LIVE: Quincy City Council Joint Finance & Oversight Committee Meeting - September 29, 2026

Hey, everybody. I think it was the Beach Boys talked about the endless summer. Well, we Yankees know that's just not the case. Summer does end, but it ends in a beautiful fall, doesn't it? Weather's just been great. Hi, I'm Jack Swanson. I was pastor for many years of Union Congregational Church in Wallison. Now I'm up at First Church of Christ in Lynn still living in Quincy and I want to tell you about Beach Church Beach Church is a ministry of Christ Church Mobile Ministries which is run by my wife, the Rev. Martha Swanson and Christ Church mobile ministries sponsors Beach Church which is held every Sunday morning from the Sunday closest to July 4th to Columbus Day Sunday. It meets at 8 o'clock, one half-hour service. Great message. I gotta tell you, I love it. I just kick back on the chair I've got to tell you, sometimes I don't even listen to the messages. Listen to the water and the gulls. But it's just a beautiful, beautiful service. It's relaxing. It gives a great message.

And you can't beat being on the beautiful Quincy Bay. Now Beach Church is held at 8 a.m. and is held between the Squantum and Wallace & Yacht Clubs. This is the sign, look for it on the boulevard. Lasts a half hour. We've seen a couple of old-fashioned hymns Matthew gives a message, say some prayers and then get on with your day. One half hour. So there's four Beach Church Sundays left. Let me get these dates right. It is this coming Sunday, September 20th, September 27th. October 4th, and the last one will be on Columbus Day Sunday, October 11. Now again, it meets at 8 a.m. on Wollaston Beach. The beach chairs are set up. Kick back, enjoy the beautiful bay that we have here in Quincy and hear the gospel truth of how much the Lord loves us. Again, Beach Church, 8 a.m., This Sunday and for the next four, Wallison Beach on Wallison Boulevard. Yeah, that's a wee town. It's called Quincy Shore Drive between the Yacht Clubs. God love you. Have a great day.

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Thank you.

leased supplies and repairs, total $71,000. And they took in... Where is it? The golf carts. cards totaled $364,000. So Amendment 5 of this lease removed the golf cart income from the calculation. I actually can read that into why it was they basically said It was not making enough money, and so they had to remove it. It was too much of a financial burden. And at the end of the day on this particular quarter They made $293,000. Now the golf is supposed to be on the grow so... Perhaps they should have just negotiated to make that a net deduction. But there's $293,000 for one quarter

that we would be getting 10% of that. Ten percent of the gross would be, what, of the $364,000 so that's an example of something that was removed it was presented as being financially burdensome and the city is losing out on that. The next thing we have is administrative expenses and that's $80,138. So after deducting payroll cost of goods sold computer equipment dues and subscription office supplies Supplies, Tournament Expenses, Range Supply GPS, website expense, rental clubs and $2,000 for miscellaneous, whatever that is. It gives $80,000 of administrative expenses tacked on

So I don't think anyone has any questions on the law.

and a few things that I noticed that I didn't know is it seems to have functions and the Gulf, at least in the ones that I've been looking at.

And then I guess the questions that I would have Thank you for your introduction.

Each one of these things in four quarters, the fiscal year 2026 administrative expenses amounted to $5.8 million dollars and then something called depreciation amounted to 3.7 million dollars and discounts in comps amounted to $879,000. That's just for kind of general discounts and comps. There's another line that sometimes appears that's discounts Dash Manager, which is $122,000. So I guess my concern is and this is actually something that was raised by the man that came in to speak on who raised the hood of the finance

is being deducted as well. Some of these expenses are higher than I would expect, but I don't run a golf course so I don t know. So I would just want an audit to kind of look at that. And also, I guess, an outside real estate Attorney, who's very familiar with all of this to make sure that the lease, any lease that potentially the city would enter into in any future time really makes sense for the city. for the citizens because I can imagine that you might, if you're deducting all of the meals that you give to your workers and saying that each meal costs $50 or something like that, that's a lot of money coming out of the pockets potentially of citizens.

So this one that we were talking about, the gulf is only on the gross income. So all of these deductions do not affect the amount that the city receives But if we want to move on and take a look at the next one. The next one is the functions, so that would be the weddings and events that happen in the function room.

Oh, just to clarify, all those numbers that I got were from... all of the different, so there's a golf line. There's a functions line, there's food line, maintenance line, membership line and income for general administrative. So those are totals for everything.

Right, some of these expenses are spread across all of the buckets. Some of them affect what the city is gonna receive for a payment but in the case of the golf, they do not. It's based on gross. The only thing that we've given up on the golf is the golf cart rental which used to be a source of income. It used to included in there and it is no longer and it at least in the last quarter quite profitable so That's something that the city gave up. My understanding is according to the Amendment 5 to the lease, what we received in return for that was the use of a clubhouse for the mayor's golf tournament which really doesn't seem to equal certainly $293,000 for this quarter. But that when you negotiate and give something up, you have to get something in return. And that's my understanding of what we received in return for that.

Three of them, Chairman. I will check on that. And I remember this question coming up during the lease negotiations with this body. I remember there was a rational explanation to why the golf cart fees were deducted. I'm not sure that that was the answer though.

I do believe I had something on that. Problems.

and Councilor McKee. As you're looking for something, maybe I'll just mention the other thing that I had on my list so in the list of There are, again, some things that don't appear to be for oversight. One of them is for Crown Colony work, and I don't... I don't really know what that is, but it doesn't seem to be for oversight. It says roadway opening new electric line asphalt curb reset per mutual agreement on file between Crown Colony and Flatley Company. and then there again string lights you know being so I think we need to kind of tighten up on all of these funds to make sure that we're using them

for their intended purpose, and I guess I'm wondering where in the city, who's okaying that these would come out of certain funds and how can we ensure that they're only using them for their intended purpose.

So you're speaking of the oversight account, right?

I'm just being in the oversight accounts, yeah.

I don't know Mr. Walker certainly.

So I think what you may be seeing is some bookkeeping issues. Essentially, I think again going back to the expansive view of how we view these funds and what they can be used for is that there might be some intermingling between the DPW, what we would consider a DPW fund and the oversight fund. Again going back to the evolution of what the city's needs are, what believe the cities' needs are and what the money can be used for so that it could be something in the oversight accounts that is more public works related and there could be some thing in public works-related that may be more oversight. I think we've generally looked at them as sort of interchangeable based upon the funding codes and the sources. And that could be a basis of it, but happy to take a look at it and make any corrections in terms the process, it is the same process that we go through under any expenditure.

It goes through the mayor's office, it goes to municipal finance, it all the appropriate channels legal there are belts and suspenders along the way for every major expense that comes out of this. And we're happy to provide any more detail.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. If I could just keep going through the statement here. So then the next page is the function income and so this is a net deduction. They reported four a little under $4.3 million in function revenue for the quarter ending June 30th, 2026 but this one is based on net so when you look at the deductions Payroll, Food, Beverage, Accounting, Education, Training, Electric Gas, Water, Telephone, Advertising. And then we get down to function expenses, $165,000. So I don't know what function expenses are Some of these items are already included, but that is being deducted from the amount that will be calculated for the city's revenue. Then we go down to computer equipment, kitchen supplies, repairs and maintenance, credit card fees, cleaning supplies. Leased rental equipment, uniforms, laundry linens, security.

Miscellaneous, $11,000 for miscellaneous again with all of these categories already outlined, I'm not quite sure what would fall into miscellaneous. But then back to Councilor McKee's point, this one we have taken the administrative expense has $542,000 and deducted that from the gross revenue here. So after having administrative expenses against the golf line of 80,000 we have 542,00 a little more than that that's being deducted and another $165,000 in depreciation. So yes if we're looking for areas that we think are worthy of an audit those three lines on there are definitely or four including the function expenses are worthy of a little further scrutiny. Combined, it's one-five... 6, 7, 8 almost $900,000 that's being deducted.

So it's a substantial amount of money that really should be further you know, further reviewed. Because when all is said and done the net profit for functions is $364,000 so we start out We start out with $4.3 million in revenue, in income and we're down to $364,000 once we take all of these deductions. And this is the part of the business that the new lease seeks to expand upon. We're not gonna expand upon the golf business, the golf is fully realized pretty much with the driving range and the greens and the seasons we have to deal with in New England. We are not going to see much more revenue Lee from the golf course. So did anyone have any comments specifically on the function part of things? Anyone? Okay. So then we move on to the food and beverage, and that would be The Tavern, The Members Lounge, and The Crossing Nines outdoor bar area.

The gross income on that is just over $5 million, 5091. And again when we start to look at the expenses that are being deducted from here Cost of Goods Sold for food, cost of goods sold for beverage, bar snacks. And then we move on to discounts and comps for employees. I guess that's maybe not just employees, discounts dash comps slash employees. $171,000 in one quarter has been deducted from these numbers Member discounts, I assume that members just receive a 10% off their beverage so that's understandable. Discounts manager, so I would imagine this is at the managers discretion to comp food and beverage $31,000. and then we move on to payroll. Payroll's almost $2 million for the quarter, so that's clearly a sizable expense that they have. Advertising and marketing, insurance for liquor liability, kitchen supplies, function expenses,

Electric, Gas, Water Equipment Maintenance and Repairs Cleaning & Supplies Entertainment Accounting Security Linen Service Computer Equipments Pest Control Credit Card Fees License Fees Printing Menus Telephone, Cable and Internet, Dues and Subscriptions. The next item is Miscellaneous $16,761 I don't know what constitutes miscellaneous when there are so many categories here already captured uniforms, waste removal. And then again we get down to administrative expense so if you notice the administrative expense seems to be equally balanced on both sides of this. The 80,000 was put to the golf side but then exactly 542,456 and 90 Cents is appearing equally on both the function side and the food and beverage side. So that's well over a million dollars being deducted from the city's net

Net Proceeds. And then we have the depreciation, so again I think that's a line that could use further scrutiny as to how what's being depreciated in fact it's very clear on what's allowed to be depreciated and if you bear with me for a minute. Depreciation calculation. According to Exhibit B of the lease document, item 13, depreciation of the clubhouse restricted to areas devoted exclusively to the food and beverage operations. Most recent DePreciation calculations. So in this current one, the total depreciation is over $700,000. So the question is how is it calculated and then how is the formula for distributing across these three areas? of their statement of income and expenses.

and finally on the last page is maintenance. Now these are not deducted, presumably these are expenses that Granite Links is absorbing in their side of the house Interestingly enough, they have environmental work listed here. There's fertilizer, chemicals, license and permits. They do have payroll to hear so these are not coming out of the calculation Interestingly enough, the ball field expense is $3753. So out of all the money that has come into here only $3753 was expended in the spring of 2026 for the ball fields. So that's a pretty sad distribution of funds for that. and then that's, you can see how they again all the information is on here with the checks and how it was calculated.

