Quincy City Council: June 22, 2026

Good evening. Thank you for coming to the June 22nd Oversight Committee hearing. At six o'clock, I'm going to 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 acknowledgeable and permissible.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Mahoney, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan. Chairman Jacobs. Present.

Very good. Tonight's meeting, we're going to be addressing 2026-056, Resolve on the Council of Aging. Department Head Theft in Federal Charges 2026-100 Order Quincy Housing Authority Board Appointment Process Review in 2026-101 resolve of the Quincy Housing Authority Board tenant representation. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Walker to say a few words.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Councilors. Thank you for the opportunity for the administration to outline its response to the theft and subsequent criminal investigation from the former department head of the Elder Services Department. responsive to this body's resolution earlier this year. We have a number of team members who have been working on this matter for some time with us tonight to provide a brief overview of the timeline of events, the city's response, and remedial actions that were taken. You will hear from Police Chief Kennedy to talk about the investigation itself, Municipal Finance Director Paul DelBaba to go over the review processes, and Treasurer Collector Marlee Smith to review cash handling policies and changes that were made. We also have with us Solicitor Jim Timmons to answer any legal questions and Purchasing Agent Kathleen Logan relative to any procurement questions.

The Mayor and his team took this matter extremely seriously, responded immediately, and conducted a robust, responsible review. I want to stress that ultimately at its core, this is a case of an individual perpetrating a fraud on the city and its people. It was about this individual manipulating the system and manipulating people to achieve that fraud, not a systemic breakdown in the system itself. That, however, does not mean there are not things we cannot do better. and this unfortunate matter was used to improve those sets of processes. Before I hand it over to the Police Chief, I would just start the timeline myself that this matter came to the Mayor's attention in April 2024. upon the reports, hearing some troubling information from a staff member at the Council on Aging Department.

I met with that Council on Aging Department employee once. We established that the employee would be protected, that there was nothing to worry about, and that we needed to understand the information. to that in a second meeting on, I believe it was April 18th. All of the full documentation was provided by this employee upon receiving that information. I immediately spoke to Mayor Koch. Mayor Koch, this was now after hours, if my memory serves me right, it was probably 8 or 9 in the evening. Mayor Koch immediately directed me to contact the Police Chief and the City Solicitor to evaluate the next steps. With that, I'll leave the timeline to Chief Kennedy.

Good evening, Councilors. As Mr. Walker stated, on the evening of April 18th, 2024, I did receive a call from Mr. Walker informing me that My presence was requested in the Mayor's office with several other members of the Mayor's team. I didn't really understand what was happening at the time, but I was informed that there were some allegations of potential Financial Malfeasance that came to light earlier that day and he wanted to talk to me about it. So we went in, we met, I believe, Walker, Mayor Koch, Solicitor Timmons, and possibly Helen Murphy. I'm not 100% sure on that, but definitely Mr. Walker, Mayor Koch, and Solicitor Timmons. Upon hearing the allegations, I immediately spoke with our detective lieutenant who's in charge of Bureau of Criminal Investigations.

and one of our detectives who specializes in financial crimes that night on the night of the 18th. The plan was also put into place that Mr. Timmons drafted in order that we were going to serve to Mr. Clasby the next morning when he arrived for work. So on the morning of the 19th, Around 8 a.m., we had detectives sitting outside of the Kennedy Center. When Mr. Clasby arrived for work, we went in. I met him in his office. I served him with the letter that he was being put out on leave. pending the results of our investigation. That was the morning of April 19th. and then our detectives really started working the case and over the course of the next couple weeks they gathered evidence and we ended up The FBI and the US Attorney's Office reached out and asked if we would work the case with them as it may have some

Federal Implications. We met with our federal partners on May 14th and we agreed at that point to work with them as there were some potential mail fraud, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property that we had already uncovered. So at that point, really, we started working it with our federal partners. We gathered enough evidence that on May 17th, the mayor did serve Mr. Clasby a letter removing him from his position and on January 8th 2025, as I said, Mr. Clasby was formally indicted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for embezzlement, mail fraud, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property. that's really the rough timeline of what happened.

The Quincy Police Detective Division was actively working with our federal partners during the entire length of the investigation. And I think they left no stone unturned. So with that, that's basically just a brief. I'd like to turn it over to Mr. DeLaBaba from Municipal Finance. And then I believe afterwards we can answer any questions you might have.

Good evening, Councils. I'm going to talk about the approval process on how departments entering requisitions into our system, how they get approved, and how it flows through the system. It's not different now than it was back then, but this is how the requisition process works. First of all, a requisition is not a purchase order. It doesn't give any approval to spend money right away. It's just a requisition for and Amount and for a vendor. However, it is the beginning of the process of creating a purchase order and it will encumber funds within specific organ objects within a fund or a department to be used for specific purposes as stated. The process begins by a clerk will first enter the requisition into MUNIS.

That requisition, that request is then approved by the department head at the department head level. Once approved at the department level by the department head, it is submitted to Municipal Finance for our review where we see it. We'll see the vendor. the amount, the accounts, we verify that there's funds there to create that requisition. And that's when it gets our approval, specifically my approval. So upon that approval, Once I approve it, munis will move it right along the system to the purchasing department. And they'll have the final review of the vendor, the procurement, the dollar amounts with the 30B law and so forth. Once that's approved, PurchaseIn will create a purchase order and they'll send one copy of that purchase order to the vendor and one purchase, one copy of that will go to

the department that requested that so they know that that money's now been encumbered for that expense with that vendor. Now, to pay an invoice against a purchase order, A clerk will enter the invoice information and purchase number into Muniz. The clerk then sends that original invoice to Municipal Finance. Municipal Finance will retain that with a copy of the check. the purchase order for auditing purposes and for invoice verification. For invoice verification includes revealing the amount of the expenditure and matching that with the check and the invoice. , it includes reviewing vendor remittance addresses, vendor names, et cetera. So once that's all confirmed, once again, the department head after this process then needs to go in and approve that expenditure.

So at different levels, multiple people are looking at this as it flows through the system. So once the department head approves the payment of the invoice in Munis. It will be included on the city warrant and then paid out. That really concludes the approval process, the review of each requisition that gets put into the system. With that, I'll turn it over to Treasurer Smith.

Thank you. Hi, Councilors. Thank you for having me. So maybe I'll pick it back up on the timeline. So on April 19th, I was made aware of an allegation of financial misconduct at the Senior Center. Over that weekend, I worked with Chief of Staff and the CFO at the time to execute a response plan. I secured a city laptop and worked with someone on my staff to physically be at the Senior Center for the duration of the investigation. I worked with local and federal investigators to supply documentation, as well as worked with our forensic auditor to try and determine the scale and scope of the issue. I was physically on site for the first week, and then someone from my team was there for approximately five weeks while Quincy Police did their investigation. Throughout the evidence that was collected and almost 100 turnover sheets that were scanned and sent in to investigators, we determined that checks were being turned over to the treasurer's office, but cash was not.

The Division of Local Services created a financial policy manual for the Town of Sterling that I found in some of my research, and they outline the best practices for senior center operations. The Senior Center in Quincy was following all of those best practices to a tee. This was not a breakdown in policies and procedures. This was pure theft by a bad actor. But I think what this did do was highlight where we can be better. And as such, my office created the city's revenue turnover policies, which we posted to our website in October of 2024. and I believe Mr. Walker sent those around to this body, but they're also posted on our city website. Some key highlights included adding a cash in office threshold of $500 at least weekly deposits and the creation of departmental policies that sit underneath the citywide policy which are required to be on file with my office.

We also implemented the creation of an annual on-site audit in which myself and two members of my staff physically go to visit each department that accepts any form of revenue. We have a checklist of items that I believe you guys all received as well that my staff and myself will go through. and we take this as an opportunity to physically see the department space where cash and checks are stored and to speak to the staff that's working with any payments. so we're now on the second year of annual onsites and again the schedule was sent around so everybody should have a schedule of the dates that we have seen everybody for the first round and now we're on our second round. And I'd say overall they're going really well. So I think the silver lining of all this is we've really taken this as an opportunity to help departments streamline some of their revenue capabilities. So I keep using the school department as a good case study.

but we've been working with their business manager we installed a local mobile deposit check scanner and a cash counting machine so instead of that individual counting out three thousand one dollar bills for maybe like a school field trip she can simply put them through the cash machine So it's just one example, but it's really been, and I'm not, it's genuinely been really nice to go see every department, see the great work that they're doing. and where we can be helpful. We're in the weeds on cash and finances every day. And so we've really taken this as an opportunity to help other departments and kind of figure out streamlining. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. I know the cash piece was the big headline piece, so I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have.

All right, see you later.

Thank you so much, Ms. Smith. I just want to open this up for questions from any of my colleagues on the council if they have any questions for Ms. Molly Smith in regards to this. Councilor Riley.

Thank you. You folks did answer some of the questions I have here, so I'm going to jump around a little bit, and I don't know who can answer best. So does the city have a written fraud policy in place, not just a cash management policy, but a fraud, a more comprehensive fraud policy?

So I think a lot of what we do is governed by Mass General Law. And so Mass General Law governs invoicing, right? And I'm going to speak for my colleagues here. Mass General Law is going to govern procurement. It's going to govern invoicing. So a lot of that is already captured by Mass General Law.

Is there is no written fraud policy? I mean, I think of fraud as being a little bit more broader. You know, fraud can be time theft, larceny, credit card and purchasing abuse. and then external crimes like phishing, cyber theft. We certainly saw that with the pension system. So does anyone else want to say whether or not there is a written fraud policy in place?

Through you, Mr. Chairman, I would just reiterate what Treasurer Smith said, that some things are so self-evident that they don't require policy manuals. It's standard practice that you don't commit fraud, that you don't. and so on, to spend city money that you don't steal. that there would be a, there just wouldn't be a written policy. There's not a written policy, and I don't mean to sound flip, Councilor, I appreciate the question, but there's no written policy against theft Blanket Theft. It's just part of the nature of doing business in a prudent and efficient and legal way. and just reiterate what Treasurer Smith said that all of our actions are governed by Mass General Laws. All of our procedures are governed by Mass General Laws.

And we're also audited every single year to find to look at operations and what mechanisms are in place and what needs to potentially change. So no, there is no formal written fraud policy because fraud is fraud.

Well, the Office of Inspector General recommends that municipalities have a more written formal policy. So I guess the simple answer to that question is no. Relative to the treasurer's policy, there was reference to the munis accounts being the responsibility to department heads to ensure that they're actually recorded into the correct general ledger account. But doesn't this create vulnerability if the department head is the one responsible for it? In this particular case, we would not have found that It seems a lot of the policy falls in the purview and responsibility of the department head, which in this particular example would not have provided the kind of assurance that there was checks and balances there.

Yeah, I think my intention on putting that in the policy, someone should be checking us as well. So someone should also be checking the checker. And so if the department head is turning over money to me, I need to, I'm saying I'm putting it into your munis account, and I want to make sure that people are also verifying what I'm doing and my team is doing. So this should be mutually, people should be mutually checking each other's work. So I think in all of these things what we realized is it, It behooves everybody to be double checking and making sure the money is being posted into the correct Munis account, that our bank reconciliations are being reflected on what's in the Munis account. So that was my intention on putting that in the policy.

Thank you, thank you for that. Have you had any unannounced site reviews or have they all been announced?

So they've all been announced. I think the first year, I think people, nobody likes to, these have been very, awkward's not the right word because people, I'm walking into these department onsites and I've been really impressed with the reconciliations with the financial management that all these departments are doing. I think the first year, people are on edge. I think nobody wants No one wants to have me walking into their office saying, are you doing anything wrong? And so people have been really open to showing what they're working on. So the first year I thought it would be a little unfair to do an unannounced visit. We have been, I mean, every turnover sheet that comes into my department is being scrutinized pretty extensively. My team, any turnover sheet that's incorrect is going back to the department with an email to myself and the department head. So my intention is that over time there's maybe no errors that are coming through, but no.

I understand. And it seems like you've got a second round coming through. So you might want to have one or two unannounced. So has the city implemented a confidential speak-up or whistleblower policy and reporting mechanisms? It was reported that that would be something that would be coming.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, not at this point, not a formal policy? I'd harken back a little bit to my initial answer. I think that's certainly a possibility, and we've taken a look at it. but emphasizing that first point you made relative to the first policy is that whistleblowers are always protected. They're protected under state law, they're protected under federal law, they're protected by their position within and Collective Bargaining Unit for the most part. And part of our process was to emphasize to talk to the department heads and get more of a sense of what they felt would be appropriate and where they're... whether or not that that would be an additional step that was necessary or it's one of those things that may be more assumed and part of the normal day-to-day operation of doing business. I would say it's something that's still on the table based on the case just closed at the end of last week.

I know we'll be taking another look at it.

Okay, thank you. Go ahead. I can take a break if you want. Is that okay? The report identified 262 transactions totaling $329,148 versus the $136,000 that Mr. Clasby pled guilty to. including work for a non-existent business, Celtic Safety Consultants, cleaning companies who perform work on non-city buildings, excessive vehicle repair and towing from Schlager's Towing, Sometimes multiple charges per day. Have these vendors been barred from doing business in the city or what other steps have been taken to verify businesses and charges going forward?

So I'm happy to answer it. Paul, unfortunately, was not here for most of it. I don't believe any of them have been barred. A lot of them didn't know they were doing fraudulent business. That business for sure is fake. And that, I believe, is what they got him on for the federal charges. I believe that's the transportation charge. crossing federal lines, but all the other vendors, my understanding through the investigation was that they were largely unaware that they were also being duped.

Well, how could they be unaware that they weren't cleaning a municipal building?

Oh, I can't speak to the cleaning one, but if... I mean, I think the Senior Center has many vehicles, and so... I don't know if they were aware which vehicle they were towing.

Thank you. If not for the brave actions of one or more whistleblowers, this fraud would likely have continued. Again, I've already asked once, but I think it would behoove us to have more. Robust policies for reporting suspected fraud, waste and abuse and to review those policies regularly. Does the city implementing mandatory fraud training?

So again, I'll take this one just on behalf of the group. So the state does require that we take mandatory training, state ethics training.

Ethics training isn't fraud training, though. Fraud training would be through OIG.

I don't believe the OIG requires that we take mandatory training.

I guess the question is why wouldn't we encourage it? Just because it's not mandatory. The other question, and I'll leave this as my last one. I know, Mr. Della Barber, you've mentioned to me about the functionality in MUNIS to be able to attach invoices and track everything straight through the system. Electronically, it does seem like there is an awful lot of paper in this city. And currently, only Quincy Fire Department does that. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct. Where the entire process, the purchase order, and the invoice are attached with the copy of the check. The fire department's doing that. We've discussed rolling it out citywide. It makes things just more efficient. Everything's right at your fingertips. You want some information, you can pull it right up. It helps us with our independent auditors when they come and want to look at an invoice. So it is something that's on the radar.

So we had run into that recently with the community preservation check that I wanted. So what would it take to implement that? It would seem to me that that would be an important initiative. to implement sooner rather than later, at least start to roll some of these departments in that are capable of handling that. The paper is not an ideal situation.

Paper can be altered and lost, right? An electronic record is an electronic record that's preserved as is forever. The auditors prefer to have an electronic record versus paper, and I would too. I wasn't here when my predecessors started kicking the tires on a plan like this, but from what I understand, it would be no more than having some scanners, having some training, maybe some costs to implement This program with a third party consultant who's done it before in other municipalities. So I think there would be some cost involved in it, but I don't think it would be a tremendous cost.

Well, we'll maybe have you revisit that at a future date. It seems like it would be important, and I know you're on board with trying to make that happen. So thank you, Mr. Talabarber. You're welcome. Thank you.

McKee.

Thank you. I'd like to understand a little bit more about the revenues that come into the city. So I know there's various sources. Most of it are money we make through taxes, but there are some fees. I guess I'm surprised that no one noticed a gradual decline of revenues coming in from the Senior Center to the point where it went to zero. and seem to stay at zero for a few years. What kind of oversight exists there and how can we improve that?

So just as a point of clarity, the revenue was not zero. So revenue was still coming to us. So if you were at the Senior Center and you submitted a check to them, a personal check, that was still coming to us. I think COVID had a lot to do with it. After COVID, I don't think it was clear what the new flows were and what the new world looked like at the Senior Center. So I think that was really a big factor.

Okay, but this was happening before COVID too, right? So presumably the amount of cash was going down relative to things over time even before COVID?

So I started here in 2022 in this role, but it's hard to manage. So I wouldn't necessarily be aware of our less seniors taking yoga. so I think if if revenue is coming in and I think that's where these on-site visits are great for us to kind of wrap our heads around what's happening in each department so if if the Senior Center made a policy saying all classes are free. we're not gonna charge anymore. I wouldn't necessarily be aware of that, so that could explain the revenue. I equate this a lot, so Treasury is a bank, and so how I would explain this, to the layperson is if you got laid off, Bank of America would not call you and say, Is everything OK? I noticed you're not getting direct deposit anymore. So it's the same thing here. So Treasury would not necessarily call and say, oh, I've noticed that you've had a decrease in revenue.

What's going on? through COVID, through changes in programming, revenue can change a lot. I'd also highlight this is a really immaterial amount of money to the broader city organization. And so I think over time it's just enough to fly under the radar.

