LIVE: Quincy City Council (Public Hearing, Ordinance Committee, City Council) - May 11, 2026

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Good evening, I'd like to call the Monday, May 18th, 6.30 p.m. public hearing to order. This Council Order is 2026-067 Utility Grant of Location Mass Electric Verizon 46-50 Winter Street. once again 2026-067 utility grant of location Mass Electric and Verizon 46 to 50 Winter Street. This is for a poll move. At this point, I would like to ask anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition to come to the podium, state your name and address. If you do not wish to speak but would like your support or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table in the back of the chamber. Seeing no further public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.31 PM.

Good evening, I would like to call to order the Monday, May 18th, 6.30 p.m. public hearing on Council Order 2026-068. Utility Grant of Location, Mass Electric and Verizon, 46-50 Winter Street. This is for a pole installation. 46-50 Winter Street, pole installation. At this point, I would like to ask anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition to come to the podium, state your name and address. If you do not wish to speak but would like your support or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table in the back of the chamber. Seeing no further public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.31.

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Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the ordinance committee for May 18th. I will read into the record the open meeting law. Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley. Ryan, Councilor Yuan, Jim and Keith.

Thank you. So thank you everyone for coming to this to this meeting where we'll be discussing the recent raises for politicians and their proposed repeals. Since it's been a little while, let me start with a brief summary of the issues. In June 2024, then city councilors unanimously approved raises for themselves and the mayor. They passed ordinances or local laws setting the mayor's salary at $285,000, a 79% increase above his previous take-home pay, and the Council's salary at $44,500, representing a 50% pay boost. The raises were to kick in six months later on January 1st, 2025. As we know, the raises proved incredibly unpopular.

Critics objected to their size, especially the mayor's, which would have seen him make more money than every other mayor in the country except LA's, as well as the lack of a single public hearing about them. but despite a massive outcry and an organized petition movement against the raises after their passage, the council refused to reconsider its votes. until mid-October 2024, when the city announced an abrupt about-face, saying that the council and mayor would defer taking the raises until the start of their next terms. The reason was revealed a few weeks later. The State Ethics Commission had raised conflict of interest concerns about politicians accepting pay boosts in the same term they had proposed or voted on them. Fast forward to today when a new city council has taken office. The previous raised ordinances remain on the books, having never been repealed or amended by the previous council.

So this council came into office receiving the $15,000 raise that many of us had campaigned against. When I reached out to the State Ethics Commission before I was sworn in to ask if the new council could repeal the raise in our current term, I was told that we could not. The same state conflict of interest law that forced the Mayor and previous Council from taking the raises last term prevents this Council from cutting our salaries via ordinance this term. But in our last committee discussion of the issue, Solicitor Timmons explained that there was a workaround that did not rely on writing or passing any ordinances. He said individual councilors who wanted to return the raise immediately could write a letter to the city asking for our pay to be reduced. This administrative deferment is similar to what the previous council did to comply with conflict of interest law, only this time it's voluntary.

In a moment, I'll give any counselors who wish to the opportunity to share how they're handling their current salary. After that, we'll invite the solicitor back to answer any questions from other counselors about the administrative deferments and raises, which remain on the books with 2025 start dates. Finally, we can discuss wiping the raises off the books at the earliest term possible through repeal ordinances. My hope is that we can repeal the previous raise ordinances before the summer recess in July so that we can start a new process to calculate fair raises when we reconvene in September. And with that, I would like to open the floor to anyone who would like to share what they're doing with their current salaries. No. would any members of the council, yep, Councilor Ryan.

Thank you, madam. So I wrote a letter dated March 30th, to the Business Manager Office of Municipal Finance to have my salary deferred to the salary that was originally set in the fiscal year 2025 budget, which was 29.7. Now, the effective date should be as of January 3rd, 2026. Unfortunately, I did not realize that you couldn't do it retroactively. but at the same time I have made some non-profit donations and later on this year I will be typing up a letter of which nonprofit organizations I have donated to. I also want to state that in an interview with Peter Blandino,

I had stated that in order to have the noise reduced, which wasn't really the correct word, so I do apologize for that. It's not noise. We should have done this probably sooner rather than later, but it has been done and I commit to what I had stated during my campaign.

Thank you. Would anyone else on the council? Yeah. Councilor Jacobs.

Hi. Yep, I also did the same. I wrote a letter to the business director around the middle of April deferring my raise to the raise of the former council. like the other Councilors here, I accepted that raise for X amount of pay periods. I wrote a check the other day for $3,000 to the Quincy Band Boosters, and that is a little bit more than the actual total of what I actually received in the raise and I suggest that the other councillors find a nonprofit that they want to donate money to if they deferred and were received money during those pay periods from January to whenever they signed that deferral letter.

Hsu, anybody else? Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Councilor McGee. I'd just like to clarify that when we were brought on board and each of us went into human resources, it's not like we were given any kind of option. given paperwork to sign like you would with any new job. It's been a long time since I've been onboarded with a, you know, I've been self-employed for so long. So it's not like we ever had the option to take any action at the time that we were brought on board. So for me, I had personally found that the raises were long overdue. However, flawed in their execution, I pledged to give my money to charity. the net difference in pay because I'm still paying taxes and I have to participate in the union. So I have given to Interfaith Social Services, Dove,

I make an annual donation every year to the Quincy Public Schools for their students that need help paying for prom and other graduation activities so I will continue to do that and I hope that we can get this process right. going forward. Thank you.

Anyone else? Councilor Mahoney?

Oh, one second.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I was really jumping the gun there. So I appreciate what Councilor Riley just explained. And what I also want to explain, I did defer my salary. I have also donated. Prior, when I was on the City Council, when the salary was 29.8, I donated then, too. A lot of the salary that we get here on the Council turns up in your community because there's a lot of things we get asked for. I have no problem. are donating to services within our community to help our community. The salary, I did defer just because it's easier to keep track of it. And quite honestly, I do think it was flawed. And it is one of those things that I did talk about. And maybe we really need to take a step back and realized that it could eventually end up being around the same price, but really the same amount of what's being compensated, but there was really no back up when they did this in the council. And what we really need to do is have a real discussion about the size of our city, the amount people get paid in other communities, and really that data and have a real conversation about it.

It's nice that the mayor, I know how this worked because I was with the council, they wanted to give a raise to the council back then too. It was like, the mayor is going to give you a raise. And this is what we think it should be. But that's not really how it should be. it should be a discussion so that the taxpayers understand why we're asking for that or why we're getting that raise and it's backed up in factual data. and that's what I think this conversation is about. So this is not about saying that the previous council is terrible. It's really about saying we just want to set the record straight for our constituents and make sure that we have a real conversation about these things and have a real way path forward to be able to show what the salary raises should be. And I just wanted to mention that. Thank you.

Anyone else? Ash. Thank you.

Looking forward to discussing the orders in front of us, these next four orders. prior to elected office, during elected office, and I'm sure long after elected office, whenever that day may be, I will continue to support our amazing nonprofits and organizations in the city. I don't... I think to get into a contest of who's donating how much to which organization, I think quite frankly it's a little juvenile, but I will say that Like all of you, we all support great organizations that are close to our hearts for different reasons, and I will continue to do that. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yes. Councilor Hubley?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So if you were to tell me back in 2024 that we would still be working on this, I would have told you you're a little crazy, but we're here nonetheless. I kind of thought this would have been after the initial and after the initial feedback to the process, I didn't really think we'd still be here working through this but we are. So because of that, when I announced my campaign, it was like April or so back in 2025, I really centered my message on, you know, thorough oversight, community building, and also mainly protecting the neighborhoods from unwanted development. and so from there, as I told the press, as I told every voter that I knocked on their door and they asked me about this question, I said, pretty much the same thing. While I think the process might have met the letter of the law, I probably didn't meet the spirit of the intent, which I think would have

benefited from some more public input, a little bit more time and discussion about it. And I think going from there, I'm really interested in seeing us have a vigorous discussion about what the compensation should be. especially having been in the position for a couple of months now, I can certainly say, and I'm hoping my colleagues would agree with this, that it is a lot of work when you do it intentionally and you do it thoughtfully. You put in a lot of time and a lot of work, and as I said to the voters at the door, I'm very much in favor of revisiting this topic, reassessing the compensation for all elected officials and how we handle it going forward through a vigorous conversation with a lot of public input. and I'm glad we're getting around to doing that now, which is great. And that's not a criticism of when we're getting to it. I'm just glad we're working on it now. I didn't like the process. It went really quick.

and so I'm happy to revisit this topic. And let's see, yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Yuan?

So at this year's February 2nd City Council meeting, I announced that several councilors, including myself, had decided to donate our portion of Councillor's Wraith to non-profit organizations. Since then, actually even before then, I have consulted with residents, city employees, and some public officers about which organizations would be are the most appropriate recipients for these funds. So because this is a taxpayer-funded compensation, I take it seriously and want to ensure it is used in a way that benefit most to the community.

Subsequently, I contacted the principals at three public elementary schools, Francis Parker, Snag Harbor, and Lincoln Hancock. and I have met Superintendent Mr. Maui and Ms. Parkins and they discussed about developing some specific educational programs supported by this fund. So I have donated the first quarter of my pay raise to these three schools. 1,000 each, and I plan to donate the remainder of my pay raise to these schools on a quarterly basis. I'm very happy to support Quincy Public Schools. Thank you.

Anyone else? Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. have been elected since 2015. I think I'm kind of in a different boat than everybody else up here. Giving a step back to 2015 was a very tough race. Doug Guttrow ran for mayor. and he opened up a seat on city council at large. And in that race, it was Joe Finn, Nina Liang, myself, Mike McFarland was an actual sitting incumbent, and then Dave McCarthy. So you have five seats, five people running for three seats. It was a very hard race. and no one ever told that the newbies would win and it was Joe Finn, myself and Nina won those seats. Two years later, and Mahoney sitting next to me. We've been in a lot of races together. Joe Finn has stepped down in 2017 and decided to run, and me and Nina were now incumbents.

and you also saw Margaret LaForest coming off award one for eight years and then Dan Raimondi coming off the DPW. He resigned from DPW on June 30th and ran in July 1st. So you have five strong contenders running for three seats. and in that particular race, it was myself, Anne Mahoney, and Nina Liang. Those two particular years were very, very tough races out there in the city of Quincy. and then in 19 and 21 and 23 and 25, I had ran successfully. Anne and I have run, including school committee in 2013, we've run against each other six times. Both of us have been successful in all six races. I was talking to Walter Hubley offline about the ward councilor role. I says, well, ward councilor's a little bit more in depth, but at large is very hard to win. It's very difficult to win an at-large seat.

Her and I have been in a lot of races together. Quite a bit, huh, Yan? 2025 race was intense out there. A lot of sitting Councilors sitting up here tonight were running against me. I was out there on the street with all the incumbents that had to absorb these raises. It was a very difficult situation. I get my head kicked in for two straight years. I'm still getting my head kicked in today. continuously. It's been very hard and difficult to absorb because I think this is a great city. I think we have a lot of things to offer. And I understand your role as being as, I guess, transparent to the public. but there's a lot of great things that have happened all these years since I've been on the council. It's my 11th year. The Hancock-Adams Common is unbelievable.

2017, that's revitalized. and all the different development downtown. I know we need to do more work and we need to get better. all the years since I've been an elected official, since even 2013 on the school committee. I've donated to various Quincy public schools, all the youth sports, veterans groups, all the causes that need anything out in the city, I've been open to donate to. I mean, we're talking thousands upon thousands of dollars every year. and I will continue to do that. You know, being a rookie Councillor is very different because you're coming up here and you're learning basically how to be a Councillor. It's very difficult. I've served with... over 20 different counselors now with this new group with a lot of different personalities, a lot of different ways of working with each other.

and it's been a learning curve just to learn each and every one of you's personalities and the way you conduct your business as a Councillor. as an at-large Councillor, I've always been cognizant of the ward Councillor and their particular wards and working with them. I always like them to lead their wards. With that being said, I'm an award-winning resident as well. I mean, just looking over all the terms, it was Margaret LaForest and then it was Dave McCarthy and now it's David Jacobs. Ward two, it was Brad Kroll and then it was Anthony Andronico and now it's Richard Ash. Ward 3, I came in rookie with Ian Cain, and now it's Walter Hubley. In Ward 4, it was Brian Palmucci and Jimmy Devine, and now it's Virginia Ryan. In Ward 5, I served with Kirsten Hughes, and Chuck Phelan, and now Maggie McKee and Ward Six.

I've served with Deborah Riley and Bill Harris. And at large, Joe Finn, Nina Liang, Anne Mahoney, and Scott Campbell. It's been a long list of people that have come in and out of these seats over the years. I just want to say, and I appreciate you giving us all an opportunity to speak tonight because I don't think people have the full history. Some people are coming to the table in the last two years. And the particular raises have brought a lot of people out to listen. but I've been around here a long time now. We've been around here a long time, school committee and council, but I just, you know, I think everybody just keep an open mind moving forward. I am looking forward to the discussions on this because it might be back at the same pay, to be honest with you, with the proper, I'll close with this. I was council president in 2022 and 2023. Council president right now is Ian Mahoney.