Does anyone have any further comment on these calculations? And how they're done?

Yuan. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. So my question is so currently there isn't nobody doing this oversight of these lease deduction expense and the payment by Corey Hill, so no one is doing. So what's this oversight of fund 10% of this this income going to this oversight fund. So what's this fund doing? If this oversight funding is not doing oversight, and I'm wondering where those money goes. So can anyone tell me? What's the role of this project manager who is paid $120,000 from this oversight fund? Mr. Walker?

Through you Madam Chair, as I've mentioned before the administration's perspective on this is that these two areas of the revenue have been used interchangeably. The project manager's role is actually a public building's role, that person has been instrumental the role has been instrumental in a number of our major school projects, administering and monitoring the logistics specifically on the movement that has to happen when we do these major school projects. The moving of stuff, the moving of the students. That is a huge undertaking as we've seen most recently in Squanam. We've seen it at the DeCristofaro Center, before that we've see it at Southwest Middle School. That has been... a piece of that person's job, a large piece of the persons' job and then there are other projects that that person has overseen.

Again with the underlying motivation that these are flexible and that the administration and the team has the ability to use these in ways that it sees appropriate.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Hang on a second. Councilor Yuan. So the follow-up question, if the city is going to hire independent auditor to audit this account which fund will be used to pay for this auditing? Is it from this oversight fund or from which fund?

Either one.

Either one? which, all were site fund and then which fund?

it's largely a bookkeeping mechanism as to what which percentage is where, what is used from where and how things balance out. Councilor McKee mentioned a couple of items that were probably appropriately placed in the DPW enhancement funds that were paid out of that. The oversight funds can then get money from the DPW enhancement fund, we can just move it over and there'll be money in the oversight account to pay for your audit or we can keep the money where it is and pay for the audit. It is a ledger issue, and it's easily resolved.

Mahoney, just jumping in here. So is this what you call financial flexibility? Just asking because it's a term that you guys use during the bond situation and the reason why I ask is because you asked a question, or I asked a questions about the audit. You said we didn't define what an audit is and it's funny cause when the council or anybody asks for anything, we're not asking in any appropriate way but I think it's nailed here tonight where we're saying An audit is talking about the separate financial audit specifically examining Granite Links, Quarry Hills revenues expenditures and simply for the city's regular or not the simple regular the regular audit of the city. So we wanna know, and you're saying when we get the money in with checking it. And then you're sayin' it's interchangeable, and it's just a ledger change. But it is much bigger than that, and when you make it seem as though it's not a big deal it is a big deal because you're using the oversight and you're paying somebody $125,000 out of that to be a project manager. To do things all over the city when your having buildings done

That's just, that shouldn't be being paid from out of oversight. Oversight should be something where we're working as a team collaboratively with Granite Links to make sure the city is getting what they're expecting to get from Granite links. That's what the oversight account should be used for and if you said to me, we hired somebody for $125,000 to kind of be the... And I think it was two people that were getting paid out. When I was in the council, it was this gentleman. It was also Helen Murphy who was getting a piece of that money too So like you said, it's interchangeable. Wherever we want to get the money from, we can give it to whoever we want. It's nice that we can do that but we're asking for that audit because you see the city of Quincy cut a deal with the land and we did end up with a beautiful golf course, and we had a lease that came before us. And I believe that that home run petition is dead but it could come back in another council, but we need to understand this stuff. And I'm not by any means sitting here saying I don't like Granite Links and I don' want them to be successful, but I also want the people of the city of Quincy to feel comfortable that we're all doing our job.

And when you say it's interchangeable and you're not being specific, what do you really want to audit? Well, we wanna audit those numbers and we wanna understand them and anybody who would be looking at this would be saying, yeah it needs to be looked at. And it's not just good enough for me to go to Madam Auditor and say did we get a check in? Sure, you get a check every quarter. But how do we know it's actually matching up to what it should match up to? And when you're looking at some of these numbers, it is kind of curious that $542,456,000 the same amount on both places. And just like it's curious that in the DBW piece there was a I think it was the signage that we did for $9,999 just underneath 10 so we don't have to actually go out for quotes. You only need three quotes so they don't even have to send them back My point though is the money that the city of Quincy's receiving and the decision for those golf carts, I guess I have to go back to those golf cart.

Was that a decision made here in the council or was it a unilateral decision made at the city and mayor's office? because that's revenue that was decided upon to be taken out of a lease, and I don't believe it was voted on at the council level. I'm not positive though. I'd like to know that though.

It was not. through you, Madam Chairwoman. The lease is negotiated by the mayor. The mayor has the ability to negotiate specific items in the lease not under the purview of the city council

So again, when I'm talking about under the purview of the City Council and we're asking for audits and being told well you know we're having a difficult time because we have to get our annual audit done and everybody in the state's having that problem. When this has been asked multiple years over year over year and you have audits but you haven't shared them with us, we have to ask for them. Let me just finish Mr. Walker? It would be nice if those things were just given to us and then finally when we're asking these questions and you're saying it's just a general ledger thing all we have do is move the money because we just took it out of the wrong account and it's up to our discretion how we spend that money. That's very, it's great that it's just a accounting mechanism but Madam Auditor, can I ask you a question when we just do those types of transactions? Don't we want to have like a backup to understand why things get moved from one place to another in case anybody was to do an audit to be able to follow the trail of where their money came from? Yes, we should have one. Thank you very much.

just on the specific items that the body has mentioned, that you mentioned relative to an audit. I would contend and again we will have someone to do some of the nuts and bolts work here, but I would contend that that work done by Powers & Sullivan, that that worked on by two or three other firms has confirmed that what you're looking at in front of you is the appropriate deduction? Is the appropriate number, is the proper revenue being provided to the city. We believe that work has been done verified by multiple outside vendors Now, can we take it a step further? Yes. Of course. we have been on this for quite some time and our understanding in the facts before us, I suggest that this has been verified multiple times. over the course of the last number of years.

And you raise fair questions, we can dig into those but that is not to say that we're just taking a check and walking away and calling it a day. There has been work done here by a lot of people, a lot that have tremendous amount of reputational and historic records of doing this kind of work in the Commonwealth. Jim Powers is probably the most respected Municipal Finance and Revenue, and financial person when it comes to municipal law or municipal finance that there has been in the state in the last generation. He's not gonna put his name on something that is somehow suspect or isn't valid. And there's been two or three other firms that have been involved in the same kind of exercises that have shown I don't know.

If I could, I appreciate that. I'm just going to follow up with this and it's very simple. You keep saying that these audits were done and they're reputable people. Nobody is saying people aren't reputable. I don�t think I've heard one person up here be disrespectful or say people aren�t or that it's in the purview of the mayor, but it's also in the per view of the council to ask those questions. To have this stuff brought to us so we can see it ourselves and we can show it to the public when the public asks So the fact that you have those audits and they've been asked to be shared in the past, and they haven't been but now we have to ask again. I guess we're all gonna ask publicly can you send all of your audits whatever they were done with all the cliff notes so we can take a look at them. And why don't we just post them on the website because I think a lot of people are interested in them? because I'm not saying the audit wasn't real, but I think there's different levels of audits. Madam Auditor could you back me up on this? There's different level of audts that we do we might be only specifically looking to see that we're getting the quarterly number, that actually meets the number that actually is on this little report.

And you can say yes, the net profit was $139,482 and we got a check for that, the audit passes. they're not going into the individual levels of those things. So when we are looking for an audit, we're looking to make sure that we're look at everything in a independent and clear way. And I'd like to know Powers & Sullivan's news there was two other ones one that was done Keenan, I'd like to know the names of those auditors and I'd...

I can give you a little summary of that Councilor Mahoney. So there were four recent documents in one older one an 84 page document It's a compilation of a review from the Powers and Sullivan dated November 20th to the city of Quincy, and presented on December 9th. to the Council. The document is called Reviewed Financial Statements Prepared by G.T. Riley and Company, that was commissioned by Corey Hills Associates. There's a 57 page document dated August 1st, 2025 comparable market rents report to support the market lease of comparable properties to the Granite Leaks Golf Club. for the purpose of providing data in support of your lease fairness analysis of the Quarry Hills Lease Extension approved by the City Council on January 21st, 2025. That document is addressed to a Dr. Zitt of the Innovation Group in New Orleans and prepared by Jeffrey R. Dugas He is Massachusetts licensed for leisure appraisals.

