the work we're doing this year. So I know it's a little disruptive, but when we're done, we're done. Water's done, the sewer's done, the drains have been improved, the gas is done. The roads rebuilt, curbs and sidewalks are then done, so it shouldn't have to be touched for decades to come. For too long, the streets were painted black, digging them back up in no time. There's great coordination now between National Grid and the city going forward about making investments on the upgrades in the system. So we're working hand in hand, so we're not constantly digging roads up again. So you've seen the work on the roads. The visible, obviously the public safety headquarters on C Street, magnificent building. It's a 100-year building. We opted for top shelf, top quality materials so that we're not revisiting it 20 years out. If we had an asphalt roof on there, for example, you'd be replacing it every 20 years. As you know, we have ongoing improvements to our city seawalls. That was a very important issue for those people that got bombed out a number of times historically, but 2018 was a difficult year. 15 was no bargain. There's a history of some of those neighborhoods really being banged up pretty badly. Now at the time, as you all know, We took money out of our affordable housing trust, which is funded by developers, and we assisted most of those families with interim and temporary housing and helped clean up that whole area quickly. The long-term solution was replacing the seawall in that Adam Shore area going down to the house neck, about 8,000 linear feet. The total between that and Manitowoc will be at 12,000 linear feet going forward. We're replacing, I know Councilor McCarthy has been working closely with Public Works for that next phase of seawalls. The Adam Shaw seawall, we lifted it by two feet, which has been tremendous. All these issues, and I know each of you know it because you deal with constituents all the time. Whether it's schools, whether it's roads, whether it's firehouses or libraries, public safety headquarters, whatever the issue may be, seawalls, they're all important infrastructure challenges that we face. And we made a commitment to challenge these issues, take it head on, and make them a priority going forward. Because if you don't deal with the infrastructure, you might as well forget everything else. If you don't update the physical infrastructure, you can't enjoy the new development. For example, the new schools. You have to update the infrastructure and only the new building with everything that leads to that building. So we've, as you know, been very aggressive on our infrastructure and I'm certainly proud of that. and it's not done, we have more work to do. I mentioned the chapter 90, that's the share of the tax, gas tax that we get as a municipality, a number of communities obviously get it, that's the formula. A million nine, this year we're spending about 24 million, and that's been money approved by this body, appropriated to make improvements in every neighborhood of our city. Next slide I'd like to go to is the excess levy capacity, I know this is where People start yawning, but it's important to really lay this out. Quincy's excess levy capacity is pretty extensive. This year alone, we're leaving $31 million on the table. Let me talk a little bit about that. Since 08, you can see this on the sheet, 198 different cities and towns have requested overrides. Total of 923 requests, 506 which were passed, On the next line, 220 requests in the past five, of which 141 have passed. Quincy, since I've been in office, we have left $442 million of unused excess levy capacity. We're only exceeded by a few municipalities in Massachusetts, that number. I would bet Cambridge, Waltham, maybe Framingham. I bet there aren't too many beyond that that have that number. What does that mean? Let me try to walk through that a little bit. So under Prop 2 1⁄2, which was instituted back in the early 80s, we can only go up each year by 2 1⁄2% on the total level. That's the whole kit and caboodle, commercial, residential, the total level of capacity. And there were major cuts at that time when that happened, and eventually, over time, things settled off again. We have a partner in the state where they give us local aid each year. Many communities around us, if we go to the next slide, comparing some of these for population and some of them just by being a neighbor, such as Braintree, but if you look at what each of these cities and towns have been going through in trying to do what we are doing in replacing schools and major upgrades to their infrastructure, many have had to gone to the voter to approve a Prop 2.5 override, which approves more money being spent, paying more money in your taxes to meet that obligation. And I'm not picking on anybody here, but when you look around, Somerville, for example, is a major city in Massachusetts. They needed a debt exclusion to fund one high school. Folks, we're on our fifth new school It's a hell of a story. We've worked very, very well with the Mass School Building Authority, as I talked about. We have communities around us that just need a two and a half override for operating expenses. This is where I try to make the connection between the average citizen and what's going on in development. Investment matters. It makes a difference in what you get to work with with funding here. If we're at our capacity with no room to grow, you'd be making cuts, not gonna be making additions. That's a reality. And I do think that there was an MMA report that come out and I know it was covered by the Boston papers that there's like 200 cities and towns that are up against the levy limit now. And the question is, going forward, how is Massachusetts gonna deal with taxing so the cities and towns won't fall behind? Whether that's additional local aid or some other type of formula. I'm pleased to report we're not in that position. We're not in that position because we made good, solid decisions. We're financially sound. This is a great story and you've been a part of it. I thank the councils here for that. Some other indicators, performance indicators, residential rate. The tax rate remains among the lowest 40% across the state. Now that could argue, well, it's because your values are higher. Well, there's some truth in that. Why are our values higher? Because people wanna live here. Why do they wanna live here? Because we have good schools, we have great services, beautiful parks, great trash collection, every service you can imagine. We're about half, 50%, right in the middle on tax burden. And I'd argue with anybody, we're in the top of the heap for services. Absolute top of the heap. And that's a credit to many of the people sitting in this audience. It's the city managers, department heads, and employees that work so hard each and every day. You can see since 2021 assessed valuations increased by 32%. So the investment comes back tenfold. City continues to mainstream levy capacity. Again, this year is 31 million in excess levy capacity. In other words, we could go to the levy limit without a Prop 2 and a half override. Now we recognize we don't want to do that, of course. We're trying to make it manageable and affordable for people as well. The old adage says everybody wants everything for services and nobody wants to pay anything in taxes, so we try to find the balance. I tell you, there's no other community like Quincy when it comes to services. A couple other interesting notes. Since the pandemic, the city has outperformed both the state and country in unemployment rates. I mentioned some of the development that we've had. It's not just about creating new housing units, which is needed. It's not just about creating additional tax revenue, which we depend on. It also creates and sustains jobs. How many tradespeople in Quincy have been working on projects in Quincy? who puts food on the table. Our strategic partners, I know you know them because they've been here at different times to discuss the issues. We truly have the best in the state with our partners. With that, I'd like to stop and open it up for questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm happy the President recognizes Councilor McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. President. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. It's a great story. It's a great presentation. I have a couple of questions. I want to back up a little bit. I know you talk about the three buckets, the pension obligation, which has been thrown around a lot and not explained in that detail to us for a while. A lot of us understand it. A lot of folks don't understand it. I sat with Mr. Della Barber and Mr. Kosher for a few times and we chatted about it and And correct me if I'm wrong, or if Mr. Della Barbara and Mr. Kosher wanna hop in. The 475 was an addition to an already existing 400 million or so that was there in the pension obligation account.