I think it would be helpful if we thought about how to track that over time. I'm sure we have data, historic data going back. Before I took office, I took an, I think I probably learned about this from Councilor Riley, I took a fraud class through the Inspector General's office, like a Zoom class. I wish I'd looked at my notes before tonight, but I remember them saying that there were certain things that over time you could implement gradually to try to reduce, reduce, reduce all these opportunities for fraud. So one thing seems like You know, just having a sense of what money is coming into the city and then if you see a blip in that, it seems like it would be Smart for someone to be monitoring that and then looking into it. Maybe it's explainable and maybe it's not, but we could catch these kinds of things at an earlier point.

The other question that I have is about purchase orders. I guess there's no one who's like kind of overseeing whether purchase order is needed or used.

A purchase order is always going to be needed because that's how we pay in the city. So we pay through MUNIS, which generates a purchase order. So a purchase order is always going to be needed.

I guess I mean like the service that it's there for. So some of these were totally fraudulent, made up services.

If I could, and it seems like a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking here and somewhat of victim shaming as well. We were all, you know, just as surprised that this went on as all of you. To say that that Celtic Safety Consultants, Councilor Riley, that was clearly fraudulent. At the time that this was going on, we had a W-9 from him. and my coworker actually checked the Secretary of State's office in New York and he was registered as a company. Okay, so we did do our due diligence as we always do. Nothing was done differently here. And again, just because someone manipulates the system and breaks the law, that doesn't mean we're all implicated and in on it.

No, I didn't mean to imply you're in on it. I'm just thinking about the systems.

I know some other Councilors have.

Just the systems in place.

Yes.

It seems like maybe having... Do you have a question, Council President?

Ms. Logan. Yes.

Ms. McHugh is speaking.

Yeah, and the Council of Presidents make you faces, and I didn't know if she had a question. Ms. Logan, please stop. No, don't tell me to stop, Councilor. Please, respectfully. No, I'm good.

Go ahead. Okay, maybe I'll just, I'll move on. Yeah. I guess I have a question about some of what I've read in, this isn't for you, I'm not sure who this is for, but some of what I've read has concerned me about the the sense that what was reported that the employees knew that he was sort of untouchable because of his connection to the mayor.

I know that we say we don't have a whistleblower policy, but it concerns me that we don't have a whistleblower policy when it seems like this is an actual were concerned about that. And speaking just personally from my experience in six months on the council, asking questions of this administration has not been well received. So I can imagine that

We're going to recess. Thank you.

All right. Sorry about that. We're back from our recess. Thank you, Mr. Walker, for handling that. I want to continue to answer that question. Thank you.

Sure. Through you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the question, Councilor, and I the perception has been very troubling to the administration as well. I think over the course of the last several weeks and the course of the last several months, this body has seen the way our departments operate in a general sense, in a larger sense, how well they work with you folks, how well they work in their jobs in particular. It was troubling to hear that there would be some perception that somehow a employee was being told that someone was untouchable. We have, the mayor has a record in this city that goes back close to 20 years now

under no circumstances has his integrity, his honesty, and anything like that sort of thing come to light. And I would sort of point out that ultimately, this person did come forward and it is the reason why this theft was stopped and identified. So ultimately the system worked. This person was not intimidated to come forward. This person was not afraid to go to the appropriate folks and explain to them what they thought was going on. And this person was confident that they had the ear ultimately of the Mayor and myself that all of this would end up going in the right direction and that's what happened. As unfortunate as it is, the System ultimately worked.

Now, taking the point on a clear, defined whistleblower policy, again, I said that Whistleblowers are protected. We feel they are protected. We are comfortable with our department heads. We've had these discussions with our department heads. Under no circumstances should any employee feel like they can't approach their boss, they can't approach their boss's boss, about something inappropriate that they've seen that is not the way we've operated. and I certainly appreciate the question, but I think in the end the system worked the way it needed to work and the right thing was done.

I believe there was a report stating that the issue stretched back to at least 2014 when the Mr. Clasby requested money to pay, I believe, a car payment. And so it sounds like people were maybe nervous to come forward for 10 years at least. And maybe it just got so bad that it became like, you know, they just felt important to bring forward. It does seem like it's an issue whether or not it's, you know, for good reason it seems to be a perception. I guess I have a question about the FBI and the US Attorney's Office for Chief Kennedy. You mentioned that they joined the effort.

They reached out to the city. I'm not sure at what point after the April 19th meeting, maybe in May, I'm not sure whether I wrote that down right, How did they find out about it? So it wasn't that the city reached out to them. How did they get alerted to this?

Yeah, so we do have a detective who's assigned to an FBI task force. So I believe it was right after, I can't give you the exact date, but right after it hit the media, this task force officer detective reached out and said, hey, the FBI is asking if you would like any assistance with this. And I said, you know what, we're still in the very early stages of gathering facts. I have the utmost confidence in the two detectives, one detective and one detective supervisor who were working and gathering facts. So at that point I said I think we have everything under control. as they gathered more information, the task force detective reached out again and said, hey, they're really interested in this and so we set that meeting. So we set the meeting for May 14th, which was just a couple of weeks after we really launched the investigation. and it was during that meeting we pretty much gave them everything we had. They looked at it and they said, yeah, we'd like to, we see some federal charges here and we'd like to work with you on this.

So we welcome the assistance.

So it was after they saw it in the news and then it was out.

I'm speculating, but I'm assuming that's what it was, that they saw it in the news and reached out.

Okay, and then this is a question for the treasurer. So you had mentioned that you would actually like to be checked as well. So who does that now?

So and that's what Councilor Riley's question. So when I'm alluding in the policies, so and maybe I'll walk through an example because that is how I think. if a department comes in with a $1,000 deposit, putting it towards a specific munis code. And in my team, so how it works, and maybe we should have started with this, but how it would work is in the treasury window. They would come with either a cash or check breakdown. The turnover sheet is the face sheet. So that's indicating here's the munis code, here's the department. Here's where we'd like it to go, and here's a breakdown of either cash or check, what's included in the turnover. We will stamp that, so we have a time and date stamp, similar to what the Clerk uses, so we will stamp that at the time of receipt. we will give the department a copy back and then we will take a copy and we will input that into our daily batch. So all deposits, we make daily deposits to the bank.

So all of that money is going out of our office daily. So essentially what I'm looking for from departments is to make sure that if they gave me $1,000 and I were putting it to Munis code 12345, that it's getting to where they expect it to be. And so if you brought $1,000 for the senior center and one of my clerks fat fingered it and put it into inspectional services, I want to make sure that someone has said oh wait a second I think I'm not seeing my thousand dollar deposit as I expected and we can do a little bit of research on that and see did it go into the wrong munis code did it that's really the only possibility but yes so it is important that someone is also checking us.

Okay, maybe that's all my questions for right now.

How are you, Molly? I had a nice visit with you. We went over a lot of these things. So I guess one of the questions that I have, and I have them all over the place, So the treasurer, you get the cash, and you've only been here since 2022, so you really can't talk back to 2014. And I think when you were using the example, and I'm not trying to say your example wasn't good, like a bank, when you get laid off and you don't have... that direct deposit going and the bank's definitely not gonna know us. And I realize we're a city, so we're pretty big, but these are our departments, so when you see those turnovers going up or down or if they change something, That should be something that a director should be communicating, especially when the change of flow of money is changing. So if it was, we're not going to charge for this anymore, should have been notified to the people who would be collecting that money, getting that money. Like, we're stopping. We're not taking any of that. I'm just pointing that out because it's a little different than a big bank noticing whether or not I get direct deposit anymore versus...

McKee was saying. there should be kind of something we can look at but you've only been here for two years and I wouldn't I don't know what they pre like 2014 I'd be curious I would have gone back that far too if I could yeah and and yes I mean the point is well taken I think it's it's so hard um if you're charging three dollars for

and Activity, it's a 500, $500 million a year is flowing through my department. So I wouldn't necessarily catch.

No, I know. I think that's the problem though, is that because cash like that, like it's petty cash might not seem like a lot, but when you and so on. it's impactful and that money can easily be taken away. We have other accounts in the city. So when I talk about the COA and this is just one person who did a bad deed, but we also have revolving accounts in the schools. How often do those things get reconciled? We also have the schools you just mentioned. And the other thing is when a turnover comes in, you collect the turnover from the the, I say client, from your department head, whoever's bringing it in, right, the clerk. But then that same turnover typically goes down to the accountant's office so that they know too. that at least that's how I understand it. The turnover comes into the treasurer's, you mark it down, you say you did what you needed to do and then the accountants get it and there should be a reconciliation that's happening at the end of the month so that if it does get deposited into the wrong account, you're catching that really fast, is that correct?

so and and or weekly mostly so you're mostly correct I think the reconciliations that my team is doing so I'm my team is making sure that if we put it into this Bank. So think physical cash versus munis cash. If we put it into this bank that what we're reconciling is making sure the check didn't bounce, that the Brink's guy didn't stop at Starbucks on the way. So that's what my team is doing. So if someone has coded, put the incorrect code on a turnover, that wouldn't get caught throughout the whole Lifecycle because we've expected it to go into this incorrect code and it did go into this incorrect code. So for all intents and purposes, everyone has done everything correctly.

I think typically what happens is someone... Well, reconciliation typically happens like when that department that's looking for the money will say, no, I brought this in on a deposit and I have my turnover sheet, so this is where it is. So what I'm saying is whether or not you're reconciling, everybody should be reconciling. So whether it's the treasurer's office or the accountant's office or even potentially Me, who brought it in and saying, wait, I should have $10,000 here. I want to get a new van, whatever it is I want to do. That's what's happening there. So this cash that's coming in, and cash is always dangerous. I always say this, like it's better... to pay, well, actually, that's not true, because now people steal your credit cards, so all sorts of things happen, but it is a trickier thing, because cash is something you want to get in and get out as fast as possible, because you don't want to be responsible for the cash at the COA, at the schools, at any place, because something easily could happen. So obviously when it comes into the treasurer's office, it's not like you have stacks of $100,000 sitting around because you get out to the bank every day. And same thing with the COA.

So I guess my question there is, if there's any way you could have gone back to 2014, because that's a long time, 2014 to 2014. 24, 10 years. And it only seemed to go back, I think, in the report, it only was like the last two years that they were reconciling. And how they came up with the number seemed a little like, there's no real way to be able to tell, right? So I guess my question there, too, would be, I have to go back to my notes. So what was the earliest date that we figured out that there was improperly? Was it the 19th when the whistleblower came? They just came to you with the whistleblower? Was that when we all found out?

That was the first time that I became aware of it, correct.

Maybe it's through, I'm sorry, I'm guessing it's definitely, so maybe to Mr. Walker. When did exactly did this kind of get flagged?

I had the initial meeting with the employee on the 16th of April. The subsequent meeting was on the 18th of April.

What was the 18th of April, sorry?

What was that?

What was the 18th of April?

The second meeting. So the first meeting was preliminary in nature general conversation with the request that this seemed very serious. We needed to see the backup information that the employee had that was produced at the subsequent meeting and it was at that subsequent meeting that basically the switch was flipped that this is that serious that we needed to get the police and the city's lawyer involved.

So it was identified, and this is not the reporter that identified it. It was in the report from the... the Feds, because he pleaded guilty, but it did say that people were intimidating and employees were moving money. Did you investigate any of that either? Because it seems a little strange that it's actually documented that people who worked at the COA knew what was going on and they were hiding money from this person. So this might have only come out to you on 4-19 or 4-16-2024, but this sounds like it was going on for a long time. So I'm just curious about that.

Again, my knowledge starts at 416 and moves on to 418. From there, the investigation that took place and what was said within the federal filings certainly wasn't anything that was ever raised to our office.

Well, it's in the federal filing that the employees were hiding cash from Mr. Clasby. And then the other question that I had was, so I understood, you know, we have a PO and you have the PO, I understood, thank you very much, Ms. Hovind, I understood how a PO works. and they didn't have a question for you. I was just kind of embarrassed for you. That's truly what I was feeling. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was.

I was embarrassed for you. You said my name.

Recess.

We have to open it.

Okay, so Catherine.

Thank you.

City of Quincy, that should not have happened. And as for the other spectator, I'm not giving her a pass, but she's not an appointed member of the city. I just wanted to apologize. I want to thank the Quincy police for taking care of that. And I want to thank Chris Walker for trying to conference with that individual before that just happened. So thank you, Mr. Walker. Mahoney, you can continue. What are we doing?

We're waiting until 7.

Yuan. Let me just hold on one second. Sorry.

Thank you, Chairman. before I started to ask this crispy case. Everyone just saw what happened. Is she some department head? I strongly suggest administration give a discipline of this kind of a behave

at Council, we can't really talk about that. That's under the purview of the mayor to do that. You could certainly talk to Mr. Walker outside of this meeting, but we can't really talk about that. any disciplinary that might happen between now and then. So just be advised on that. Thank you.

Thank you. I just feel someone put the shame on this great Grand Hall. That's it. Okay. my first question is so follow up with Councilor McKee's comment, this officer's questionable behavior seems to start from 2014. Is that correct? Yes, Ms. Crick.

I am not aware of anything suggesting, and it may have been in court at some portion of the trial, I think the investigation that took place the police department in the city was over the course of the last several years what we had access to so I'm not aware of anything going back as far as 2014

Thank you. So Mr. Walker, so you mentioned you start to pay attention April 16th. Which year is that?

2024, Councilor. Okay.

and how long has this questionable behavior lasted according to the court report?

I don't know.

Is there any?

I know the city investigation went back a number of years to what we had access to. Once we found out that something was going on, that's when the switch was pulled and all the appropriate parties were then involved. I don't have the specific dates on the investigation on what, when, how far back it went. My knowledge is that it was several years, and that's as far as I can go with it.

I'm actually not asking you this question. I'm just asking from the report Councilor McKee mentioned 2014.

So this is a story that ran in the Patriot Ledger June 17th, or updated June 17th, and it said that the U.S. Attorney Christina Barclay Sorry. Okay, Clasby's known improprieties began in 2014, Barclay said, when he asked his assistant director for $260 out of petty cash to make a car payment. For the 10 years that followed, the various women within the department would try to hide cash from him, moving it around the office from one drawer or cabinet to another, Barkley said. And that's the US attorney. So it seems to have been going on for 10 years at least.

Who? Second. Sorry. Thank you, Councilor McKee provided that information. So for 10 years, employees are hiding cash from this drawer to that drawer for 10 years. That kind of looks like in the movie. That means it's not just one employee funded. I'm wondering how many employees have reported this to either FBI or reported to the city. How many employees have reported?

Through you, again, Councilor, no one reported anything to the city until April of 2024.

So when did that employee start to report to AFBI? So that employee reported to AFBI first?

No, the employee reported to the city first. The city then informed the police department. The police department conducted a thorough investigation. At some point, the police department was joined by the federal government in that investigation.

Thank you for the clarification. So as I read, I remember the employee reported as anonymous. Is that correct? She didn't report anonymous. she didn't tell her name.

No, that's not true. I mean, I think, again, through you, Mr. Chairman, I think we, refrained from using the employee's name, but it certainly wasn't anonymous to me. It certainly wasn't anonymous to the mayor. It certainly wasn't anonymous to the investigative team. That person is an employee. of the Elder Services Department, and they saw something wrong and they raised it.

My next question is, since it's already lasted for 10 years, multiple employees are hiding cash around. Why only one employee reported to the city? How about other employees? Are they afraid of something or they just... I don't know what to say.

Through you, I think I answered that question earlier about the process and what it takes and that this person committed a crime. And it was through the manipulation of people that he committed crime. That's why there ended up being a federal indictment. That's why there were federal charges. is because this individual used those people in a way that was against Massachusetts state law and against federal law. And ultimately that's what took place here.

My next question is, did the employee just reported cash being stolen or she also found those fake checks or the checks was not being used on the right? correct to use?

Through you, Councilor. It was both that the employee was aware of issues relative to the cash and the employee was also aware of and the issues with procurement.

I'm sorry. I'm just going to stop right there because, according to the bell outside, it's 7 o'clock, so we're going to take a recess from this Oversight Committee hearing, and we're going to open the Rules Committee and the Ordinance Committee and the General City Council meeting, and then we're going to come back.

to continue this conversation. Okay. All right.

Hello, everyone. I am just officially opening up the Rules Committee meeting for June 22nd. We will take a recess until after we come back from various other opening ups.

Good evening, everybody. We're going to open the June 22nd, 2026 council meeting. Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee,

Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, eight members.

If we could all stand for a moment of silence. I'd like to recognize tonight for the passing of Quincy High School graduate Karen Garcia-Costa, a young man remembered by his teachers and his classmates for the character and kindness he had. I ask that we all observe a moment of silence in memory of Kayron and support of his grieving family, his loved ones, and his friends.

Thank you.

I turn to pledge allegiance to the flag.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God.

If we could read the open meeting, please.

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 media. 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 very much. And then we're going to go back to planning. We're going to recess and go back to oversight.

Yuan, back to oversight. Councilor Yuan, want to continue your questioning?

Thank you, Chairman. Just keep my question. So, Mr. Walker, you said that the employee also found some check.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were no fake checks. There were purchase orders that were originally deemed suspect and then purchase orders and payments to various vendors that were eventually deemed criminal. But there were no fake checks.

if the checks didn't really pay for the real services in the department, should not be just only one person funded. That means, and since it's lasted so many years, must be multiple employees have found this problem. I'm just wondering why this kind of criminal can last so many years. and many years before it was recovered.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, again, I would repeat answer is that he manipulated the system, he manipulated people. That is why criminal charges were filed.