There's another 16 page document dated September 2025, the Least Fairness Analysis that was prepared by The Innovation Group So some of these were reviews of documents that had been provided, and then they were reviewed by another auditing firm. And then there's a 14-page document dated May 22nd, 2026 by LGA, LLP, CPAs and business advisors. Ree Granite Links rent payment analysis for the city of Quincy commissioned by the City of Quincie so I have all these documents I'm happy to share them with anyone but there's a total of 171 pages of non-audit financial reviews. Every one of these documents make it very clear either in their cover letter or somewhere in the disclaimers at the bottom that it is not an audit. They make it very clear of that. They all call them reviews, or analysis but they definitely avoid the word audit Additionally, and this was something that... Thank you Ms. Manning for digging some of this up for me the other day.

Additionally there's a reference to a past scrutiny of an analysis from DePizer & Company in 2009 and 2010 that highlighted several concerns and inconsistencies according to the Patriot Ledger articles from the time. The criticism is around the deductions, from the hospitality side of the payments which are based on net revenue. That is from a 2009 resolve introduced by Ward 6 City Councilor Brian McNamee. And I have a copy of that, and I will read some of that. Whereas during the past full school year, homeowners in the city of Quincy were hit with some of the biggest tax increases in the history of the city. This is dated September 8th 2009. Whereas tax increases adversely affect all of our taxpayers, but especially seniors on a fixed income and many young families are being hit the hardest.

and whereas the city of Quincy has experienced dramatic reductions in local aid from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and whereas combined effects of these overwhelming economic trends have made it increasingly critical that the City of Quincy maximize and protect revenue sources to reduce the tremendous real estate taxes being endured by the taxpayers of Quinny. Now therefore be it resolved that the City Council Oversight Committee convene a meeting to inquire of the Mayor's Office, City Solicitor and Chief Financial Financial Officer, as to what the city of Quincy has received and is currently receiving in revenue from agreements with Corey Hills Associates and Furnacebrook Golf Course. Obviously that doesn't apply anymore. In addition, also extend invitations to the management of these facilities to describe compliance with agreements and answers to recently raised questions appearing in the newspaper regarding revenue related to the energy agreements, we haven't talked about that and the sale of methane.

And this was approved and sent to the oversight committee and according to the notes here it looked like there was to be an oversight committee on October 28th, 2009. But it does not seem that there's a record that ever took place. So this is in 2009 as a result of reporting from the Patriot Ledger City Councilor introduced a resolve and that resolved died in committee. It feels like deja vu, doesn't it? So what we are asking for after 18 years is a real audit and to not use money that's intended for that purpose for something else. It really is that simple. We can't move money around from this bucket to that bucket, you know shuffle things around I see plenty of reference in all these financial We need to do a better job

providing some oversight and some transparency on where this money is coming from and where it's going to. So when I saw this and thought it was kind of interesting that it was my pre-predecessor, Brian McNamee, God rest his soul, that had introduced this. and had fought for it to happen. And I don't know, nobody seems to be able to put their hands on that De Pisa audit but it would seem that perhaps there were some things in there that were not necessarily flattering. With that, I'm happy to take any more comments or questions from anybody.

Yuan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Since we don't have a person doing oversight of this account so I don't know who will answer these questions. So there are two questions submitted by residents. and the first one is, so go to the page. Corey Hill's total revenue received through April 28th, 2026. so you can see.

So, you're looking at the April's quarterly statement?

The Cory Hills total revenue received like a city received from the Cory Hill. I don't know. Oh, okay. I know what you're looking at. Okay. So you can see physical year 2007, city already received 352,006 or seven. Dollar. Fiscal year 2008, Citi received $346,379 and then From that time forward until year 2017, the city received less than 300 thousand each year. So what happened after year 2008 through the following eight years? That our receipts were less than the 2008 revenue.

the functions in the dining did not decrease in value or standards during that time. So I don't know, if you don't have people oversight this, I don' t know who can answer this question. Why cities start to receive less money since 2008, keep for eight years receiving much less money than 2008 and 2007? that shows exactly we need to have people doing oversight of this lease, deductions, expense and the payments. Otherwise this question who will answer it? And the second question The city began to see substantial increase in revenue from year 2022 to the present.

Coincidentally, about that time a group of concerned residents began to question the lease revenues received in the deductions taken by Corey Hills. Did the functions and dining suddenly become so much more profitable in these years? Or... Corey Hill became aware that the numbers were being examined closely and then have to be a change if they had any hope of this extension.

Thank you, Councilor Yuan. I would like to just state that I think this is speaking to why we need an audit.

And I appreciate that. I will just say on question two I feel the insinuation is categorically unfair toward the private partner. There's no suggestion that somehow they started redoing their books. What happened was, we could provide more detail and I'm not the auditor but I know having lived in the city and haven't seen that facility, that in that time period, Granite Lake's dramatically increased its driving range and bar facility at what is called the Crossing Nines. So those timelines absolutely do match the capital improvements that went on at the site. And again, I find the insinuation that somehow they changed the dynamic a little bit questionable and I appreciate that. Question one, I tried to answer. after you started question two, Councilor. So what was question one again? Oh the increase...

I mean I'm looking at this a little bit differently and we could certainly provide an answer to that but I am looking at a couple years where the numbers went up in early on, and this is probably prior to 2008-2009. They sunk a couple years but from 2012 until today that is 13 years there's been market substantial increases every single year. But we can certainly provide an answer why those couple years after the course opened and things were, were producing revenue while there was some fluctuation. Again, we are going back almost 20 years to look at this but I would again point to from whatever point on 2012, 2013 that you start at 232, 272, 268 a little bit down 299 321 467 478 522 537 541 683 828 879 856

In 905,000 under three quarters. So we're gonna we're going to meet that and exceed it this year Council Mahoney

So again, we can go back and forth. And we can get our feelings hurt or we're insulting somebody. But there's no reason for the city of Quincy to actually feel that way because the responsibility, just like the responsibility of the mayor can spend it. We don't have to come to the council and ask but the responsibility is when the council asks for these things is that we get it and if you're not doing oversight on it year after year and you can't show it Well, we move the money here and then we move money there. It's not a big deal. We had audits done but they weren't really audits. You've got to define audits There seems to be an awful lot of just you know, Gibby Dashley. It's just not this stuff coming up here like you're just filling it in and to me it doesn't matter what I'm asking for and what this council is asking for, and what the residents of Quincy are asking for is an audit so that we can understand how this is done and what decisions were made, and when they were made. It was this administration that brought forward a lease that created the questions that we're asking.

And I would think this administration would want to have that audit and bring it back here so you can show it to us, not say Powers & Sullivan because they didn't do an audit because the words as you said before we were getting caught up that it didn't say audit, then it's not an audit. It's very simple. We wanna have an audit and we want to have a look at it looked at. And we don't want it looked from the perspective of is it a good lease or is it good investment? We want it from the prospective of does this lease, is this lease and the revenues of the city of Quincy getting? Does it make sense at the time period that we're in now and are there opportunities for maybe renegotiation because if we want them to have what they want, then we have to come to the table with what would be best for Quincy. And I didn't see any of that happen the last time. All I heard was we have a great partner it's the best thing in the world, we should look at it. If we didn't have them, we wouldn't have this. That's not the case. The case is they were a great partner. We don't have a dump anymore. They want to extend it. We need to make sure that we understand what we are gonna gain for the residents of the city of Quincy

to best preserve what we have in the city of Quincy, and that's a lot of open space. So when you say you don't have to come back until March because you didn't know about the 2004 thing, I don't care when you found out about the 2000 fourthing, that's what we had to come with. it's not my concern when you find out, when you're supposed to be reporting something to the Councilors. It's now there, you know it so come in March but come before March too like come tomorrow Chris I don't think anybody's saying we don't want to work with you. We're just saying, we'd like to have this information and we shouldn't... If you have these, Debbie has them but if you have the stuff then share it. Don't share it with just us. Share it with the public. Let the public come up and ask some questions too. Thank you.

Quick clarification on Councilor Yuan's question relative to the increase and decrease in revenue. It occurred to me those years, and I can confirm that those were the financial crisis years, 2008-2009 into 2010. Those areas where I'm going to make an economic assumption, not being an economist myself that there was less money for people to golf and that's why revenues were down those years.

Yvonne. So you mean Chris Walker, you are doing oversight of this account?

of the Administration, as we've discussed earlier. We have many avenues of oversight many ways to check numbers, many ways look at these and we do. If there was something egregious, if there was out of line there certainly would have been questions asked and work done. The bottom line is that those numbers you're looking for, that I read off and that you pointed to all make practical, normal, rational sense. The years that were down? There's a reason. The year they went up? There is a reason and that was my point on that.

and follow up. So we don't, we need detailed the check oversight not just say, okay this year have a finance crisis going down. That's too general because it keep eight years the receipt city got. decreased below the 2008. And also, since we have a group of concerned citizens residents who are paying close attention about this quarry here, why not we form a resident oversight committee of this account? And they volunteer. for free, they don't need you pay their $120,000 to do this oversight. And if you call Oversight Fund, you call oversight

It means oversight, so we do need an Oversight Committee. to monitor and oversight this count.

That's my suggestion. Thank you, Councilor Yuan. The current lease that's in force and effect does have an oversight committee. It just has been disbanded. Disbanded? Just hasn't met... It's been abandoned. Who are the members of that oversight? I don't think there are any anymore, but the lease does call for it. Again, it's not being enforced. the Home Rule petition that created these funds. It just isn't getting enforced, so... Hang on a second. Please, Mr. Walker, please. I have a couple of more points that I'd like to make here, because this is something that's been very involved in. So we've already talked a little bit about between 2006 and 2027, the city deposited a little over $1 million into the oversight line and spent 1.367 million so we are in the red on that and we are not using it for oversight.

We're using it to pay a buildings person, that is not proper use. Just $136,861 has been spent on oversight out of this line since it was created including 43,569 to DePizzer & Company for audit services. Nobody can produce the audit. and it obviously prompted a council action that never took action. We've already talked about the personnel. Charges for tree service, roadway paving and hanging string lights is not oversight. Where the heck is our audit? Another area that has been questioned is water abatements. The city has granted the operators water abatements, there was one in particular sent to me in 2022, the city waived $42,297 in water use charges on one quarter.