Yes, so we essentially get the analysis done. The 475 would bring us up to 100%.

Right, so a lot of times we're saying 475, and we kind of forget the picture that it's a much bigger number now, you know, that... has grown in the positive. I know that Paul Della Barber and Rick Kosher both discussed it with me, and I wanted to know, because there was always talk. You lost some money in the pension obligation move, it went down, it's market driven, it's invested very well. As of last week, the number, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, it was somewhere in the 880 million. This week it was 930 million. a pretty good jump in regards to being positive. And I know it's the market. But I want to make sure people understand it's just not that 475 because we're trying to get to that $168 million projected savings down the road, which could be bigger than 168. And it might be 100 million, but I'll take 100 million in savings also if the market fluctuated that way. So I just wanted to make sure that I had that straight, that this is just the other half that was added on to get us to what I was referred to as a 15-year mortgage at 2.6%. And I don't know, I think if I had to ask people to raise their hands, they'd love a 15-year mortgage at 2.6. Now, I know our number is a lot bigger than people want, but it's only 15 years to 2040. Sometimes when you say 2040, it sounds like it's out there. But 15 years is not a long time, and 2.6 is a great percentage. And I know we've had discussions back and forth that if you didn't pull the trigger at 2.6, we wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger. And I know that you also stated, which is when you look at the, you know, I'll pick a year, you know. 2033 I'll pick. That's a 73 million dollar not compared to 37 million that'll stay fixed right through the 15 years at 2.6.

Correct.

So a couple things I just want to get clear. I know a lot of people have asked me questions about it and I said if we didn't make that move and you add up the years without that pension obligation, without that 2.6, without that fixed 37 million, the number is staggering on where we'd go and what we'd have to cut to get to that number to fulfill that obligation. I know that eventually with principal and interest, I think it adds up this 475 to a little over 550 million, but that's like any other loan when you have the principal and interest added on, and it grows. But the savings is huge. And I think folks have to look. I had my own sheet. Excuse me. I had my own sheet, but that slide number 10, to really take a look at what we would have had to dish out if we didn't go that route. That's number one. Switching over to the DIF. I know that I think the number you stated in the package here for short term was 326. Is that right? On the diff number for the short term bans? Or am I off? I hope you can find the right slide.

Here you go. 326. Yeah, you're right through Friday and now, Councillor.

Yeah, so, you know, just a quick on that also. We have those, and I guess if I could ask for another explanation. I know that we go and we get our short-term... Give me the mic, please. Oh, I'm sorry. We go and get our short-term bans on some of the projects, and then a lot of them are already... financed at the permanent number that rolls into, I think, like 187 DIF number. Just a little more talk on that. Over the course of the years, and I think there's a slide in there, as things get done and get completed, I think that's another item that folks have to have a little patience on. As the DIF program is put into place, If everything was done tomorrow, and you showed that West of Chestnut example, and I think of the, also the latest up at the Coleman's site, that we just did a land disposition agreement, and that deal, that taxes jump through the roof in our favor when something's on that piece of land of course and that that land up at coleman's will jump from something like 50 million dollars a year when they're done to 50 000 i'm sorry to to 500 i i think that i don't know what the number is five and six hundred thousand average loan property taxes right so i know a lot of people got into the conversation the land was sold at a lesser value, like $300,000 less, but in the long run, when that building's done and those numbers come in, that $300,000 will be part of that, will be made up very quickly to get that deal done, to get that person in there that developed that piece that's been empty for 24 years.

Absolutely agree, Councillor. I want to make sure I'm correct. Absolutely. You look at every one of these projects and it's not easy. There aren't many cranes in Boston right now. It's not easy to develop. They have the pencil and we have tools in the tool chest that we've used like 121A with the Chestnut Place project. But we're way ahead in taxes if we just left it the way it was, way ahead.