My next question is, From the report, some other councillors also mentioned the one way of his manipulation is by frequently taunted departments and openly referenced his close relationship with the mayor. I'm not appointed to the mayor, but I just say one way of his manipulation is through this way. which intimidate staff from reporting him. And that's why it lasted so long to recover his criminal. So for this, I want to know what's the administration's opinion about that? How to prevent this kind of things happen again, staff being intimidated by some by someone who has a close relationship to some powerful person.

Sure. Through you, Mr. Channon, this is the dictionary definition of manipulation doesn't mean it was true, doesn't mean people needed to have this concern that those employees had. That is what, when I say the word manipulation, that is what happened. This individual manipulated people into believing a certain thing which allowed him to then perpetrate this fraud on the city. Again, I would go back to the overall history of this administration, our department heads, the staff that we have, and there has never been any kind of indication like this other than in this particular case that people need to feel that they should not be raising questions when questions are appropriate to be asked.

We've reviewed this with department heads. We've reviewed this. with staff. The level of comfort that people have in talking directly to the administration, we have a wonderful relationship. with just about all of our collective bargaining units, with all of our leaders of our collective bargaining units, and I can say personally that there's not a leader at the collective bargaining that isn't that is afraid or in any way uncomfortable coming directly to the administration with any kind of issue. And that has been, bar none, the way the process has worked over the last 18 to 19 years. So I would hate for, again, a person, an individual who manipulated the system, who manipulated the people,

to be suggested as symbolic of the way this mayor and this community has operated over the last 19 years, because the evidence does not back that up.

My next question is, this kind of intimidation is not just happened in one case. I can give you my own experience. In 2024, when I connected signatures to repeal mayor's pay raise, I met several city employees. even they are willing, even they disagree about this pay raise, they want to sign but they are afraid to sign it. and one extreme case is one firefighter who has signed his name on it.

But since his name is on the top of that signing sheet, and he immediately tore it and asked me to give him another signing sheet with several names already on it. So he can hide his name among those names. So what is he afraid of? I thought in America, signing petition is every citizen's constitution right, should be protected. Why a firefighter supposed to be a most brave man even afraid about signing his name on the petition.

and if this happen in this city, and not just only one case, several employees also, including teachers, they want to sign but they are not, they dare not to sign, That's why I thought that this is not just one case. Staff being manipulated to be intimidated to report some very questionable behavior. I think the atmosphere, the working atmosphere has some problems. Also, residents have reported for years that nepotism is rampant in this city.

This city has entrenched power and entrenched interests that make change very difficult because no one wants their vested interests challenged or affected. they will push back against reform-minded new councilors, sometimes even to the extent of personal attacks. I can illustrate it more. Okay, let me just speak all I want to say. My home address and the Councilor McKee's home address were posted on that Facebook page with the words, let her know how we feel, followed to our addresses. This is openly inviting harassment.

Yet, many employees and officers who are active on that Facebook page said nothing about this beyond an acceptable post. Silence is violence. Residents are taking note. I encourage resident to stay vigilant. Making change is never easy. electing reform-minded councilors is only the first step. Real meaningful change can only be achieved through constant public engagement and oversight. thank you to the residents who continue to stay involved and pay attention, just like that employee is brave enough to report this criminal behavior. We don't want another classic case to happen.

We need to clean house and end the culture of nepotism. Thank you.

All right. Do any other councillors have questions? Councillor McKee?

So I wondered, when did Mr. Clasby take the helm of elder services?

You would ask me that, Councilor. It was well before I'm being whispered that it was 1999. Before Mayor Koch took office.

Okay. So I guess... One other point that concerns me is that in 2009, Mr. Clasby stepped down from the board of a nonprofit that he was on. and according to the ledger, he helped his parents move into a unit that had been owned by the nonprofit. even though another person was first on the waiting list. So I guess I'm... If he was there as the head of elder services before that and then showed this kind of judgment in 2009, It suggests, and he was able to still hold that position. I don't know if anything, you know, it doesn't seem like,

anything happen to him or he lost his position there? So that was a red flag that I think was a missed opportunity.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, I don't know the veracity that my recollection of that issue was that that was during a year there were a number of things. as this body well knows that get thrown out in politics and things are written, things are said. But the level of veracity that I have known, that is approaching now 18 years ago. don't know the veracity in my head is that that was largely disputed at the time and it was a he said sort of situation.

Okay. The other issue that I just want to highlight, we've brought it up before and we're told that it's kind of a nothing burger, but it did it did raise concerns for me when I was looking at the purchase orders for the fire gear in the past I noticed that the former finance director's signature was on some of those from two of those from months after he had left his post, which raised questions for me about who was overseeing these purchase orders.

I do think that kind of cumulatively we need to look really carefully at these systems because that shouldn't be allowed to happen even if it didn't Go out to people. The fact that it was still there raises questions about who's overseeing it and if anyone is overseeing it and if so, why is it being allowed to continue? Thank you.

Is there a question? Was there, did you have a question about we just?

No, I'm just, I'm concerned about it. That's all.

All right. Thank, Councilor Mahoney.

So I think I was talking to Molly when she first came up. And I don't mean to go back and forth, but I was going into the purchase order first. So just for clarification, so you can't go back to 2014, or can you go back? It's just not your records.

Jacobs requested and we provided. So we can. What we can't do is provide the paper turnover sheet. I don't have room for ten years of records in our office. So we follow the records, retention schedules set forth by the state. So we only have the last two fiscal years physically in the office.

Okay, and then I don't know who this is for, but I'm assuming everybody in the city who has to touch physical cash is bonded, is that correct?

That is incorrect. That's incorrect?

And why is that? Because if they're transferring money, they're supposed to be, I thought.

So I don't know the specifics on that. So I'm bonded, right? So my staff, people on my staff are bonded. I'm bonded. I don't know if the extent of what that looks like for different departments, but it's certainly something I could look at.

So maybe that's true to Chris Walker. That is a policy that should happen If you're transporting cash from the COA, which is in North Quincy, to City Hall, you're carrying whatever, $2,000 a week, that should be bonded because that car could be stolen or something could happen. you know if you're not bonding them then you're not that's another safeguard that we're not doing and that's that's something that we should be doing and that's good practice and I'm surprised we're not so anybody that would be the schools too if the schools are carrying money over Somebody should be, whoever the delivery person should be at least bonded. It doesn't take much. It's an insurance policy. And if you did, if it was bonded, you could go back to 2014 and potentially collect some of that money that goes back that far. So if this was identified in 2014, my next question was, who was the assistant in 2014? And who is the assistant now? I really would rather not I just am asking a question. I need to know that because I don't know. I don't know. Okay, so you don't know who the assistant was?

In 2014, I don't know that we had an assistant.

So I know who it was. Before it was Marie, it was somebody named Kathy. Bowes. So the reason why I'm bringing that up is because tonight, although we were talking about things and saying that, and I'm changing the subject right now, but I'm going to change it because we're talking, we had a purchasing person up here who was directly talking to us talking down to us because she knows that she can say what she wants to at that microphone. And there's going to be no, she won't be fired tomorrow. But here's the interesting thing. Going back to 2014, if I just look at the track record of what we're talking about, We're looking at in 2014, I just lost my notes because I had it written down someplace. In 2014, what we know is that Plasby was the COA director. Kathy Bose was, I think, the assistant, because I know when I would go in there, I was told I'm not invited in there because I'm not elected official. But I was an elected official, so that really bothered her that I got to go in. Chief Keenan was the chief. and Mayor Koch is the Mayor.

Eric Mason was probably not yet the Chief Financial Officer, but when this all happened, he was. And most of these people, well, Koch, Eric, Glasby, and Mark Carey, who was in the recording studio, are all part of the Men of Divine Mercy. I find it impossible to believe that that optic isn't standing out to everybody. And I'm bringing that, I wasn't planning on bringing that up tonight, but I'm bringing it up tonight just because of the actions of one of your directors coming up and speaking to us. Completely unprofessional. And yeah, I'm sorry, but that needs to be said. So when we are talking about this, we're not trying to say that there's only one bad actor. What I'm trying to say is there is something really bad going on at the COA. The person's not bonded. We know that they were moving money around. It was in a report. And we want to say that we've got all the safeguards figured out, but we don't bond people. And the other things that we're not, I haven't heard anything about reconciliation. We have revolving accounts at the schools. Are we reconciling those on a monthly basis? Do we know that there's no money missing from that? That's a lot of money in revolving accounts.

And it's not just that. It's also in our water and sewer. We have revolving accounts, don't we? Do we reconcile those to the dollar? I mean, just curious. Because this is, as you said, this is a half a billion dollar business that we're running here. And although this might be small money, it's money that came from our seniors and we should all be horrified. And why wasn't there anybody from the city representing those seniors at that judgment? That's what I really want. Nobody from the city was there.

So just as a couple points of clarity. So we absolutely reconcile monthly. We reconciled to within $10 of fiscal year 2024. So we 100% reconcile. It's hard to reconcile something that was stolen.

I know. I'm just pointing it out, Motley, not because I certainly am not upset with you at all. What I am upset with is the optics of what we're all living through. I'm a resident of the city, too, and it's embarrassing.

So then I might just say the second thing. So I was subpoenaed for that for Wednesday, and the FBI asked that I not come. So yes, there were certainly, I was planning on going up until- They asked you not to come? Correct.

Yeah. It just looks bad, again, that this optic of who was in trouble and that nobody from the city went to protect the residents, the seniors in the city. It looked as though, hey, you know what? We're just going to quietly step over here. And I realized the connections. I'm not by any means. I just pointed them all out to you. Those are connections in our city. Those are the optics. So if you're working underneath Tom Clasby, the COA director, and he's saying, you know, You better not say anything to me. I'm positive nobody's saying anything because that's the reality of something. If you work in a family business, you don't say anything bad about the guy that's running the family business to the brother. That's how it's working here. And I'm not pointing fingers, but I am suggesting it's great to sit up here and say, I think you did a great job, Molly. I really do. Because you called in on a Friday night. You've got three kids. You're probably like, That wasn't my plan for the weekend. And same thing with you, Chief Kennedy. You did a great job. Same with you, Paul.

However, it seems to me that there should have been flags much earlier than what you did. And I think the only real reason, truthfully, this is just my opinion, the only real reason why this even got anything, he got walked out the door, is because it was and the federal part of it. I'm sorry. That's how it feels.

Through you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, Council.

You can say you're sorry. I'm pretty mad already.

I'm sorry. No, that's just not true. He was terminated before the federal government was even involved.

So in 2009, when he did this, and that's usually the start of something. In 2009, you said that was a political thing. I don't know if it was a political thing or not. In 2009, he got his parents into it. and relatively shortly after somebody else's family member got into the Naval Terrace as well. I really... did not want to go in that direction. But I will say that it is incredibly, incredibly impossible not to look at the optics of what we're looking at here and to suggest that anything different is happening. I'm going to go to my end because this is probably better for me, you know. So, ultimately, This resulted in a federal criminal prosecution. What assurances can the administration provide that similar miscontact not occurring elsewhere in city government, such as department heads coming up and just calling people out?

That's the fact, because she might not be stealing something, but she's certainly behaving in a way that's not really professional. What independent review has been conducted to verify that other departments do not have the same vulnerabilities that existed in the elder services? what safeguards now exist that would have detected this scheme much earlier, earlier, because it's been going on from what it sounds like since 2014. And there were people there with, you know, Let me tell you, I don't think those people were afraid to go and tell the mayor what was going on. They might have even been helping and abetting. How quickly would similar miscontact be detected today? These are real questions. I mean, you can tell me you have the safeguards in place, but how quickly would these things happen?

Yeah, so I'm happy to go through the policies again. So I certainly, this is before my time. I am not aiding and abetting anybody, I promise. I also, I think... We've put some really strict policies into place and we're doing the onsites. I can't change the past. I actually don't know if I even met him. So I can't change the past. I cannot change what we've done. What I can do is control what's happening moving forward. Moving forward, we are doing annual onsites. We are doing annual reviews. We are thoroughly looking at all of these departments. My team is calling departments saying, we haven't seen you this week. What's going on? So that's something I can't go back in time, but what I can do and what I can Promise, and I hope my track record speaks for itself. My team really is fantastic. and so certainly, yes, something bad happened.

I can put all the policies and procedures into place. My policies still don't say don't steal. They still don't say that because that's the law.

They don't. And the thing is, this is one that actually stuck and somebody got caught. But this isn't the first time that you've heard of somebody's being removed because And those are the rumors, Chris, that don't necessarily make it out there. But there's lots of those, like something happened and this person's being removed because they were doing stuff during work time and they had stuff. A lot of that's happening. and I just, those are rumors though. But this one was, this was not a rumor, this was the real thing. So I question, I'm sure there's other things that are happening well within the city because, I can tell you that the bravado of who you're connected to does matter in the city. And that's not pretend. That's not a pretend thing. I mean, it just isn't. And Molly, I know how hard you work. I came and I met with you. I met your department. and I met with Paul and his department. I know that you put those safeguards into place and I know you put your best effort forward. I suggest also getting them bonded though because that would be able to be something you could have cashed in on a little bit because of the loss.

It'll probably only be $10,000 but... It's something that everybody that's carrying cash in the city should be.

So then I'd have to come for an appropriation. Dozens of people.

That doesn't matter. You can say it's dozens of people. That's like saying I'm only going to get one license to use Adobe. If you're running a half a billion dollar budget, then you need to have multiple people bonded.

We can certainly.

and if you want to cheap out on it then when the person steals which happens I'm not saying you're cheaping out but I mean if the person steals or gets robbed or something then it's Shame on us for not having that. I understand we're self-insured. What happens with the money that gets recovered from, I believe it's Mr. Clasby's pension that he's going to have to pay back? What happens to the money that goes back into the, does it go back into the, is this a question for Mr. Walker? I'm not sure who it's a question for.

I think that would be miscellaneous non-recurring revenue. I don't mean to make a joke, it's getting tense, but I think it would go into miscellaneous non-recurring revenue and it would go back into the city's coffers.

So it would go into free cash. So the reason why I ask that, because where would it normally have gone to when it comes into the same place?

So it would go into the Senior Center account.

It would go into the what?

The Senior Center account.

So with the $136,000 that would come in would normally, when it came in the right way, would go into the Senior Center account. And in this particular case, it would go into miscellaneous. Is that what you're telling me? I'm just speculating.

Sorry, I was just making... I'm just asking.

I'm asking.

I was just making a joke. I don't know where it would go. We could put it into the Senior Center account.

We certainly could do that.

I wasn't sure.

Yeah. So it's fine, you're lightening the mood. But again, when I'm looking at this, and I did, I found it a little bit just alarming for somebody who had done something so egregious to the seniors in our city, the people who we talk about and should be most concerned about, but yet nobody from the city went there.

Sorry, Councilor. Again, there were staff, city staff, from other services at the sentencing on Wednesday.

So only his family moved in, yeah.

if I may answer that question for you. The way the disposition in the federal court went, that's a reimbursement that's being paid to the city. There was no penalty assessed against Mr. Clasby. but he was ordered to return the funds in the amounts 130 some odd thousand. It's a negotiated amount. That goes back into the general fund. the only way it could go anywhere else would be through an appropriation process. But that's... I forget the term, I used to know the term, but there's a term for money that the city receives that's unassigned to any particular matter or reason, and that money goes into the general fund.

Thank you. So I guess the last question I'd have is, I've learned a lot. What has the administration learned from this? This organizational, cultural reporting, oversight, accountability, public confidence, lessons that have been implemented throughout the city government. and how do we make people realize that it doesn't matter who you know if you do something wrong, you're going to get fired? I'm just curious about that because it is a who you know here, so.

through you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I obviously couldn't disagree more vehemently relative to that. I think the track record speaks for itself that there was a person that used and manipulated the system to criminal ends, and that is what happened here. The public has shown great faith in the city. The city has shown great faith in the public. I would again look at the bigger picture and everything that goes on in this community. There is no reason and there is no real evidence that there's any sort of culture that was suggestive of what has been raised previously. It doesn't exist. People may think a certain way. They may be manipulated into thinking a certain way by certain individuals who are perpetrating crimes, but it quite simply does not exist.

All right, so I have a few questions here. Ms. Smith, if I could just ask you a few questions. So today I had the opportunity after work to go down to Elder Services and speak with Mrs. Hanley and on top of giving me a tour of everything that was going on at Elder Services, She let me sit in while they were doing the fee remittance. And she kind of walked me through the steps of how it happens down there. I guess I'm just curious what happens can you just walk through what happens when it gets to your office? So that envelope is sealed, right? It has the caches in there and it's wrapped up in the yellow sheet of paper that she has and it has the amount of people who took chair yoga, Zumba, and the amount of money. So what happens when it gets to your office?