Prior to that is Ian Cain. In the last two semesters or two years, I've not been on any of the other ones besides oversight. I always allow the President of the Council to conduct the way they're doing it and let the Chair conduct the way they run their meetings. So please understand that that's very important to me as a Councilor. to let you run those chairmanships and those presidencies from your point of view. So please understand that prior to this council, when everybody talks about, well, they ran it this way, well, we have to give the proper procedural of the presidency and the department, I mean, and the chairs of those particular committees. So please take that under consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, I think that's everybody. Did anyone have anything else to add before I briefly say something? Okay. So the raises were very important to me, and it was more that they were kind of symbolic of a larger issue in the city. that had to do with whether or not people were allowed to have a voice in city council meetings and felt welcome and included in city government, whether things were being done in a way that you could kind of point to a reason for why things were the way they were and because I felt that those things were absent, we didn't have any ability to speak even though we had asked multiple times,

there was really no kind of data backing up why the council salary was the way it was and why there was a report for the mayoral race, but that didn't include any elected mayors. It was all appointed, hired city managers, which is a different type of thing. So for me, the process is the most important thing because the process is what can give people a sense of trust in government, and that's what I think I'm hoping that we can kind of return to and build up again because I think a lot of people lost that trust after how the raises were handled before. So I'll just briefly say that

I wrote a letter on April 10th to ask that my pay be lowered to the previous council salary and had already given the amount of the raise to food pantries Interfaith Social Services, Good Neighbors, St. Chrysostom's, I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, and QCAP. Yeah, so now it's given back, it's been donated, and I hope that we can really dive into things and try to have a do-over that I think makes everyone feel better about the process. So with that, I will ask Solicitor Timmons to come up. and see if any councilors have questions because I was the only one who asked questions the last time you were up here. So would anyone else like to ask questions about the raise process or

Deferments, or anything related to this?

I never heard from anyone, so I suspect there are no questions. in response to your question?

Yes.

About the impact on retirement?

Yes. So I had just, I had emailed Solicitor Chimmons on Friday asking whether, so because the dates were the same and never changed in the ordinance, to find out what the pension implications are for that because it says $285,000 as of January 1st, 2025.

Well, I'll first tell you that I'm not a lawyer who does pension work. So with that caveat, I'm going to tell you the answer that I learned and I believe is the correct answer. The way that one's pension is calculated is they look at the pool of money from which your contributions have been taken. So the way that's been interpreted is universally in this state, that whatever you're actually paid is the basis for your pension. One kind of underlying misconception that has to be understood is that the Quincy Retirement Board is completely autonomous from the city. They don't answer

Weber. to the city, they answered a PRAC, which is a state agency. I did get this information through PRAC, and I've confirmed it as best I'm able. What that means is, in response to your question, the mayor's pension will be calculated based on whatever the actual salary that he was paid was. And that would be the same as the group here, although I think Councilors need to understand that to the extent they're accepting the full salary, that's what their pension would be calculated on. What they do with the money once they receive it that's of no effect.

So you got this information for PARAC and the Quincy Retirement Board would make the ultimate decision whenever the mayor decides to retire. Is that right?

That's correct. Okay. It's up to the retirement board, and then it gets sent up to PIRAC, and they review it.

Is it possible to get in writing that this would happen? Or should we ask the Quincy Retirement Board, do they have a solicitor that they work with? I guess I'm just thinking like again to kind of make sure that everyone understands because pension had been a big question in the community.

Okay. Have I been unclear? So I'm happy to clarify, it's whatever you are actually paid. The ordinance for the mayor says $285,000. He's actually been paid since he agreed to the deferment So the 151 or something like that. And what happens is the information from Unify about what the mayor's been actually paid would get sent over to the retirement board. and they would then do the calculations. That happens to every employee in the city.

But there's no way to get this in writing from you. It would be coming from the Quincy Retirement Board or?

Do you want me to write a sentence? I don't understand what you want. I mean, I'm standing here in front of a public body. I'm the city solicitor. I've been in this position since 2008. I answered your question. I don't understand why you want anything in writing, Councilor. but if you want something in writing, you should feel free to contact the Retirement Board of PIRAC. Okay. Okay, it's that easy. but beyond that, I'm not quite sure. I was not asked to provide a memo. I asked you on Friday if there are any questions, just let me know. You were the only one who responded. and I'm answering it. But if you need something in writing, I'm not sure why you would need something in writing. and frankly, it's a little unclear why we're this focused on this particular issue at this juncture.

Councilor DiBona alluded to some of the things going on earlier, but whatever you need beyond what I've said. This camera's on me. This counsel is here. And I do give the caveat that I'm not a pension lawyer, but I... talk to people who know, and it's a pretty simple concept. It's whatever you're actually paid. It's not what the ordinance may state. And...

I guess it's the caveat that makes me concerned, and it would be nice to have something in writing that points to where it says that about what you're paid in muni.

Well then, why don't you contact, I don't know who the retirement board would refer your question to or how they would answer it, but they can answer that.

Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming up. You're welcome. Certainly. Let me just ask one more time in case anybody's thought of questions since, right? Oh, okay. Councilor Ryan?

Thank you.

McGee. So with regards to the salary increases, at the time that the City Council and the Mayor approved the raises, Why didn't you, as city solicitor, contact the ethics committee to ensure that there was no conflict of interest? Or did you contact the ethics committee?

No, I did not. And the reason I did not is because the city followed a state statute that provides for how a city council and a mayor obtains a pay raise. We followed it explicitly, which was acknowledged by the State Ethics Commission. They just said that they have an overarching issue, that being the issue of when you take the raise. So notwithstanding the fact there's a state statute on the books that says that You take the raise, I believe it's the year following. I'm now a little less familiar with it because this issue is long in the rearview mirror. but we followed it explicitly.

I got a phone call from a city attorney in another greater Boston community when he heard what was going on here in Quincy. wondering what had gone wrong and what had gone awry. And I've had discussions with other colleagues in the Mass Municipal Law Association who have followed the same statute we did. So the issue was resolved pretty quickly when we got the call from State Ethics.

Okay, so you may think that this issue is long in the rear view mirror, but we still have ordinances there with the new salary, which have never been reversed, and so I would think if you really wanted to complete due diligence, that should have been done.

You lost me on that one. What due diligence?

Due diligence means that you would have reversed the ordinances to the salary that's in effect now.

Well, I'm the city solicitor. This body reverses ordinances. I can't do that. That's up to you. And there has been pending since January Well, I don't have when it initially came in. I think it was January 20th. There's been pending before this body a series of ordinances. to address this issue. I have not been asked by this body any questions, so it's up to you how you deal with it, and I'm happy to help out, to provide information. I've worked with the Council President on some open meeting law issues. I've worked with other Councilors on various issues. So, Councilor, if you had any issues or questions, I'd be delighted to help out or answer them.

Okay, thank you very much. I will follow up with you on that.

Very good.

I think I saw Councilor Yuan and then Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Solicitor and Mr. Timmons. Here are a couple of questions from residents. Massachusetts Law, MGL Part 1, Chapter 43, Section 21 states, no ordinance shall be amended or repealed except by an ordinance adopted in accordance with this chapter. Instead of following this law, the former city council and the mayor did what you advised, which was writing a letter to defer the pay raise. Since writing a letter is voluntary in nature, does that mean legally the mayor's and the councilor's races have been in effect since January 1st, 2025? In other words, should the Mayor's salary legally be $285,000 and the Councilor's salary $44,500 since January 1st, 2025?

So am I to understand that you're telling me what's legal and illegal about what had happened in the past? No, I'm asking, it's- So, well, I specifically asked for, let me go back a minute. The city charter provides that when the council has questions for the mayor or any of his designees that they should provide the questions in writing to the mayor's office and then he determines how they'll be handled. I believe it's section 19 of the charter. As I said, I've been the solicitor since 2008. That has never, ever been invoked. Now, I had a rather aggressive question asked by Councilor Ryan. I'm not sure the nature of the question or why it was asked and the manner it was.

Now you're informing me, and I'm not sure about your background, But this is, you know, this filtered in during the prior discussions with Councilor McKee about the word repeal and its implications. I think that it would be best, I'm having a little problem with my hearing tonight anyway. These are my, I don't know where my A grade, Earphones are. So I think you and I should have a discussion. And I'm happy to then returned to the body. But I don't understand the nature of your question. You're reciting certain statutory references that I have not had the benefit to either see make certain that you're reciting them accurately and that you're understanding what they're saying, nor have I had the opportunity to consider them.

So I'm gonna ask that that questioning line be chaired. and I'll happily follow up. this is why I asked on Friday. I'd have the answer today if someone had given me notice. But the pop quiz approach that's been employed by this council with folks who come to the podium, it's problematic. And I'm certainly not gonna, I want to be very fair and I want to be accurate. I've given you an accurate answer and I've told you where to go to get it in writing. I'll do what I can to help people, but they have to ask. and a pop quiz at the podium. I'm just not ready to answer that. I'll have to understand your full question and I'm happy to talk more on it.

So, yeah, just, yeah.

This question is coming from residents, and I just got this question, so I couldn't have time to submit it to you early enough. And as you said, You are not aware that MGL Part 1, Chapter 43, Section 21, since we have discussed a lot about how to repeal an ordinance, and this Section 21 specific talk about you have to use ordinance to amend or repeal another ordinance. So you are not aware of this one.

Okay, did this come in as an email, the question from the resident? Because you can forward it to me. Forward it to me and I'll look at it, I'm happy to.

I can send this question to you. So if you don't know this,

Well, Councilor, I'm here tonight after having been asked by the chair of this committee to answer one question, and I've provided the answer. I'm gonna be here later to talk about ENC. And I'm prepared to talk about both of those. And I'm familiar with the fact that Eastern Nazarene College implicates chapter 40, section 14. You're talking about Chapter 43, Section 21. I know what Chapter 43 is. It's called the Charter Statute. Now how Section 21 got carried into our city charter, I'm not sure. And whether 4321 even applies to a Plan A form of government, I don't know. but there's plenty I understand about your question. All right, once you said chapter 43, that's where all the city charters in Massachusetts come from.

but I can't answer the question that some resident who may or may not be a lawyer, may or may not understand these things, proffered to you. Thank you.

Well, I think maybe we should have him return and ask these questions in advance.

Okay.

Okay. All right. Councilor Yuan, I think

.

Councilor Yuen, yeah, I think that we better will pause this right now. So it sounds like you would like questions. I think that we invited you here because you are the city solicitor and you oversaw this issue, so we were hoping to be able to just ask you questions. If you're not familiar with certain things, that's okay.

Well, I'm fine with that. And I asked you on Friday. to just give me the questions, because I wanted to make sure, because there's a lot here I don't understand. We've now got six versions. of these ordinances floating around. I'm happy to answer, if Councilor Yuen has something to ask, I don't want to cut her off. I'm just telling her on Chapter 43, Section 21, you're going down a rabbit hole.

Okay, so not on Chapter 43, Section 21. Councilor Yuan, do you want to ask a very brief question that is not about that? Okay.

So we cannot mention MGL Section 21. I'm just asking, I'm just asking, since now, just writing a letter to defer the race, and this is completely involuntarily based. So that means legally, their salary is still, like a Councillor's raise, is still $44,500. some people don't write the letter, they still get that salary. So legally, the race already taking effect, is that correct?

Yes, the raises have taken effect here, and that's absolutely the case, and some councils have chosen to defer, in fairness to some of the others who didn't run on the issue and whatnot, they've chosen not to.

So the follow-up question, so the mayor also wrote a letter to defer his race like a councilor?

That is correct.

So that question is, because deferring this approach is voluntary in nature, so that means Mayor's legal salary is already $285,000 from 2005, January 1st, even though he didn't take it. Is that correct?

the way this worked, the ordinance says that his salary is 285. The State Ethics Commission contacted me. They had a problem with what went on. They said that, well, I'm not gonna get into that because that's another little issue here. We've been extremely forthcoming. about that state ethics event, I'm gonna call it, because it never became an investigation because of how we handled things. I worked with a prosecutor in the legal unit of state ethics, and this was her remedy. that we write these letters. And that's what we all did. And now you have colleagues of yours who are doing the same. And by doing that,

they're reducing the amount of money they're receiving from the city, which is what I just explained to the council president, is the basis for calculating things like pensions and everything. And the State Ethics Commission said, Fine, Mayor Koch got into this issue with his salary, but he agreed to defer it so he has not committed any violation of the state ethics law because he didn't accept the money. So there was no financial benefit conferred upon him. that's what the State Ethics Commission in my discussions with the particular person involved, how we, that's the remedy we came up with. and so you're talking apples and oranges when you're talking about chapter 43.

State ethics is chapter 268A and it was chapter 268A that controlled what happened the outcome with the salaries.

So I just want to clarify, since writing... Councilor Yuan, I'm so sorry, we need to give someone else a chance right now, so Councilor Riley, do you wanna please say?

Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of things. First of all, I hope people maybe don't understand the timing. We get our agenda solidified on Thursdays. for a council meeting on Monday. So there's a lot we have to digest. There's people reaching out to us until three or four o'clock in the afternoon on our way here. So we don't always have... Timmons, the ability to get back to you. But I recognize that the pop quiz format isn't fair either. So I do think that we need to recognize that Solicitor Timmons is the chief legal counsel for this city and for this body, and we need to give him that respect. He is worthy of that, so I'd just like to state that on the record. Quick, easy, I think an easy question for you, Mr. Timmons. As these orders are now written before us tonight, you did mention the first time that the repeal meant that nobody would get paid. The mayor, none of us, no one would get paid.