I'm not sure if they waive the interest as well but those charges are then spread across the rest of the rate payers All of the people in the city of Quincy who pay water bills, you're paying for that credit they are giving them. One of the things I find interesting is that this body has to approve receiving, you know, $500 from DARE to the police department and we don't have to approve recieving these funds in the hundreds of thousands of dollars every quarter. It makes no sense to me. So in summary, the taxpayers deserve to receive as much. Oh I have one more thing though before I go into that but Mr. Walker isn't here so... One of the other things is section 24.1 of the lease agreement allows for free use of the golf course for a one-day City of Quincy sponsored charity golf tournament Up until 2017, Madam Auditor I believe you've confirmed this for me.

Those funds were received into and dispersed by municipal finance. What has happened since 2018? Where is that money going, why isn't there any oversight? Who authorized the change in accounting for that money and Mr. Walker if you'd like to speak to that I'll allow you to do that

Thank you. In that time period, the mayor determined that money would be directed to the Christmas Festival Committee, also known as The Quincy Foundation. That's the nonprofit that helps run the Christmas parade and helps run Flag Day and provides charitable work for other organizations within the community. So there was no need for the money to come directly through the city.

So that charity, or that nonprofit is not a charity. So we are directing city money into a non-charity entity and providing no oversight

I would disagree. It is not a 501 , but it is a non-profit, it is 501 which is a charity.

It's a non profit, but it's not a charity

It provides charitable resources and it provides funding for community events.

With no oversight, So in summary, the taxpayers deserve to receive as much financial benefit as possible from the lease agreement with Corey Hills to offset ballooning property taxes. A comprehensive audit is long overdue, as is evidenced by Councilor McNamee's 2009 resolve. The oversight committee needs to be reinstated under the current lease terms and we cannot allow the operators to self-manage, and we can not trust the current structure at City Hall to hold them accountable to the taxpayers. With that I'm ready to move on. Any other comments? Thank you. Okay, moving on to agenda item 2026-042. the American Rescue Plan spending transparency. This order was reintroduced to the council on March 2nd, 2026 it had been introduced in February 2022

Andronico, and referred to the Finance and Oversight Committees but never brought forward for discussion. I think we can all recall the COVID-19 pandemic was a global public health crisis that brought mounting uncertainty, economic disruption and widespread anxiety to citizens all over the world. The purpose of the COVID relief funds was to assist communities in providing the necessary health response and economic stabilization needed through local government agencies. Per the US Treasury, monies needed to be expended between March 2021 and December 2026 and fall into one of the following categories. To support public health responses to the pandemic, address negative economic impacts from the pandemic. Improve water and sewer infrastructure, provide premium pay for essential workers invest in broadband infrastructure, and replace public sector revenue losses. And while many municipalities have made these

their spending of these monies public, the City of Quincy has not provided the taxpayers with an accounting of how the funds were used. I do want to thank our auditor, Madam Auditor Susan O'Connor for painstakingly pulling together the materials that we have been provided There was a lot of information, and I know it took you a lot time to compile it. I really do appreciate it. We did not receive any of this information from the administration for this meeting. All of this was either through the auditor or other sources. So with that, I'm happy to turn it over for questions first. Anyone? McKee. Questions or observations, I guess? We're really not in a question and answer format here.

Yeah. This is more of an observation so I haven't gone through all of the funding. There was just a lot on the agenda tonight, but I had looked into one of the items which I think is maybe illustrative of some of the things that we're talking about here in other parts of the meeting and maybe later as well. So $52,150 in COVID money went to a company with its name was a website. and that work was for debt and bond transparency, among other things. And after that the city continued to pay

and that company for this work, financial analysis services. And they received a contract. I asked for the and the work produced. And the city said it sent the invoices, but it did not... It said that was everything so there was no work produced provide. So this amounts to at least $132,866. and there are just a few things that I want to point out. So it's a bit ironic that this money was for work on debt and bond transparency, and there is nothing to show for it. The other thing is the website name, if you looked up the website it doesn't work. It doesn't exist.

If you look up that company name on the Secretary of State's corporations database It says that it had been involuntarily dissolved in 2012. So I guess I'm concerned about... How this company was chosen to receive this money, and I mean it seems like just even a basic looking up of their name and their website. would show that it's not really functional. So I guess It kind of goes to the point that we may be discussing later about purchase orders and oversight, and who is approving these payments. But some of this payment Some of this money was paid through COVID money that came in.

Through you Madam Chairwoman, I certainly provide. I have not as much or everyone else has yet, I've not weeded through the McHugh, the spreadsheets on this. I am familiar, I believe with what Councilor McKee is referencing and would certainly be happy to provide some more backup material relative to that work that was done by that person over the course of a period of time. I'll follow up with Municipal Finance. This dates back a number of years, but we'll certainly track that down and I think if there's any discrepancy relative to the company name or the person, I think it was more from our perspective the RFP went out, there was an RFP for this work. The person was hired off of that RFP or the company but we I think the group that selected him certainly knew that it was a person. We created

This work was highly instructive to us. It was a help, and we provided a little bit of opportunity for someone in the community to get their feet wet in the business, in the industry and do some work for the city at the same time. But I'm happy to provide the backup information. I know there is some.

Thank you.

Councilor McKee, did you name who the vendor was or are you choosing not to? I'm choosing not too but I do want to just say that I was following up with the city for quite some time I had to appeal this and ultimately found out that I was told that there wasn't any work provided. So, that's what I was actually told by the city. The other point is that there was an RFP, I believe I believe that the city awarded contracts to all of the companies that applied for But in looking at the RFP, there's a very strong qualitative difference between this RFP and some of the other ones. It's sort of handwritten in parts

So I guess I'm just, again, concerned that how these decisions are being made and who's overseeing them.

Are you talking about the RFP responses? You received copies of the responses to the RFPs, is that what you said?

So this particular company got some COVID money, and then this individual who runs this company applied to an RFP for financial services work, got it along with the other companies that applied and then no work was produced $33,000 at least that I was told by the city. So yeah.

And that was under a public records request?

Yes.

One thing I did forget to mention because I was a little bit disorganized here, and you can chime in Madam Auditor if you want to add anything but just so that we're clear the total amount of and all the funds received under what we call our COVID funds was $45,392 in federal funds 199 in county grant funds. So it's a total of just over $64 million that was received and dispersed in a matter of a few years, right? and in pouring through all this data, it's clear that many organizations were providing frontline support and services during this time. Interfaith Social Services, the YMCA, The Salvation Army Germantown Neighborhood Council, Gavin Foundation Dove and most if not all of our religious organizations are just some of the organizations that received funding to help respond to the overwhelming needs at that time.

In addition, there was money spent to purchase COVID tests, personal protection equipment computers for remote access and HVAC upgrades to public buildings. Premium pay bonuses were paid to well-deserved frontline city employees, and there was no better time to tackle infrastructure projects than when everyone was home and the roads were virtually empty. So the money did go to a lot of good purposes. There's no doubt about that. but there are certainly many line items that do not fall into what was the intended use of that and I believe a full accounting of how this money is spent is overdue. Did anyone else have any comments they wanted to make? Councilor Jacobs, I'll go to you next

I actually had a comment about the Germantown neighborhood council. I was recently at a meeting. Sorry, I was at a recent meeting at the YMCA Germantown neighborhood center and in that meeting it was myself, Senator Keenan, State Rep Chan along with people from the Y. Nobody seemed to know who the Germantown Neighborhood Inc is. and who actually makes up that board. I mean, again, I know this was a couple of years ago but we don't actually know. No one in that room knew who that was So if I know, we can get an answer to that just because I did look at the ledger and I saw that. And this is something that we just had this meeting a couple of maybe a month or two ago. And it didn't come up that we're not even really sure who's on their board

and it definitely existed at one time but whether or not exists today is unclear. Thank you

Yuan, you had your hand up. Thank you Madam Chair. So the administration used $15 million of the cities allocated ARPA funds to purchase the Monroe Building on Hancock Street. Is this a eligible use for the American Rescue Plan spending? If it's not, does the city have to return this money to the state

Mr. Walker? Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is an appropriate use as are all the other uses that you'll see throughout these spreadsheets and the report that the administration will file. This is all conducted through a federal portal. All of these items are reviewed on an individual basis for the most part, and they've made it past Haynes, Screening. There is a wrap-up function at the end of all this in that will be performed and our team is working on that. But it is absolutely, and we've said before, we would certainly stand by, the mayor would stand by the purchase of the Monroe Building, the benefit that we believe that's provided in this city now and in the future is absolutely worth that money. Now I think there needs to be a distinction between relief funds and economic stimulus funds. ARPA was economic stimulus, and we use that in a number of different ways.

And again, I'm looking forward to this body reviewing all the expenditures and providing us with some questions and I know that we owe you a report on it, but the amount of work we were able to do for small businesses, nonprofits the city, the Christopher Early Learning Center is one example. The money we provided a small business relief and I know Madam Chairman you mentioned some of these so I don't know that I need to go into all the detail right now but there isn't gonna be anything that this body presents to us, that says we don't believe that was an appropriate use of the money, which is fine. That's your role, that's your authority to say you don't believe that was an appropriate use. But in almost every case, it is going to be the administration's belief that it was an appropriate use. And this goes through the federal portal and work with our federal partners and doing everything

as efficiently and as correctly as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Hang on a second. Council Yuan?

So here, it's clearly stated four category of eligible use of these ARPA funds. And I would like administration to explain purchase Monroe Building belong to which category? So first category is responding to the public health emergence. Second is providing premium pay to employees conducting essential work. The third one is providing governmental services to the extent of a government's reduction in revenue due to COVID-19. The fourth is investing in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. So purchasing the property, the Monroe Building belong to which category?