And again, in all due respect, I hope nobody from Brockton out there lives in Brockton, but we went the Brockton way. and had a lot of difficulty if we didn't do what was needed to be done to turn it back into the Quincy way here. You know, a lot of people will bring up cities and towns, and you could have went the bad way or the good way, and the good way with the DIF is really, well, it's really turned a corner. It's really turned a corner, and that goes back to Mayor Phelan, And yourself We're both wrestling with what was the proper way to execute everything once you got that going in the right direction So that that that is you they has said that we are the model community on diff Yeah, and the communities look at the way we're doing it much rather be Quincy than Brockton in all due respect to anybody else I wouldn't mind wouldn't mind getting their state aid they get about 300 million we get 70 million The other the other item on here other schools I didn't see a lot of those are coming off the rolls right Quincy High yeah over time over time but I see that graph dropping that means those projects are coming off I I couldn't tell like you know like the oldest one on is probably Quincy High I know the track is coming probably track is uh two years out that'll be off high is coming off and i know that that's all included in their central of course and you made a great point about doing five schools compared to the one that's being done out at somerville so um i'm glad you laid that out a little bit in regards to things that are coming off the rolls over the next 15 years uh the last thing was a 16 million dollar comment the ledger had i know why I'd like to speak to that just a little bit, because I know you're advocating for the taxpayers to try to get that $16 million down. I know it has. I mean, I'll say it the novice way. We're going to pay off our bills, and they still want us to pay after we've obligated our 475 or our pension obligation. Can you speak to that just a little bit? Because I want to make sure the ledger gets it.

There's a couple of ways to attack that.

I'd like to see the ledger get it right for once.

One is that I'd like to... I'd like to remind us that we fully funded at 475. You spoke to it. The market conditions go up and down. We have till 2040 to be fully funded. And we're up to 940 million, as you alluded to. By the first of the year, we're probably going to be 97%, 98% funded. So we had the dip. We'll go back up. So there'll be ups and downs. But my guess is by 2040, we'll be well over 100% funded. So as far as the taxpayers of the city go, we made the investment in the 475. I don't think we need to do the 16. Let them take it off the 475. Or we're taking another look with Milliman Company, come in and do the analysis on the actuarial study to see how there's a stone, I forget the name of the other company, but to compare their numbers, because I don't agree with some of their assumptions. So that'll get worked out. I know that has said to us, we're not worried about Quincy. We're about those communities that are funded under 50%. Right.

No, I'm good.

There's two things there with the retirement system. One is we're obligated under the law as a city to provide for our employees. but I also have the fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers. And I tried to balance that. I remember some of the younger employees saying to me, hey Mayor, is there gonna be any money left for me to retire someday? This solidifies the retirement system, but it does it at a savings to the taxpayer, it's a twofer.

And before I sign off, I also wanna, I know the third bucket matters, which is the money that's supplied for infrastructure. And I know a lot of the jobs are starting to get to the paving stage in the spring. But Al Grazioso and his team have done a great job. And you're so right about services in Quincy. You make a call to these guys and they respond no matter what it is. and they're right down there. So thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor.

Thank you, Councilor McCarthy.

The President recognizes Councilor Campbell. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mayor, for your time here today. I think this is very educational and very helpful, I think, for everybody involved, even the work that we've done here to follow the way of how Quincy has evolved over the years, and I think it's important that we have a refreshed community and important outlook as we move forward. I just had a couple of questions. Councilor McCarthy touched on the 16 million. You know, I think probably maybe a slight variation off of that is it was presented that the city would have to come up with $60 million to pay that. So I'm comfortable with your answer just based on the way that the fully funding doesn't happen to happen until 2040. And I think that's something that it gets lost in the whole scheme of things and also whether that number is even accurate because I think it's a moving number as things roll. It did make me look at things and wonder that if that were to happen that would need to have some, you know, if you do relate it back to your homes, you know, when you say you have a leaky roof, you know, to replace that roof, you know, are you going to have the funds to do that? And I think the capacity issue and whether our borrowing can happen is, where are we on that as far as in the big picture, as far as the, I don't know if that's something that...

We have a really good handle on this as far as all the borrowing that we did over the last few months We've done very well with rates. There's still a great confidence in Quincy. We have a great team and they were in the marketplace frequently adjusting things and saving Literally hundreds of thousands into the millions on cost by by those adjustments. So we're on top of it all the time We're in a good place. We did better in rates this summer than some of the bands that we did last year. We're known in the marketplace and Quincy is in a good place. I mentioned it earlier, talking about Mayor Mazzarella. As you know, I'm on the MBTA board, the MassDOT board, and I run into people all over the state and Quincy is the talk of the state. I say that with all humility, but People come up to me all the time, how do you guys do it? You're on a fifth school, how do you do it? All the roads, how do you do it? Do it because we've been responsible and made good decisions on our finances. And it pays off, and then it allows us to continue to make good decisions. We're not under the gun in any way. We're thoughtful, we debate, and we make good decisions. And this party is a partner in that. I can't spend $10 without your approval. So I appreciate the cooperation that we've had on a number of these projects. A few years ago, a little side note, when I was talking to us, a gentleman stopped me and said, I don't know if I can vote for you. You spend too much money. I said, OK, let's have a chat. And I pointed to the seawall in Edgewater Drive, because he was a Housenet guy. He said, shouldn't we do that? Oh, you got to do that. at the time Central Middle School was being done. I said, we're getting 80% reimbursement Central Middle, should we do that? Oh, you gotta do that. Tell me what we shouldn't be doing. Not do Squamish School, not do the sea walls to protect the house neck and Adam's Shore, not invest in our parks. I mean, come on, these are great projects.

Councilor Campbell, you also?

Just another quick, because I really do, it really is one of those, you know, I think that the work that's being done is, it's not the sexy stuff, right? We're doing the infrastructure work, we're doing the entire city, and I'm proud of the work that we've done here, but I also want to make sure that we're doing it in a responsible way. Is there any fear, or I know that DIF has some federal funds in it, is there any fear of some of the funding that's in reimbursements that are going on? Do we have anything that might affect any of the projects?