So the format, what it will look like, will vary by department. But the procedure is always going to be the same. so the Clerk at the time of receipt will verify the cash in front of the other departmental employee who's doing the drop-off, the turnover. So we will if there's cash, a cash component. So maybe I'll, if there's cash in the turnover, we will run it through our cash recycler. That will kick out any fraudulent bills and we'll double count the amount. We'll verify that amount with what's on the turnover sheet if those two match, we will stamp it paid. We will then prepare a deposit slip to go to our bank. If the deposit has checks, if it's a small amount of checks, sometimes departments are dropping off two or three checks. We can easily do the math right there. There are some times where a department is dropping off dozens of checks. And so we don't have the capacity at that moment in time to count it instantly.

So what we'll do is we will email that department back their copy once we've verified and gone through those amounts. If there's cash, it is always being counted at the time of the turnover. As part of our new policies, you may not leave a turnover in the window without a Clerk receiving it, so I'll use Chief, I'll use police as an example where police are, they're up earlier than my staff is and so there was a moment in time where they were putting it into our windows and leaving it and so we've stopped that entirely. So Once it comes into my department, we've stamped it. We've verified the funds and the amounts. We will then batch all of the day's receipts together. We will put that into our cash book, which is a ledger. and independent ledger from Munis. We will then

input the receipts into MUNIS, into the respective code that was indicated on the turnover sheet. It will then kind of flow through the rest of the batching process. It will go over to our bank.

Okay. So do you ever actually... do any of that, or is that just somebody on your staff that does that?

Oh, we all do it. So ideally, you're separating all of those duties. And so I have a front clerk who will receive the cash, verify the cash, and Stampit. Ideally, a second person is also verifying that amount of cash, so we have a second sign-off. That person will input it into MUNIS. they will put all of the receipts from MUNIS from that day in and then it will then flow into me and I will post the entire day into the system.

So let me just kind of throw this out as an example. And I'm not saying this is you, but let's say you're related. Let's say Mr. Clasby brought those things in and you were related to him. do you think it would be okay for you to remit those fees? No.

No.

No. Because I have it, I did some research, and the former city treasurer, Deborah Coughlin, and Tom Clasby are related.

Through you, Mr. Chairman. I mean, we're getting... we are going down paths that are entirely, in my mind respectfully, inappropriate to suggest that any treasurer collector of the city had, we're just getting down to levels of insinuation that I don't believe respectfully is doing anyone any good. If there was a relationship there, it's getting, respectfully.

I'm just asking questions. I'm glad to know that you would not, you would recuse yourself as I think any person should. That's all. That's all I'm saying about that.

Yes, I would not do that.

So the person or the, sorry. the vendor who was out of state from New York. What service did they provide for the city? What service was it said was being provided?

I think it was a fraud. and a fraudulent service, so no service was provided.

Yeah, but what service did they say was being provided?

I believe it was a consulting.

Consulting for what?

Yeah. I believe it was a consulting. I'm not sure.

Sure.

that was part of the fraud.

Yeah, no, I'm just asking what was the, I mean, because there was obviously a form filled out, was obviously given to Mrs. Logan and the purchasing department, so there was obviously some you know, service that they said that they were providing. I'm just curious what that service is. If we don't know, that's okay. Maybe you can tell me later. I'm just curious.

To the extent that we're conducting a productive oversight hearing, where the legislative body of government is trying to work with the executive branch and help improve things. I can tell you that there's nowhere really to go as far as further inquiry. into the company in New York, because that was clearly a shell, although as the purchasing agent explained, it all checked out, that was part of the fraud. they had a federal ID number, they were registered in the state of New York, but they didn't provide service and I don't know if anyone read the sentencing memorandum I did. I still haven't been able to find. I checked tonight. For the first time tonight, I heard about the 2014 incident.

And the only thing I can find in the record and the Federal Court about 2014 is that when we started, that's when the city started doing, what are those sheets called for the cash? Turnover sheets. The way it's reported in the federal court is 2014 is when the turnover sheets began. There's no reference to what it is. And I saw the same thing that Councilor McKee said she saw. It was only reported in the Patriot Ledger, which I note I recently corrected some date errors in. But to the extent you want to get on that road, there's no road whatsoever to go down with former Treasurer Deb Coughlin. who is an outstanding individual, had no record of... May I finish my answer, please, and then... Well, I'm addressing the chair.

The question I had... Could I get a point of order from a Councillor? This isn't supposed to happen. No, I'm not. The question I had was what service, because there was a form filled out, it was given to the purchasing department, that said what service this fraudulent person was providing. I'm just curious, what was the service? Because I'm hoping that someone in the purchase department looked at this and said, oh, yes, this is the service they're providing. That seems logical. to the services for elder service. So what I'm asking is what was the service, the fraudulent service that was being provided?

All right, well, I answered that. And it was part of the fraud. So there was clearly no service. They were listed as a consultant. The purchasing department cannot look behind one contract for the amount of money involved when they're running 40,000 transactions a year. So that was part of the fraud. and I moved on to Councilor, I'd rather to former Treasurer Coughlin because to bring her name into this. Was the microphone just turned off?

Yep, you're all done. Thank you.

Well, I'm not all done. Okay. For the record, and I'll let at least the people present here that this is how this transparent group of individuals who are supposed to be working with the executive branch are actually working. You're making insinuations that are an absolute disgrace about a treasurer who served with honor, had no reason to recuse herself from anything. And it's a disgrace that her name was brought into it. We are here. to participate in an oversight process. and this has been a political rally similar to what I objected to back in January.

It's not an oversight process when you come in here and don't answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to answer that question? Do you know the answer to that? Chief Kennedy? Chief Kennedy? Yes, sir. Thank you. Yep. At the beginning, I don't have my notes up here. They were moved. But at the beginning, you said that a detective was dispatched out, I think, on the 18th. I don't have the notes. Can you say who that was? Who was the detective who initiated this investigation?

Yeah, so, well, I had two detectives working that night after I left the mayor's office. Detective Lieutenant Steve O'Donoghue and Detective Bill Monteith, who does a lot of our financial crimes work, happened to be working. I gave them the heads up that night and they immediately started working on it.

Thank you. I just was curious, that's all. All right. Do any of you have a question, Councilor Yuan?

Thank you, Chairman. This question is for Mr. Walker. So just follow your comment. You keep saying it's just one bad actor. One bad actor manipulates people into thinking they can't report him, intimidated him. But I want to ask, how about other employees? Like that firefighter, they are not signed petition, even he finally signed, hide his name. Who manipulated him? and the several teachers want to sign and they are not assigned, even though teacher always, teachers always teach student to uphold your constitution right. but finally themselves, they are not to sign the petition what they wanted to sign. Who manipulated them?

And this, I just ask these two questions. And I would like to know what kind of atmosphere in this city. and what's the answer the administration can give?

Right. Through you, Mr. Chairman. In response to that question, first of all, it's very difficult to know I'm not questioning your veracity, but the truth of the allegations that have been conveyed to you. So you're asking us to respond to pure speculation, I'm sure you're familiar with the fact, having worked in the public sector at the library with folks who were in a union, that there can be fissures within a union and there can be people who get along with others and people who don't and whatnot. And there are statements that can be made. So we can't respond to that type of question raised by you, because it's really in the world of allegation, human interaction that goes on everywhere. So the city is not taking any steps to address the world of rumors in the workforce.

That would be overwhelmingly difficult to do. Thank you.

Follow up. So in 2024, we did report this kind of situation, like employees want to sign the petition, but they are not. Instead of... alarmed by this kind of situation, city administration should be feel really cautious why employees are afraid of it. Instead of doing that, you are very defensive about we put forward this question. I think to work with residents to ensure a health open environment, not only for employees, for people, work together.

We should really take a serious consideration of why people will be afraid to exercise their constitution rights. I think for any officers, any employee, any resident. If you live in America, a democratic country, the beacon of democracy, you should take this matter seriously and consider how can we improve it. I just say that, okay.

All right, one of the conflicting you know, viewpoints you have to consider. You were talking of all kinds of constitutional notions and teachers teaching in high school and that's all terrific. But it's also the case that for the government, for the executive branch to get involved in a situation where people have conflicting views. And that's really what you're talking about. Some on one side of a petition, some on another. We can't be taking steps to enforce someone's right to sign a petition for fear that we will be impeding the right of someone who opposes the position. So that's our major reason for staying out of things like that. and although your general notion is a good one and a fair one, the problem is, as we've seen plenty this year,

the democratic process can get a little messy and a little difficult because views conflict. So that's why we wouldn't be taking any further steps in that regard.

and

Thank you. Since I brought this forward, I would like to ask that you just indulge me with a few closing remarks. I want to thank Chief Kennedy, Ms. Smith, and Mr. de la Barber for being here tonight and answering our questions. But I do think that there are some areas that could be improved. I think comprehensive fraud training, I'm sorry, comprehensive fraud policy, not just a cash management policy, would be beneficial. encompassing cash and procurement and municipal finance. I think that the fraud training that myself and certainly Councilor McKee have been through should be available and required of all department heads and employees. I think a third party whistleblower reporting mechanism should be implemented separate from the city. and I think a review of procurement and purchasing policies and procedures should definitely be revisited. Some of the questions that I asked here tonight, while I can appreciate why Ms. Smith was the one fielding those, Many of them really should have been gone to the purchasing.

And what I witnessed here tonight did not give me confidence that there have been lessons learned in that area. I personally had an incident with a public records request a couple of years ago. that I was asking for basic information. And the response from the purchasing head was that she found my tone threatening. She CC'd Chief Kennedy. and I never got the information that I requested and I backed off. I did feel intimidated and I did not pursue it and instead I ran for City Council again. and finally, I think that the MUNIS implementation for electronic invoice payments should be implemented across all departments within a year. and I think that that's a reasonable goal. I think it would protect against fraud, waste and abuse and help to detect any anomalies in reporting. So thank you very much for being here tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Molly, I did have a couple questions, if you can indulge me. Did you say that the site visits are annual or semi-annual?

So we've started doing them annually. It's a significant lift for my team. So there's only three people on the Treasury staff. So it's hard to take everybody out of the office. But yes, we've been doing them annually.

And are you all going together?

So it's myself and two of my staff members, correct?

Do the departments receive the annual department revenue site visit checklist? Is this internal for your office, or do you send this to the department prior to your visit?

So a little bit of both. We do prepare. We gather some information before we've gone. So just so that it's a more informed discussion. making sure they're sending us their updated policies and procedures before we go so that if we have changes I don't like to go anything without reading it through so I am a preparer for meetings and so we prepare for meetings and so we we look at their policies and procedures before we go in.

Okay. And the with respect to the actual reviews, are the reviews public or where are the reviews kept? or Held.

So they're not public. So they're not public. We certainly could look at a lot of these things. Again, the departments on the whole are doing a really lovely job. Some of these things are are tweaks to what I was referencing earlier, having a second person there when they're counting the cash, for example. So they're not public, but it's certainly something we could explore.

And you mentioned this is largely modeled after the town of Sterling, is that right?

So maybe a point of clarification. So DLS, Division of Local Services, had gone into the town of Sterling I presume for some type of review and they drafted financial policies for the town of Sterling. So when I was doing research because my goal was is always like well what is everyone else doing so I was trying to find best practices for the senior center and so if DLS was kind of blessing those best practices, my thought was we should do the same. And as I was doing the reading on that, we were already doing it.

and then this may be a good note for you to end on, at least with my questions. I do have a few other points, but I know you have a program, an app rolling out on July 1st. I think what Thank you very much. You have Paik, Quincy, MA rolling out next week if you wanted to touch on that.

Yeah, thanks for the plug. So yes, we are launching a new online payment system with the goal really being to give departments the opportunity and the the mechanism for accepting non-cash or check payments. And actually, Councilor Ryan, perfect timing. So, Councilor Ryan had the same question on can we look at maybe eliminating cash? And I think my prior life in the private sector, we were always striving for efficiency and that cash would have been the first thing to go. when you look at government we need to service all types of people we need to offer payment methods that for the unbanked population for people who maybe don't want a credit or debit card for Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And then I guess I'll just end, you know, I know a number of my fellow Councilors discussed tonight, you know, whistleblowing and just really reiterate that the City as an employer you know the employees of the city many are in different unions and certainly there's a human resources department you know that we are the employees of the city are afforded protections Massachusetts has whistleblower statutes and whatnot. So certainly, to the extent that that was brought up today, just make sure that, of course, everyone at home to that point. with respect to the... And Molly, this isn't really a question for you, but just something I wanted to note. internal audit service, elder services operations review date August 27, 2025. There is a spreadsheet in here with what's labeled List of AP transactions deemed suspect after review of invoices.

I just want to make sure that to the extent that this list is public that I know folks see businesses on here that certainly shouldn't be implicated in this, and I don't want to see that spiral. I know that this investigation was obviously investigated by a number of bureaus, QPD, federally, a number of different boards. So to the extent that this list has transactions from two businesses reiterate that as far as I'm concerned sitting here, they shouldn't be implicated in this. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Chairman. Through you. So, like most of us, when I saw the news reports of this fraud and crime, I was deeply saddened. I was deeply saddened by the fact that I mean, all fraud and all crime is obviously on its face bad, but this is instances of skimming dollars from seniors who have a fixed income. for chair yoga, right? I mean, just that type of thing. It was just really upsetting. Right after getting sworn in, I reached out to Director Hanley and asked if I could come down and go through all their procedures that they've put in place in her tenure. I know she came in sort of after it all happened, but I wanted to get an appreciation and understanding and just compare them to that which I'd seen in my various business careers. And she took me through all of

the different transaction handlings, the different record keepings, the different reconciliations, how cash is transferred into envelopes, reconciliations down to the $2 amounts. In some instances, the head count differed from the money count, but it was because the instructor checked in and the instructor doesn't pay for the class. So they're really getting down to the fine transactional amounts. One question did occur to me, and I know it doesn't change it from being a cash transaction, but Molly, if you might, for a moment. In order to reduce the frequency of cash transactions, is there a way that maybe seniors could put down, say, $50 and then have a credit or something? type of thing, just to reduce the volume of transactions. I know it doesn't make it cashless, but I'm just trying to think aloud a little bit on that.

Yeah, that's certainly something Director Hanley and I had looked at. The software, I believe, does provide for that optionality. I'm not sure what the fees that come with that are, but it's something I know she's been excited about trying to roll out. I listened to her budget meeting. She said she had four decades of of seniors going there. So I think that's a big breadth of different types of payment methods. So I'm sure it's something that we can roll out in the near future.

Yeah, it just might reduce the amount of cash handling. But going cashless, while it sounds great, it also has its trade-offs because now we're paying transaction fees related to that. So it erodes from the revenue in some way. But in a lot of ways, it seems like a fair balance to move as much cashless as possible. also I had Ms. Hanley take me through all of her different record keeping and where you know board of trustees Minutes were kept and all that kind of thing. And I was not surprised at all having encountered Ms. Hanley over the years. when she was the rec department, very thorough, very diligent. And so I was pretty happy to see that. I feel good knowing that the leadership in place right now going forward and for the past, since Ms. Hanley's taken the helm, is riding the ship and doing so with integrity. And I really appreciate that. And that's all I have for now. Thank you.

Yep, I'm sorry. So I don't know who to ask this for. So I think it goes back to reconciliation, if I could just ask one last question about that to you, Molly. It might be to you, Paul. I'm not sure. So you're using turnover sheets in the senior activities. That's how they pay for it. When the theft happened, were you still collecting stuff from them? Those trips and everything still went on, right? So they were collecting the money for the trips or whatever they were doing. So they're coming in, they're given the $3 for yoga, the $10 to go to bingo. I don't know what they were doing. Then some of that money paid for trips too, didn't it? So did the trip still happen even though money was being embezzled?

So they did. So after what's come out of the investigation is if you paid for the trip with a check, then that did make its way down into my department and then into the city's coffers. If you paid for that trip with cash, it was not.

So did they have to pay for it again or did the city pay for the trip? I mean, how did that get reconciled?

I'm only speaking from my thought of spending a couple weeks there after that during the incident. I believe all the trips, and hopefully I'm not misspeaking, but I believe all the trips you had to pay with a check.

Okay, so I was just asking that because again, I'm gonna go back to the fact that this is, the unfortunate part of this is that I do think that this could be happening in other departments, just saying that there's some, I feel like there's some really unstable things that were happening here tonight. but at the same time, what I realize is that the focus, this is a connected person, no matter how we look at it, you may not have met him, but everybody knew who he was, and he felt like he was above reproach. He thought he could do whatever he wanted and he did do whatever he wanted and it seems like he did whatever he wanted for a really long time without being checked and then maybe when he decided to Go just a little bit step further because they needed more money to get the money across federal lines. I mean, this is the stuff we watch on Netflix. We don't really think it's going to be happening here in Quincy. As you're reconciling, do you, the department heads that come in, because you said earlier, if they call us and say, do you send the munis reports to them or do they have access?

Some of them don't have access to munis reports, so I'm not sure if they do, to be able to reconcile it themselves, to be able to flag something that might have got misdone.

So all department heads or all departments as part of our review and is written into our new policy is that, well, new, two years. is that all departments need to be doing a reconciliation against the turnovers that they've provided us. If you've given the Treasurer's Office seven turnovers, you should be looking and making sure there's seven deposits in your MUNIS account and those figures are correct.