We'd all be volunteers. As these orders are written, is that still the case, or do you feel that these orders can be acted upon, we can all defer, deflect, donate, whatever we're doing. Are these orders in good legal order for us to take action on them?

that one is a little easier. If folks are interested in deferring and they defer, there's no issue. the use of the word repeal is fatal to these ordinances and remains fatal because the vote is occurring now. It says in paragraph one that are section one, that's the repealed section in the new revised ordinance. So what happens is the first thing that happens is you repeal the prior ordinance, and then the second thing that happens is you try to tackle a change. Well, as I've been trying to say, if you read 2024-055 and 2024-056,

Those were written as all prior edits of salaries have been written in the past. They reference Chapter 72, Article 1, Section 72 . that's the salary provision. When you repeal this ordinance, you wipe out not only the new version, but all its predecessors. And that's not me, that's what the word repeal means. That's why in all of these you see revised, or deleted, you see those words used. But when you repeal, we use the word repeal when we amended the zoning ordinance in 2011. and the reason we did that is we didn't want to have any ambiguity. We passed the new amended ordinance

in 2011 passed the zoning ordinance and had a provision right in it that all prior versions of the zoning ordinance are repealed. That way there'd be no ambiguity about, well, the prior ordinance said this or that. but when you do it on a salary line, I frankly am not sure what's gonna happen in 2008 because you're gonna repeal the salary line. So now you're gonna have to come back in, introduce a new salary line into the ordinance and because it's gonna begin at the very beginning, January of 2008, very beginning of terms, that means you're gonna have to wait to implement until the end.

Which I think is the intention, but if I could just ask a couple more questions. or maybe just make a statement. If we can act on these, I'll act on them, but I just would like to thank Councilor DiBona for all of the history he was able to provide because I did want to make a statement that almost four years ago to the day, then President DiBona proposed an increase to the city councilors via a budget appropriation. So in May, the budget appropriation raised the pay $7,650, $7,650 to an annual rate of 37,436. A council is opposed and the measure was defeated by decreasing that same line item budget. And that raise was to have taken effect in January, 2023. Interestingly enough, there was also a salary allowance for the council for $64,800, which has since been eliminated. So it certainly seems that if that measure had passed, it would not have avoided the same ethics

Oversight that has put us in this situation. So I guess the question is, what is the right way to do this? It sounds like we're going to repeal effective and work on replacing it with something else. But I just want to make sure that we handle this correctly going forward, that we get it right this time with proper guidance, oversight, and public input. Thank you.

Well, two things. Number one, when you mentioned about getting your paperwork on Thursday, on Friday, I just asked to get things in writing. Could have come Saturday, could have come over the weekend, could have come today. just in advance so I could look it up. Then perhaps I could have engaged a little more readily on Councilor Yuan's question. Number two, what happened with Councilor DiBona is measure was we followed the same law we followed most recently, and no one complained to the State Ethics Commission. The sole reason that we ran into problems there was someone complained to the State Ethics Commission and they called my office. and when that happened, I was pointing out, well, there's an issue here, because everyone else around the state, before we move forward on anything, we checked with other communities.

There's other communities out there who did exactly what we did, but no one reported it, so that's what happened. I urge you not to pass anything that says repeal because I think the ripple effect and the repercussions is grave. But you're right about trying to get things correctly. Now that we're on notice from state ethics, We're aware of when things will take effect and we'll make sure that that's part of the whole process.

So, thank you, Councilor Riley. We have another comment from Council President Mahoney.

Am I on? Timmons, I appreciate you being here tonight and I actually agree with Councilor Riley and I understand you're saying we could send you the emails all weekend long but you know we would like to have things earlier so we can do that but one of the things I'm finding problematic tonight is is that the chair of this committee asked you to put in writing something to her. And you're saying, it's a public meeting. I don't have to put it in writing. Just watch the meeting. Well, she's asking our city solicitor who's standing before us telling us something to put it in writing, we're asking that so we have it in writing. and if I watch the public meeting and you say that, that's different than having something in writing. It's very, very common for people to ask for legal things to be put in writing, because when it's in writing, it's basically giving your opinion.

We can go talk to Parrick and we can go talk to all these other people, but what we wouldn't have is something in writing from the city solicitor who stood up here in front of us and told us that repealing a salary is different than the ordinance and that you have to pay into the amount. But when you repeal your salary, I'm sorry, not repeal, I said the repeal word because we keep talking about that, defer. When you defer a salary and it's in an ordinance that you could get paid that much money, that you're deferring it. You're saying, I don't want that, just like I'm doing it right now. I'm taking it off my salary line. I deferred it. I'm not getting paid that money. I'm getting paid less. And in this particular case, I believe back, and I don't remember the date, but I think it was in the Quincy Sun. Thank you, Scott. I believe what it said in the Quincy Sun was the mayor was deferring his salary, but he wanted to keep the line item in the budget for a visual reminder of what this position should be paid. which it didn't end up staying in the budget. But why would we want that?

and it doesn't matter if it's in the budget or not because you could go and you could appeal at the retirement board. It happens all of the time in Quincy. Somebody will go and appeal something and say, I feel as though I should get this. The ordinance said it. deferred it. I gave it back. I deferred it. But I'm entitled to that even though I didn't pay into it. And you can fight that. You can hire a lawyer to do that, just like you said earlier this evening. I'm not a lawyer that specializes in this. So I doubt that you'd be the person representing somebody in that situation. But that's the question I think that Councilor McKee was trying to get an answer from. And you gave her an answer. in public, and she's asking for you to give it to her in writing. Now, wait one second. Nope, I have the floor right now. So Mr. Timmons. You say all the time, we're supposed to work together. We're supposed to work together. If somebody asked me for writing and I was a city solicitor, I would give it to them in writing because I'd have no fear of saying, I said it in public, I'll give it to you in writing.

Summarize it from when you watched the tape. That's what you would do. Summarize what you said from when you watched the tape. Send her a note. This is what I said. I'll back my words up. That's all she's asking for. That is all she was asking for. and I'm certainly happy to make sure I send every email to you to make sure we have an early decision for you to be able to have those things. I don't have any questions tonight. I don't, but what I will say is I think that we should be able to have these conversations without being so defensive, which is what you're feeling like, and I just didn't appreciate that. The way you were talking to Councilor McKee, yes.

I'm defensive.

You were being defensive. Okay. Yeah, you were. You were basically saying, what is it that I'm saying that you don't understand? You don't think that's defensive? That's defensive. So, but I'm gonna say this right now. We're asking, or what was being asked of you was to put it in writing. And that is something that is requested from this council, from you, who stood in front of us to put in writing what you said tonight about the deferring of the raises and whether or not it would impact The retirement report. So in case, just because it was asked. That's all I'm saying.

All right. You're all set with your non-question? All right, here's my response. No, I insist that I be allowed to respond. Councilor McKee can speak for herself. She asked me, where can I get this in writing? And that's the question I answered.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We are actually approaching the 7.30 mark. I did want to briefly say a few things.

Well, before you do, I'm responding to something. I ask that you reconvene this meeting after we go through the opening of the council meeting. because I have several things that warrant a response here.

All right. Well, we will put this on hold and start the other meeting, the regular meeting.

and others.

Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. We would like to call the City Council meeting Monday, May 18th, 2026. It's a little after 730 to order. Could we call the role members of the members, City Clerk? Sorry.

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

If we could all stand for a moment of silence. and if we could turn to pledge allegiance to the flag. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. City Clerk, could you please read the Open Meeting Law?

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

At this point, we do have residents open forum. It's during the regular meeting of the City Council when we have ordinance, finance, or anything else we don't have, unless it's a public forum. So as you sign up, we will begin to bring you up. I'd like to remind people that it's three minutes. and if you are from outside the city, we ask that you go last after the city residents, Quincy residents speak.

Who is first right now?

We'll be getting shortly. Thank you very much. So first up we have Hank Dondero.

Rondero, 65, 9 1⁄2, 02169. Wow! I don't believe this. Are you serious? I thought I had a come-to-Jesus moment yesterday. But man, this is really amazing. Some of the responses from the city councilors to the city solicitor is embarrassing. Ann, you're on TV. My God, what are you doing? You know, I sat out at the beautiful Hancock Adams Green out there, and I sat in front of the fountain for about 15 minutes and I'm just composing myself. I was gonna come in here and I was gonna be gentle, I was gonna be kind, I wasn't gonna attack anyone, but you're a bunch of clowns. Clowns? Really? What can I say? This city wouldn't be what it is if a lot of you people on this council were here 10 years ago. This city wouldn't be what it is. The schools wouldn't be what they are.

if you people on the council were here 10 years ago. I don't know what you're gonna do with ENC. Councilor McGee, that's in your area. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna barter for that to have something else disposed of in the city inventory of property? This is not game. It is gamesmanship, actually. It's an embarrassment, a total embarrassment. And I'm glad it's on Channel 10. I'm glad it's on Channel 10 because I'm looking forward to it. I'm gonna sit in front of the TV with popcorn. I don't know how much time I have left. Two minutes? I don't know if I can talk this much for two more minutes. I had the opportunity yesterday to go to a very close friend of mine's 50th anniversary of becoming a priest. 50 years as a priest. And I sat there and I said, my God, this guy is incredible. I'm not like that. I'm not a priest.

I don't go to church. but it just, as I said, a come to Jesus moment. And that's why I was gonna be really, really try hard to not be antagonistic. But that's not my nature. Some of you know me, it's not my nature. and some of you that don't know me are sure as hell gonna find out because it starts now, okay? One and done, one and done, one and done, all right? November 2nd. 2027, coming baby, and you're not gonna be stealing an election the way you did the last time. There'll be a lot of people out there. Excuse me, I'd like to have my time back, reclaim my time from the interruption. You people are really hysterical. All right. I have nothing further to say other than I'm going to get dressed up as a clown the next time. Excellent.

Gail Callahan.

Hello, Gail Callahan, 437 Quarry Street, Quincy. Hi, everyone. So first of all, I'm very happy that you've all come clean with the raises. And it was noise, whoever said that, it was. I'm glad to have that done and over with. I think it's great that you have told us what you've done with it. I think that's a wonderful thing. I wish you had told us first before you told the ledger. I do have a problem with that. I really would have wished that you did this and then the ledger could have reported on it tomorrow instead of the other way around. But other than that, kudos to you. You did the right thing. For those of you that wanted to defer, great. Those of you that didn't, also great. I happen to be in favor of the raises. I know that's not popular, but I am. I see how hard you work. I listened to Maggie last week say that she had asked for more material, but she ran out of time because there's so much to go through.

and I don't think in the short period of time that you were Councilors you had any idea, nor how could you, how intensive this job was going to be. So I think the race is well deserved. I also think the mayor's race is well deserved. I don't know how many people would go 10 years or more without getting a race. I don't. He does run a city with over, when I checked today, it said between 103 and 106,000 people that he is in charge of the city. That's what he takes care of, with your help. so that is for sure. But I think that he's very deserving of a raise. Now whether you do the 285 or you go down to 250 or 225, it doesn't matter, but it should be a substantial raise. It should be worthy of what he serves here. The other thing is I watch, actually I was sick last week, so I listen to your conversations of the budget last week. I really like Susan providing

all of the five years. I thought that was so helpful because as things needed to be cut or whatever, there was an understanding that we've never used this line, so you're really not cutting it per se. or in some cases where maybe it was high but we only used this amount and so we still kept it high enough. So I thought that was really good. Kudos to you for that as well. ENC, to me, you have to do it. I wouldn't even understand why you wouldn't do it. I understand the financial stuff, but I also understand The Monroe Building was bought with federal funds, so we didn't pay for that. Representative Lynch has come in with $1.4 million in federal funds for roadway construction, improvement of public safety, and Southern Audrey and another 500,000 in community projects. That's just to name some. There's other grant funds that have come in that you should consider when you're talking about all of the things that go into this city and what you're paying for it.

Don't ignore that. That's a lot of money. And so, yes, We're paying a lot of debt, whatever that is, okay, but it does get eventually paid down. E&C is of great value. I would love to see an over 55 community in this community. I might even sell my house and move to it. That would be awesome for me. Am I over? I did pretty good this time, though. Thank you. Next up we have Jocelyn Sedney.

Hello, Jocelyn Sedney, 85 Monroe Road in Quincy. I'm here to address the purchase of ENC. The request for the purchase price will further negatively impact the debt issues for the city. but in addition to that, my question is how much more is needed to simply maintain the campus from day one? After the purchase, who will mow the grass? Who will pay the utilities? Who will renovate the building to be used for pre-K or Kindergarten for Little People. Who will manage the property? Will there be discounts for Quincy residents rather than maximizing, excuse me, the revenue for the site? Will you come back and ask for more? How can you avoid asking for more? We have a budget before us that has no new employees, no new programs, but in this calendar year, were suggesting that E&C be purchased. That involves new employees.

It has to because I'm assuming our present employees are busy. it's gonna entail additional programs or expansion of programs. How is that gonna get paid from day one? are we gonna increase the debt even more above that amount of money? We have to be honest with the taxpayers. We've trimmed the budget. We're gonna buy a huge piece of property. We have to tell the taxpayers how that's gonna be paid for after day one, after the purchase. In closing, we need to maximize the income. Talk about over 55 housing. I say actually it should be over 65 now because times have changed. But anyway, if we want those amongst us who no longer need or want to live in larger homes to move to this prospective community,

You must build a community of over 65 or 55 small homes or duplexes with finishes. that would tempt people like Mayor Koch and his wife to move to, that would tempt the city solicitor and his wife to move into, that would tempt Mr. Fatsy's and his wife to move into, that would tempt me to move into. and to tempt other people who would be putting their houses on the market. So these homes would have to be built and they would command great great prices that would help to maximize the value and help to bring down this debt. Thank you. Thank you. Heather Doney.

Hi, I'm Heather Dhoni, and I live at 912 Southern Artery. I came tonight actually to say hopefully a quick three things. First, at the last City Council meeting, a man had said that I had likely mistaken a golf course water bill abatement for a sewer bill deduction, and that he believes that Quarry Hills is paying whatever they should be paying. and I just wanted to gently push back against that and say I wanted to make sure that we know that's not the case and that residents have been forced to subsidize the golf courses water bill in drought years. and I wanted to pose a question. I want to know, will Quarry Hills be getting any more of these water bill abatements in this year or the next? And who decides that? So that's a question. The second thing is I'm glad the new city council is asking why ordinary taxpayers are paying for Friends of the Mayor to have cheap rent in the Monroe Building.