I'm not sure if you're quoting directly from the law or the resolution. My understanding is that the law has itself had a number of multiple pages of categories and allowances. So I'm not sure if you're reading from, is this the resolution or is this from the actual federal law? I think that there are broad categories within the law that gave the city the authority to purchase that building.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Discuss this? Like which law item? I don't know if it's something we're going to get resolution on. So we will keep discussing this.

Councilor Mahoney. So I think what can be asked rather than this resolve or the law, there were properties purchased and economic stimulus was what you just said, Mr. Walker but I think maybe if you could just come back and tell us for the pieces of property that were purchased what the definition of the law that you passed in the federal portal. And then maybe we could have another discussion because I think, I think we can go back and forth all night long and say it wasn't right use or it was the right use. I think I heard somebody and one of the meetings came up and said that it was for, they purchased it because we didn't have a place Tourism, yeah. I was gonna say Quincy 2000 but we didn't have that going back a long time there for tourism so we bought the building for tourism but the building itself wasn't it was like a piece of it was used for tourism. But in any case if you could come back and give us the definition of the law that you put into the federal portal or those things that would be.

If we could ask the administration to come back and explain the purposes, the federal purposes that they used the ARPA monies to purchase specific properties like the Monroe Building. There was a Center Street purchase, there's a home 37 Center Street that was purchased for $385,000, $548 and they actually also paid off the mortgage that home, which was $98,885. So that was a house and they knocked it down and I don't know what the plan was for that but if that's economic development, if you can tell me how that's economy development I would greatly appreciate that. And then we also bought the 662 and 664 Southern Artery Purchase which I think is the Marina correct? and as far as I know when we talk about economic development in communities, there should have been a long list of why these things would be necessary. The Monroe Building was brought to the City Council

for the purposes of building a new city hall and Quincy College. But when that didn't happen, we bought it for a different purpose but yet I think we had the superintendent there when we were unrolling this saying that we were gonna use the opera money, but then later it was called tourism. So we're just looking for I think for the general public to put this to rest let's just find out what you put in the portal for and we can move on from that. The other questionable things that I saw was when we talk about the use of this, and we're gonna be specific about it. But tourism is one of the ones that get thrown out there. We used $1.2 million for the John Quincy Adams Park and Monument who used $5 million for the Mount Wollaston Cemetery. For those of you don't know, that's the Lobster Gates. That $5 millions was for that. The Adams Presidential Library, which isn't supposed to cost anybody anything. We invested $305,000 for that.

Then the Lone Sailor Park statue that's in Marina Bay. That was 1.5 million dollars. and then we can get into vendor specific things where the Dormanson Consulting, and the West Virginia University Research Consulting. I believe those were for salary studies Economic Development Salary Studies, Allure Spar. I'm kind of interested in that one. Do you know what that one's for? Allure SPAR. I don't know where Allure spars is but $25,000 for Allure spar and Babson College, I think we were paying tuitions at Babson college. So curious about that. And then we do have a lot of nonprofits that we went through too. And I'm not here to knock nonprofits but I do get concerned with some of the things that I do see, and I'm just gonna ask a question like $150,000 went out to the chamber. the Quincy Chamber.

That could be economic development for the small businesses that were having trouble at that time, but again validation is really it's looking for why we used it? What was the benefit for it and how did it positively impact the city of Quincy at the time that this money was being sent from the federal government, it was meant to help those who needed help. Businesses that were having struggling and now we're seeing years later a lot of people getting into trouble for inappropriate use of the monies that they used ARPA for, because they are going back and they are looking at these things. I am by no means saying that it was used inappropriately but there are communities that people are getting in trouble with and I hope that's not the case here But, and I don't think it is. I really don't. I want to make sure I'm saying that. I do not think it Is but I think the way we can kind of conclude this conversation is with those kinds of questions bringing it back because it sounds like you have the information just share it with the general public. Does that work?

Just real quickly, it's the saying without saying it, Councilor, that now we've sort of thrown it out there that I hope we didn't do anything wrong here. And those particular cases where there's been waste, fraud and abuse, those are people that were taking personal advantage of the money. I understand. Thank you. and that in no way, shape or form the items that you list off. You may not have agreed with them. The members of this body may not agree with them but they were entirely appropriate for the benefit of this city. And we can certainly provide the right category and what subsection of what category that was denoted to pay for that, but you mentioned John Quincy Adams Park. Should we have spent that money? Yes. the loan sales pack, should we have spent that money? Yes. The money to the Quincy Chamber of Commerce whether it was for events that they do to promote the city and promote quality of life, yes.

and I believe that almost every, if not every single one of these items that we go over through this spreadsheet when we submit the report back to you, every single on them I'm going to stand up here and say yes, we believe that was an appropriate use of this money. And respectfully, I disagree with your assessments of the parks in particular. But again, I see where you're coming from and we could provide a little bit more backup on that. I get it.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

have a follow-up. Councilor Yuan? So, Councilor Mahoney just mentioned the Wollaston Cemetery that gate cost $5 million. at the Golden Gate. Five million dollar can help how many residents? I really question you spent $5 million just on a golden gate at the cemetery. I'm wondering if that's really a proper use? just thinking about during COVID, how many residents need help. $5 million really can help a lot of residents, so I just give this one example that we can look up more to see if these rescue plan fund being really properly used to help residents.

that's it the renovations to the cemetery were much more than just the entry gate but by the way that EntryGate and the renovations are absolutely outstanding. And this was an opportunity we may not have had otherwise to use traditional infrastructure funding sources, traditional local funding this opportunity was presented us to get something done that coupled with the public safety headquarters across the street, coupled with improvements to FACSA field on the other corner and coupled with hopefully the federal funding that's gonna come through with a major intersection project in that corner, that's a major gateway to the city. And that we believe, again I understand you disagree with it but we 100% believe that that project was an appropriate use of money 100%, not only was it the gate, it was the refurbishment of the veterans area. It was the new war memorial dedicated to our veterans and those who were lost from the most recent conflicts that we fought in, there was a lot more to their project.

You can see the flagpoles now all in a row. That entryway to the city is absolutely beautiful and that is important to the quality of life in this city.

Thank you, Mr. Walker. Did anyone over here have anything? Anyone who hasn't spoken?

Counsel Yuan. but don't forget the cities and $2 billion debt. Because of this debt, the property tax keep increase forcing people out making people couldn't afford it and this situation, people couldn't afford it compared to make beautiful of a cemetery. Which one is more important? That's how I consider, how you spend money. You spend the money help resident for their everyday real problems. They couldn't afford this property tax and you spend the money to beautify the city, I think that should be secondary. That's my point. Madam Chairman we will never- Thank you Council Yuan.

We'll never apologize for beautifying the city.

Jacobs, Councilor Jacobs. So thank you.

I just want to kind of touch on the cemetery in regards to the ARPA funds The gates were presented in a meeting at the Parks and Rec Board, I'm pretty sure. And that meeting was people who attended that meeting weren't able to see what the gate was gonna look like. I know because I tried to observe that and was unable to do that. Another thing that I find, Although I agree with a lot of things that happened at the cemetery, the new war memorial, the extension of the veterans' graves. One thing that I do have a little bit of concern with is, again this is a historic city. There was a historic... I know it looks like a water fountain but it was actually a horse trough we don't really know where that is. We don't know where it's gonna be repurposed.

There was a gate already there, that had been broken up. There were broken pieces, the archways were broken I don't know what the, there was not really an open process to what was going on with the new cemetery gate. We don't if it was looked into how much it would have cost to restore the gate that was there you know, we didn't ask the folks who lived in that neighborhood along the back there. What's that? Is that Marymount Road about the gate you know, that's honestly not really that nice. I mean the front does look nice but the backs kind of got the... Not a great deal I feel like we could have tried to repurpose the old entry gate and use that as a way to beautify the backside of it as a pedestrian walkway because I think that's how it was initially built on the front side. Thank you very much.

A government resolution that was passed here last week. And also, I know is that a lot of other municipalities across the state used ARPA money for, I don't wanna say school renovations but to update HVAC systems, air conditioning systems. I mean, I was at Athen Howe open house two weeks ago. It was like 85 degrees in there. The heat was on. I know that the boiler system there is kind of wonky. It's an old building, it dates back to 1911 so you know but again we could have used some of those ARPA monies for that. We could've had air conditioning put in some of the older buildings. We could have air conditioning added to the newer buildings that we've constructed, that we decided not to put air conditioning into like Quincy High School Sterling I mean Southwest and

I think maybe, does the Christopher album have air conditioning? But some of the newer schools are central middle school. We could've used some of that money to buy air handlers and all that stuff to kind of bring those buildings more up to conditions that are beneficial not only for the people that work there, like you know the teachers and the staff but also our students. Our kids are going to school and temperatures that are way warmer than it was when we were kids, it's hot in there. And our teachers shouldn't have to work in those conditions and our students, our kids shouldn't have to learn under those conditions, and shocker they're not gonna be learning if it's 95 degrees in the classroom in September. Thank you.

Thank You Councilor Jacobs. Anyone else?

Councilor Ryan. To you, Madam Chair. Just to provide a clarification on the vendor-specific list, Elora Spa is actually a business located in Quincy. It's on Quincy Avenue. and I do believe during a an event at Quincy College. The owner of the spa was there, and she did thank the mayor at that time for a little bit of a helping hand during COVID. So I just wanted to clarify that, and I just want to also confirm that the funds have all been spent through ARPA correct? I believe so.

I'll let Madam Auditor speak to that. The time has passed, so anything that hasn't been spent is no longer available. Is that correct?

That's correct, yes.