So the reason why I was bringing that up, and I don't think the library has a ton of free petty cash that they deal with over there. I think they do, though. And I know the director basically said, I don't know how to use Munis. and that's my concern like it's one of those types of things where you know you can put all the safeguards into it and say everybody has to do some things but if they don't have the training they don't know how to do it and it happens It doesn't happen just because you're not doing it. It can happen because everybody gets comfortable and things change and you kind of have to refresh them even though you're like, I already know how to do that. But we always take annual tests for ethics and everything else that we have to do.

or a designee. So if the department had, so I do know that there is someone in the library and I won't name names, but there is absolutely someone in the library that is looking at their munis deposits and verifying them with what my team has done.

Okay. And I do, I want to thank you all because I know how hard, I mean, you were extremely proud of your staff when I came in and the transition that you've had in that department. I'm not saying anything about any that was prior to you. I'm just saying that you run a really tight ship and I love that about you. and I also want to thank Chief Kennedy because this was probably not the highest part of your day when you come in and go, oh, it's one of ours. That's horrible to have to deal with no matter who it is. and the same thing with Paul. You kind of stepped in. But what I will say that's really disturbing to me is every time somebody stands up at the microphone and talks to us like we're doing something really bad because we're asking questions, it's offensive. That's how I feel. and that we're supposed to be working together. I mean, Solicitor Timmons came up and basically said we should be working together. And we are working together. There are uncomfortable things that we have to talk about. I'm just saying that because I have asked for things and I work well with Mr. Walker.

But when we're looking at this in particular, this is a giant stretch across a lot of departments. We don't have the procurement person here tonight to answer questions because she had to leave. because of her behavior. And her behavior, I'm going to go back to that, because her behavior is a reflection on this administration. It's a reflection on everything that we're talking about tonight, that we're asking questions and we can't have that civil dialogue back and forth She didn't come up to answer questions. She came up to attack us. That's what she was doing. She was up here like, I don't like the way you look. And I don't care about that, but I care about what it looks like to the rest of the people at home. And that's our job. We got elected to come in and ask these questions. And I didn't I didn't create the Clasby situation. Clasby created the Clasby situation. and I remember when you were growing up you were kind of like, don't hang around that one because you're gonna get in trouble. It seems like there's a lot of people who get in trouble in the city of Quincy that are part of the city of Quincy's administration. Seriously? And that's true. So be careful who you hang out with. But thank you very much. I really do appreciate everybody's willingness to come up and answer questions.

Did any of the other councillors have any questions before I? I just want to have some closing remarks as well, similar on what President Mahoney just said. This is the oversight committee. it's supposed to be somewhat uncomfortable. It's kind of where we go to ask really difficult questions. I know that in the past, there have been other chairs of the Oversight Committee where they didn't meet, no questions were asked. at least for the next 16 months, that's not going to be the case. We are going to have regular oversight committee hearings and hard questions are going to be asked. As for what happened earlier when Ms. Logan had to leave, I've known Ms. Logan for 20 years. She's always been a familiar face to me, a friendly face when I go out in public.

I was a little caught off guard by her behavior here tonight. I just want everyone at home to know that that's not the Catherine Logan that I've come to know over the last 20 years. I've known her a long time. I had her mother as my favorite math teacher in school. I know that she has done good work for the city, and we all have times that aren't so great. But it is my hope that she will reflect on this and be sending some apologies. to some of the councilors here that were spoken about tonight. On kind of a separate note about Mr. Clasby, we talked a lot about him. You know, tonight I just want to, you know, he got caught up, you know, put himself in a bad situation and he got caught up there.

I did know him. you know, just from being around in local politics for years. I was, you know, like the Mayor said on one of his podcasts when this event happened, he was surprised. I was also surprised. Mr. Clasby was always somebody at an event that would come over. and ask how I was doing, ask how everybody was doing and my family, and that's the person that I knew up until this event happened, but sometimes we, We take a separate path and we go down a dark road and people can be disappointed. So I just wanted to say that. But this will close this part of the oversight hearing. We have two more things on here.

2026-100, it's order the Quincy Housing Board appointment process review. So back on, I'll wait till, back on February 23rd, this was initially, It was initially introduced to be on the February 23rd, 2026 City Council meeting, but I believe that was the one that was canceled for the snow, so it was pushed off until March 2nd. It had to do with the appointment of two of the members of the Quincy Housing Authority Board. One of them was Timothy Baker, who is an at-large member. of the Quincy Housing Authority Board, and the other one was John Delcarly. He is the tenant representative member. So we discussed it at the March 2, 2026 meeting.

The council voted to table those appointments. and requested additional information regarding the nominees and the appointment process so that members could make fully informed decisions. The Council requests included information regarding the nominee's qualifications and prior service, as well as documentation related to the tenant representative appointment process under General Law Chapter 121B, Section 5. The council made these requests not as a criticism to any individual, but as part of the responsibility of this council to exercise thoughtful oversight and to ensure that public appointments are being made through a transparent process that complies with the applicable state law. Since March 2, members, I know I have, and I know Councilor Yuan has, of the council have continued to seek additional information. I recognize that gathering records and coordinating responses can take time.

but I am disappointed that none of the requested documentation has been provided here tonight. I had hoped that by the time of today's hearing we would have information necessary to fully address the Council's questions and bring this matter to a conclusion. I believe that both the council and the administration share that same goal to ensure that the public has the confidence in the appointment process in the important work that has to be done by the Quincy Housing Authority Transparency and communication are essential to maintaining that confidence. Today's hearing is not intended to assign blame. Again, it's not. Rather, it's just an opportunity to better understand the process that, if it was followed, to obtain the information we had requested and to work collaboratively towards resolving any outstanding questions.

I appreciate everyone has taken the time to participate in this process and I remain hopeful that through open dialogue and cooperation we can provide clarity for the council and the residents of Quincy Housing and to the broader Quincy community. With that, I look forward to any discussion that's going to happen here tonight. And I'm going to ask Mr. Walker to tell us why we don't have the information that we requested three months ago. Hold on, I'm sorry. Through you, Madam. Mr. Chairman.

You know, quite simply, I think we talked about it last week. I think the communication to the administration relative to some initial questions I think that was responded to and there was some slippage there. The council then filed a comprehensive order requesting documentation, ordering documentation. There were some issues with that. administration has not signed that order. It has not evaluated that order. We're within the timeframe of that. So based off of the fact that that order was submitted last week with a lot more We're taking our privilege and determining how best to handle what was actually filed in the order and address it in the fall.

So I'm going to say something. I'm going to put on my work hat for a second. So it's the end of the school year, right? And what do you think I got going on at the end of the school year? Who's coming up to me every five seconds? I need extra time for this. I need extra time for that. And I say to them, you can have that time, but I like to put it right back on the students. How much time do you need? So I'm gonna ask, how much time do you need to get the documents that we've requested?

There's two things. First, there's what was in the actual order and whether or not all of that documentation was properly requested. Secondly, the base level information that you have sought I think will most certainly be ready to go in the fall.

Okay, so there's one piece of information that I would like immediately, and we did talk about this offline earlier, is the letters that went out to the tenant agencies because I You know, you said you could get that for me tomorrow.

I believe so.

Okay, so you believe so or it's gonna happen?

This is, Mr. Chairman, this is not a court of law.

Well, no, because the thing is, according to state law, you have to let that sit for 90 days. So what I'm saying is, if the letter doesn't exist, we should get that letter out ASAP so that way at the end of the summer, the 90 days, we get to the end of September, the 90 days has gone by. That's why I'm looking for that letter so we can actually make sure we're following the state law. So do we think we can have that letter tomorrow?

Believe so.

And if the letter was not produced or can't be produced, would the administration be amenable to producing a letter and starting the nomination process over for the... Look, again...

The order is not properly before this body as it was submitted last week because it has not been signed. Whether or not it's a proper order or not is being reviewed. that's the direction we're going. We'll file what we need to file and we'll be ready to go in the fall. I would just say from a practical perspective that the mayor's appointees are already sitting they've been sitting. These are follow-up terms that the mayor's appointees succeed until their successors are appointed. If this body does not choose to confirm those appointees, those members are still members of the body.

Correct, but we still need to make sure we're following the state law, which says that when their term expires, which was on February 2nd, 90 days before that, we were going to submit a letter to the 10 or 11 tenant agencies in Quincy Housing, which we're required to do by law, and as far as I know from the tenant agencies I've talked to, they did not receive a letter. So that's why I'm trying to confirm if a letter exists. So I am hoping that we can get that tomorrow. So that way, if we don't have it, if for some reason it doesn't exist, and again, as you said, it's not really a huge deal because the members are already sitting, but we can at least get the ball rolling so that we can come into compliance with state law.

See what I can do.

Okay. Any other councillors have any questions? Councillor Yuan, hold on one second. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chairman. So I would like to let the resident know how this confirmation process is. So in March, Administration just send two orders, ask City Council to confirm two appointees of the housing board member. with no CVE, no information whatever, and they just give it to city council, say confirm it. Confirm what? And is this the standard practice of administration to submit appointment for City Council to confirm. I just feel that's very strange. I would like to ask Ms. Walker, is that the standard practice of the administration, just submit to order, say, confirm these two appointments with no information, whatever?

how do we know these two appointees CV, previous experience, qualification, and We have to do research and find out, oh, this is the current incumbents. So if it's incumbents, you should have a performance record. and for, I know why you are not rushed, because without a confirmation, since they are incumbent, they can still sit on that seat to keep collecting compensations until you find the from the new appointee to conform. So they don't care, they're just sitting there. Doesn't matter you conform or not conform. So the whole confirmation process is become a ceremonial. at least for the previous city council, I guess, if they do like this, just confirming without any information. But we don't want, this city council don't want to just do ceremonial work.

We want to really, if you want me to confirm, give me information. Let's check if this one is qualified. Otherwise, how can we confirm it?

I would like to know Mr. Walker's opinion about this. Look, there's been a process here. The council's asked for subsequent information that has not been asked for previously. Initially, it was going to be scheduling the two appointees in front of the body. the council was within their rights to ask them questions. That changed too. Different kinds of information culminating in last week, a couple weeks ago, when the council reminded that we hadn't addressed this issue, which I took ownership of, that we have not. and then subsequent to that, there was an order that was put in place which sort of now trumps our response to anything. We're going to evaluate that order. We may not sign that order. We may be able to provide the information that the council feels appropriate.

That's essentially where we're at. It's not overcomplicated. It's not any attempt at anything. The information requested has moved a little bit. We've certainly... not been in any great hustle, sure, but it's not that complicated.

So in the first meeting, I did ask at least the administration have to provide a CV, the performance record, any statement of conflict interest to the city council, the basic information. But how many months passed, three months passed? the administration never get back to me. And then I emailed you several weeks ago. I asked her, so what's the standard administration's process to do this confirmation, specifically, what kind of information usually administration provide to the city council about this appointee for confirmation? And you said, Oh, that's on me, and I will see what I can get to the city council. That's it.

Till now, I still didn't get anything.

Again, because there's an order that's been passed by this body. that trumped my last discussion on this prior to the order being filed was we will discuss and perhaps we can get that done at the meeting on the 17th. but the meeting on the 17th, an order was filed. That order now formalizes a process, it formalizes the council's wishes, which is fine, in a way that needs to be reviewed by legal to see if it's in proper, since it's an order, whether or not it's properly in front of the body or not, and that's the way we're going to approach this.

My next question, is this always this way when the previous city council confirmed the appointees?

No, usually what will happen is the council will ask If the appointees can appear before the body, and if that's the case, they'll appear before the body, answer a couple questions, and we generally move on.

So thank you, and I hear you on that, and I know that that's how this conversation started, was that they were going to come before the body, and then you had said to me, that you didn't think that at least one of the parties was capable or would be comfortable doing that. And I said to you at the time that I totally understood. I could understand that. I think that person, after going through the meeting minutes, does very valuable work on that board. And I think that's what kind of like precipitated the discussion about us maybe having like a, I know this was just kind of like a back and forth, like a resume and or a statement of interest. I know those were kind of more informal, and we do go back and forth about that a few times, but those things never materialized.

there's a whole slew of different reasons for that, I'm sure, but that was the catalyst for the order because, again, we're working together here the congenial way in which we were working together seemed to be kind of breaking down. I don't know why, because it always seemed very much like, oh yeah, we're going to get that to you. Oh, this is going to happen. There was never any breakdown about it, but then nothing ever materialized. So that's one of the reasons why I put the order forward. And it really just is those same things that we kind of more informally talked about you know, offline. You know, but again, I do want to get these two members confirmed. I know that they sit on the board. until their successors are chosen.

But the people who I represent, a lot of people who live in housing, they have concerns. and they feel like this is just another kind of slap in the face that like their concerns aren't heard. They feel like their concerns aren't heard at the Quincy Housing Authority board meetings. and now they feel like the city council, well, not the city council, they feel like the administration is laying them down because it's the administration's responsibility are all required to follow this state law. And it's not, this is not in an effort to chastise the administration. This is our responsibility. this is our duty to some of our most vulnerable residents. This is their one,

are all representative on the board, and they already feel like the board is not doing a great job representing them, and now they feel that their one representative is not even being held to task for their own confirmation. I'm just going to open it up to anybody else who has a question about this. Councilor Mahoney, hold on one second.

I really have a question, but I do think we have time to come back at the beginning of September for this, and we could probably just move this. And if you do have anything, Mr. Walker, that you can share with them, great. and if it can't be in the first meeting in September, maybe it can be the second meeting in September, but we're not gonna solve this tonight.

So the other thing on the agenda tonight is the resolve that I have. Sorry, 101-2026-101. It was read at the City Council meeting last week, so I won't read it again. I'm hoping that... and my fellow Councilors have had time to review this. Basically, just as a summary, there's five members on the board. One is appointed by the Governor, and that's Josephine Shea right now. Two are appointed at large. Another one is appointed at large but needs to be an AFL-CIO member. And the last one is the tenant representative. All this resolution does is ask the mayor when making his appointment to the Quincy Housing Authority Board that he consider

appointing from one of the at two large members or at large members or two of them, did he consider appointing another member or somebody who lives in housing? I think I had said at the previous meeting that there's kind of like two, I don't want to say, there's obviously more than two camps, but there's two large camps in housing. there's elderly and then there's family housing. It does seem like the elderly housing, tenant representative has been someone who lives in elderly housing and the people who live in family housing feel like their voices aren't being heard, so I would entertain a motion to accept this order, 2026-101. to move it into the General City Council meeting for passage.

Not out of committee. It's in the calendar, so you can just pull it up. All right, we don't need to move that. I thought we had to vote on that. But again, I hope that in the general council meeting, my fellow councillors, that we will pass this. Again, it doesn't... Riley, hold on one second.

Sorry. So we're going to just take this up under reports of committees? Okay. So I would just like to make a general sort of statement, because I know I've said it before, that these boards, committees, and commissions... There are definitely lots of people in the city of Quincy that would love to be participating in a lot of these, and it does seem like most people are appointed, sometimes for decades. I hear there's a book that has all the expiration dates of when people are supposed to be. In the case of this one, because it's federal housing, I would imagine that's why it needs to come to the city council. Not all appointments come to the city council, but it does seem like in this particular one, kind of in a funny way. I had attended the Quincy Housing Authority board meeting as I had done several of them. And I told them, you have two appointees whose term is expiring. And the question they asked me was, which two? they didn't know which two were expiring.

And so I told them and then a few weeks later this order came. So I'm gonna reiterate that these boards, committees and commissions have been locked up for far too long. If there's expirations of terms, nobody pays attention and it's something that really should be revisited. I think there's one person that handles the book and the appointments and there should be a little bit more opportunity for people to be involved in these boards.

Anyone else for any comments on this? I just also want to say that I did reach out to the Housing Authority. They have a very usable website. There's also a member on there that's the AFL-CIO member, and I did ask them just for kind of transparency purposes to label them as the AFL-CIO member. They told me they weren't going to do that, but I did. I did ask them to do that. So I think that would be useful for someone who's doing some research like I was doing at the time to try and figure out who was who and who was meeting which qualification. But I just wanted to add that in. I don't have any other questions. I need a motion to adjourn this oversight committee meeting. We have a motion to adjourn from Councilor Riley. Very good. All right. We're all set here. Thank you so much.

And we'll move on to, we're doing rules? Rules.

Okay. So I would, before we go into the Rules Committee, I would like to open the Ordinance Committee meeting for tonight as well. And then I will recess the Ordinance Committee meeting and now we'll go into Rules. So for this one, this is where Councilor Yuan has put this forward. like the first thing when we first took office. So this is an ordinance to try to ensure that we have everything posted on the website 48 hours in advance of meetings. So if there's any additional supplementary material that will go online for and everyone in the public to see.

So I'm hoping we can kind of keep this moving tonight pretty fast because we have a lot to get through. Yuan, do you want to briefly speak to this? Okay.

So, I was going to read through it so resident can hear. I didn't read the whole, did I? Okay, at least I want to read the title of each section so resident can hear. Then I have a small amendment to propose.

Okay.

So the title of this ordinance is Safeguard Transparency, Public Access to Information, and Democratic Participation in City Council Precedents. So Section 1, Legislative Fundings in the Democratic Purpose. I can read one. So, whereas the City Council of the City of Quincy affirms that a transparent government and informed public participation are fundamental to a healthy local democracy. and whereas public confidence in municipal government depends upon the timely and the meaningful access to information, used by elected officers in deliberation and decision making.