I look at this chart in the Quincy Sun that with rents all over the place and taxpayers sometimes subsidizing close to $200,000 in missed rent and maintenance fees in a single, I have a small house. It seems pretty similar to the golf course grass watering situation and I don't like it any more than that. Ordinary Quincy residents having to pay the difference while getting told it's an altruistic local business support model that bothers me. And so what I wanted to say is that while I understand everyone has a livelihood to make and people benefiting this I know are going to loudly defend it and do, I want to say that impunity is not a business model. and we need to be charging private companies whatever the market and tax base can actually support.

And so my next comment is I don't wanna bring a problem without bringing a solution. The more I thought about it, I realized that using part of the Monroe space to actually do some launching of local micro businesses and community focused nonprofits is not a bad idea at all. I love that idea. There's so many things that people in this city dream of building but can't start or can't keep because they don't have an affordable space to prove themselves in this expensive city. So if this is truly about temporary accommodations for the community good, I respectfully ask that you all consider the empty unit on this list, or maybe another unit, I'm not as familiar with this as I would like to be, and do a pilot project for something innovative turn it into a coworking space. Collect applications from local nonprofits and social enterprises. Publicize it on the city website and social media. Put it out there to the people. Make sure it's open and fair to anyone eligible. Fix the problem.

get places like the Monroe Building up to market rent off the taxpayer dime and fully contributing to the fabric and people of this city. And if that works well, maybe we can do that with other small businesses and other underutilized city properties too. Thank you. Sue Daugherty.

Hi. Sue Daugherty, 922 C Street. And I want to talk about the ENC purchase. And I agree. Councilor Jacobs said something last week. He's my ward councilor about being fatigued with the building and the city and you know the constant buying of property and developing it and there's nothing wrong with development but there is a point where Like living in Housenach, driving around there, it's been like for years really hard, like driving up and down C Street just I go to other towns and I'm like, wow, these roads are so smooth. And this has been years. This isn't new. So this kind of leads to the point. I heard something on the radio the other day. They were talking about the MBTA and all the problems they've had with the repairs. And this guy was saying it's because they deferred fixing things for so long, maintenance for so long. And they kept building the tea out and building and building rather than maintaining what they had. you know, his assessment was that it's much more important to maintain what you already have than to keep building, especially without a plan.

And I appreciate the questions the Councilors are asking, like what is the plan? Like what do you want to do with that property? Why do we want to buy it without knowing and having those kind of answers? So I just want to say I appreciate that. And just like thinking about You know, I live in Housenach when we had that storm a few years ago and it turned into an island, right? So we look at climate change, we look at all these things that are happening that we need to prepare for. And I was thinking last week I talked about Native Americans, you know, being the real, the stewards of this land and the people who are here first. And they had something I learned maybe 10 years ago that kind of blew me away. Whenever they made decisions, they thought, how is this going to impact seven generations from now? So it wasn't about just being in the present and making as much money as you can and just Bill, Bill, Bill. It was about how is this going to impact my children, my grandchildren, the people who come after me. So I mean, I'm not saying ENC is are going to destroy anything, but it's the idea of a whole overall plan.

Again, climate change is real. Are we going to be underwater in Housenac in 20 years? Those are the things I hope that we think about in addition to these kind of purchases. So I actually just want to encourage the Council to keep asking the kind of questions you're asking and just say I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Helen Schreiner.

Good evening, my name is Helen Shiner. I live at 23 Copley Street, and I've been a debutter to the Eastern Nazarene campus for over 30 years. I can honestly say, it has been, they have been great neighbors. Very rarely have there been any disturbances or disruptions over close to 30 years. I'm here to voice my complete support of the plan for the city to acquire the campus. I believe it is in the best interest of the city and our neighborhood. As you consider this very important decision, I respectfully ask you to remember you represent all residents of your ward, not only the ones that voted for you or registered voters. There's been a number of times where Councilors have stood up and said, I need to represent the people that put me in office. You represent everybody. I ask you to remember that your personal opinion is equal to one resident, one opinion. I'm asking you to keep open minds. I'm asking you to think about our neighborhood.

I'm asking you to think about the incredible asset that the Eastern Nazarene campus is to Wollaston. I've heard it referred to as a fire drill to drum up interest and create a sense of urgency to purchase this project. It actually is a fire drill. Where else are we going to find 24 acres with buildings on it that bring value to the city can be used for our recreation department, for our youth that doesn't have a lot of space, for a library, for over 55 communities that will benefit our residents. So it is a bit of a fire drill. If we lose this opportunity, it will be a tremendous loss to our city as a whole. I thank you for your time, and I ask you to give it serious consideration. Thank you.

Next up we have Kathleen Tile.

Hi, Kathleen Cough, 146 Franklin Avenue. I am here to speak about ENC. I am asking each and every one of the city councilors here to vote in favor of appropriating the funds to purchase this land. We will not have an opportunity to do this again. If we don't do it, you're taking away the choice of the opportunity for the 14 homes to be sold for first time home buyers in Quincy, whatever program that the city comes up with. with losing the arboretum on there. If we get an outside developer coming in and develops, changes the nature of that landscape, we can never get that number of acreage back again. and again, I'm just asking each and every one of you to vote in favor of the funding. I think it'll be the biggest mistake in your career here if you don't vote for that.

I've lived in that neighborhood except for four years when I was on Dover Air Force Base. So I've been there 54 years that I've lived in that neighborhood. And it's a great piece of property. The Nice Library can become a new Wollaston. branch of the Thomas Grain that can take the land up there. So they're redeveloping the city centers there. That's an opportunity. I think it'll be a big, big mistake for the city councilors that vote against appropriating the funds I have full faith that this city will be able to figure out how to fund this. And again, I'm just asking that you vote in favor of appropriating. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we have Zachary Christopher.

Zachary Christopher from 67 Montclair Ave. I have lived here two years now. Moved from Holbrook, I was there for one year, and then before that, from California. My dad was in the Army, so I've been all around, and I chose to live here. So that's my stake in the community. I would like to talk about the council's raise, because I actually hold the unpopular opinion that you guys deserve the raise. You see, the per capita income of Quincy residents per the last annual census is just about 45 to 50,000. So that's the average income for the average worker in the area. I don't see a problem with the council having the same wage as the city.

and I do support annual increases to the wage because I think the city council is a very important job and the only thing that low wages for the city council does is incentivize already wealthy people to come and join the council because they have outside sources of revenue to support and subsidize the lower income. So, Woo Reyes, except the mayor, I don't like the mayor. He can keep his 150. That's three times the average wage. I think he's fine with that. respectfully, but that aside, I just want to say your questions earlier were a bit weird. In defense of the solicitor, your questions were a bit weird. If I'm not mistaken, everything tonight is recorded.

in writing and video, so that is the legal documentation you need when asking your questions as far as everybody in this room is concerned, not a lawyer. That is about all I have. Remarks on some of the earlier comments. Golf is dumb. Senior communities are good. and I don't have much stake in the ENC debate, but I do support the city government owning property because A, it's a good investment in the current market and B, Community Space, but that's coming from the communist in me. And about the clown nose. It's not to demean any of you on the council. I am a clown at all times. Have a good night. Thank you.

All right, so we don't have anybody else signed up. Is there anybody else that wants to come up for open forum? Okay, so we're gonna close open forum.

Oh, Bill's coming up, all right, sorry.

I was late to get on the list because I was picking a friend up at the airport. I'm sorry to see Mr. DeNeros come on, but maybe his friends will tell him. I got a kind of a laugh at him saying that people are referring being akin to Clint Eastwood, because I am an Eastwood. My middle name is Eastwood. It comes from my maternal grandmother's maiden name. Now I'd have to check with my cousin who's a family genealogist, but I think Clint and I are third or fourth cousins once removed. I'm not sure. But what I can say is we're both native born Californians. We both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. At the same time, I can say I did work with William Boyd, otherwise known as Hoplon Cassidy as a kid, and I lived in cowboy boots and had my cap guns on my side and I wore them daily until I went to kindergarten. and my kindergarten teacher wouldn't let me carry. In any event, for comments for tonight. Earlier, someone noted that, well, grant money's great. It's free money. No, it's not.

Grants are funded by taxes either paid to the state or the feds that come back to Quincy. So it's basically Quincy getting a rebate on what it paid out or a return or whatever it happens. Now, maybe the city hall could do better about getting it than other communities, but the rule is to keep that kind of flat. The next thing is the bond rating cut this week is something I expected. This is not a small thing. It is going to increase the city's debt burden. Best case. it will take at least two years before they might recover to a higher level and that's going to demand a lot of things to happen. and I don't see anything in this budget that's going to get us there. But I do have to report one thing that I found positive. Last week, Councilor Yoon pointed out there was a problem with the short-term interest in the budget and what was supposed to be paid. Now, especially for those who are listening, the difference is about 9.6 million, and that is courtesy of bond premium. Bond premium is something kind of interesting.

If you put a higher interest rate on debt, The buyer of the debt will give you a little extra money. Think of it as a rebate. Now, I look at it as revenue that's being created to help the mayor to cover its short-term death interest with the end result being the 492 million budget we're looking at really should be looked at as 502. because what has happened is that they took the rebate or the bond premium of 9.6 million and took it off book, off of the 25 million or whatever, 26 million they were looking at for paying interest. and bringing it in and not showing it on the budget. Really what they should do is that 9.6 should be considered at the end of the year just like they take care of all the year-end adjustments when they try to figure out the tax levy. and the budget actual spending is $5.2 billion on the ask unless it's revised. Thank you for your time.

Okay, Kathy, you're going to be the last one. Okay.

Kathy Thrun, 234 Everett Street. I would like to respond to a previous comment because it's driving me nuts. The election was not stolen, ladies and gentlemen. I lost, I accept it, unless it was stolen. Walter, wanna trade places? So I just wanna make that very clear that the election was not stolen and the communists are not invading except for our clown, who I like. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, with that, we're gonna close open forum and we're gonna recess the council meeting and go back into oversight.

Thank you.

Okay, returning to the Ordinance Committee meeting for May 18th at 8.02. So... There were various things that were said in the last part of the meeting that I wanted to address. One of them is that one of the things that I have done with the salary that I am taking after giving away the raise is to pay for a lawyer myself because I have I have asked Solicitor Timmons questions in the past that I felt the answers were not not correct. For example, the council not having the ability to repeal anything.

In the last ordinance committee meeting, we determined that we could repeal things. . In fact, the Solicitor mentioned an additional place in the law that and many other things. So the reason that there have been various versions and various that it's taken a little while is because I came in as a new city councilor and thought that I could do it through a resolution at first. and then I realized, oh no, you have to repeal something with an ordinance. and so I did that and then after hearing maybe we couldn't repeal things and maybe it would take the salary to zero, I hired my own municipal lawyer

who has looked at things and made the amendments in the current versions of the council's repeal and the annual salary repeal. So I feel very confident that we can repeal things. The writing of it actually states that the salary is going to be set at a certain level so it does not go to zero. And I guess I... I want to just summarize what I heard in the last part of the ordinance meeting, which is in response to Councilor Yuan's question. It sounds like There are various two laws. So one law, state law, says that you can the council can write an ordinance that raises the salary in the next calendar year.

And then there's the state conflict of interest law, which says you cannot do anything in the same term. You can't change your salary up or down in the same term. So that There has never been a legal decision. It sounds like you worked with the State Ethics Commission, came up with this solution of on a kind of administrative deferral. But the raises stay on the books. They're still ordinances. That's why we're trying to repeal them. It may be a strange question to say that I would like to put these things in writing, but there are for people who have been clearly and carefully looking at this issue, concerns about pension spiking, questions about, because of the timing of this,

happening right after the election, putting into this raise and then having three more years in the term. That would raise the pension significantly. So the reason why I'm trying to get these things in writing is because this process has left a lot of people feeling very doubtful about the whole process. So we have these ordinances on the books. There's been an administrative deferral. We're trying to work everything out now. But I just want to say, I wanted to clarify that that I am really trying to get this correct and I really want us to do things in a very open way that involves the public and that includes data from other communities that are similar.

So that's what I want to say, and I think that we will return to this issue, I guess, again, and I'm hoping that we can do that on June 22nd. when we are hopefully going to do another ordinance committee meeting. But I think... I think very briefly you can respond. I'm not sure that we want to go back and forth with this right now.

Well, I'm not going back and forth. I'm responding. First of all, if you're consulting with someone outside the body. and you don't identify who that is, you don't provide what their input is, that's a violation of the open meeting law because you are accepting information that's influencing how you're acting. So what I suggest is you put your attorney in touch with me and we'll talk. I don't know if the attorney you're talking to is a municipal lawyer or not. but I'm happy to talk to him or her. And then you just asked for the first time, for a written summary of what had gone on. So I am happy to provide that. I have prior existing memos that went out to the first council.

about how you implement a pay raise and what you do. We'll provide you those as exhibits to a summary memo. I'm not sure what I'm gonna get. from State Ethics, but I will put in writing my version of events and I may be able to use some letters because they neither admit nor deny when they're conducting an investigation. and in fairness to the councilors who were in office last term, they have confidentiality writes that I can't unilaterally waive. But I'm happy to explain all that, and whoever's telling you about the word repeal, I would just like to repeat to the other councilors who I presume have not heard this, but you will be making a very significant error.

and try to understand or explain from Councilor McKee in June when you talk, have someone explain why repeal versus delete is important. or repeal versus could use voiding. And then we'll get something, I mean, if there's this much concern about the amount that's on the books and its effect on the potential retirement of Mayor Koch I mean, I'll have to check with Pierak, rather Quincy Retirement Board what they might have to say, and I'll talk to the mayor about what he might have to say. he came before you and he explained to you why he was leaving that number on the books.