And I think we're still waiting for a million dollars or so from one of the county...

Norfolk County, there's a million dollars that we're still waiting to receive that we should be receiving at the end of this quarter.

But we've already spent it?

It's in the process I believe of being spent yes.

Okay, I think we've had a lot of good discussion here and I think that can maybe agree to disagree on the priorities and the proportion of money that was spent on some of these gates and parks, and that sort of thing. Certainly It would be nice to get a final presentation of the monies and be able to see proportionally how much went to giving teachers bonuses, which is absolutely a worthy use of that money versus how much Parks, and Monuments. But I will just say that personally I believe if you drive by Interfaith Social Services and see the line of cars waiting to get into that food pantry Sometimes I think we can do better by our people. And I'll just leave that at that. No one else has any further comments on that? Okay, thank you.

So the last thing, finally, the last on our agenda tonight is Council Order 2026-056. The Council on Aging Department had theft and federal charges. Given how our discussion of this ended before we broke for the summer, I wanted to give Councilor Jacobs the opportunity to bring that conversation to a little bit more civil closure. Jacobs, and to present a few questions I know I have. But I would like to give Councilor Jacobs the floor for that.

All right. So back in April, on April 6th, 2026, Ward 60 Councilor Deborah Riley introduced order number 2,026-056. Council on Aging Department Head and Theft Federal Charges and just to give you a summary of what this was all about, okay there was an incident with the COA director who is embezzling money from the taxpayers, and also directly from the seniors who were utilizing these services at and Elder Services building down in Office Quantum Street. And so this order was basically just a way for the city council to kind of bring back responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars to look at the safeguards, to prevent any additional breaches such as this in the future.

Also to bring some accountability and transparency to this event. We all know there was a federal investigation, obviously the individual pled guilty in court. So because of that, I think a lot of things if it was an open more like an open trial probably would have had more public information but things where he basically pled out So this is what they agreed happened versus what could have actually occurred. But we also wanted to make sure that we were providing internal controls and approval processes, and also financial oversight mechanisms. We wanted to look at exactly what was going on. Director Michelle Hanley here, who kind of told us the things that they had changed in regards to collecting funds. They have a new online system when you go in there and it's almost like self

Service, like you're basically self-identifying yourself. You're saying I'm paying for this. They count the money in the back room. There's always more than one person there. I happened to go there that day that we had this meeting and they were actually three people in there counting the money and they kind of walked me through the process, what was going on. Having worked in fees and revocation things like that for the National Park Service many years ago it seemed like a pretty good system that they had down, seemed very similar to the one the federal government uses. at least in the National Park Service. And we really just wanted to make sure that we were reaffirming our commitment to safeguarding public resources, the building and also the people that we serve. And so that's what this... Resolution was really all about. It was just a way for us to say, you know, we know this happened. This is what we found out in court. This the information that we have here and it was a way people to kind of get that information

So since it wasn't kind of readily broadcast available because the individual ended up pleading guilty. And with that, I'll open it up to any questions that the counselors may have. Ryan, although it's been a while since I've done this.

Okay there we go. To you Madam Chairperson, not madam sorry. I would just like to know, during the meeting, the treasurer came up, Molly Smith and presented a very comprehensive review of the changes that she made after the investigation. I'd like to know if we can learn if internal controls More Comprehensive Internal Controls was enacted by the Purchasing Department. Now, we didn't get a chance to go into that so maybe we could address that question with Chief of Staff Mr. Walker. Thank you.

Anyone else? Councilor McKee,

So ahead of this presentation, we were provided a little bit more information than we had before. including some police reports and some invoices that came in, some purchase orders for some of these fraudulent purchases. I think tonight might be more for discussion since we don't have any and anyone from the purchasing department here as far as I know. But what I learned from this police report I noted a few things, so I'll just go through them. So some of the purchase orders were for Cleaning a Private Home. This was of what was reported by the federal prosecutor, it was a girlfriend or friend.

a towing of this friend's car, CD workshop for all these hours in the music studio. Some of us we've heard some of it was new to me One was for a lawn mower. and then there were purchase orders from a company for $38,134. in this police report that was from Celtic Safety, which I guess was Mr. Clasby's friend in the Bronx, New York. for classes at the center. Some interesting things from this report were that Mr. Clasby told an employee there when he was first submitting

This fraudulent purchase order that the first paycheck was for a friend's company to kind of get it off the ground and he would pay it back.

Sorry, that... that the individual pay it back or that Clasby would pay?

That Claspy would pay it as I understood it from this report. and so when I looked at the purchase orders for this, one thing I noted was that they're in the Bronx. hiring a company from the Bronx to teach classes in Squanam should raise a red flag, I think. Maybe it's just headquartered there but anyway, it might have raised some red flags In the invoices there were no dates for any of these classes. It was kind of always the same just sort of general classes on various things and there was another one that was mentioned of the reupholstery of a couch. And I guess some of these things

I think since he was the head of elder services, maybe he was just...I don't know exactly what the process was but he was possibly you know the one there that was approving these things. to go forward. But I don't know why cleaning a private home wouldn't have raised some red flags as a cost that would maybe you could argue a senior, I guess had a serious issue but these are things that kind of popped into my head. The other thing that I was thinking about is when it was mentioned that Mr. Clasby had told an employee, oh this is just to help a friend's company get off the ground and I'll pay it back

The fact that he said that and the fact that it wasn't then reported by the employee at that time indicates to me that he felt and everyone else understood that maybe he would not get in trouble for this, and that this was allowed. But I can't imagine that all employees in the city given the opportunity to help a friend get a company off the ground and they would pay it back. So I do think that I'm not saying that the mayor knew about any of this, but I do think that this highlights for me the importance of our hiring processes and making sure really trying to be fair about the people that we choose, and we're not choosing friends or family members or relatives.

because then those people might be seen by their colleagues and also themselves as having no you know, being able to sort of get away with things that other people wouldn't get away I think these are questions for me that come up, that I think the city should really address in terms of some of the things they're doing. I raised at the HR budget hearing but to you know, perhaps just like black out people's names on a CV so that people are just looking at the qualifications and not looking at their name or whatever. And hiring people

with a committee and having very fair scoring mechanisms, asking the same set of questions just to try to make sure that we are hiring people who are are all qualified and will not be sort of seen to be above the law, I guess.

On that last bit there where you talk about redacting people's names, I think that's a great idea. When I grade papers, I do the same thing. I can't look at the kid's name because I know the kid and I know what they're trying to say to me. I want to give them an A. When I try to grade, especially final papers, I always make sure I blank out the kids' names. That way I can't see it because you'd be biased that way.

And I just want to say, too, that I know this is really awkward. I feel awkward bringing it up. Our last meeting about this got very tense But I'm bringing it up because this happened, and I think we should learn as much as we can from it. And you know, we can always get better.

Yuan, just hold on one second.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm wondering does the city have the whistleblower policy? If we do have maybe This will be discovered much earlier, because this last decade. And already to the extent Class B just take those caches and and the people working there already know it. They're hiding those caches in different drawers when he come to the office, That's too dramatic. If already to that extent, how come you still take so long time to catch him? So, I'm wondering if first we have the policy to protect whistle blowers so people will be more

willing and dare to report suspicious behaviors?

If I may. Do you want to ask, do you want the solicitor answer that question? Solicitor Timmons.

Thank you very much, Councilor. it's been very difficult to sit here and listen to this. And I just ask if you plan on turning off my microphone, Mr. Chair? Please first advise me you find what I'm saying to be out of order so I can get the support of a councilor who might get a point of order and I can find out what I've done wrong in speaking. But, I'd like the opportunity to speak first to the points that Councilor McKee made and the inference you made, or the implication rather. Very clear implication that an employee who first heard from Mr. Clasby about something he was doing didn't report it because she thought he was able to get away with things, because of his relationship with the mayor. totally untrue, totally wrong, totally false.

A wrong implication but it's consistent with the entire presentation tonight. What happened was particular employees were intimidated both by Clasby's relationship with the mayor, and by the fact Claspy was their direct supervisor. and I know you folks understand this, know this happened. The FBI came in and conducted a multi-month investigation. I still have five volumes of material, five banker's boxes of material. They talked to everybody including the employees who made perfectly clear that they were concerned primarily about their job and there was nothing about the relationship with the mayor and Clasby that was direct.

Claspy implied things as you did tonight, Claspe would say I'm going up to see the mayor and things like that but it was found that that was part of his fraud. The second thing is we're talking about fraud here. Someone did things fraudulently, that company in New York that was an individual. The purchasing department took an initiative because the individuals name was all that came up from Mr. Clasby, and the Purchasing Department got an address, tax ID number, and independently checked with the Secretary of State in New York to find out about the company.

So they are the ones who identified that this guy was from New York, but it was the nature of the work he was doing that Clasby fraudulently represented just like He paid a painter for painting services but did not specify that he was painting a private home. Of course, he didn't. Of course he didn't, so I don't understand. You're shaking your head in agreement with me now but I don' t understand the implication Why would we let someone paint a private home and the city pay for it? That's not what happened here. The way the system works, the department heads run their department. The city has a system in place. The purchasing department can't check everything going on at every department in the city. They'd be swamped.

So they manage purchase orders and they manage contracts, and they managed requests for payment that come in from department heads. When department heads fraudulently do things which has happened once. this gentleman here, okay? We have 2,700 employees. Clasby is the one guy who went to federal prison for what he did. There was a... a prior incident involving a police officer who also went to federal prison. In that particular instance, he was kind of gaming the detail system. And that's what happened with him. In this case it was a patent of fraud

and it was discovered, and it's very important for everyone to understand that someone came forward to the mayor and made an allegation he spoke with her, he fleshed it out. And then that evening the Chief, myself and Mr. Walker were called into a meeting at like 8 30 in the Mayor's office. And we sat down that night and the next day, the police department was down waiting for Clasby. Took his car keys, took his office keys, locked him out of the building. Locked everything up and they began an investigation. So there was immediate action, and that's the best corrective measure. There aren't prophylactic measures that can be taken against fraud All right, that's just it can't happen especially in municipal government where pretty much every department is understaffed.