And whereas Massachusetts general laws Chapter 38, Section 20 requires that a meeting agenda be posted at least 48 hours prior to an open meeting. Excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays in order to safeguard the public's right to notice and participation. and the city councilors and the members of the public alike must be afforded adequate time to read, analyze and understand the materials related to matters scheduled for consideration by the City Council. And whereas supplemental materials, including presentation slides, reports, memorandum, and supporting documents are routinely relied upon during city council meetings and often form the basis for policy decisions affecting residents.

And whereas the late posting, selective disclosure, or withholding of such materials impedes meaningful public engagement, limits informed debate and undermines democratic accountability. and whereas the preparation and the timely posting of all necessary materials in advance of city council meetings promotes administrative efficiency, issues professional preparedness by city department in the prevent reliance on last Minnich reports or incomplete documentation for matters of significant public importance. and with us ensuring that information is accessible to public at the same time it is provided to city councilors.

strengthens transparency, protects democratic norms, and promotes trust in local government. Now, therefore, be it ordained by the City Council of Quincy as follows. So definition, agendas. Supplemental materials including any document, presentation, slide deck, report, memorandum, exhibit, data, and other written and electronic material prepared for submitted to or presented to the City Council in connection with an agenda item. Emergence, a sudden and enforcing circumstance requiring immediate reaction to protect public health, safety, or property for which advance public posting of supplement. Mental materials is not practical.

Section 3, Timely Public Posting of Supplemental Materials. This I just quickly say like 40... at least publish it 48 hours before the meeting, exclude weekend and holidays. And the limitation on late or last minute materials. and section five is prohibition on first presentation voting to protect the public deliberation. To protect informed deliberation and meaningful public engagement, the City Council shall not take final action or vote on any proposal Order, Ordinance, Resolution, Contract or other substantive matter at the same meeting at which such matter is first presented to the City Council.

unless an emergence as defined in Section 2 is declared and stated on the record. Later, I have a little amendment of this. So Section 6, Enforcement and Certification. Section 7, Transparency and Compliance Reporting. So City Clerk shall submit a new written report to the City Council, summarize compliance with this chapter. including the number of City Council meetings held, any instance in which emergency exceptions were invoked, and any known failure to timely post required supplemental materials. Such reports shall be made publicly available. So effective date. So basically is this.

So I have a little amendment to Section 5. prohibition on first presentation voting to protect public deliberation. So... So over the past six months, I have observed several orders being voted on at the same meeting in which they were first presented. Examples include Councilor Hubley's resolution urging passage of Massachusetts House Bill H-91 in the Senate Bill 2556 to modernize the funding for community media programming. The order and the order regarding MSBA accelerated repair program feasibility initiatives and the order requesting the administration to provide a two physical year capital bonding plan. So,

Because orders and resolutions do not create law in the same manner that ordinances do, I believe it is appropriate to allow some flexibility for routine or straightforward matters. Therefore, I would like to amend Section 5 so that the prohibition on first presentation voting applies only to ordinance in the contracts. So specifically, I move to strike the words proposal, order, and resolution from the relevant sentence in Section 5. so that only ordinance in the contracts and other substantive matters would be prohibited from being voted upon first presentation.

So, thank you. So, it's a motion to accept.

Yes. So, I hear a motion to amend Section 5, Striking Proposal Order and Resolution. and leaving ordinance, contract or other substantive matter. We don't need a second. On the motion? Yes, Councilor Hubley.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So I completely agree. Actually, let me back up a little bit. So one of the first conversations I had prior to getting sworn in, I want to say maybe it was back in November, maybe late November, early December, reached out to become president, Council President Mahoney, and brought up that I found that there's a lot of materials being provided sort of last minute, not getting things in enough time to review it. And the watermark that I used was So with our school committee in the city of Quincy, they receive their package of information on Friday for the following Wednesday meeting. giving them the whole weekend and a few days to digest and reach out to professionals, let's say, or someone in the administration

and the way things kind of happen on the council is you get something on Friday for the Monday meeting and you got to bug people over the weekend to get your answers. So I thought that was inefficient and I was hoping we could get a better order. I completely agree with what the intent of this is. And I also agree with the, I would say, two thirds of the amendment that is being proposed. and so I'm totally fine with resolutions. Council UN did a good example of a resolution. A lot of times a resolution is simply like, There's two good examples, actually. The QATV thing was simply to author a letter to send to our delegation to encourage them to pass something that was before that body to modernize the money that the revenue source for QATV. Another one was very time sensitive.

in that there was veterans benefits that could be impacted and we needed to get our letter in and it fell off the agenda for the previous meeting so we wanted to get it in quickly and it's simply generating a letter of support. Those things totally get it. That makes complete sense. The only thing that gives me pause are things like orders. I'm complete through you, Madam Chair, Councilor Yuen. I'm totally with you with the exception on proposal and resolution, sorry. The only thing I'm not with you on is the order one. And so my question is, I think, so for example, orders can call for money in appropriation, no? No. OK, all right. So I just want to think that one through a little bit. I did look at this and thought it was great, but that's the only thing that's getting kind of stuck. I'm wondering what types of I just hadn't had time to think through the types of orders. I thought about the other two, but just hadn't had time to think through the other orders.

I'd like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that one, just to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Yuan. I just answered his question. Just answer. Hubley's question. So order, I remember that MSBA, that accelerated repair, that did ask money, but it's called order. In my letter, I asked the administration to provide a two-physical year capital bonding plan. I also put an order. Question, if anything related to money, maybe we shouldn't vote it on the first time? Is that your suggestion?

Not just money. Money was the first thing that came to my brain, but I'm just trying to think of... you know we all campaigned on being very thorough going through the process taking our time not kind of rushing things through so I just that's the only thing that got kind of stuck. But that's why I want to hear from my colleagues just their opinions on it.

Does anyone else have something? I was going to say something. I'm raising my hand for myself. So, Councilor Riley.

You should call on yourself.

So I can understand the need to want to get all the information in advance. We've all been saying that. coupled with though sometimes the need for some flexibility. So I'm not sure how I feel about the order specific one. But I understand, and this came up with the Eastern Nazarene College presentation when we had been presented with a slide deck of 30 slides that we had not seen. So this speaks to the need to get this stuff further in advance. and so I want to be supportive of it. I want to get the language right and put forth something that we can all get behind tonight.

So just to speak on the order question, I've noticed that everything that comes before us, resolutions, ordinances, anything, has an order. number. And as I was researching things, earlier on about trying to sort all this stuff out. Things that are just orders, I think, are kind of directives. So for example, the council has the stated right in the code or in the charter that if it request information within seven days of the Mayor, then the Mayor has to come back with that information or through are representatives. So that's what I would consider sort of a directive to say, like, we would like this information.

Personally, I would strike order because there might be something that's time sensitive that we would want to be able to, I believe, like with Councilor Yuan's request for the two years of capital Project Information. So given the deadline that we were under I think that's a useful thing to be able to say. So I would argue to have order in there while also saying of course like whenever possible we should always give as much notice as possible and I think you know when you've when you've brought that up before about some things that I've said, let's do this tonight. We're in a hurry. I take your point. So I think whenever possible, we'll try to give the maximum amount of notice and not do things in the same night.

there may be times when we need to say like we need this information in the next seven days.

Yeah, and my question doesn't come up from a source of knowledge. It comes from a source of being new, right? I just wanted to think it through and to see it, because that was the only one that I got stuck on when I heard the three that we wanted to change. could I propose what would you call a friendly amendment of just doing the two and then revisiting it at a later date if we feel like it's not effective for us maybe give us some time over the summer to think about it we could always amend things right throwing it out there.

So we just strike a proposal in the resolution. So I hear Councilor Hubley's suggestion. So you mean we leave all the ordinance, the contract, and other substantive matter. in the language. So those four items shouldn't be voted on the first time it was presented, correct?

Yeah, I mean, I honestly don't know enough about the distinction between a proposal and a resolution and order. And so resolutions, I'm totally fine with because I think We have precedent for that. I'd be open to my colleagues' opinions on this, but that was the one thing.

I'm really sorry. I was having a side conversation. So what were you just saying very quickly?

I thought we were in agreement.

Just discuss if we will leave the order in the language or not.

So leaving it in means that we're not going to vote them through that night? That's the point I was going for. Whatever wording change has that effect, then that's what I'd like.

So you would like to remove order. No, not to remove order. From her amendment, apologies, okay. You would like to leave order.

in this.

I'm okay with proposal of resolution being removed.

and Councilor Yuan, you are accepting this.

I think I can accept.

Okay, you're accepting this friendly amendment, so we have a motion to amend Section 5 to delete proposal and resolution from this list. and leave order, ordinance, contract or other substantive matter. So we don't need a second. Anyone else on the motion? I'm sorry, Councilor Riley first and then Councilor Jacobs.

So I'm a little bit confused. This is where we're kind of dancing around this. I thought, Councilor Hubley, you said that you thought you would want to be able to pass an order in certain circumstances.

So we want to... No, the opposite.

No, it says the council shall not take final action or vote. So I think we need to really make sure we're stating what the language is.

Yeah, I think leaving order in, so whatever doesn't allow us to take action on an order is the language that I want.

I thought it was just ordinance. I thought we were agreeing that we would not take action simply on an ordinance, but that proposals orders, resolutions, and I guess we said ordinance and contract. I don't know when we'd vote on a contract, but I thought we were trying to say that we would take action on an order if necessary in the same night that it was introduced. It's not ideal, but that we would be able to take action if we but I'm not sure what the language is anymore.

Let me try to clear it up. I'll do my best. So there was an amendment offered to remove proposal order and resolution I made a friendly amendment to only remove proposal and resolution and leave order in there because they're of the nature of orders. But I could be wrong about that and I say I'm not speaking out of authority, I'm speaking out of being new.

Yeah, I do think that the orders, as we're talking about them, like if we really needed to do something like the order for the two years of data, If we struck this from Section 5, it might limit our ability to...

Riley is right, shall not take final action or vote. So you don't want order and you don't want proposal, you don't want resolution. You just want to keep ordinances from not passing in one night.

And contract.

And contracts. Everything else will be able to be passed in one night because it says shall not take final action or vote.

Okay. Okay. All right. I think I followed that.

I think Councilor Hubley's question is more so which of these Hubley, you're really asking whether an order is binding. if we're voting on an order or whether it's something more along the lines of a resolution or a proposal. I think that that would probably solve the confusion. So the order is usually a request, right, of we're ordering documents or something to be given to us in a certain amount of time, right? That's the only real order that would be in front of us. So with that in mind, I guess, Councilor Hubley, that may determine which avenue you're going.

Okay. I think I can accept the amendment that Councilor Li Wen put forward.

Okay, as originally put forward? Okay, so now we have the original amendment, so we would remove proposal order and Resolution. from this list. Oh, wait, because we're saying shall not take final action on it. No, yeah. So take away proposal order resolution. Jacobs, did you have something? No.

Should it say May? I'm just kidding.

Callback. Okay, Councilor Ryan.

We are removing, we are keeping ordinance and contract in Section 5 and removing proposal Order, and Resolution. Okay.

Okay, shall we take a roll call vote?

That's me.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. It would only be the committee members also. So, Councilor Ash, Councilor Hubley. Yes. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Yuan.

All right, so is there anything anyone else wants to Is there a motion or any other discussion on this ordinance? Councilor Riley?

Just a motion to move it out. a motion to accept as amended and move it out of committee with a favorable recommendation.

We don't need a motion. I should have also raised my hand first. So would you actually We need to add where in the city code this ordinance would go. So, oh, yes, Dr.

So be it ordained by the City Council of Quincy that the General Ordinance of the City of Quincy be amended by adding a new chapter entitled Transparency in the Public Access to City Council Materials. So just add a new chapter in it.

It would really fall under the City Council.

So the Council Clerk has suggested putting it in the code where the City Council is, where the City Council rules live. which I think makes sense. So that would be Chapter 19. And then we would be adding a Section 9. This would be Chapter 19, Section 9. Riley, is that all right to, if I make a motion to amend this to add Ash, this ordinance to Chapter 19, Section 9. Okay. And any on the motion? Councilor Ash?

So if you want to vote on that, that's fine.

OK. Anyone else on that amendment? Okay, shall we take a roll call vote on that motion to approve as amended with Council on putting it into Chapter 19, Section 9?

Ash, Hubley, Riley, Yuan, McKee.

Okay, so Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I would suggest and make a friendly amendment to change the word substantive to dispositive.

Dispositive.

Yes, I think that that, so this reads, vote on any ordinance contract or other substantive matter at the same meeting. I think just dispositive may be the better word to accomplish the meeting there. So instead of substantive change that to dispositive Do you

Do you accept that as a friendly amendment, Councilor Yuen? I guess first of all, could we have a definition of dispositive? I don't actually know what that means.

Yes. Dispositive means having the power to decide, resolve, or determine the outcome of an issue. having the... Having the power to decide, resolve, or determine the outcome of an issue. I guess my fear with substantive is something maybe substantive to one of us and not substantive to all of us.

Okay.

Now we're really going down the weeds. I think dispositive accomplishes what is sought with the essence of dispositive.

Okay, so we have a motion to amend Section 5 to change the word Substantive to dispositive in the list of things or other dispositive matter at the same meeting. On the motion? Oh. Council Yuan?

and just to clarify, so Councilor Lash, so if you change it to this positive, it means there will be no No discussion. Because you said substantive, maybe someone thinks it's substantive, another one is not. But if you change it to dispartive, it means no argument?

No, just... through you, Madam Chair. Dispositive would be the adjective to discern the type of matter. So a dispositive matter is a matter that where we have the power to decide in one evening. What would come out of voting on that would be something that would be conclusory, we'll say. That'd be... I'm not rehearsed here on this, but my fear with the term substantive is that I could think something was substantive and important and another of my fellow councillors could feel differently.

Right, okay, so it's substantive is a bit subjective and dispositive is... Any other discussion on the motion? Okay, can we take a roll call vote? Sure.

Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor Hubley? Yes. Councilor Riley? Yes. Councilor Yuan? Yes. Councilor Hubley?

Yes. Okay, so we might have to take another motion then to approve this as amended unless there's no other further discussion on this. Riley. Okay. Motion to approve as amended. Councilor Riley, can you please take a roll call vote again?

Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor Hubley? Yes. Councilor Riley? Yes. Councilor Yuan? Yes. Chairman McKee?

Yes.

Thank you. I think that's the only thing that we had in the Rules Committee, so now I will adjourn Rules Committee. Motion to adjourn. Okay, and now we will switch gears to ordinance committee. I want to... Okay, so.

So now we are moving into the ordinances for the raises that were passed in 2024. I just wanted to give a little update. So I had a bunch of different versions of this because I was struggling to understand whether we could repeal something, et cetera. The importance of the word repealed to me was because I was concerned about pension issues, that there existed on the books a law that said the salary is a certain amount. and how that would affect the pension. So Solicitor Timmons asked the Quincy Retirement Board for clarification on this point.

and sent an email where the interim executive director of the Quincy retirement system, Anthony Sarnacchiaro, said, you are correct, the Mayor's retirement allowance will be calculated based on his three highest years of regular compensation received. for which he received creditable service and not the amount in the ordinance. So that's comforting. I then asked Councilor Timmons if the Mayor would be amenable additionally writing a letter to say that he would not try to appeal this. I haven't seen my email for a few hours. Solicitor Timmons is there. Any update on that?

Is this still off? It's on. It's back on. Your question is whether the Mayor's going to write a letter, and I have not got an answer for that yet. You asked me on Friday. I didn't get to see the Mayor on Friday, and he was not around today. I'll suggest to you that I'm not quite certain. I mean, any letter the mayor sent you would be a word that Mr. Walker particularly likes, nugatory. It's not going to mean anything. the fact of the matter is the Quincy Retirement Board supervised by PIRAC, they determine what the pension is. And it doesn't, you know, there's, It doesn't matter what the mayor thinks or what a court appeal might be.

There's a formula, and it's based on whatever money you've paid into the system, and that money is taken from your actual paycheck. So what was explained in that letter to you, that's outcome determinative here.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. So and I don't know if you had a further chance to look at these ordinances that I gave you. I think I made all the changes you suggested. Were there any additional issues?

No, I got them this morning, and they're all brief, which that's always a good thing. Brevity can frequently result in better clarity. the amendments you made are, they're actually the ones I suggested quite some time ago. It was really the word repeal that was an issue and I'm delighted we got that resolved.

Yes, thank you. So I had sent my ordinances that I solely wrote and there was no outside counsel involved to Solicitor Timmons and he was kind enough to make some suggestions and I have just sent those around here. I am comfortable not using the word repeal and instead using the word delete in some cases or amend in some cases because we specify what the salary is. and because we have this letter from from the Quincy Retirement Board so thank you for getting that. So I I move to accept order 2026-029 as amended. in the documents before you.

This is setting the mayor's salary to the current salary that he's actually receiving and not the $285,000. So our, yes. On the motion, yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This particular item's been going around for the last two years. It's been a long, what's that, 48 months, whatever? 24 months. You know, what's weird to me is the mayor stated in October 2025 that he was going to come in with the lower amount from 285 to 225,000. He stated that to the newspapers, to the public, and with the condition that he wouldn't proceed with anything until the new term had come in and whomever the new Councilors were going to be would have an opportunity to speak about the $225,000 adjustment.