Council Mahoney began her statement by saying that he said he wants to He believes that's the value of the office. The prior city council agreed that was the value of the office. That's why he was leaving it there, but he deferred. But I'm happy to get you that information. first time, whether it's the result of what occurred at the end of the earlier meeting or not, but the first time you asked for it, and I'll make sure you have it for distribution to the committee.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, I'm going to recess this ordinance committee. I mean, what is the word? Recess? Or finish it? Yeah, recess, thanks.

We're going to reconvene the City Council meeting. And next up on the agenda.

Yes, Madam President. Item number two, legal update, East Nazarene College.

Thank you. City Solicitor Timmons.

Good evening, Madam President and members of the Council. Tonight, I want to review, just to make certain there's no misconceptions, the letter of intent, the deadlines we're facing, and how they came about. And I'll begin. Someone spoke during the open mic portion and talked about an opportunity. Well, That's exactly what this ENC purchase represents, an extraordinary opportunity for the city of Quincy with regard to the land owned by Eastern Nazarene right in the heart of Ward 5. The way this came about is I understand things and I don't understand all of it fully, but

There was a prior deal that we were all told about, but the specifics of it, we weren't made aware of. as far as an alumnus of ENC who sought to purchase the campus and had plans for the development. The mayor immediately pushed back, indicating, there's going to be an issue with any plans for development. And the gentleman, the proposed buyer, he tried to pencil out the deal and it just never worked. We don't know the exact amount that it was under agreement for, but it was considerably higher. It was north of... 35 million, as I understand things. But again, because this is a private transaction, we don't get particular details.

Now, what then happened is the property sat for a bit and Mayor Koch, as you're all aware, announced in February that he wanted to look at acquiring the property. Well, he had developed an excellent relationship with the president of ENC based in Quincy and engaged in conversations that Mr. Walker knows a lot more about than do I. and that started sometime after the March or February, announcement. And one of the issues was that while there was an appetite here in Quincy to sell, the property owners are actually based down, I believe it's in Georgia, but they're out of state. There's a trustee,

Board of Trustees who handle properties around the country for the Nazarene community. And that's who has been negotiating this deal using a law firm in Boston. And after some negotiation, the mayor came up with an agreed upon, agreed upon price, and then referred me to their attorney. They're using a local lawyer, Frank Marinelli, based in Braintree, and Frank and I worked with the attorney based in Boston to develop this letter of intent. ENC wanted to go to a purchase and sale agreement. This is one of the very difficult issues of being a municipality involved in real estate transactions. Number one, everything takes long, but number two, you have certain

certain things that have to be done at our level that are hard to impress upon the private sector. I told... Attorney Marinelli, that we could not go right to a P&S because we first had to get the approval of this body, under Chapter 40, Section 14. I'm gonna recite a statute tonight. That's the one I was prepared on. Chapter 40, Section 14, governs how a municipality acquires real estate. Chapter 40, Section 15 governs how a municipality disposes of real estate. So we... in order to acquire the property we have to bring it before this body and get the approval, not only for the acquisition, but the funding of the acquisition. And I explained that to ENC's attorney.

So, they came back to us and said the only way we'll do this deal is if we set deadlines and those deadlines involve both authorizing the acquisition of the campus and authorizing the payment for the acquisition. They weren't going to allow us like happens in real estate transactions where you sign a P&S and then you chase a mortgage with the bank. They weren't going to allow for that. because they're under, I'm just gonna say severe, well, I meant to not say severe, but they're under economic pressures. They've been carrying the campus for quite some time now. and it's at a very significant debt. So they said that if we can't tell them we're moving forward, if we can't produce the Chapter 40, Section 14 approval, then they're not gonna wait around.

And one of the ironic things that has happened is that due to the publicity attendant to this entire exercise. There have been one or two offers, and I know Attorney Marinelli was going to try to make it tonight. but he did authorize me to say that they have other people in the queue now because our price has been announced. and now people understand that they can get the property for the amount that has been stated. So this letter of intent, it has that amount, the 21 million, and it's got hallmark dates. We had to present to the council the orders and we presented two, one for the acquisition, one for the funding on or before May 4th to get things started.

we had to commit to obtaining approvals on or before June 15th, the date of this council's last meeting. I went over the dates with Attorney Marinelli following May 4th of when the council meetings were. And we have... tonight's date, and then we have two dates in June. So those are locked in here, and what has happened is ENC has said if you read Paragraph four, once it's approved, they have to go to the Attorney General, so there'd be a little more time that would pass after our approval. That'll delay an actual closing.

but the fact of the matter is if we don't obtain the required approval, then they're gonna move along. And there was, I think, a misconception. I heard one Councilor indicate perhaps that there's a right for an extension. Well, the only extension they're contemplating is if we get the approval and we're ready to go that something happens before the proposed closing date of July 10th. So, but this is, Dates, hallmarks set by Eastern Nazarene College. It's based on their issues, their financial issues, and I think everyone's familiar with the fact the college has been closed and they've been carrying the building, buildings I should say, the campus for quite some time.

the Mayor stepped in and initiated discussion at the time of an opportunity, or rather in order to generate an opportunity, and now we have one. are really once-in-a-generation opportunity, and I'm concerned here that we're trying to work together to make this happen, but I get frequent inquiries from Councilor Marinelli about what's going on. He's reading the papers too. So I'm very hopeful that we can work together over the next couple of weeks and into June. We've worked hard on... much of this, but these dates and this letter of intent have significant meaning. They're deadlines set by ENC.

that's really all I have on the letter of intent and I think that Mr. Walker's prepared on other issues but I'm happy to answer any questions on the letter of intent.

So we're going to open it up to questions. No questions. Councilor Ryan.

Do you have any information on any assessment values of the property?

Yes.

Would you be able to provide that to us?

Well, at some point I will. Absolutely. And we've talked about that because that's got to be part of the data that you review. If you look online, the city of Quincy has the property assessed at $58 million. So I can tell you that we would be in trouble, because the issue about the sale being approved by the Attorney General is that the Attorney General is reviewing this from the perspective that ENC is a nonprofit and they don't want to have ENC cheat whatever interests are within that. The AG is the overlord across the Commonwealth of all nonprofits. And any time a nonprofit sells real property, it has to be approved by the Attorney General's office.

Now, if we present a purchase and sale agreement for 21 million and they see 58 million on the books of Quincy, well, there's gonna be a problem. However, we did have an appraisal done, third party, neutral, and there are other issues here as far as the property goes. And I think that the council, for ENC feels very comfortable that they'll obtain approval. But we start at 58 million and then we'll disclose more. We have to work through that with ENC as well.

Okay, just one more question. What about carrying costs? Do you have the carrying costs available?

We're working on that as well. We've had a visit with their, You know, I don't know what you'd call this person, but he's been managing the property since Eclipse. closed on and he took us through all the buildings. He's pointed out a lot and there's been an assessment done of things. So we are aware of that issue and we'll be presenting on that whenever we have a finance committee meeting.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Anybody else? Councilor Riley? Sure. Got to raise your hand.

Thank you. So a couple of things that I'd like to state. First of all, this This isn't a surprise that Eastern Nazarene College is in the position that they're in. When we purchased the building that ended up becoming the DeCristofaro Center, that was an infusion of cash for the university, the college, and like so many small liberal arts colleges, They've all been folding left and right. So this isn't something that should be any surprise to anybody. I personally didn't get the letter of intent until the day after the council meeting. I believe it may have been a hard copy, may have been included. in our late day packages. Again, this is where we do get a lot of information at the last minute. I didn't see it until the Tuesday after our council meeting. And really didn't get more information until it was in the Patriot Ledger. I would like to see us have a site visit.

I would like to know, Solicitor Timmons, what role does the Attorney General's office play in this process?

they are reviewing the nonprofit Eastern Nazarene College's sale of its primary major asset, Massachusetts. And they will either approve it as a transaction that meets whatever their criteria are, or they may have an issue with it because of the price, I'm not sure.

Thank you. So I do know from speaking with Mr. Walker that the administration is ready to bring forward a little more comprehensive I think that's what we need in order to be able to really ask the questions we need to ask. I'm prepared as the Finance Chair to call that meeting, provided we can get the information by, I think we said May 27th. and then that would be in advance of our May 28th deadline for a public meeting notice and we could meet prior to the City Council meeting on June 1st if everyone's agreeable to that.

I'm not sure what the issues with distribution of material is, but I know that we're putting together material that will get to you. I talked to Mr. Walker, we have to be careful about the timing and we just need a scheduled hearing and then boom. but it'll all go out to everybody at the same time, perhaps with supplements. So we may do it incrementally, but it'll be to everybody. and then there's another question that we're discussing about how much we can post online because some of this might be confidential and that's something I'm dealing with Attorney Marinelli on.

Well, we could certainly meet in an executive session if there's a need to review information that the Finance Committee would be privy to that would not be public.

You can get the information, but we wouldn't be sure. I'm just trying to set the public's expectations as well.

No, I understand. I understand that negotiations are, you know, once you put it out there, but it's a little bit of a chicken and an egg because if the administration is ready to present a comprehensive package and a comprehensive plan that hopefully answers some of the questions that everybody has, then I'm more than willing to call the Finance Committee meeting. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else with any questions? Going once, going twice. So I have a couple of questions. Oh, sorry. No. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. just to elaborate a little bit, Mr. Timmons or even Mr. Walker, could you answer? The 22.5 million, how many votes is that gonna take for this body? It's a two-thirds vote. So six. Six votes. Yes. Okay, so this is a voting game. This is about votes up here, right?

Well, hopefully it's about supporting a generational project.

Just a general comment, and then I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I've been around this campus quite a while, and I've talked to a lot of neighbors and abutters of this particular property. It stands in all of ward five. we have to give the residents of that particular area that abutted the most preference, I guess I could say. And then it goes out to the entire city of Quincy, all the residents. So I think you have a two-tier situation. You have a tier of there's folks that abut this property, like folks I've heard tonight, You have a ward councilor that represents that particular area of three at-larges that represent the entire area. And then you have votes up here for other people. I think tonight a little bit of an open mind about having these talks about the purchase of 22-5, is that correct? is for the- Correct.

That's the requested finance order.

Okay. I always think back, really, of what would former Councilors do up here, what would they say on a non-biased opinion, non-biased, either or, not against this, not against that, how they would feel up here. and the three people that come to mind, and mine is Joe Finn that would sit next to me, Brian Palmucci used to be across from me, and Chuck Fallon. Those three particular counselors had been on the council for previous councils. They had served with a previous group of people before them, the Dan Raimondis, the John Keenan's, all these different particular counselors, what would they do in this particular situation? What's going on here? and just a general statement to the Councilors that we'll get in more deliberations, but please keep an open mind that, and I'm gonna ask this question, is I believe that the administration or the mayor has got to come back to the city council for almost all the particular items that need to be purchased.

Is that correct or is that incorrect? If they purchase the 22-5, where does the council stand in this particular item after it's purchased, or if it's purchased?

Well, I don't know if you want to take that one, but... that's something that's going to be evolving obviously as we go because there's a lot of there's a lot that we're looking at and the specifics of how we go about implementing becomes an issue.

Hold on, I'm not done yet, hold on. Some of the items that have come up to me from the particular people of the residents that live in that particular area, They love the library. They want to see, obviously we've talked about public use. We've also talked about the houses that are on the property that the city can make back. I think also the fields for open space and to have public use to use, and then possibly Quincy College. I mean, these are the main items that I've been hearing on the residents in that particular area. And then the biggest thing is the flooding issues. How do you mitigate the flooding issues that are going on in that particular area for the abutters that live in that particular area? Those are some of the biggest concerns that I've seen from residents of that particular area. and if we gain control of it, the city of Quincy, we can kind of dictate how that goes.

Now, the biggest number one question that everybody's hearing in the city is, as long as we're in the red, I mean in the green. We're not gonna go into the red, where if the purchase of 22.5 happens, that we stay in the green. Now, I've seen all these different orders come in from the city council, and this is particularly to the new city councilors, all the reasons why you would vote no on this. I'm seeing it. Oh, well, we have this going on in the bond rating, this. If we go in the green on this, It's a no-brainer. It's something that the city should do for the residents of the city that if we go in the green and we're not going to go in a red where we don't lose any money, I don't see why we couldn't vote for this as a council. So this is the body that we sit in today. I'm going to listen to all of your comments and opinions. but I believe, talking to a lot of different people, that we would be in the green if we purchased this. I mean, he just talked about being assessed at $58 million.

22.5, it's less than half. of what it's going to be done. And we're in the driver's seat now as a city. We can give some of this land. We're almost a massive developer now. But getting back to the questions, because I know President Mahoney wants me to get back to the pressing questions. But this gives us into discussion for the future. And I think it was just me just hearing and seeing all these different orders on here on why we can't vote for it. And I'm in the position to think that this is a benefit for the city and to take a good hard look at having an open mind. And this is to the councilors on here right now. The other consideration that maybe I can ask you, Mr. Timmons, is ADA compliance. I know that maybe some of the building is not under an ADA compliance with some of the stuff.

going to have to put it up to ADA in compliance? Is there a factor in there for grandfathering it in? How do we as a city get to that level?

Can you answer? Well, more of it than you might imagine. has ADA compliance implementations. But you mentioned grandfathered. kind of, I guess that's the layman's term for it. But it all depends on what buildings we work on and the scope of the work that's done, if any, because that's another thing.

I've had a lot of people in that particular area ask about that, and that's why I'm asking you. Sure. I've had a lot of, I mean, 9 out of 10 people that I talk to says it's a good investment for the city. It's a good investment upon we having control as a city. to kind of almost, you know, be in the green. So that's my pitch to my fellow Councilors that I think this is a good thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm not sure if Councilor Jacobs or Councilor Hubley were next. I saw both of them. So I'll go to Councilor Jacobs first.