We're monitoring that closely, Councillor. To date, nothing. You know community development block grant as you know we get an annual allotment there that has but not been affected because that's That's bipartisan because it's a program that helps both sides Of the aisle there. We have some federal grants that we've been awarded Like southern, I agree the ten million dollar program. We haven't heard anything different. It's in the pipeline We expect to see that through completion But we'll keep you posted if we hear anything different

Right, and the only other one I had, let's see. No, I think we're good. I think that, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Campbell. The President recognizes Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mayor, for coming in tonight at the request of the City Council. Appreciate you having your presentation tonight. I just want to first start off by saying one of the longer standing counselors up here for 10 years, I was on the school committee prior to this, so 12 years of being out there. Your department heads and your commissioners to date, with the new inception of the National Resources Department, your TPAL, Traffic Park and Alarm and Lighting, and all the other departments working relationship with the city council has been great. A lot of work has been done over the last few years, which were difficult at times in the past. I'm gonna say that the department heads and the commissioners have done a real good job working relationship with myself and the other counselors. It's been a great help. You know, I had office hours prior to this at 530. People coming in for trees, people coming in for sidewalk repairs, and we were able to take care of them, so thank you. That's part of the budget too, you know. Talking a little bit about budgetary items. Every year for the last 10 years of the budget time, I always talk about the big five. And the big five is school budget, police, fire, health insurance, and pensions, which is our retirement fund. Those five were always the main topics that would come up for the biggest items. Obviously, you want to fund schools. You obviously wish we could put more funding in that. Police and fire to protect us here in the city and make it safe. our health insurance, which is all rising throughout the world, basically, and then our pensions. So hearing the 2.62%, I think we hit the sweet spot, and you had to barter for some votes up here to get that sweet spot, because I know a lot of municipalities out there are trying to do that now, and it's just too late. The interest rates have changed, and they changed the whole dynamics of it. I know it's about a third of the 1.6 billion that people are talking about out there. A lot of it's talking about Councilor McCarthy, so I want to move on from the pension obligation that has been fulfilled. I kind of want to talk a little bit about general obligation, which is our roads and sidewalks, which I was supportive of the $100 million, which has done a great job. But I think we've had DPW in here. We've had different departments in here. We didn't talk about the $41 million that we're getting from National Grid. and MassDOT for some of the projects in the city. When you put some funding and you put some skin into the game, you also get funding back. So the $41 million is not in here. It's on the behalf of National Grid and MassDOT, which is on the C Street project, which they're funding to help us out here in the city. The investment that we make here in the city also relates to other agencies coming in to help us out as well. So you didn't talk about that, but we've had a presentation.

If I can throw a line in there. Go ahead. It's really, it's about... having the people in the places here that do the homework, and then it's about relationships at every level of government. You know, Jimmy Scribby and the grant writing program, all they're doing is working the grants. And we got a $10 million award on Southern Ottery. Was Congressman Lynch helpful? Absolutely. But if the work wasn't done, he can't make the phone call to help us. So we're aggressive in every area, whether it's the school building authority, which I've articulated pretty well, whether it's MassDOT, whether it's the federal government and the various programs, we're at the table getting millions of dollars back to the city.

Hancock's Adam Cartman out here obviously paid for the hotel-motel tax back in 2017, part of that, as well as the General's Park with the General's Bridge for the infrastructure improvements. I want to segment into that particular project that's going on right now. Can you talk a little bit about what's to the right of the General's Bridge, what's to the left of the General's Bridge? I see garages going up, obviously. I know what's going on, but the public doesn't.

Which side of the bridge are you on? To the right.

Why don't the one, we'll start with the hospitals.

You're on the Congo Way. So to the right of the north of the bridge, as I say, is the Beth Israel Medical Building. As we talked about for a number of years, you know, we lost the healthcare facility many years ago. It's happening across the country, community hospitals. Being close to Boston is our strength and our weakness. And in place of that, when Rob Hale purchased the old hospital site, he made a commitment to deliver some healthcare in Quincy Center. Beth Israel has had an urgent care in our city for some time that's gone very, very well. They now will have 110,000 square foot building in the coming years. Urgent care will be moved there. There'll be day surgeries. There'll be primary care. There'll be a lot of services in that building that you have to leave Quincy for today. And I think that's, it's not a hospital, but it's a hell of a lot more services than people are experiencing today in Quincy. So it's a good thing. And obviously there's a garage that's going with that. And I'm grateful to our legislative delegation, Speaker Mariano, for state is contributing $25 million towards that $50 million garage. Again, relationships and being the hospital use went a long way in the state approving that. On the south of the bridge is Atlantic Development and Hanover Development. It's a specialty grocer, wink wink. It's got other retail uses in there. They have 300 units of housing and another garage. Again, I don't have those numbers in front of me, but you can be damn sure that whatever we were collecting before is going to be several million dollars more than what we collected before in taxes. And again, back to the argument, we're providing housing units for people. This whole region is short on housing and there's a great concern that Massachusetts is going to lose its edge if we don't have the housing for people to stay here. So we're meeting that obligation. And by the way, some of our own kids, we want them to stay in Quincy. We'll give them opportunities. So that's a big project. That's a lot of housing and of course, As I talked about, it also equates to jobs. Jobs being sustained, jobs being created. And it's not just the tradesperson at the site. It's the supply shop, the plumbing materials being delivered to the site, truck driver, back to the place where they build these things, the manufacturing plant. It has a ripple effect across the economy. And we're doing, I think we've done great strides in helping the Massachusetts economy by what we're doing here in Quincy.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, we were one of the few communities that kept on working. We tried to do the safest with possible we could, but Boston shut down and they're a little behind. So we're in a good position right now with all the development that we're doing, especially in the downtown. If you go right outside here, you go right into the downtown, you know, the one chestnut and Kilroy in the garage and all the different parcel by parcel development that's happened. has put us in a position, in a good position now. And the garages are coming up, and that's why I talk about it right now, because you don't really know what's going on until you can kind of see it. And in the downtown, you can feel it, you can touch it, you can see it, you can enjoy it. We've had a lot of nice concerts and nice great things from Quincy 400 that have tailored into this. I want to talk a little bit about MSBA. I know how it works, but can you talk a little bit about how it works? How do we bond it to start with, and then we get reimbursed, and how does that follow with other projects like building? Public Buildings is here tonight on a lot of the boilers and a lot of the different things that we get reimbursed. Can you talk kind of?