And so the mayor acted immediately we brought the, the police department brought the FBI in and today Clasby is in prison. Now I don't understand the purpose of this, I've heard some express purposes, but frankly after what went on earlier I don't know that I accept them. But there's not much of a reason for this council which could be moving forward with the administration to be looking in the rearview mirror at Tom Clasby. He's in federal prison, and the day the mayor learned about it that night he told us what to do. It was done. the whistleblower didn't need any protection at all because that's not how things operate in this city. people know they can come forward.

And it happened then, I don't think it's gonna happen in the future but I know that employees learned from what happened here that employee was protected, told her story, was believed and it was investigated. So I thank you Councilor Ash for allowing me to explain.

My intention was not to take, Councilor Yuan, take over the questions. I know that she asked a question about the city's whistleblower policy so I was just pointing to you to maybe... and since you're here, I have some knowledge of the statute but I certainly don't want to speak on behalf of the city so I believe her question was just with respect to the whistleblower statute.

Well, I trust I answered it hopefully and I'm happy to answer any other questions about this if anyone wants to know what's going on. I'd be very happy.

I think he answered my question. Does the city have the whistleblower policy to protect whistleblowers?

Oh, I don't know about that. You'll have I'm sure we do because there's regulations, but that's an HR question. Did you just ask is there a policy to protect whistleblowers? Did I hear you correctly? Yes. All right, so that's for the HR department to answer. Oh, I saw that. Okay, okay. Pardon me?

No, that...

I mean, I'm certain there's a policy. I don't know because at the state level and at the federal level you have to have policies but I don' t know that This is about Tom Clasby. It's not about whistleblower policies that I can speak to. Thank you.

by any common sense, if one steal cash and be known by the employees for so long, and how come he's still not been caught? I just don't understand. If he is not the best man at mayor's wedding if he is not so close to me, just see any officers. If has no such special connections how come he still cash? from the jar, and then that's people donated to the senior department. many, many times. Employee already know it. Every time he come to the office employee have to hide this jar in different jars in case that he took it. That's a movie scene by common sense. This can happen in Quincy

If just any normal one, this should be immediately caught, this person. I don't understand how this still can last until some whistleblower go to a blower. This should be immediately blow to whole city by gossip here, everyone should already know it. I just don't understand by any common sense how that can happen if this one doesn't have special connections to the mayor.

All right, so are you saying because he was the best man at the Mayor's wedding he felt that he could steal cash and he got away with stealing cash. Just to be clear, what are you saying precisely about the mayor and about Clasby. Because I'll tell you right now, I have here the sentencing memorandum from the United States Attorney following an FBI investigation. It's got everything in it, it addresses one of the false assumptions that you are making now, and I'll answer that next. But first, I want to hear from you directly. Why are you talking about someone at the mayor's wedding and then saying how could he steal cash? just clarify for me, is there a relationship?

I just want to point it out that people are thinking for themselves. Just by anyone's common sense. and this is a fact. I don't make any connection, I just want people thinking for themselves.

Well if you're going to talk about facts, you need to talk all the facts and you're not doing that. The fact is that the people put money into boxes, a donation box. but then at the end of the day, it was collected by Mr. Clasby as a department head and he took care of reporting it to the city treasurer's office. He did that alone but he took control of the cash and the checks, and all that was getting reported for a period of time was the checks. but to imply that any employees were somehow complicit or they didn't take appropriate action, They did what their job was, and then at the end of the day it was collected by Clasby. And what he did was he didn't report all the money

Thank you, Mr. Timmons. I'm all set.

You're all set?

Yeah, thank you. I think you answered everything.

So what are you saying? I should sit down?

I don't have anything to ask you. So according to the February 10th, 2025 article then Director of Municipal Finance Eric Mason told the Patriot Ledger that the city was crafting A new speak-up policy that would include an independent hotline a city employee could call to voice their concerns. There has been a large gap of insulation between the individual making the call and someone like someone like me who would be in charge of the investigation so the worker feels protected, Mason said. City officials have already met with a qualified firm according to Mason. He said he couldn't discuss the details because the policy is still in draft but he described the company as a national reputable firm. Now, maybe that was HR, but I have to say that HR typically goes to their legal counsel. Now I'm not asking Mr. Simmons. Typically it goes to legal counsel to make sure we're doing that

but it was Mr. Mason who was the finance director, that spoke in the paper about this and I think that's all we're asking is is this policy that was being created by the national reputable firm, has that actually gone anywhere? And it's not a question to you. It's a question really for the city because you said you don't have anything to do with HR.

Right, so instead we spew inferences onto the floor. Say I'm not asking you a question. Usually everyone goes to the solicitor or the law department about policies you said that, not me. I heard that the public heard that this is another example of what's going on all night here. and the public, please. I'm responding and I wish to not be interrupted as you frequently do. And I know when I sit down, you'll then mischaracterize what I say but I want the public to hear what I have to say, which is that if there's a policy and first of all, if you're reading from the ledger that's not always accurate, okay? Not always accurate. Well I know that. I know, quoting from the ledger is part of the game plan up here. And the ledgers not always accurate. They put something out last week about the mayor

and a statement he allegedly made to his staff. Totally false headline, and when you read the article they talked to someone else. but in this instance here, in response to what you raised. The question you raise. Well, I want to respond to this. No we're done. We're not done because you folks do not the city councilors do not have a right to infer things and say I don't know and then step back from it If there's a policy that's been worked on, we'll get it.

Excuse me. Please sit down. You've been asked to sit down Why have I been asked? I'm answering a question. No, no one asks you a question! You are coming forward and providing unsolicited information that nobody asked for.

please sit down. I'm clarifying in the statement, am I out of order or is the department head, the city attorney allowed to respond when something completely incorrect

You're allowed to respond when someone asks you for a response to a question, which you were never asked. Thank you. Do you have anything else to say? I do.

So, I'd like to go back to where I think actually the key of this is and it is something that has been decided in the courts, that much I can agree on. a tremendous blow to the city of Quincy. I think if anybody knew Tom Clasby, it was shocking to anybody to know that this is the person who did this but I would go back to the consultant. I know that, I just looked at my email. I see I got it at 1 30 this afternoon. Thank you Jen for sending out the warrants with the backup. I just haven't had a chance to look at it. but the Celtic Safety Consultants, what I think we need to do is spend more time looking at that. Identify the five, I think did that, the five totaling 38,134 and really, because the things that's jumped out to me. You can check things and they can be businesses but this is a business that's out of the Bronx and it was going to somebody's apartment. They were doing nutrition, exercise, stress management Hoarding and home safety, employees were told investigators that the classes never occurred.

QPD reports said federal prosecutors later stated that the company provided no goods or services to the city department So really what we need to know is did Celtic Safety Consultants originally establish how was it approved, how to become a city vendor? And I think Mr. Timmons already explained that the procurement officer went the extra mile to check that what documentations were received. I know that from the first night there was a W-9, was there a tax ID business address insurance contract? Who approved the Celtic vendor who approved each of the five payments. What documentation demonstrated that these classes had actually taken place before the invoices were paid? Now, that's changing because we're going from procurement to finance. We're going to the accounts of payable. So I just know when we do a procurement piece and then it goes to the finance, they'll question things that's what you should do. Like a good accountant, a good system will question things that come across the desk because they'll say the appropriate backup isn't here can I check on this? This seems like an inappropriate use and it will get pushed back to the departments.

I'm sure many departments have had questions from the finance team The Celtics' payment address was an apartment in the Bronx. An out-of-state vendor certainly isn't something that's gonna be improper by itself, but did the financial system flag that new vendor their residential address is unusual for a vendor to have for an additional review. These are questions that are fair to ask, these are the types of things you should ask in oversight and you should be able to ask and not be told that we're doing it the wrong way and that were being aggressive. Those are questions, just like asking if we have a whistleblower policy and what the question was, was do we have it? And what the solicitor said was HR does that. And what I read was Eric Mason was talking about it so it was talked about. I'm just looking to find out if it ever happened and that's a fair question to ask an oversight not a diatribe of all the things that are unfair about how we ask questions, it's a fair question.

So when we look at those things in each stage who is responsible person confirming that the city actually received those services? was there anyone outside the elder services required to verify any of these performances for these things? Could each department head essentially certify their own expenditures and cause it to move through the warrant process without being checked? Those are the kinds of questions that need to be answered. And I'm sure that we have safeguards on those things, but I think those were types of things that we're asking for here. and then when we look at those payments where they're being viewed individually or cumulatively, did the city's financial system identify cumulative payments from the same vendor because it was over a certain amount? So we hired somebody for one thing, and then were starting to go over a certain amount. Did it meet the procurement rules? Was anyone reviewing how much a department had paid a particular vendor over the course of a fiscal year? would five payments totaling over $38,000 triggered any procurement audit or review?

Should it have? Again this is not saying that anybody did anything wrong but those are the safeguards that I think we would like to hear. Those are the safeguards that we would like to hear. And then as far as the cash in the Kennedy Center where we talked about that too, they were saying over $1,000 a week should have been, it was being delivered by the man himself and then who was reconciling those amounts when they were ultimately deposited against the slips of what they had when they collected that money. So maybe the auditor can answer me this. Maybe this is a question I can ask you, Susan. What testing and performance during the city's annual audit of Elder Service expenditures and cash receipts during 2019 to 2024. You may not know that, but I'm just gonna ask that anyway. Is there any performance auditing performances that are done to check for cash? or is that just on the outside?