Thank you for coming out tonight and reading that letter to us going through it. You know, we're $1.8 billion in debt. See it every day, hear it every day. That's what I hear every day. $1.8 billion in debt. And this administration is coming to us for $22.5 million with really no plan. Okay, I mean, I've read semblance of a plan in the newspaper and it sounds great. And we had a meeting at Central Middle School where people, got to put their ideas in because this was supposed to be community driven. But even now, as I listen to podcasts and read in the newspaper, Oh, you know, we really want that library to be the Wallace and branch of the public library. And you know what? I'm all for that. I say it around my family table all the time to my own detriment. I want that library to be the Wallace and Library.

And that was what was put up and talked about at that meeting at Central Middle School, and that's what was in the paper. But then on the podcast, You know what? That building's too big. We're just going to do the first floor. That's going to be the library. So all of a sudden, the project's already getting a little wish-washy. I see some

Well, we're very eager to respond to you.

But I mean, that's fine. But it's already kind of wish-washy, right? I know that there's the residences, right? It would be great if they sell for $7 or $9 million also. are all fabulous, but part of that million and a half overage is to do some type of study to see what can be used for what, this can be used for that, and what happens when we discover that, oh, you know, actually, we can't sell this house or that house because that's where this is going to go. And then all of a sudden, that $9 million dwindles down to like $2.5 million. I'm just looking for more of a plan. We just had an oversight subcommittee meeting last week where we went over a slew of properties. Again, a lot of them were in the downtown, but a bunch of properties that the city's holding. I mean, and you know, we talk about working together here, and you know,

I would love to get to a yes, but what are we going to sell in order to get To that, yes. What are we willing to put on the table besides the debt on the backs of everybody who lives in Quincy? Why don't we sell some of the debt that we've already put on their backs maybe that will make it more palatable for the residents of Quincy and more palatable to members of this council.

Well, if I may respond, you heard your colleague, Councilor Riley, say that she's going to schedule a hearing, correct? and that's the hearing when we'll be presenting the information for the first time. So I'd hope that, I'm not quite sure, what you were saying, how it relates to the fact that we haven't had our hearing yet, but I hope that you'll be attentive during the hearing because you'll hear a lot of the answers you're talking about.

So, but the only thing is what I want to hear at that hearing is not, oh, we haven't thought about what properties we're going to sell. what I want to hear is what property this administration is ready to sell to make this happen for the people who live on Copley Street. I have family that lives on Copley Street. So when we have that meeting, I don't wanna hear, oh, we gotta sit back, we gotta talk about this. You better come here with that available to us, what properties are we gonna sell? Are we selling the Monroe Building? Are we gonna sell the properties down on C Street and Bayview Ave? Are we selling those? because time is of the essence and you guys have put us under this clock that we have to have it done by June 15th.

No, no. Let's be clear. This is an opportunity presented to us from Eastern Nazarene College, and it's their clock. We're all under time pressures here, number one. Number two, I'm not certain what is upsetting you But I would ask you to wait till the first meeting of the Finance Committee, see what we have to say. and you can have your questions at that time if we haven't fully explained. Okay, I'm just gonna say one last thing.

So again, we're up against a clock here set by ENC in this agreement. and we want to make an expeditious ruling on this, if we're going to purchase it or not. So in an effort to not run out of time, I'm asking the administration to come to the table prepared to let us know what properties at that meeting, not so when that meeting happens, we're like, oh, we have to go back and talk about that. what properties are you willing to put on the table in that portfolio? When's the meeting? Oh, hasn't been set. Well, whatever the meaning, we shouldn't have to wait. We should know that date. These are the properties we're willing to sell.

The council sets the date, Councilor. And I'm not certain who it is. Perhaps I... did not sound Well, I don't know. I don't know who it is who's speaking to you about what properties we're gonna sell. But of course, we're going to have a plan to sell the properties. It's what we've been talking about. it's almost all we've been talking about definitively. And all of this, I don't know if there's some way for intercession here. We wanna wait for your meeting.

Right. Well, I just want to say again, when you're saying the properties being sold, I feel like you're alluding to the properties at ENC that are going to be sold. I mean properties that we currently own already.

that are not part of the ENC? Well, we'll be talking about the ENC project, because that's the one we're trying to get done.

Okay. All set? Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. ENC is in Ward 5, but I still hear from a lot of people about the ENC because of the news and because of the different forums that the city held to gather input from constituents. and when we have the to be scheduled finance meeting to get a greater understanding of what the plan is and what the dynamics of it is, I'm asking for a couple of things. So a number of people have reached out to me who are a little bit more savvy or understand a little bit better about the financing side of real estate development. I've been in and the nonprofit affordable housing space for about eight years now. And I've learned a lot, but I don't understand all the intricacies of the financing as well as the implications of zonings and other overlays and so forth. So I think if we're going to have a presentation, it would be helpful to have it include a couple of things.

and so, well, a couple of things within one thing. Some people have talked to me about that this property is in the range for 40B development. That's not something I'm as familiar with. So it would be good to understand what the implications of that would be if the buyer is not Quincy and someone else, and what could be the ramifications of that be? What would they have capabilities of doing? Further, there is something I actually do have a decent understanding of, and that's something that people have come to me about, which is the Dover Amendment. When I was CEO of a nonprofit, we looked at doing an expansion of our campus. And in my mind, I had it set that, okay, we needed certain offsets from property lines, there's certain height restrictions and so forth.

but it's my understanding that if it's a non-profit that ends up purchasing some or all of the property, I mean, I was told by my real estate lawyer that I could build right up to the property line and I wasn't subject to a lot of the zoning rules that and other for-profit would develop. Anyway, this is the stuff I learned over the years that may or may not be accurate, but I think it would be helpful to be able to compare and contrast what would be capable for the city to do if the city acquired it and then sold off pieces of it or developed pieces of it versus if a private nonprofit or private for-profit bought it, what are the different things that could happen on this land? Because I think the neighbors would be very interested in understanding what the ramifications could be if it's not the city that's purchasing the property and then controlling.

And then further, if there are things of the city, if we purchase the property and then sell portions of it, is there something that we can do in that sale that could further restrict what the buyer could then do on that property? And these questions are all around just kind of understanding what the potential scenarios are if or if not we do purchase the land and then maybe subsequently sell some of it away. So I'm happy to talk afterwards if that didn't completely make sense just to kind of refine the question. No, it made sense. Okay, okay, great. Understood. All right, that's all I have. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council. Councilor McKee.

Hi, Solicitor. So you were mentioning that there exists information and that it will be incrementally probably delivered to the council based on when hearings are scheduled. I'm assuming that that means when I guess I'm I'm I'm unhappy with the idea that we may not be getting all of the information that exists even if it exists now and that it will be delivered at some point later because, for example, the letter of interest or intent

I had requested that earlier when I first heard about this deal that was come to, but we didn't get that until the meeting and hadn't had a chance to read it, and then it didn't come in until emailed the next day.

Didn't get what, I'm sorry?

The letter, the LOI. So that was done in April, but we didn't get it until the evening of May 4th as a printout and then by email the next day. So I guess I'm thinking, you know, If we are to work together to look at this, and I think we do really want to carefully look at this, it would be helpful to get as much information as exists, such as the information that Councilor Riley Ryan asked for as early as possible.

That's... Well, this has been a little bit of a debate with Mr. Walker and I, but... What I said, and I'm sorry I wasn't clear, is that once a date for the Finance Committee meeting. is set and we know that date. Now we can be releasing information to the Finance Committee. and some of it we'll be able to post online. But what I meant was that to the extent maybe not all the information is prep for presentation or whatever, we may release things incrementally. But you'll definitely have it. Councilor Riley talked about a deadline before the meeting. and I'm sure there are gonna be questions at the first meeting where there'll be supplementary information. So there's gonna be a constant sharing and flow of information.

to the extent the letter of intent was delayed, that was because of me waiting for it to come back from the person who signed it down in, well, all I can say is I, I don't know who Dr. Bowser is. He says he's the Eastern Nazarene College Chair of the Board of Trustees, but I'm not sure where he's located. I was just waiting for his to come back. We signed first and then sent it off to the seller. which is the typical manner in which something flows. And once we had it, it was immediately released. I don't know what happened as far as folks not receiving it.

Yeah, it looked like it was dated in April, but we didn't get it until the night of the meeting. you had mentioned in the ordinance committee meeting that you know we the council you would like to get information questions early and One of the things that I asked for on April 6th was this list of property transactions that the city had made so that we could try to make sense of how the track record of the city for managing properties and because in the charter and in state law it says that if we ask for that seven days in advance we should be able to get it, that didn't come in for weeks until we we had the meeting basically last week and so I guess I'm just saying like I understand it does can take some time to put these things together but

We really want to make an informed decision, so when we ask for things, it would be helpful to get them much earlier than what we are.

Well, a history of discrete real estate transactions from all over the city for the past 10 years, that did take a while to track down. And I was part of that, trying to find... certain transactions, track when they were recorded, et cetera. This is a closed campus, and we know exactly what we're talking about. With a letter of intent, you've got a list of all the buildings. you've got all that information already. And we're gonna build off of that.

Ash.

Thank you, Madam President. Just so everyone's clear, just so people at home that might not have the agenda, this is a legal update on the letter of intent? Correct. I do think to Councilor Hubley's point, you know, being able to discuss with our constituents 40B and Dover implications, the Dover Amendment Implications, that will be helpful at the presentation. I guess I'm confused as to why everybody's litigating the merits of the of the issue, and I want to make sure that I'm at the right meeting, because this says legal update ENC on the letter of intent.

Well, I share your confusion. I can give you a quick 40B and Dover amendment. answer. The Dover Amendment, that's the name for a particular statute, that applies only to the use of the property, but a community is still entitled to dimensionally regulate. that's why I grimaced a little bit about building right up to the lot line, because setbacks are still available. So the Dover amendment would, in this particular instance, it would, basically mean the same sort of use, educational use, or perhaps a church or something, but we could dimensionally regulate. And a 40B project, Quincy's well-positioned with regard to 40B projects.

because of where we are numbers-wise, we have the ability to control a little more on a local level what 40B does. Basically, if you don't have a... the minimum amount of housing assessed for your community, then the state can override whatever local zoning decisions are made. Well, we're in pretty good shape with 40B. The big issue at ENC is the floodplain level. a lot of the campus is below level 11 which is where you start to see water issues and the big the big negative is that that beautiful little arboretum that's sitting there on El Mav next to the church and the library and everything, that area is pretty much the only part of the campus that's all exclusively above and Level 11.

So one of the comments made by our building, Well, the Director of Inspectional Services was the first place someone would come in if they're privately developing this is right here and the trees gone and whatever going in. And we certainly don't want to see that. Thank you. But I'm happy to and I can also talk to you privately about any of the zoning stuff. Happy to do that. Thank you.

Yuan. Just a quick comment following up with Councilor DiBona's comment about open mandate. I believe everyone in this body is very open-minded to this ENC policy. purchasing, and we are not only open-minded to this project, we are also open-minded to some other big projects which need bonded, like school repairing and sewer replacement. That's why I bring up this order want to request the administration to provide a two fiscal year capital bonding plan and the financial projections for major projects. One sentence. But before we even get this information in the start of discussion,

DiBona already have come up to the conclusion that this order is for blocking the ENC purchase. I'm wondering if this kind of thinking is open-minded. Let's see.

Anybody else? So I do have a couple of things that I want to mention and comment. So we read about ANC in the newspaper, in the Patriot Ledger. The letter of intent was said that the Councilors had received the letter of intent, which we did not receive until the following Monday. Some of us got it in our packages and some of us got it emailed. The problem with that is you keep saying you want us to work together, but we're not working together. You're dropping press releases on this and that's fine. That's how you wanna work. Now let me finish, Jim. So the other problem I have with that is On May 5th, May 4th, the mayor of the city of Quincy came before us to give us the budget, correct? And on May 5th, Moody's downgraded us. No mention to any of us as we're doing finance. No mention to anybody here.

The only thing we figured out was because we had a debt meeting that we were not $1.6 billion in debt, but we were $1.8 billion in debt. and further, we don't know really how we're calculating diff. but then Moody's downgrades us. So what do we have done? The administration through the city of Quincy's taxpayers does a podcast that is out on the ears on the website being promoted letting everybody know that in a 15-second clip, if the council doesn't do the right thing, ooh, it could be Dover or 40B. We're not talking about it. The general public is hearing about that because it's the one message that's getting out from City Hall. Now, we have everybody here in this council, and we want to be open-minded, but we also had a meeting in regards to the Monroe Building. The Monroe Building, which was purchased at a time with COVID money, which somebody said earlier, COVID money is free money. it doesn't cost you anything because COVID money was given to the city. Not true.

COVID money is federal money. It comes to us and we're all paying the price for it right now. but that's what it was used for. It was meant to be used to help the people within the communities they lived in but instead we were buying real estate with it rather than buying a lot of things we could have been buying, fire trucks, which I think we bought like a quarter of a fire truck with the COVID money. But further, we bought that building with the intentions and it was a press release again. In the Quincy Sun, in the Patriot Ledger, the building was purchased. for Quincy College. Quincy College needed a home, and it needed to go there so it didn't have to pay rent, because in the meantime, the taxpayers of the city of Quincy, again, this administration, didn't bother to tell us when we had a budget review that $2.5 million was in the red because Quincy College couldn't afford to pay their health insurance. So now the city of Quincy's paying for the health insurance, paying for their pension obligations, No problem. That's not a $1.8 billion that we're talking about.