Essentially, for example, at the Squanam Elementary School, we come to this body asking for authorization for the whole project. We don't execute that whole bond because we get school building authority reimbursement along the way. So under the law, we have to have the whole amount there on paper, but we never go to that number because of the school building authority reimbursements. And we have a great working relationship with them. Commissioner Hines and his team, as well as Superintendent Mulvey and his team, on top of the paperwork. Again, we use the best in architects and consultants, so they know us pretty well up at the SBA, and it's been a great relationship.

Two more things. Talked a lot about Prop 2 1⁄2. A lot of the communities around us have had to fund a lot of their schools. They've had to come, Weymouth and Braintree have had to come in front of, do a vote and do a Prop 2 1⁄2 override to fund a school or fund a couple schools or teachers and stuff. We haven't had that problem here in Quincy, which is good. My last question, let me find it here. Inflation, I don't know if anybody can talk about it. I can't control it. Can't control it? Where does that factor into all this? Because the numbers are obviously a little bit higher. How does that inflationary pricing or index, do you have a representative that may be able to?

It actually has really flattened out. a few years ago we had to come back to the council as you may recall on the public safety headquarters because inflation was just crazy the shortage of materials it it was a crazy time post pandemic in construction now it's far more predictable uh the the sources of the air for the materials it's not so much a moving target now

I appreciate you coming in tonight. I know a lot of the other councils can talk about other timelines and different things that are going on in the city, but I want to appreciate you coming in tonight. And I want to thank the city departments for all they do for the city. It's been a huge help to know that I can make a quick phone call and you guys go right out there, whether it be at 10 o'clock at night or 7.30 a.m. You have some great department heads and commissioners that are right on it right away. So thank you, everybody in here. Thank you.

thank you council president recognizes Councillor liang thank you mr president i'd also like to um just start by thanking all the department heads and their staff frankly for being here today because the day-to-day stuff that happens in the city um happens in your offices so you know i i think it's important that we thank the folks who answer the calls and get things done for us so thank you all for being here uh mr mayor thank you for being here as well and for giving us this presentation i have a question about the diff if we can go to slide um number 14 to start Great, thank you. So I'm thrilled to see the amount of growth that's happened here in the downtown. When I first started, I remember still having Chi and Comma down here. I don't know if folks remember. There was one slide that actually had a tiny picture of Chi and Comma on there. And I was like, oh, I remember that. And it was fantastic. But as much as I miss that place, I think we've come, obviously, a very, very long way. And we, again, see the benefits of that every single day as far as physically being in the space. So it's nice to see the numbers and financially how much better we're doing given the properties that have been developed down here. Now, because the DIF is still in place for the funds that come out of here to then pay down the work that we need to do to build up the infrastructure in the downtown, understand that and you know I had the opportunity to learn about that while I was here what I'm curious about long term though is you know if there is any consideration or thought as to when that would end and so that way all of the properties down here and this huge growth in value which you know ideally will continue to just grow significantly over time will go back into general fund revenues is there a timeline in mind for that right now again I think the next slide had A couple of slides after that had some projects that are still coming online on slide 17. So, you know, obviously not in the near future, but just thinking long term, right? Do we have a sense of, you know, a completion date, let's say, for this, you know, targeted work in the downtown so that the growth financially, again, can be added to the sort of general fund revenues?

What happens in these situations, Councillor, is it continues to push out. For example, the Grossman project is alive today because of what was going on in the downtown. The Star Market site now becomes far more valuable. So you'll see growth at some point in that area. You'll probably see additional growth on McGraw Highway. Budding, we saw the nursing home, the old nursing home come down with residential units are going to go up on that property. So it continues to grow. Had we not done what we did, investing in the downtown, we wouldn't have this new growth, and we wouldn't be debating what we do with this money down the road. So it's important that we continue to stay focused on developing in the right areas. We said from day one, I know when I ran for office many years ago, we talked about the downtown, around the T stations, the shipyard, and Crown Colony. And that's been the focus on the major projects, and we'll continue to do that. And with that comes these dividends of the return. so it's uh up through today and and as foreseeable future it pays for itself yeah i think the question i'm asking is essentially you know it's ultimately rob and peter to pay paul right i mean the benefits coming out of the downtown i don't agree with that comment i don't agree with that comment respectfully Councillor we just wouldn't we weren't doing what we weren't doing there'd be no new value

No, but my point is that the values are still coming to us as Quincy residents. I'm just looking more so as to, instead of it being focused to the downtown, if long-term there's a plan where those monies don't have to be focused to the downtown anymore because things are developed to the point that we're satisfied with the improvements here, and then at that point, the revenues in the downtown will then become part of the general fund revenues.

Well, the excess goes into the general fund. It's already helping the general fund today. Okay. Absolutely.