So council order 2026-012 came in on January 20th of 2026 with this new council. So it's $60,000 less of what is the $285,000 proposal. So he, the mayor, had already suggested that he wanted to go down to his salary, the $225,000. What confuses me is why don't we just talk about that? Why do we have to do this?

So as we've discussed in previous ordinance committee meetings, we're going to, I think, do this in two parts by necessity because The first part is repealing, deleting, amending the ordinances that still exist on the books. So the ordinances that still exist on the books have these higher salaries. even if the Mayor is not taking them, they just still exist. So the first step is to sort of clear the paperwork and undo that. And then the second step, which I would like to still pursue beginning in the fall, is to discuss the 225, discuss all the other numbers as well. and have a rigorous discussion with data from comparable positions, et cetera.

So just to clarify, I should have said that before, these three orders before you are just trying to sort of Clear things away so that we can start from scratch. And that's what we're doing here. That's why it's going back to the original salary.

So you're going to come in the fall, fall of 2026. Yes. September.

Yes.

OK. So you're going to come back in September after this break.

And we'll start discussing.

And you'll start discussing the 225. So that'll be on the table. Yeah. OK. that's good clarification because in my thoughts is if you're going to do this why don't we go right into the 225 and start discussing it now so you want to collect data is that what you want to do?

I want to collect data. I want to have discussions with everyone. Yeah, this was one of our top priorities for a lot of us when we got into office. And so I would like to get this part of it done. before the break, and then we will come back and discuss it.

So me and you have a clarification that 225 is going to come in in the fall, in September, and we'll all be able to speak about it?

That will be part of the discussion, yes.

Okay, okay. That's fair enough. You're running the ordinance, so I don't know what your thinking is. We don't talk outside of this. I don't know when you're coming in with these particular items and that's been proposed back in January. So I would have thought that we were gonna speak about it in conjunction with this particular item. It kind of goes hand in hand, to be honest with you.

I think in the past I've talked about separating it out so that we could do a second one, but I realize that it is quite confusing. I mean, honestly, this this issue of salaries and what we can and cannot do legally has been really naughty and I think actually is the case for a lot of communities around the state because you have two laws that say directly conflicting things about what you're allowed to do. This council can't do certain things that affect our salary now. So we've written, some of us have written letters for this term, et cetera. It's just gotten, it's been very confusing.

So he did write a letter. You know, deferring it. Looks like the original councilors did.

Yeah, but it's still on the book, so that's what we're doing here. We're just trying to clear the books from the previous ordinance that set the salary at $285,000.

It's still confusing me because he's never received it. He's never taken it. I don't think, sometimes people in the public, to be honest with you, still to this day think he took the salary increase. They still don't know that. Yeah. Because it's headlines. Bandino's up there. He's got great headlines.

Councilor Mahoney has a comment.

You don't see the true facts. And I'm just trying to state the true facts.

I think Councilor Mahoney can speak now.

Sure. Go right ahead.

So the facts are that there was one report, and this council said yes to that one report for 285, and the public really was upset. There was a signature drive, and that's also out there. and I think the signatures were due back. I'm not sure where that stands, but that was to 183. The Mayor did put his own ordinance in for 225 and he did defer his salaries, what he was calling a deferral. but he couldn't take that salary because the state came back, ethics came back and said you couldn't take it. Ethics also came back and said that the counselors couldn't take it. So it's not like you were doing a big thing, you were just doing what the ethics told you to do. So where we're at right now is you have an ordinance on the table that says the mayor's salary is at 285. We're going to, I'm not going to try to use the right word, we're going to delete. amend, delete that salary back to the 150. We have the ordinance that the mayor put in for 225, and we will probably be getting soon enough from the judge what our next call will be whether that's accepting it or letting it go on to a ballot.

But my guess is we will want to have that accepted here. So we'll be at 183 to 225. and that's phase two of this. This is really just bookkeeping to make sure that we're taking care of this, where there's no mistakes of how we're handling it. The big question that we had here was the word repeal. I think that's all fixed now. So this just simply takes it back to the same place it was. currently Mayor Koch is being paid. I don't think there's anybody that's suggesting that he's not. The salary would go up at the next election. and I think the conversations that we have to have here in the council have to happen in the next six months so that we can come to that conclusion as to what the salaries will be for both council and for the mayor. And I think it will be a fair conversation that will be driven by data that we'll all have, and it may be someplace between 183 and 225. He set the cap at 225. It was 285 when he came back and said, you know, I'll take 225.

That's great, but the job of this council is to come up with the data that actually supports what that salary is going to be. So I just want to make sure we explain the will of the people would have been if that ballot question got onto the ballot. It would have been last November that would have been done, but that didn't happen. So that's also kind of tied up in court. So we're just trying to get this passed. I believe the goal tonight is to get this passed a step so that we can come back in September and start doing the due diligence that we said we would do to be able to come up to that position of what the salary should be for the mayor. I really don't think anybody here, I know I haven't said, that the mayor doesn't deserve a raise or the person who sits in the mayor's seat. We always keep saying it's not the person, It's the position. But in this particular case, I do believe that 285 was for the person, not the position. I think that's the difference there. And that's what residents felt.

Now we're taking this conversation back to say this is about the position and now we want to be fair about what we're doing and whether that lands at 183 because some people feel strongly that it's 183 and some people feel strongly that it should be 285 and other people feel it should be 225. but the cap is now 225 because the mayor brought it in at 225 so that will be the cap and the base will be 183 because there was a petition out there I believe when the judge comes back to tell us and I think that's where we're at so I think I'm perfectly okay to move on, but I just wanted to make sure that I stated that for the record. So, you know, because there's nobody that's trying to fool anybody or cause any damage to anybody.

Thank you. Councilor Hubley?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I came in prepared to support the contention that Solicitor Timmon said about the repeal things. I reached out to other people and work in municipals and talked to one that's been on for like 17 years or so. He was like, yeah, if you do the repeal thing, that will kind of wipe everything out. So I'm very happy to hear that tonight where it's, I want to, I commend Chair McKee with a K for for collaborating with Mr. Timmons and following his guidance. I think that's a good example of working together with the administration, so I appreciate that. And so I'm prepared to support these, but I'd like to hear my colleagues.

Reilly.

Yeah, so could we just get an update on where the ballot signatures sit? I thought that we were supposed to have them certified last week, which would have been nice to know where that was, where does that stand legally?

I don't think we, I certainly don't know. My intention, just to share it with the body because I guess if those signatures are... Could we just get an update? Okay.

Thank you.

Simmons, do you have an update that you can provide the Council on where the petition signatures stand?

I do not really. I have not been directly handling that case. I'm aware of it. And I know that there was some talk going on at the end of last week. I saw one of the plaintiffs here, someone with whom I've spoke on a few occasions, I was going to try to catch him to see what his thoughts were, but there was some talk going on. I know that the city clerk's office has completed what the court ordered. regarding the count, but both sides, the lawyers on both sides have questions that they're sending back to the court to get some clarification. So it's still kind of, floating but closer to an endpoint.

So, and then whenever this comes to, whenever the various parties come to a mutually agreed upon decision, potentially that language could come back to this body for acceptance as is.

No, it'll be a court order.

A court order.

But the actions of the body tonight could end up mooting that case. That's another question I'm not fully aware of. We'll have to see.

All right.

But a court order is a court order. It's not going to come back here for any reason.

Okay, so I think there's so much uncertainty with what's going on with the court that I think we can move forward on deleting, amending, repealing these. Yes, Councilor Riley. That was my question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

So, Solicitor Timmons, I guess that was my follow-up question to you. If we take action on this tonight, is it going to impact that court case in any way? To the best of your knowledge, I realize you're not the one overseeing that, but... Well, the essential question... What I don't want to do, let me just... Sorry, don't mean to interrupt. I don't want to further complicate this. So that's my question, is if we take the action and we vote this positively tonight... is it going to affect the court case in any way to the best of your knowledge?

Okay. It's been my position all along and You know, I don't believe that it has ever been not accepted by the council that the law is clear that the council sets the salary for the mayor and the city councilors. So the action you're taking now is well within your authority. because of how things played out a year ago, there was a group of folks who filed a lawsuit because they didn't agree with how they had played out. but I think you know I'll definitely be reporting the outcome of what goes on here at this meeting. And I know the judge has been monitoring whether the council was gonna take action on these motions. Because these motions address the essential questions.

I can't speak for the plaintiffs, but these motions are returning the salaries to what they were at the time when the plaintiffs brought their lawsuit. but it may be the case that they have some further discontent and that they'll continue to pursue it. I'm just not certain. But I think that these are autonomous. Rales, and that the Council is acting within its authority. that you could have done this last January or a little later. I think if the Chair and I hadn't got into the little squabble about repeal, it probably would have been done because the essential Ash,

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm just looking at the docket online. It looks like the initial deadline for the city to look again at the signatures was June 18th at 5 p.m., which would have been last Thursday, I believe. there was a joint motion to extend, meaning both parties, the city and the plaintiffs in both cases filed the joint motion to extend that deadline to this Friday at 5. and which was allowed. So as far as I can tell, it looks like the current deadline for the Clerk's Office to revisit those signatures is this Friday at five.

Thank you for looking that up. All right, so I have a motion on the table to accept this amendment in front of us for 2026029. Hubley, deleting the $285,000 in the ordinance and inserting the 15943. Anyone else on the motion? Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the clarification that we were going to revisit this in September. For me, the 225 is already on the table. And for me, I don't think there's no need for this, to be honest with you. Just take it a step further. He's already agreed to go to 225. It's on the books. 2026-012 on January 20th. It's on this new City Council. That'll be my reasoning, by the way. That'll be my reasoning, that the 225 is already proposed and on there. No taking, please. No, because sometimes it's written

clarify, so you'll be voting no, I assume.

Yes, I'll be voting no on this because the 225 already exists.

Right, okay.

So for me, there's no need to do this.

Is there anyone else on this motion?

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley, Ryan, Council Yuan. Sharon?

Yes. OK, thank you. It passes 8 to 1. Just for those at home, 8 to 1, Councilor DiBona, the no vote. Okay, 20-26-0-3-0. Oh, I'm sorry, we pass as amended. Yes, thank you. Do I need to make another?

I'm going to put you down as the motioner. So that was just to accept the amendment.

Oh, that was to accept the amendment. Now we have to accept the motion as the order as amended. Yes. OK. Riley, would you like to make just a motion? Yeah.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley, Ryan, Walker, Yuan, Chairman McRaven. Yes. 8 to 1.

OK. 8 to 1 passes. Councilor DiBona is the no. 20-26-0-3-0. I make a motion to accept this amendment that sits before us that puts the council salary from $44,500 back to 29,800. Because we cannot change our own salary by ordinance during this term, it'll have to start January 3rd, 2028 at the start of the next term. DiBona, on the motion. Councilor DiBona. Councilor DiBona on the motion.

Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate your amending this and writing it a little bit differently, which is good. Let's take a step back here. Let's go into this one a little bit here. You write in here the deferment letter, which was not aware of the new city councilors, because it was confidential at the time. So all city nine councilors signed it. They were deferring their raise. back in October of 2024 to be pushed to January of 2026. That's if you won the seat. And we did that. Take it a step further with the deliberations of that salary. It was originally salaried at $47,500. The motion was made by Councilor Ash to decrease it $33,000. I seconded it, and it became $44,500.

So clarification purposes. There was a discussion. We knocked it down 3,000. It got to 44,500. The only two people that got it was me and Mr. Ash, because everybody else had been unseated. So just, you know, I think, and you know, it's funny because I was over the summer, and he's sitting in the audience tonight. I ran into Mr. Mike Cotter at Stop and Shop. I was getting groceries as I was coming out this summer. He was getting ballot initiatives, signatures. He directly said to me that I'm okay with the salaries of the councillors. I think you deserve it. He also stated a step further, that he was okay with the school committee at $20,000. Now, no one ever talks about the school committee's increase three years ago that went from $9,000 to $20,000, which has more than doubled.

No one speaks about it. It's unheard of. But he was okay with it. He said those two salaries, school committee and city council, should be those rates, should be that salary. So I said thank you. We had a conversation. But that was our conversation. I had it that summer. Just for clarification purposes. Okay.

So... Councillor DiBona, if you wouldn't mind, we do have to get through. Is there...

Oh, I haven't talked all night. I let you guys deliberate. And to be very honest with you, You know, I have a rule book here and rule 10 says I have up to 15 minutes to speak. I'm going to speak about this matter as long as I can before I need to. I got 15 minutes in the book. And it also says rule 11, speak into quorum. No member shall interrupt while speaking. I'm not finished. I'm talking about this item that's on the table right now. I have that right.

OK. I apologize.

Go ahead. I didn't speed anybody up that went over 15 minutes on all these other deliberations. But for this one, I don't feel like we should do this. Now is this another one we're going to revisit in September?

All of them. So all of the ones that we're dealing with tonight is kind of bookkeeping. And then we're going to discuss with data what the salary raises should be because nobody thinks that there shouldn't be a salary raise for the council or the mayor. It's just I think the process was not One that was clear, transparent, and involved public input.

But there was nothing that was done that was wrong. We deliberated about it in the City Council, this particular item.

It was voted on, but there wasn't public input.

Did it exist back then?

Well, there were many requests for public hearing on this issue, and they were denied.

who was the council president? Who was the ordinance chair? Who was the finance chair? That's like me telling you or President Mahoney or Councilor Riley, I don't like the way you're running these meetings. I want to oppose them.

So I think what we have before us, we have before us this ordinance. We have a motion on the table. We will get back to what level they should be in the fall. but I would respectfully request that we keep our comments very specific to this ordinance right now.

Okay, I'm almost done. Thank you. But I'm not going to support this. I mean, you have a situation where you're kind of going backwards here. This has already been initiated. This is another one I don't understand. I really don't, but I appreciate you coming back in in September and revisiting this. So you're gonna come in in September of 2026? Yes. Okay, thank you.

Sure, Councilor Mahoney? again. This is, I think you were in the same election as we were, Noel, and people were very upset because there wasn't input on it. And I understand that Councilor asked to drop the salary from 47 to 44. and it could very well be the salary could be 44 but it needs to be a real discussion with data-driven information. It's as simple as that and I know it can be very threatening when you have a raise and somebody's talking about dropping it back to 29. We're not asking you to drop it back to 29. We're just saying that the salary should be 29. We can have this conversation. I think what we really should be focusing on is not taking as much time as we need to get this through, but to start really deliberating about this in September so we can get to an answer so that we can have it done.

but to do that we have to get past this point so I will be supporting this and I will be supporting the deliberations as we bring information forward because I think it's an important piece of what people were looking for in that last election which is really just how do we come to these How do we come to these numbers? How do these things happen? And it's not just the salaries. It's a lot of things in the city. How does this happen? How does this happen underneath somebody's watch? and that was a big, you're right, I appreciate the fact that you are here, but I appreciate the fact that we have to have these conversations and you'll be part of them, so I think it will be a good conversation.

Okay, very briefly if we can.

Yep, just to follow up on that, I agree 100% that we're gonna have this conversation in September and we'll have a little more data. And I appreciate that that's not on here. It's not on the... Jacobs.

Thank you. Good evening. I just want to thank you, Councilor McKee, for really keeping us on track. I will be supporting this tonight. I do want to just echo some of the things I heard here. There was an election. This was a big part of the election, obviously. there was a group that started the petition to lower the salaries originally. as part of that group. My front porch was one of the areas where hundreds of people came to sign the petition. And the biggest question I got was people, or the biggest thing I noticed was that people didn't want to sign the city council one. You know, for every like one signature someone would sign the city council, like four people sign them, the mayors raise one, right? So there is a sentiment out there which has been, you know, mentioned here by Councilor DiBona that, you know,

and a member of the audience that, you know, there is some sentiment out there that people are not as, you know, affronted by the city council one, but I do believe that in my heart of hearts that the process was flawed. I do want to just say to this board, the city council, that it's very possible that this could come back at $44,500. I don't know. I do believe that there should be a public comment, a period where people can address the addressed the City Council. And I think that would, if that had been done and the Finance Committee Chair was former World One City Councilor, I think things could have stayed just like this and we probably might not have had the election that we had back last year. So that's all I want to say about that.

Thank you.

Council Yuan? Thank you, Chairwoman. So I would like to say from my experience about connecting signatures to repeal race and organize protesting, I feel people mainly upset about two things. One is the process. So the former city council just rushed through approved mayor's 79% pay raise and themselves 50% pay raise without giving a single public hearing. despite the widespread protesting. So people are upset with that. Second is they do think 79% of the pay raise from 150 to 285 is too huge a jump.

so the new salary 285 will put mayor's salary the top three or top four like mayor's in whole nation so people compare the Mayors in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Houston, and they feel like Mayor of the City of Quincy, compared all those big cities, how come the Mayor of the City of Quincy... get paid more. I think I heard the people talking about that. They also... In the beginning, some consulting company suggested the number, the higher the range, the higher end is 385, even 385,000, right? 370. 370.

And the lower end is 295, right? Yeah, I remember that. So Mayor even didn't take that suggestion. So he suggested 285,000. I just think... that number given by that consulting company is totally out of touch. I feel the reason we want to do this to kind of going back to like have a clean slate so we can have a proper process then compare other city, other towns and do analysis so with residents involvement with this new council we can set up proper processing to get a number for the race. We never say like a mayor or council shouldn't have any race. So that's just my comment.