But further, let's go a little further. Guess what's not going to the Monroe Building? Quincy College. Quincy College doesn't have to go there, because I guess they're doing better, because they're going to be part of the NC purchase. We're going to have them take over the gym and the fields. That's what was told, I believe, that's one of the things that was told. The Quincy College will take that over. I'd like to know how much they're gonna pay for that. Are they paying for their health insurance, their pensions that we've been floating for them for a while? Because that's a problem. Because as we add all these things up, that's where we're standing. 1.8 billion dollars in debt. We're being told we have to make this decision because it's a real estate deal. And in the past, we've been told all the deals are always the same way. We have to make this deal because if we don't do it, it could go away. That's a pretty, I can go back several times. Over. Messina lot. The Performing Arts Center was supposed to go to the Messina lot. Performing Arts is now going to the Monroe Building. Oh, wait a second, we have the Cove Center. Now it might go to the Cove Center.

It's really hard to keep up with where we're doing things. But what we do know is we have a ton of buildings and land that we acquired over the last 10 years. And you yourself just said that took us a while to figure out because we had to go back and look at that. That tells me that we're not very organized in the city of Quincy. I don't know how that could have taken you that long to do. You're purchasing things? You think it's funny.

I don't think it's funny at all.

You're laughing. So now let me go back to this very simple thing. So we have a pattern in the city of Quincy. We buy and purchase things. We announce concepts that the vision's promoted, right? This is pretty much what we're doing, right? Vision's promoted, but then there's no real concrete plan, there's no timelines, there's no measurable outcomes for these things, and everything consistently changes. But the one thing that's for sure, our debt is growing, and it's growing rapidly. and it has grown tremendously in six months. And there's no change in that. What this council needs, and I've heard what Councilor Riley said, is a detailed financial projections. Operational Plans. How are you going to be able to pay for it? Just like we talked about the Monroe Building. We think we're breaking even, but it cost us $15 million to buy it. Timelines, benchmarks, risk assessments.

and a contingency plan if all of a sudden the projected revenues do not materialize. Who's building it? How are we doing it? Will there be a committee that's put together? Will it be the building department that's building it? We don't know. We don't know anything. What we do know is we have until June 15th to make a decision, and you wanna work together, except for we have to read everything in the newspaper. And by the way, again, downgraded by the second agency, and probably more to come, So I think it's very reasonable for the Councilors up here to be concerned about that debt number, because it's rapidly growing. And we are bringing projects in one-off. rather than looking at them as a whole, which is what you should be doing. What's the impact gonna be to the financials of the city of Quincy? And by the way, it's not in the green. It's in the black. If you're in the red, you're in trouble. and in the black means your solvent. So you can say that, but I'm gonna say something again, diff.

I explained it the other night. The DIF goes out currently, right now the DIF, as we stand today with everything that we have, the revenues come in until 2044. The debt exercise goes out to 2067. I've asked for those things. I've not received it. I asked in a public hearing for it from the assessors, haven't received it. Fine. We ask and we don't get things and we're told, well, it's a little harder than you think. but the way it seems to be being calculated seems to me that we don't have a DIF and I'm very concerned about that because again, the taxpayers of the city of Quincy who were promised that none of this is gonna cost them anything, we can't prove that right now. but what we do know is that we have $1.8 billion worth of debt growing rapidly and we have to have a decision by June 15th and by the way, can you keep an open mind? I always have an open mind, Jim. I do. But what I'm hearing right now, tonight, makes me very concerned for the taxpayers of the city of Quincy.

because we also were promised that that downtime wasn't gonna cost us anything, and I don't have any numbers for that. So I am concerned. And you know what, in 2067, one thing I can definitely tell you is I'm not gonna be here, you're not gonna be here, and probably half of us that are up here are gonna be here. Some of you are very young, you might be still here. But the reality of it is, it's gonna take decades, decades, and there's no magic ball that tells us that we're gonna be in good shape. We might be in good shape today, But at any time, things can go bad. And do we have a rainy day fund? Oh, that's right. No, we don't, because we used $35 million last year to lower the taxes. Just a statement. So that's where I'm at. No comments needed. You don't have to say anything back. That's what I'm concerned. So if you can have all those things for Councilor Riley, which I can't be here on the 27th, so I would really like to be at that meeting, but I cannot be here on the 27th.

That's fine.

We get the information on the 27th. That's great. But hopefully we'll get it before the newspapers do, because we are trying to work with you. Thank you.

Oh, Councilor, I... There's a pattern here that department heads come to the podium, try to share information, and end up being berated. I'm sorry that the mayor's press conferences are causing such consternation. I don't have control over those. I hope we're gonna do a better job releasing information. on the ENC thing, because we're all under time pressure here, and we're gonna do that. But we're gonna be talking about ENC, not the federal funding of the Monroe Building, which we can all talk about, and other issues. We're going to focus on ENC because...

I don't need to go back on this. That was a statement that I said.

May I respond without being interrupted, please? You should at least allow for response without interruption. I know it's difficult, but because I just stood here and listened. I laughed at the fact that you didn't understand how much work was involved in getting the deeds and distinguishing between eminent domain takings and the land that was purchased. people worked earnestly to get that information. I got a couple of nods understanding. I'm not certain why you don't understand that. you acted like we didn't have the information when in fact we did have the information, it just took a little bit of time to assemble. And this $1.8 billion debt gong That has to end because it's very misleading. The issue is the debt service number.

That's the issue, all right? No one here would own a home. My wife and I wouldn't have been able to buy a home because it cost a big, big number that exceeded annual salaries. We're not sitting with $1.8 billion in debt. We're sitting with a $1.8 billion debt schedule that was explained to everybody at a hearing when we had everybody here prior to kind of launching the back end of the year, the budget and the ENC discussion. We had several experts here who were basically cross-examined. There was not a collaborative effort to discern what's going on with debt in the City of Quincy at that meeting. We had the preeminent lawyer in the Commonwealth. We have an investor who's been in front of City Councils for 20 years here.

and they explain things and they explain numbers and that's what we're gonna do at the first finance hearing. We're going to explain. We have a little program here about using bans which require interest-only payments.

We understand that.

and how we're going to be able to reduce what the actual amount that we bond to acquire. So I just ask for everyone, you offered out an open mind. It didn't sound it up until the point when you offered it, but I look forward to, the meeting that Councilor Riley's gonna hold.

So I'm gonna say one, thank you very much. I'm gonna wrap this up and this is gonna be the end of this. So just an explanation for home, because we just did said, you just got done saying that it's the debt schedule and it's how we borrow money and you wouldn't be able to afford a house. Well, what I can tell you is if I went to buy a house today and I said, hey, you know what I do? I have to go to my bank to make sure that they're going to say OK to this. and when I went to my bank and they saw that I had two major downgrades in my financials, I wouldn't be getting that loan. But here's the funny thing, it's not the bank, it's us nine who get to decide that. it's us nine that get to decide that and we're the bank. And we have 1.8 billion, I don't know how you want to cut it any different, it's 1.8 billion dollars worth of debt and it's growing rapidly. You have a lot of projects on the, so if this is the major project, great. but if the Adams Presidential Library is a major project, I don't know. There's a lot of things on the wish list and I'm just trying to understand it. So I thank you very much for your presentation. I do take offense to the fact that

the mayor's doing podcasts and forgetting that we have a moody downgrade and it didn't come from it. It's not for you to discuss, that's my opinion. I'm not asking for you to give me a comment on it. And I'm not berating you. I'm simply stating that every time you come up to the microphone, you keep saying that you wanna work together, but we have to send everything to you in email form. We send things to you in email form. We expect things back. We don't get it back but we don't berate you about that. So I thank you very much, Mr. Timmons.

You're welcome and I would invite you to go up and talk to the mayor. He's in most Fridays. I'm not certain how many times you've been by to talk to him, but I think a one-on-one discussion would be very helpful.

I would have been happy to talk to him last week. He canceled the meeting. I go every Wednesday. I've never canceled. on a meeting for the mayor. So thank you. Moving forward.

I have a number three amendment, President. 202684, order amending council rules 24, council meeting in 25, special meeting notice.

So we put this on the agenda tonight because it was brought to my attention that these rules by the officer, we actually delivered them electronically in that form. So we're looking to have those updated. So we're gonna refer this to the Rules Committee and advertise. and I would need a motion on that if there's any questions too. Motion? Motion to move it to rules and advertise. Motion by Ms. McKee, seconded by Councilor Hubley. On the motion, anybody have questions? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Anybody against? Moving that into rules. Next up?

County. Item number four, 2026.85, order requesting the administration to provide a two fiscal year capital bonding plan and financial projections for major projects.

I would like to read it through so residents have a chance to listen it. Order number 2026-085, ordered. all the requesting the administration to provide a two fiscal year capital bonding plan in the financial projections for major projects. whereas the city of Quincy currently carries approximately $1.8 billion in debt, and the residents continue to face increasing property tax burdens. and the West, the city's ability to issue additional bonds is limited and it is important for taxpayers and the city council to understand the overall financial picture before individual borrowing requests are brought forward one by one.

and whereas the residents deserve transparency regarding the administration's anticipated capital projects, borrowing plans, estimated grants and projected financial obligations over the next two fiscal years so that the city may properly prioritize projects that are essential and urgent. before proceeding with projects that may be less necessary at this time. And whereas major infrastructure projects such as the seawall protection and the school building repairs should be prioritized over property acquisitions or projects for which the city currently has no clearly defined operational and financial plan. Now, therefore, be it ordered

that the administration provide to the city council and the public a comprehensive overview of all major projects anticipated to require bond authorizations during the next two fiscal years. including estimated project costs, anticipated grants or offset funding, estimated borrowing needs, projected timelines, and the anticipated financial impacts on taxpayers. and be it further ordered that the administration provide detailed information regarding the Housenac Sewer Project, including information from the 2020 Edens Shore and Housenac Sewer Project, including total project costs, grants received, and the city bonding amounts, as well as estimated costs

anticipated grants, and estimated bonding needs for the currently proposed Housenac seawall projects. and be it further ordered that regarding order 2026-079, and the city's participation in the Massachusetts School Building Authority accelerated repair program. The Department of Public Works provide estimated project costs, estimated reimbursement percentages, and the grants anticipated from MSBA. estimated the local bonding requirements and the information regarding all MSBA projects undertaken by the city during the last 10 years. including project costs, grants received, local borrowing amounts, and the timeline for application, approval, and bond insurance.

And be it further ordered that the administration The administration clarify whether renovations to Delatiza Early Learning Center remain in the consideration during the next two fiscal years. and provide updated estimated project costs and anticipated funding sources. and be it further ordered that regarding the previously discussed proposal to demolish the Monroe Building and construct a performance center, The administration provided the estimated total project costs, anticipated grants, or outside funding, and estimated bond authorization required should the project proceeds.

and be it further ordered that regarding the proposed $22.5 million bond authorization for acquisition of Eastern Netherland Collegiate properties, the administration provide estimated demolition, renovation, maintenance, and the operational costs associated with the properties. together with any proposed plans for future use of the campus and any anticipated borrowing beyond the acquisition cost itself. and be it further ordered that the administration disclose any other major projects currently anticipated to require bond authorizations during the next two fiscal years. including estimated project costs, grants, timelines, and the borrowing needs. All these close if no clear plan currently exist.

and be it further ordered that the administration, including but not limited to the Planning Board and the Department of Public Works, appear before the City Council and present this information no later than June 15, 2026 in light of the limited timeframe surrounding decisions related to the proposed acquisition of Eastern Netherland College properties. so that residents and the City Council may review and discuss the city's overall financial priorities in a transparent and meaningful manner. before additional major borrowing obligations are approved. So since today we talked a lot about the tight timeline

about the decision-making about the E&C, the deadline is June 15th. I would like to ask the administration if it's possible to present those information request in this order at the City Council meeting on June 1st. That's two weeks away. because usually every city in the town should have a five years capital plan, but Quincy doesn't have one. Now we only ask a two years physical plan. The two years, the financial projections, so I think this doesn't ask much.

and you have two weeks and it's also because the ENC decision is in a tight time frame. So if administration, it's okay we still move the presentation date from June 15th to June 1st, I think it's reasonable for everyone, the councilors and the residents at some time to discuss. I'm asking the Chief of...

Through you, Madam President, this is a resolution that's before the body right now. Typically, the body acts on the resolution and is received by the mayor. When the mayor receives that, then we can talk about what's reasonable, what's practical, what's available in that time frame. But until the mayor technically receives a resolution, nothing is in front of him. And again, We would need to take a look at this, dive into it, and figure out what's practical.

Should we refer it to committee?

Because it is... It's on a tight timeframe, as Mr. Tiemann said, the ENC. and it's important for city council and the resident to get this information before make a decision about ENC. So I think for this reason, I would like to vote on it today. My colleague can discuss about it and we can vote. Then administration can start to prepare. this information. I would like to hear my colleagues' opinions on it.

Do you have a motion to put it into committee and then we can start the discussion?

No, I would like to make a motion to vote on it today.

To make a motion to vote on this? This is not going into committee.

because after we vote, if we passed, then administration can start to prepare those information. If we send it to committee.

So are you asking it not to go to committee or asking for it to come back on June 1st? in a regular council meeting. Is that what you're asking?

So I'm asking if we vote today, if we can pass it, can we let the administration give the presentation on June 1st?

We can certainly ask, but I think what has to be brought back to the mayor and the mayor... has the discretion of saying whether or not he's going to do it on June 1st, but we can certainly make that as a timeline for your resolve, if that's what you so desire.

So can I make an amendment and change it June 15th to June 1st?

We don't have a motion on the table, so we're going to say that that's an amendment for, it's not an amendment, we're just changing it, okay?