Great. Okay. And then also the, I know we're looking forward to Wollaston going through the same redevelopment, right? And so I'm really excited about that because I think that area obviously is prime for a lot of improvement. And so we'll follow the same model in the Wollaston redevelopment area as well, correct?

yes so we've established urban redevelopment district in wallace and we're waiting for the final approval from the state the state talks about want more housing but they have layers and layers of bureaucracy to get there we should be getting a word on that fairly soon and then from there we make a decision on the district improvement financing the diff district uh along with the with the zoning requirements down there so yes we're we're bullish on wollaston and i think by next spring we'll be seeing some activity

Yeah, I'm excited. I think we had looked at that up here. I'm not remembering exactly when, maybe a year or two ago. Do we have a sense, or has the state given you any sense of when they might approve it so that we can start getting moving on the wall?

I think it's imminent. I'm going to be speaking with... Secretary Augustus in the next week to see what that application is it was a little hold up with DEP as you know we've got some drainage issues in Wollaston it's a bowl area we're working through that we've done a lot of our own engineering and the things we're going to need to do infrastructure-wise down there to mitigate that that's kind of in the mix with it so we're getting those questions answered and resolved yeah I mean again I think the financial benefit is very obvious here with what we've done downtown and

you know, physically, again, the space in Wallace and needs improvement. So if we can see the same financial benefit, I'm ready to get moving on that as well. And I think that leads into sort of a closing point. I just wanna, you know, talk to with you about is that, you know, ultimately it's always about collaborating on projects that are moving forward, right? We have an opportunity to hear from you tonight, which I appreciate because I'm not in your office doing this day to day with you, right? And so having these opportunities to really sort of have a check in to understand, you know, what you look at every single moment of every day, right? Like you're thinking about what's on this presentation every day. And so giving an opportunity to us to actually be a part of that process and part of the conversation is important. And I think too that I appreciate that while we don't always agree on everything, the opportunity to have the conversation about it is the most important thing, right? I mean, I just was reflecting back with President Cain that I remember years ago when we first started, we couldn't have the pedestrian safety program we wanted to put together happen fast enough, right? We were doing work on This is before TPAL was started. And we had conversations about, again, road work improvements and the cost of it, and particularly pedestrian safety and access and ADA compliance. And we were like, it can't happen fast enough. And so there's always something. You were doing the work, and we were still like, it's not enough. And so it always feels like no matter where we are with work, there's always going to be something that doesn't feel like quite enough or things that we disagree on. I mean, looking at the pension obligation bond, every time you report the amount of savings that we've had, I mean, I didn't support that when we had a conversation about it. We disagreed about it, right? But again, I think overall, doing a recap of these projects, significant long-term impactful projects again just allows me to reflect that sometimes it's not always enough sometimes we want more sometimes we disagree but the most important thing I think it's pertinent to say especially here tonight is that we can have a dialogue about it and we can have conversations about it and being part of that process with you to share with you what I think, to share with you, you know, I don't agree with the pension obligation bond because of X, Y, Z, and we can talk through that. And ultimately we didn't land on the same page, right? But we had a conversation about it and that was the most important thing. And so I just want to say that whether it's these projects here in front of us or any other, you know, financial spending items that come up, that having that kind of dialogue is the most important thing. You look at this stuff every single day and I just appreciate that Even when I'm picking up the phone and talking to you about something where I'm on the opposite side of the issue, we're always able to at least have the dialogue. And again, I think that's the most important thing. So thank you for coming here tonight and giving us an opportunity to do so. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Council. President recognizes Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mayor, for the presentation. I know certainly given it being my first term, some of these projects, although I've become well versed in them over the last two years, it's good to go back to the basics. of them in the aerial view. I did have some questions. I'll start with a couple of questions related to the actual presentation itself. With respect to slides 15 and 16, the DIF case studies, I see that these are, you know, with respect to slide 15, without West of Chestnut and then with West of Chestnut. Is it the Without West of Chestnut, that is the projection, or is it the width?

Yeah, essentially what we were collecting before, and then once West of Chestnut was built, we'll be collecting out of the same.

Okay. I guess my question is, are the estimated numbers the prior numbers? Is that just because we couldn't tell what we were collecting before?

We do discuss ahead of time and do analysis to get estimates, but estimates are estimates. These are the real numbers that have come in each year.

Okay.

okay um and then because it's my first time um dealing with kind of the pension employee retirement administration commission um do is it is it standard that every year we get an order from the commission as to what to put into the budget for retirement for that fiscal year you get a bill you get a bill okay and do so do we we put that number in at this at this time period every year or is it How does that, how do the logistics work?

It's usually inserted when we're doing our budget.

And I understand that we're looking for a second opinion from Milliman. Do we know when we're going to get, receive that?

Yes, so a second opinion on Milliman on drilling down on the actuary studies and looking at our numbers and comparisons and analysis. We believe that the current actuary is off. And Aside from that, my position has been we fully funded the system. 2040, if it's not fully funded, we have responsibility here. In the meantime, I believe we've met the obligation as the taxpayers of the city to do that. So another point along those lines. So if they get, if the retirement system, this isn't a criticism, hopefully they're gonna exceed the 100%, right? If they get 110, 125%, we don't get any money back. So I find the process a little peculiar, and that's a state law issue, and I may be talking about our legislators about that. Hey, if they're doing that well, we put all the money in. How about returning some of that to the municipality?

That's really my question is the procedure of this. So Milliman comes back with a number that's maybe lower than what I believe it's Stone came out with. Then is it? You know, is it battle of the experts or how does that, how do we figure out what number to actually place into the budget?

It is a battle of the experts right now. So we're waiting to get that analysis done, finished.

Okay. And do we know when that will come back?

Probably a few months, I don't know.