Ash.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have just a couple comments and then for a potential amendment. But I appreciate that, Councilor DiBona. I did make the revision to the initial proposal from 47,500 to 44,500. that was quite frankly the revision that I thought would have support. I know that I voiced, My concern over the process, as did Councilor DiBona, and that concern is largely what led itself, I would like to think anyway, to the next agenda item, which is 031 in the CPI index. there was really no path forward to future increases or future revisions. I understand that those parameters are not perfect, but that was quite what the will of the body was at that time.

I look forward to discussing those, the potential increases or revisions to that in the future. Obviously this is a matter that is garnered a lot of engagement and certainly people that have organized and made their voices and their opinions known, and that is hard work in and of itself, so whether or not you agree with the mission, certainly commend those people for using the democratic process to do that. but that being said, I do look forward to discussing these more in the fall. I think all of my fellow Councilors are now six months in realizing the all encompassing nature and the greatness and also the time consuming. are all part of this gig, which makes it so great and so rewarding.

And part of actually this ordinance is must feel to all of my freshman colleagues, are all part of that reward in a way. So I just would be remiss not to say that. I did similarly take issue with the repeal word and sentiment. I am fine with with this as it stands, with the delete or amend, and look forward to discussing it more in the fall. I will suggest one final point, Friendly amendment to this, and that would be to strike the clause that says after the State Ethics Commission raised conflict of interest concerns. simply because that isn't in the mayoral revision.

and I do think it reads, you know, if we just say it was administratively deferred until January 5th, I think it accomplishes that without kind of, you know, the negative connotation of that clause.

So just to clarify, the reason why I had this preamble for the council one as opposed to the mayor one is because I wanted to clarify why this change wasn't taking place until 2028 because we'd gotten a lot of criticism for somehow getting into office and then grabbing the money, etc., etc., when we really couldn't do anything about it. through this ordinance process. So that's why I included the preamble here. I see your point that it's sort of suggesting maybe that there's something different about the council versus the mayor, but given that the whole front is different in this order,

I would tend to leave it because it's accurate and it gets a point across that there were reasons why The previous council had to defer taking those raises. It was because of this state conflict of interest law. Councilor Riley.

Yes, am I on? I'd like to make a motion to accept Councilor Ash's friendly amendment. I don't think it adds anything to it and it's fine without it.

Okay, so we'll take a vote on the friendly amendment. Yeah.

Thank you, Councilor Riley. But really, you know, the goal, I think, with the legislation that we're drafting, it should be as... Subjective as possible. And I think that this specific clause, so how it would read without this clause would simply say, whereas ordinance 2024-056 established a salary of each city councilor 44-5, effective January 1-25, and was administratively deferred until January 5, 2026. I don't think it takes anything away, and I think it's certainly accurate. So that's why I would suggest that amendment. If we could take a vote on that, I'd appreciate it.

Okay. Actually, I noticed that the next part, the whereas, actually mentions the state conflict of interest law anyway. I changed my mind. I'm okay with your removing after the State Ethics Commission raised conflict of interest concerns. Oh, sorry. Okay, Councilor Ryan.

Through you, Madam Chair. Would we want to add that same language to the 2026-029?

We've already voted on it, and I think we should just move along. Okay. So, Councilor Yuen.

I have the same question.

The same question. OK. So we have a motion to accept this. with the deletion of after the State Ethics Commission raised conflict of interest concerns at the end of the first whereas paragraph. Can we please take a...

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Ryan, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, Chairman McKee.

Yes.

Eight to one.

Okay. That was eight to one with Councilor Jacobs, no. Okay. And now we have to pass. Yeah.

One more item, not specific to that ordinance, but I just want to alert Clerk Manning just simply on the agenda. I think that the titles of the actual ordinances should be changed because they still read a repeal. I don't think that that matters really for our business tonight, but just alerting the body to that as well. Thank you.

I think it should say deleted.

That's fine. That's how you've reworked it, right, Councilor? Yeah. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. So now I guess we have to vote to accept Order 2026030 as amended. On the motion, Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support this one. I'm going to tell you why. I was going to give the reason why up there. you're going to revisit this in September and we got a commitment here tonight. So we're going to revisit this so I'm okay with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Please take a roll call. Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Chunky.

Yes.

Nine members.

Okay. Moving on to order number 2026-031. This is taking away the annual, so in addition to the 79% and 50% raises, there was an ordinance put into place to, beginning in the 2030s, give annual increases to those salaries so that we wouldn't have to come back and do all this every single time. And it wouldn't be such a long time between raise ordinances. but because there wasn't a whole lot of discussion on that one either I have put forward this Ordinance to undo that so that we can again revisit the whole concept of incremental raises beginning in September. Hubley.

I motion to approve the order as amended before you on the motion. Okay. Oh, Councilor Hubley, yeah.

Thank you Madam Chair. So I plan to support this but I did want to mention a few things before I did before we went forward with it and that is so My brother-in-law, my late brother-in-law, Wayne Nickel, served on the Leominster City Council for I think it was 25 years until his passing. and oddly enough, he put forward this exact same thing for Leominster, which they've had in place for many, many years. And the feedback I've gotten from council members in Leominster is very positive about it. and they said it kind of takes the politics out of it it prevents us from having to not want to revisit this if you know people feel concerned about the election just takes it the politics out of it and lets lets it trend towards the proper

and I'm not saying Consumer Price Index is the exact right thing, although that is what they do, but I think if we revisit this, I'm voting to get rid of this, but I feel like it might be on the right track is really what I wanted to add. and there was a currently sitting member that I spoke to who had been on for 17 years and that was the feedback that I got. So I think it's on the right track, but I understand the intention that we're gonna revisit this in September. Part of me says that any time an elected official wants to go for an increase in compensation, they should put that before the people. That's one argument that I have. But then the other argument... The other argument I have is maybe we just take the politics out of it. So I can talk myself in and out of it in both ways. So I'm looking forward to the vigorous conversation we'll have in the fall.

Thank you. DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So you really want to just get rid of this completely? Is this what you want to do and start all over?

Exactly.

So again, I don't I'm not against that. I did hear from the public 2%. I did hear 3%. I did hear go with exactly what everybody else gets for the salary increase. So we'll have this conversation again. Is this another one in September? OK. That was just the feedback I got on just talking to several different people from everywhere, was the increases in what you do every year. And it's always a tough situation. Trust me, I've been up here all these years. We've only put it in front of us twice before that happened. It happened my very first year up here, and we agreed not to take it. It was only like, I want to say it was a 3% increase, and it wasn't really worth it. We didn't do it back in 2016, and then it came up again while I was Council President. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and then it happened again. in this past time. It's never going to be a good time to talk about this stuff. People are going to say you're taking a 2% or 3%.

We'll talk about it more. But you're taking a 2% or 3% every year. You're getting an increase. What about taxes? And guess what? You'll be part of the process. Tag, you're it.

Thank you.

We have to accept the amendments, and then we can vote it.

I don't think we had... Oh, we had... You were placing... Oh, yes.

Yes. So I have to accept that for this one. Yeah. Okay. Just to keep it consistent with all the... Yes.

Okay. So we should vote first to accept this amendment as it reads and as you have it in front of you. Can you please take a roll call?

Councilor Ash. DiBona, Councilor Hubley.

We're voting to accept this amended version. Yeah. Do you accept this amended version of this? Yes.

Jacobs, Mahoney, Mahoney, do you accept this amendment? Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan. Sharon McKee.

Yes. Okay. Now, motion to accept this as amended. Please, Councilor Yuan, taking the motion. Okay. Did you want to make that motion? Yuan. Okay, so Councilor Yuan makes a motion on the motion. Okay, let's take a roll call.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Hubley. Yes. Councilor Jacobs.

Yes.

Councilor Mahoney. Yes. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Yuan, and John McKee. Yes. Nine members.

OK. Well, that wasn't excruciating. Thanks, everybody. So we're going to, that's all we have. So we're gonna move into the regular council meeting and adjourn ordinance.

I'm going to have you read, I'm going to have you do it again. If you could just read it into the mic.

Okay, yep, sure. So this is a review of the open meeting law complaint regarding meeting on June 15, 2026. And it was a late item matter.

Okay, later. So because this is a late item, we're using Rule 27, which is allowing us to have the late item, and it would require two-thirds of the vote of the members of the City Council to be allowed into this meeting. So do they have to take that vote now? So if we could take a vote to allow this into the meeting tonight, because I just got this open meeting law violation yesterday, and if we were to not have it on the agenda tonight, we would have had to have a special meeting, so we're just having it tonight. So we're going to take a roll call vote on that.

DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney.

OK, so I'm going to move into this. So this item is an open meeting law complaint filed by Ms. Leah DeGloria. It was received by the city council, myself, on June 21, yesterday, 2026. Under Massachusetts open meeting law and regulations of the Attorney General's Division of Open Government, the Council is required to review the complaint and determine whether any action is appropriate. The complaint alleges that the proposed amendments on Council Orders 2026 030 and 2026-031 were transmitted by Councilor Maggie McKee to the clerk committees and subsequently distributed to the members of the City Council outside of a posted public meeting. Before proceeding, I'd like to clarify the purpose of the review for this evening. The Council is not here to discuss the merits of the ordinances or proposed amendments, or the source of the amendments. We are not making findings regarding the intent or the content of any individual council member.

The sole question before the council tonight is whether the facts presented established deliberations among a quorum of city councillors outside the properly posted public meeting. The Council has reviewed the complaint. You should all have the complaint in your package today. The email's correspondence referenced in the complaint and the document distributed to the members of the Council. the materials reviewed show that a proposed amendment were submitted to the Clerk of Committees and subsequently distributed to the members of the Council for inclusion in the meeting's materials and consideration of future public meetings. From what I can see, the Council has found no evidence, and I have not found any evidence, that the members discussed or proposed amendments through email, exchange opinions, responded in an other debate of merits outside the proposal, attempted to reach the consensus, or otherwise engaged in deliberation outside the post of public meetings. Some of us weren't even aware that we got the email. The council further notes that the proposed amendments had not yet been discussed by the council and were intended to be considered in a future public meeting.

Based on the information reviewed, the Council finds that the communication as issued consisted of the distribution of documents and there is insufficient evidence to establish that deliberation occurred among a quorum of the City Councils outside of the posted public meeting. The council remains committed to transparency and compliance within the open meeting law and will continue to exercise care regarding communication and distribution of materials relating to matters that come before the city council. Before opening the discussion, I want to address one procedural matter. The complaint references Councilor McKee by name. I consulted with Council, City Solicitor Timmons, regarding whether there were any participation concerns related to this complaint. And I was advised that Councilor McKee can participate in the discussion and vote on this matter. Accordingly, all members of the council are eligible to participate and discuss this vote.

So at this time, I'd like to open the floor to discussion regarding the complaint and the proposed written response. Councilor McGee.

Thank you. I would like to address the latest open meeting law complaint against this council which concerns suggested amendments to two ordinances attempting to repeal salary increases passed by the previous city council. This complaint raises two separate issues. One is how counselors should communicate outside of public meetings. The other is whether individual counselors are allowed to hire a personal attorney for legal advice. We addressed the second issue last week, establishing that the open meeting law does not preclude a single Councillor from consulting with a personal attorney, a fact that Solicitor Timmons acknowledged. So the claim in this document that my hiring my own attorney at my own cost to look over local laws I had drafted carries, quote, serious OML implications is simply false. Let me now speak to the other issue, and I'll start by providing some context.

At the April 6th meeting of the Public Works Committee, one Councilor had suggested a number of amendments to proposed ordinances on sewer and stormwater violations. Another Councilor responded that it would be helpful for Councilors to receive any such suggested changes ahead of time to give everyone a better chance to consider them. With that in mind, after making some changes to two ordinances I had drafted months earlier to try to repeal politicians' pay raises, I asked the Council Clerk to email the suggested amendments to all the other Councillors and to also post them publicly on the City website. My intention was to get the information out to both the Council and the public so that everyone could have time to review the minor edits in advance of the meeting. In fact, that sort of public information sharing is supported by a dicta or opinion that the Supreme Judicial Court published in 2018.

The dicta was about a case where the chair of the select board in Wayland circulated individual members' evaluations of the town administrator with board members ahead of a public meeting about the evaluation. They did not share the written evaluations with the public until after the meeting. The Supreme Judicial Court wrote quote, If board members wish to circulate documents containing board member opinions among a quorum in advance of an open meeting, as here, Prior and relatively contemporaneous public disclosure of those documents where permissible is necessary in order to comply with the Open Meeting Law and to advance the statute's overall goal of promoting transparency in governmental decision making. So there is a strong argument to be made to support the sharing of suggested amendments ahead of a meeting as long as that sharing happens with the public at the same time as with the body itself.

That is the same kind of argument that allows counselors, as some in this body did with regard to the request for new firefighter gear, for example, to write letters to the editor or social media posts stating how they will vote ahead of a public meeting where that vote will take place. If it turns out that the public does not feel comfortable with that type of wide information sharing, however, I will refrain from doing it in the future. But my intention was to increase transparency, communication, and efficiency in government. As an ironic aside, I will close by noting that on May 18th, Council never got a chance to discuss the amendments I asked the Council Clerk to share with the public and the other Councillors ahead of that meeting. and those amendments never will be discussed because the amendments I suggested to the raise ordinances tonight came from the City Solicitor. So the two amended versions suggested on May 18th and referenced in this open meeting law complaint have had and will have exactly no impact on council policy.

Thank you.

Does anybody else want to speak on the ordinance? On this. Do we have a motion? What I'm looking for is a motion to approve that I can respond back. And we'll take a vote on that. Councilor Riley?

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion that we find that there's no violation and allow the President to respond to this matter and respond to the Secretary of State's office. Okay, do we have a second?

Seconded by Councilor Ryan. Did you want to speak?

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan.

All right, so we're moving on to item number two.

Item number two, 2020-606, ordinance slash rules, safeguarding transparency, public access to information, and democratic participation in city council proceedings.

McGee.

So we had a meeting of Rules Committee earlier this evening and we passed it with amendments with a positive recommendation out of committee.

Esch.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right, so once again, I'm going to take into effect Rule 27, taking the late item that will require two-thirds of a vote that was added to the agenda tonight, and that was just to bring the ordinance amending municipal code for strengthening the auditor... Asch.

DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Koch, Mahoney, McKee, Riley, Ryan,

Yes. All right. So moving on. So what you have in your package today, this is a while ago, so I feel like it was a snowstorm. We were all in agreement with the language, but we didn't have it in the right. write sections within the ordinance itself. So that has been updated and it's been redlined and provided to everybody here this evening. And if everybody thinks it looks okay at this point, I'll just need a motion. Riley, seconded by? That's fine.

Thank you, Madam President. With respect to page 3, section 66-16, there's a miscellaneous provision that reads, The City Auditor should be prohibited from contributing to either by financial or in-kind contribution participating in the campaign of any candidate for Quincy City Council or Mayor. or in the campaign of any Quincy City Councilor or Mayor of Quincy for any other political office. I guess my question with that provision is, is that, does that sentiment, is that carried out in any other departments or are we setting a precedent here and has that provision been vetted?

I didn't change it. That was the actual language that was there.

Okay, understood. Thank you.

It was existing.

I saw it in, that's all good. All right, thank you. Sorry. I can't answer that as far as other departments, but okay.

Is that your only question? Yes. Okay. Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Councilor Ash. Roll call vote.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Quincy.

Moving on to item number four.

Act Number 4, 20-26-029, Ordinance Repair of Masrae's Ordinance 2024-055.

So this is Councilor McKee.

So this was discussed just now in the Ordinance Committee, and we made amendments. has passed this ordinance as amended out of committee with a positive recommendation. So I make a motion to approve it as the full body.

OK. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Hubley. Do you have something to speak?

Yeah, so point of order. Ash mentioned something about having to adjust the way it reads on the agenda, or did I miss the end of that conversation? Because right now it says repeal and we changed it. Does that matter? I just wanted to make sure before we went forward.

That's not part of the order, but I'll change for historical. I'll change. She'll change it for historical records. Okay, so it's a housekeeping thing. Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

So we have a motion by Councilor McKee, seconded by Councilor Hubley. Anybody else? Roll call vote, please.

Councilor Ash. Councilor DiBona. No. Hubley. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Yes. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Yes. Councilor Yuan. Yes. President Mahoney.

Yes. Moving on to item number five.

Item number 5, 20-26-030, Ordinance Repeal of Councilor Ray's Ordinance 2024-056. Councilor McKee.

So this, we had a positive recommendation out of committee as amended and I move to pass this, that version in the full council.

Okay, we have a motion to accept. Seconded by Councilor Yuen. On the motion.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Quincy, 9 members. Okay. Item number 6, 20-26-031, Ordinance Repeal Annual Raises for Elected Officials. Ordinance CEO number was 20-24-090. Councilor McKee.

McEwen, on the motion, not seeing any, roll call vote.

DiBona? Yes. Councilor Hubley? Yes. Councilor Jacobs? Yes. Councilor McKee? Yes. Councilor Riley? Yes. Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes.

So next is upcoming meetings. Tuesday, September 8th at 7.30 we will have a council meeting so I'm sure you'll all miss us for the summer. Motion to adjourn? Riley, thank you very much everybody. Thank you.

Thank you for watching!