I'm not sure about that timeframe, to be honest with you, Councilor.

But you wouldn't be the one that would do that.

That would be our annual... No, that would be through the annual audit and I'm assuming if it was with state grants I'm assuming that the state would audit some of the grants.

Right, so those annual audit outside audits normally examine transaction at this level they would be detecting something like this would require an internal department audit were the elder services cash receipts ever reconciled independently? If that happened, or it should happen. It should be something that because this happened maybe we should think about it and I don't have the treasurer here tonight but she might've mentioned something to that effect were files ever sampled and confirmed that the services billed to the city had actually been provided? Obviously, we had a really horrible thing happen. you know, it was fraud and it was unexpected. And nobody, no municipality wants to go through that but we are asking these questions because this was brought at the last city council, and it was never brought forward. And it was said because the court case was pending and all these other reasons why you couldn't talk about it but now he's in jail so now is the right time to be asking those questions

So I really do want to say that this is not I think it's something that many people were upset about and felt personally violated by because there are many people who went and used the elder services, hurt by the people that they trusted. And that's really what happened in this particular case, that you know, people really trusted this individual and they were fooled. And I guess the only other question that I'd have is has the city received $136,000 in restitution? Do we know that Susan?

I'm not sure about that as of yet. That was going to be done through the pension. I believe when the pension payout came through, I thought that part of it would go back to the city.

We on? All right, I can answer that. That 136,000 is working its way through, it's coming. It was part of the negotiation and one of the reasons that Mr. Clasby sentencing was continued on multiple occasions because they were trying to agree on a number that represented the balance in Clasby's retirement account, that would have otherwise been returned to him. and I can also answer, I don't understand why you were saying earlier that the checks were being sent to a P.O box and that should have been a trigger for somebody.

I said as an out of state vendor, that's one thing that's doing services for the elder services and that it was a vendor that had an apartment number as their address.

Right, you said the checks were being sent to a PO box which should have been. Well there was material I know given to you at your request and I presume was distributed to all the councilors and it answers a lot of the questions you just kind of threw out on the table, but one of them is that the check that was sent on each of the five occasions, it's in here. and it's sent to a street address, 5700 Arlington Ave 12N Bronx New York. It was not sent to PO box so that would not have been a trigger for anything and most of the material you want to look at, it's all here. I didn't say it was a P.O. Box. Well that's what I heard you say.

I said it was an apartment number.

Well, I heard P. O. Box

Well, you heard everything up until that part correctly but it was not a PO Box.

Yes, so my point is just in highlighting these issues is to see how can we do things better. As I understand it, and I am not a purchasing person but I did with Councilor Riley take a class through the Inspector General's office. There are There are things that people can do to reduce the chances of fraud. You cannot eliminate it, but you can reduce it. And there's certain red flags and they said to us in that classroom You can't do all of these things at once, but you can implement them one at a time or as you learn about them. So there are different things you can do. I mean it seems in this case that I'm a little bit unclear as to who might be checking whether

I don't purchase store certain service purchased has been provided and if it's all sort of one person, I think it's ideal to sort of separate that out into multiple people. So so it's harder to have something like this happen again. It did happen here, so I think it's fair to ask these questions. I also just want to make a statement to say that I really object attacks on anyone in the audience, from anyone in council chamber or on the Council. Especially the free press. We are in an environment where we don't have People just aren't buying subscriptions, so press is struggling. And so I think we really are lucky to have local reporters here and we do have a number of local outlets that are covering things very closely. And I don't think it

This has happened a number of times recently where folks have criticized the Patriot Ledger, which has been reporting on some of these touchier subjects. And I appreciate that reporting and I don't appreciate disparaging that reporting.

Any other questions from counselors? Riley.

Thank you. And I think that what we're trying to do is to just understand better what changes the city has made or intends to make so that we can all learn something from this experience. The treasure collector got up and gave a very detailed presentation on how she handles cash, and how she feels she's improved any loopholes or weaknesses that may have been in that process. The current head of elder services has done the same. Even when she came up before for her budget, she was very cautious and very clear that she wants to do better. And what we haven't heard is of any purchasing changes, and that's really the part that is really discouraging. We have not heard anything other than we couldn't have possibly done anything differently, and that is very discouraging. Very discouraging!

So if we don't look to ourselves, if you don't for mistakes and figure out how we can do things better then we're destined to repeat the same mistakes. And I think at the end of the day, you know, the department heads do have a lot of authority and in this case that was the weak link the department head had supreme authority over his budget and his people, I'm sure a certain amount of trust. He had been around for a long time, and so that is something we need to learn lessons from. We can't just say oh well, we couldn't have done it any better and say that we're victim shaming, and playing Monday morning quarterback because as Councilor Mahoney said this was something that was not talked about until the sentencing was over. We were told that we couldn't hear anything more. It was all hush-hush until the feds took care of it, and so now is the time to do that.

and I would just like to know what changes in purchasing have been implemented, and who's running purchasing right now? There's a lot of unknowns that is still to be answered. and the other thing I'll mention is that The Patriot-Ledger did have to defend their reporting by getting a copy of the federal sentencing guideline, with an article that said there was evidence this went back 10 years to 2014, although the case only covered from 2019-2024. it seems that this behavior had been going on for quite some time and again, all we can do is learn something from it.

Thank you. Mahoney.

One thing I forgot to ask, and I think it might have been told last time, where is the restitution? The $136,061.71, where's that going to go to? Does Madam Auditor know? I think it should go back to the COA, honestly. These people were giving $5 to do yoga, $10 for a nutrition class whatever was happening and it may not seem like a violation but that's a huge violation. You're a taxpaying citizen of the City of Quincy, you're going to the senior. These are the places we should feel the safest and I don't think this is one of those things that should go to free cash. I think it should go back, the restitution could go to the COA into build something better than the memory that's gonna be left there. That was a hard thing for the new director to go in and take care of, if you wanna talk about morale being down I know Councilor DiBona likes to talk about moral but people at the COA were were devastated.

And that was a wave that went through the whole city with this, and we do expect more from the people who work in our public, and we expect when something bad happens in our pubic that we're gonna put safeguards into it so what will not happen again. And by no means should anybody be so defensive when people are asking questions because whether it's one person or it's 100 people, it happened. It happened underneath the watch of the people who work here in the city so I want to know where that money is going to go.

Thank you. Any other questions? All right, I'm just gonna close with a brief statement. So before we close tonight's Oversight Committee Joint Oversite Finance Committee hearing regarding this portion on the Clasby incident. I want to thank everyone who came forward and answered questions, and helped the committee to examine what happened at the Council on Aging Above all, Above all, I want to thank the whistleblower who stood up for Quincy's seniors and the staff at the Council on Aging and the taxpayers of the city. Coming forward takes extreme courage especially when the person whose conduct you are reporting holds authority over you. And it can be hard to do the right thing when your superior is doing the wrong thing. Fear of retaliation

Concern about your livelihood and pressure to remain silent can weigh heavily on you. Your willingness to speak up deserves our respect and our gratitude. to any employee who does that. I also wanna recognize the Council on Aging staff, who serve our seniors with care and dedication working through these circumstances like that just happened where it could be difficult both professionally and personally Their work matters, and the seniors who depend on them deserve a department where employees can feel supported and safe. and raising concerns. The money that's entrusted to the Council on Aging, and to any State Department is intended to support our seniors when their resources are stolen It can harm, the harm reaches beyond the budget. It can damage public trust and takes away resources meant for people who rely on these services. Holding this oversight committee hearing gives the public insight into what happened, as I started off saying. What we have learned and what we have changed in response.

Residents deserve to understand where failures occurred what safeguards have been strengthened and what work remains, and we still have work to do there. Restoring public trust requires openness about what went wrong in clear evidence and that we're taking action to prevent it from happening again. This is why this hearing matters. Our responsibility is to seek accountability strengthen oversight and follow through on issues raised here tonight. Employees must know that concerns will be taken seriously, and that speaking up will be supported. to the whistleblower, thank you for refusing to look the other way. The Council on Aging staff, thank your for continuing to serve our seniors and to the Quincy seniors and taxpayers, you deserve honesty , accountability, and responsible stewardship of every public dollar. I also just want to add that I will be putting forward a resolution

request that the $136,000 from the restitution does go directly to the Council on Aging and not into the general fund. So that way... the good folks over there can figure out best how they can support our seniors with that money instead of, you know, the administration. But just over at the Council on Aging. look for a motion to adjourn this meeting? Very good, second. Second by Councilor DiBona. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.

for the inspection sticker and equipment violation.

A4. That female pilot is going to be coming in. I'll be transporting her. Cummings, Domestika, A&B, and A&P. I'm sorry. That's all of the names for them.

XR1, UNCHOS, Clear, and OEMS.

847 mileage 14107.8 114

at West Elm Ave, Mass Ridge, Echo, Victor 1-8, Foxtrot Delta.

So any variable for the red light, I'll be clear.

Simba, and Clara Poulsar. 8-4 outside port, MRS 14109.4.

and some of our other clerks. Control 7-4.

7-7-4? Southern Downs, 100 Grand Street. Drive through there for multiple activations on the rear door.

Before I have it. 7-3 to 4, I can grab that from you. I'm not fraught.

Thank you. Thanks.

2, 7-3 going on.

7-3 Toys and windows are all secure. We'll be clear.

12-7-3 Clear Here at 63 Suami Road, call says there's an alarm going off the last two hours unknown from where. Stays and sounds like a fire alarm or home security alarm has been going off for two hours only one caller

Very well.

73 in the area.

182. Good. CVS 626 Southern Irie, and I guess a driver that hit a tree. He said he did not need an ambulance.

Christensen.

Thank you too, Bill.

I don't hear it.

If you don't have anything, we'll show you quickly.

Control to 774.