Before the end of the calendar year. And then the S&P report from earlier this spring with respect to the revisions from our economic outlook and the long-term ratings. I'm sure it's a conversation in the department. Certainly, it's what, you know, as a body, the council hears from the constituents often. I guess, you know, while we have the whole team here, is there some kind of, I'm sure it's what's thought about all the time and really the the purpose of the Municipal Finance Department. I found the report online easily, and it was a good read for me. But to turn that around, I think that the real, point of your presentation is that the investment is going to pay off. And with respect to the bond rating and with respect to the economic outlook revisions, do we know when will be, when is a kind of timeframe for those to bounce back to where they were last year or the last time that report was written and what the plan is to do that?

Yeah, essentially if you went through the report, The one essential issue is they want us to see more money in our reserves. They want us to see a bigger bank account, essentially. And along the way, and I have discussions with our bond advisors and all of them, and because we have the excess levy capacity, We have a need of that. We can go to that. We're not at the limit with no money in the bank. We're at the limit. Now, we have good liquidity. The reserves, they want it to be higher. That's something we'll look at. I didn't get elected mayor to build the reserves to build a bank account. we get elected to deliver services and to protect our investments and our infrastructure. So there's that yin and the Liang on that issue, but we're gonna be monitoring it and see what we have with free cash and maybe dump some of that into the reserve to send a signal. But in the market, we're still very competitive getting great rates in the market. That's what matters.

Thank you for that. And then the final question is I know where the finance departments as well as your office are probably looking at property tax rates for next year. I didn't know if you had any inkling as to what those look like.

Think I'm going there tonight, Councillor?

I would be remiss if I didn't ask.

You would be. We're waiting on a couple of things. One is the free cash certification, the new growth number that John Rowland and his team works on, and then the municipal finance department with John and Susan sits on some of those meetings as well. Then we look at all the factors, and then we come up with the number.

Okay. It's a little early yet. Okay. A couple months or so. Is that right? We usually... Okay. Okay.

was actually surprised i was the first one to ask it so um thank you mayor for for the presentation um and i appreciate um the answers thank you thank you Councillor president recognizes Councillor Devine uh thank you mayor for coming and speaking to us and uh i'd like to reiterate almost everything that um my councils before have said that all great questions and uh For me, a lot of people are, for the general public mostly, door knocking. A lot of people have been asking why we have such high debt and $1.6 million. They're confused with apples to apples and trying to get that out there and I think today is one of those things. I have people reach out to me from Brockton, a friend that is a property manager. We have an elite police department that does an excellent job and they're not police, they're actually community service and they do a great job being community. But this person has a problem with every weekend and sometimes at night they have 100 cars doing donuts and causing problems in their property. And they're told, well, we can't do anything about it. Put a gate up. That won't happen in Quincy because we have a great police department that will take care of it. And that's because of all, everything you've spoken about tonight. Because we've done our homework. We've done, we've created this police department. With our fire department, same thing. Sometimes we have to go and help other communities. I don't want to name them because I don't want to put shame on them. We had the ability to buy two extra fire engines because we needed some. And Cambridge, I think, was one that went and scooped up the rest that were available because there's such a timeline behind all these things. Once again, we were able to do that because we've done our homework. We're doing well. Crown Colony in Ward 4, I'm concerned about losing commercial tax base there. We changed the ordinance and zoning there so that we can do retail and residential. And there's investment companies that, if you look into them, they're interested in Quincy, and these are national ones that spend $500 million invested in the country. They cut down by 50% of what they were going to do during the presidential election because of volatile situations. Yet, not in Quincy. They find Quincy as this little golden nugget. They're not talking, these are national investors that they recognize us. They see us because we're a little glimmering light. We're different than everyone else. People move from Boston and other areas. They've been moving from the city into here because of all the shows that we're doing, the infrastructure that you've done. I met a guy from Oregon. He bought it right around the corner in Monroe. So these people are moving here because of what's been done. And you can't do it without spending money. So... My thing here is apples to apples is that, and this might be the only question I really have, I just wanted to get that out there, is do you know how's Milton doing like in their pension option obligation bond? I hear about these other communities. They're not there, and we're being compared to them, and we're saying, well, they have lower debt, but in reality, they haven't paid their bills yet. So do you know anything about Milton or other communities that are falling behind?

I can just suggest that statewide, there's only a handful of communities They're in better shape than Quincy when it comes to the pension systems. There's a lot of challenges out there. The county has some towns that belong to the county system. Some cities have their own. Weymouth has their own. We have our own. But it's a challenge to get to the number where the state wants them to be at. And we fixed it.

Okay, yeah, so I just wanted to get that out there because we can't do these things without growing the way we are. You talked about Leominster, and I think at Leominster you said, right? Sorry, I missed that? You said another manager came out. Was it Leominster? The mayor of Leominster, correct. I hear some people say, too, like we should find out what other cities and towns are doing, but I hear other cities and towns saying, how are we going to get up to Quincy? How are we going to follow them? What are we doing? I think that if you asked 12 years ago if anybody would get on the Red Line and go from Boston down to see Quincy, they might not be as interested. But right now, people are staying from all over the country. In Boston, they say to themselves, let's jump on the Red Line and go check out Quincy. I don't think so. Well, I do. Anyways, I think we're doing an exceptional job, and I hope that... We compare apples to apples. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Devine. Is that it? Okay. Well, we don't get to see you too often here, Mayor, so thanks for being here. I appreciate Councillor McCarthy inviting you to give this overview. DIF state model for the city. The city as a state is a model that different cities should look at. POB, I wasn't with you on that, but I appreciate your optimism about the future for that. and I guess we'll be waiting for resolution on this pension contribution in months to come. We've come a very long way. As Councilor Laying outlined before the founding of TPAL and before we even had organized capital improvement plans, which we were severely striving for, we had the most impressive of such a thing come before us just most recently, the $100 million bond. that I know will make continued improvement for our city. So, you know, I'm optimistic about the city overall. I wouldn't live here. I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't start a business here if I didn't think so. And I know that people come here because there are good things happening. And everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course. Of course. And movement as well. So thanks again for being here. Thanks, Councilman McCarthy, for setting that up. And we'll let you go.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, members of the council. And as you know, myself, my team, we're available any time. Appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our regularly scheduled meeting for the night. Approval of previous meeting minutes. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Made by Council. Seconded by Councilor McCarthy. All those in favor? Those opposed? Ayes have it. Communications and reports from the mayor, other city officers, and city boards. Seeing none. Unfinished business and proceeding meeting. Seeing none. Reports of committees. President recognizes Chair Liang from Ordinance.