Yep. Councilor. Great suggestion that I would move to amend on page two where it says at the very top of the page, be it further ordered that regarding the order blah, blah, blah and the city's participation in the Massachusetts School Building Authority accelerated of the State Repair Program, the Department of, and then instead of Public Works, it should be Public Buildings. I think that's more of a public buildings issue, and then... I don't know if I can then just go to the bottom as well and add public buildings after Department of Public Works at the very bottom under be it further ordered. that the administration, including but not limited to the Planning Board, Department of Public Works, and public buildings, and public buildings will be added there. So kind of a joint amendment.

Okay.

Anybody else on what was just written? Councilor DiBona.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I don't know, you had one, two, three, four, five sponsoring members to this and it was still a misprint in here for Department of Public Works to be Department of Public Buildings. It happened twice in this particular order I mean, I don't know if anybody else, I mean, is there a particular reason why it wasn't written correctly to start with?

He's asking you why you had Department of Public Works instead of Department of Public Buildings. It's a semantics. People know DPW is DPW. DPW buildings, DPW, so.

I don't think it's a big deal.

The June 1st is a bigger deal than the June 15th.

You're amending it because it's written incorrectly, Department of Public Works. This is under the Department of Public Buildings, this particular... MSBA Accelerator Repair Program. I mean. I'm just asking for clarification. I mean, this went through, you know, she sponsored, Council UN brought this forward. You have four other sponsoring, co-sponsors to this. Resolution, I guess I could call it. And that particular is the two separate departments fully.

if it's the Department of Public Building.

Okay, so it was written wrong.

After that amendment.

Was this a mistake, was it a mistake?

Yeah, I think that's a mistake.

Okay.

Did you ever make them?

No, I wanted to talk more. If she's going to try to pass it tonight, I'd talk a little bit more in depth with them.

Do you want to go with the first and then we'll just go with the... Well, we don't have a motion, so we're just editing in real time because there's no motion on the table at this moment, so...

McKee.

I just want to say that we can actually vote on this, I believe, because it's an order, so we're asking the... the administration to provide this information which again in the city charter and in state law says that we can do if we send questions and the mayor can ask to answer them. if we provide them within seven days or more, at least seven days. So this seems like something that we can do tonight. And I move to... passed this as amended.

And to have it reviewed on the June 1st meeting?

And to have it be reviewed on June 1st.

Okay, so that's the request is a motion to pass this as amended. and have it appear on the June 1st agenda with a presentation from the administration. Do we have a second on that motion? I second the motion. Seconded by Councilor Ryan. Do we have, do we have a roll call on this one? Was anything on the motion?

Riley.

If I could just suggest that perhaps instead of trying to pass it tonight that we refer to the Finance Committee meeting would be able to take it up on June 1st in the Finance Committee at the same time that we're talking about Eastern Nazarene College. I think that if we wait until the full council meeting, we'll have already had our Eastern Nazarene presentation. It seems to me like it would be better to just do it all in the Finance Committee meeting on June 1st, assuming that I'm going to call one, obviously, for the Eastern Nazarene College. So I guess I can't move unless that gets withdrawn. on the motion. The motion was to have it be in the regulatory. Okay, motion to amend. To put it into Finance Committee. And refer to Finance Committee, yes. Just clarify, can we have a finance meeting June 1st? If I could.

Mileset, the plan is the administration would provide us with their presentation on Eastern Nazarene College by Wednesday, May 27th. The deadline for noticing of the public meeting would be Thursday, May 28th. That would give us the weekend to go over whatever information we have. We have a regular council meeting scheduled for June 1st at 7.30. I would call the Finance Committee meeting where we could add have both ENC and this matter included on the Finance Committee meeting on June 1st. I'd like to propose 6 p.m. because we got a lot to cover.

So now we have a motion on the floor and an amendment on the floor. and because Councilor McKee made the amendment, do you accept the amendment?

By passing this tonight, we could have it discussed on June 1st at the Finance Committee meeting. So we are passing this. We're going to discuss it at the Finance Committee, or are you saying that your amendment is to not do anything tonight except retake it up on June 1st?

if you want.

I think what she's saying is she's having a finance meeting that night and these two things are kind of going hand in hand so it would probably be best to have it all in one meeting in the finance meeting so we're going to pass this resolve and put it into finance and have it taken out on finance on June 1st.

Okay, that's great.

Councilor Yuan.

If today we just send it to the committee meeting, does that mean administration already can start to prepare those information for June 1st finance committee meeting.

I believe what's gonna happen is Councilor Riley's gonna make a motion during the later when we're making committee meetings and have it brought out. on June 1st. So yes, they will be prepared on June 1st.

Okay. That was a rash.

I think it's semantics. If the administration wants to, is going to honor their request and present on these issues on June 1st, whether it's at a council meeting or a finance committee meeting, I don't think it makes a difference.

But I do think it makes sense to have the ANC at the same time with finance.

I know that President Mahoney prefers everything to go to a committee, so it may be cleaner if this does go to a committee as well, but I think that June 1st, whatever agenda it's on, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Thank you.

Ryan, did you have your hand up? No. Okay. All right. Over here, Councilor DiBona.

Are we able to speak about this particular resolution before we start passing stuff?

I thought you already did, but okay, yeah.

No, I mean, we didn't even get into this. This is a whole, like, you know, Eastern Nazarene is in here, school building, you know, authority is in here. You got De La Chiesa Early Childhood Center in here. You got the seawalls and all those particular items. So, is there any discussion on some of these items?

Do you understand what Councilor Yuan's trying to do?

Is that the question? No, I'm discussing. I've been on the Council for the last 10 years, so I wanted to point out some things here real quick, if I could. Is that okay? Can we do that? Are we?

So this is, what we have in front of us is the resolve that's gonna be put into finance with an amendment. And you wanna talk about specific, just the history of these?

No, just basically it's, Sure, go ahead. It's basically propaganda. It's propaganda about all these items is why you The city is ongoing. Let me just put this as a, the city is ongoing. A lot of these projects that we do in the city, especially the school building authority, is based on almost a yearly spot check of the schools. you know, our Commissioner, Paul Hines, will go into the schools and see what needs to be spot checked every year. Maybe even every semester, he'll go in and say, okay, this is, what needs to be done, this is what we can put in. We also have Squanam Elementary School that had precedent for different items. And then you have the Deliquiers in here. That's been spoken about quite a while. and then the Seawalls. I've been involved with the Seawalls since 2018 when it happened. So every year we do a spot check for the Seawalls.

I'm just stopping for one second because I don't think it's fair to call other Councilors propaganda, but I think what the resolve that's being put forward is because of the Eastern Nazarene coming before us and there's a lot of talk of the De La Chiesa and all of the other projects. And it's just an opportunity for the administration to come back and give a spot check on the capital, the five-year capital improvement. We don't have a five-year capital improvement. I know we have rolling capital that happens but they're just looking for, I think what this resolve is really trying to do is kind of just take a pause, take a look at what's happening and put a priority on what What's a need? This is your line. Needs versus wants. Needs versus wants. And that's really what this is. And it's talking, there's a lot of talk about seawalls, but we don't know how much they're costing. That hasn't come to this. because there's new stuff that has to be done. That hasn't come to this chamber. There's talks about the De La Chiesa. It hasn't come to this chamber. There's talks about ENC. It has come to the chamber. There's talks about the Adams Presidential Library hasn't come to this chamber.

So all of those things are out there being talked about, but we have no financial view into how we're going to do that and what the plan is. I think that is the of what Council UN's resolved is just to have that conversation so we can have a better understanding of where we're going. This isn't propaganda. This is a request for the plan so that we can understand it and we can get more information so that if people want to be on the side of positive, we can get there and they can help us get there.

But getting back to Eastern Nazarene College, the acquisition of the $22.5 million, if that particular acquisition makes the city millions of dollars, aren't you now part of the solution and not part of the problem? But I don't understand.

So what we need from that, okay, because you're just assuming, like we're assuming it's going to make us millions of dollars, but we don't know that because we don't have a plan in front of us, and that's what they're going to bring to us. just like we bought the Monroe Building with a plan for a college to go there, but we don't have a college. Just like we bought Messina Properties to put a No, these are the things we're talking about. So I'm just explaining to you that by asking for this, we're just asking for the plan to be able to roll this out.

I understand that, but we're talking about Eastern Nazarene College. You guys are all in here now. You now are part of the solution, if you want to be. you can be part of the problem too. And all I'm hearing is negativity. But if we're gonna make millions of dollars on this particular item.

Riley.

Then why wouldn't we do it?

Councilor Riley. Thank you, President Mahoney. I'd like to just suggest that we take the tone down a little bit, Councilor DiBona. You know, this is a reasonable request because... No, no, I've got the floor now, Councilor DiBona. I've got the floor. I've got the floor. I've got the floor. Okay, this is something that the city either can provide some of this information that's in this order or not, okay? there is no reason why we shouldn't be forecasting two years, five years, 10 years into the future. As short-term bonds start to roll off, become due, as long-term bonds start to roll off, as new development is expected to come online, we should be able to see all of that laid out, and that is an important component to the decision that we're gonna be asking to be made on Eastern Nazarene College. we can't just keep taxing and spending our residents over and over again, okay? And it's reasonable enough to know well what won't happen

if we move forward with Eastern Nazarene College. Maybe you won't get your CWOL. I would like to make a motion to accept this order, refer it to the Finance Committee, and we'll deal with it on June 1st. I think we already have a motion. As amended.

As amended. All right, so we have a motion by Councilor McGee, amended by Councilor Riley.

Okay, Clerk. Riley made the motion and McKee was in the key.

McKee made the motion original motion and Riley made the amendment.

Okay, great.

So we're going to take a vote on the amendment first. We're going to take a vote on the amendment first, which will be to put it into finance as opposed to have it on the June 1st meeting.

So we're going to- Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona.

No.

Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney. Okay, now in the main motion.

So now in the main motion, we're gonna be taking a vote to accept this motion.

As amended.

As amended.

So we have Councilor Asch, Councilor DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, President Mahoney.

All right, moving on.

we have item number four, excuse me, item number five. It's a gift, $1,000 from the Quincy Police Patrol Officers Association to DiBona.

So I need a motion. Motion by Councilor DiBona, seconded by Councilor Jacobs.

And we will send a letter of thank you. Roll call, please.

Councilor Ash. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney. Moving on.

Communications of reports from the Mayor and other city officers and city boards.

We have a few here, Madam President.

Okay, we have the Assistant Clerk of Utility and Traffics.

So in the utilities, we have one, 20, it's a utility grant allocation for Mass Electric Verizon at 10 Independence Ave. We also have four traffics. We have Ward 2, Councilor Ash, out of handicap parking at 121 Martinson Street. Ward 2, Councilor Ash, had no parking on the even numbered side of 5th Street to School Street to 325 South of School Street. Ward 3, Councilor Hubley, add handicapped parking at 64 Hobart Street. And Ward 6, Councilor Riley, add no parking on the odd-numbered side of Vane Street, Billings Road to Dead End. I'll second. I'll second.

Moving on to unfinished business and proceeding meetings. Seeing none, moving on to reports of committee. Cash.

Thank you. Earlier tonight at 630, I held two public hearings on 2026-067 utility grant allocation, Mass Electric, Verizon, 46 to 50, Winter Street, Poll Move, and 2026-068, Utility, Grant of Location, Mass Electric, Verizon, 46 to 50, Winter Street, Poll Install. Positive recommendation after our public hearings.

It's a motion. Do we have a second?

Yes, motion to move those.

Second by Councilor Riley. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it. Is there anything else? No.

Ordinance.

Anything to report?

Nothing. Finance.

Thank you. Just a reminder that tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. we have our second Finance Committee meeting to review budgets. We'll be reviewing the Assessor's Office, retirement and pensions, education, police, animal control, fire, , Emergency Management, Health, Department of Grant Management, and the Planning Department. And as we've discussed already tonight, I would like to plan on a June 1st Finance Committee meeting to speak of the Eastern Nazarene College plans, as well as the order presented by Council UN tonight.

Excellent.

That's it. Moving on to presentations of petitions, memorials, or remonstrances. Councilor Riley.

Yes, thank you. This morning I attended the funeral of Quincy Firefighter Neil Leonard, assigned most recently to ladder five. Firefighter Leonard was laid to rest after serving for 32 years on the Quincy Fire Department and six years in the Army National Guard. Firefighter Leonard passed away on May 12th after a brave fight against workplace-related cancer. He is remembered as a fix-it guy, a taskmaster, a problem solver, selfless and loving. On behalf of the City Council, we extend our deepest sympathies to his wife, Barbara, his children, Nicole and Daniel, as well as the entire Quincy Fire Department. May Firefighter Lennon be raised up on Eagle's Plains.

Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to give and send our condolences to the family of Mary Perdios. Mrs. Perdios is 85, a long time. resident of Quincy, who most recently was, I believe they were in Hingham actually, but Mr. Perdios passed away two months ago. Mrs. Perdios passed on Monday, May 4th. 2026 at South Shore Hospital. Mary was born in Boston to Philip and Winifred Belmont. She was raised and educated in South Boston, moved to Quincy Point in 1968 with her husband. where they resided for over 50, almost 55 years. Mother, devoted mother of Steve Perdios and Courtney of Quincy, Dawn and Denise, David, and Saral and Dan and Jim.

And of course, I know the Pardios family well and send our condolences and wishes to them now the second, the matriarch, passing shortly after the patriarch of the family. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Anybody else?

So moving on to motions, orders, and resolutions.

None in upcoming meetings. Tomorrow night, May 19th, we're gonna be having a finance committee meeting and the next council meeting will be on June 4th. So a motion to adjourn, made by Councilman McKee. All those in favor? Aye. Excellent. Have a great night everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Engine 5 to fire alarm in quarters. Engine 5 is back in quarters.

Light, Ladder 1.