So I have just one item out of Ordinance Committee for Ward 4 from Councilor Devine's Ward 2025-118. Add two stop signs on Kimball Street at Campbell Street, creating a four-way stop. Positive recommendation out of committee.

Positive recommendation and a motion to approve made by Councilor Liang, seconded by Councilor McCarthy. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Ash. Yes. Councillor Campbell. Yes. Councillor Devine. Yes. Councillor DiBona. Yes.

Councillor Harris.

Yes. Councillor Liang. Yes. Councillor McCarthy. Yes. Councillor Minton. Yes. President Cain. Yes. Thank you.

Is that it, Chair? Yes. Thank you, Councillor Liang. Presentation of petitions, memorials, and remonstrance.

President recognizes Councillor DiBona.

Excuse me. Excuse me.

I'm on the obituaries.

I got a few folks I want to recognize that have passed away. So if you could, please. This is an important time. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. We're on the obituaries right now. I'd like to recognize two people that have passed away. So please. Please. Okay. I want to have a heavy heart with Thomas Arnett. He was a lifelong resident of Quincy, just passed away, just went to his wake here a couple hours ago. He was 86 years old. He was born in Boston to Mary Doherty and Thomas Arnett. He was raised in Dorchester after graduating Boston English High School. He enlisted in the National Guard and became a certified medic at the age of 18. Tom served his country for more than 40 years, receiving a one-grade promotion to colonel. from his final active duty rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In his civilian life, he became a husband, father, and grandfather who supported his family as an insurance claim manager and worked for the Combined Insurance Company of America for 26 years. I just want to say, you know, to his family, my deepest condolences. He was a great friend. He was in Ward 3 on Hillside, and we want to... give the condolences to entire family of the Arnott family. The wake was tonight, and they also have a funeral tomorrow morning, 10.30 at St. Anne's Church, beginning at 9.45 and also 10.30. So keep the Arnott family in your thoughts and prayers. I have another one. Hold on. I got a little distracted here tonight. This one... A heavy heart to the Mariano family. Dr. Carmen Mariano just passed away October 15th. 78 years of beautiful memories that you share. He leaves behind his wife, Didi Fagerlund Mariano, who together for 52 years shared a rich, joyful, and loving family and life. He's survived by his sister, Natalie Mariano, who is now always and proud of the real doctor. Natalie and her wife, Shelly Feeney, are residents of Falmouth. Just want to say to the Fagelin family as well. He leaves behind his brother and sister-in-law, John and Bonnie Fagelin. They're three beautiful children. Eric Fagelin and his wife, Amy. Justine Fagelin, Courtney, and her husband, David, and son, Benjamin, and Amy Fagelin. Carmen actually, obviously, touched many lives. During his long career in education, he would be remembered by countless students, student athletes, co-workers, and friends for his passion and his devotion and his kindness. Carmen was a humble man whose strength was with his smile and his words. He never stopped writing. Carmen notes. The funeral mass is celebrated at St. Paul's Church in Hingham on Saturday, October 25th at 10 a.m. They will be followed by Mount Wallace and Cemetery. Please keep the entire...

um family in your thoughts and prayers mr mariano doctor thank you thank you councillor bono president recognizes Councilor Campbell thank you mr president um i wanted to acknowledge uh really a wonderful woman uh who was a mom to so many and um uh someone who who we lost just recently um her name is um brady uh o'connor She was born in County Kerry. She lived in Adam Shore for most of life, 1959. She came here. She immigrated to the United States from County Kerry. And she lived to be 82 years old. But she was an amazingly wonderful woman who raised eight beautiful children and had 12 grandchildren. She was married for 58 years to her husband. And we have this great family to remember her by. She was a nurse up at the old Quincy Hospital and she was someone who when you went there you knew you had a friendly face to engage with and she would always look after you and give that extra little bit of sense of humor and love that you hope for. As I said, her family is an amazing example or legacy that she leaves behind. Lieutenant and Deputy Fire Chief Kevin O'Connor, it's his mom that passed away. The services are coming in on Wednesday at the Magoom Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, and the mass will be on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. at the... the services I believe at Holy Family Church in Rockland. An incredible family and a huge loss to this community and someone I know who will be missed greatly by her beautiful family. Thank you, Councilor Campbell.

President recognizes Councilor Vine.

Actually, that was the same one. So if we can keep the prayers and thoughts for the O'Connor family. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Vine.

Okay, motions, orders, and resolutions. Seeing none, scheduling of committee meetings and public hearings. We have our next regularly scheduled council meeting on Monday, October 20th at 6.30 p.m. Well, you gave me that. Monday, November 10th at 6.30 p.m. Be there or be square. Hope everyone enjoys their Halloween. Motion to adjourn made by Councillor Liang, seconded by Councilor McCarthy. All those in favor? Those opposed? Ayes have it.

Thank you.