LIVE: Quincy City Council (includes Finance Committee) - June 11, 2026

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Good evening. I'd like to call to order the Finance Committee meeting for this evening, starting with reading 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 impermissible.

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

This evening we have before us order number 2026-076, order for Eastern Nazarene College land acquisition and 2026-077, the appropriation for $22,500,000. for that land acquisition. This body met last Thursday, June 11th, for a robust deliberation on the acquisition, financial considerations, benefits and concerns of purchasing the ENC site by the city. We shared information on the site visit, a meeting with the ENC board members, and the appraisal ordered but not made publicly available. At this time, I'm not sure if there's further deliver... Ooh, did we lose that? for the deliberation from the body, but I would like to give Mr. Walker an opportunity to open it up with some comments.

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you, Councilors. Before you tonight, you do have some ancillary informational material that came through some of the questions from the first meeting. We delivered that last week. There's a couple of charts and there's a pretty lengthy question and answer document that this body has as well. Tonight we have the full team here with us to answer any further questions the body may have. Commissioner Murphy, Joe Shea from Grand City Partners, Paul DellaBaba, Municipal Finance Director, The team from Eastern Nazarene College is also with us tonight. Attorney Frank Marinelli, Attorney Bob Bowser, Colleen Durr, the past president of Eastern Nazarene, and Diane McDermott, an attorney as well. just briefly on where I think and where we think that we are right now and how we got here. It's my belief, it's the administration's belief, it's the mayor's belief.

that this has been a thorough, robust, and collaborative process. This body made it clear that it wanted the administration to listen, and we believe we did. This body made it clear that it wanted to limit the financial impacts of this potential purchase of this opportunity that is before us, and the administration has done that. What's before this body is a plan that shows no long-term debt ultimately being taken on by the city as part of the overall spending plan. This council made it clear that it wanted the administration to consider selling some of the properties that it owns. to help facilitate the purchase. We've done that. We've shown a couple of examples. Those can change as we go forward, but we've done that. We've listened to what you've had to say. We've listened thoughtfully, and in the spirit of collaboration, we have included a number of divestiture properties as potential aspects to this plan.

Council made it clear that it wanted a continuing oversight role for this body and for the community in general. the plan before you has multiple avenues in which this council must be involved. We must work together to make this go forward in the coming months and year. The administration is also committed to regular community meetings, hearing from the neighborhood and the city at large as the plan moves forward. That was the the seed that was planted in the very successful, really wonderful community meeting workshop session we had back in March. And many of those ideas are included in this plan. This council asked the administration to listen to the community members and what they wanted to see for uses at this facility, and we have done that.

From the potential of a library wall, from a lawless library bench, to uses of the gymnasium for our young people, and potentially Quincy College, from Help for Our Seniors, but potentially putting in some senior services there from the Council on Aging. Potentially senior housing. all of these things, environmental protection, protecting the arboretum, all of these things, uses for our nonprofits in a rental capacity. We've heard from a number of those groups that want to be a part of this. really exciting opportunity and really special place. As I said, this is about opportunity. a number of members of this body have mentioned the risk involved and of course there is risk.

there's always risk in anything that's worth doing, anything that requires bold vision, anything that requires this scope of planning, there's going to be some risk. But conversely, If we do not take this opportunity, the risk is still there. Sure, things may work out fine and we can let the process take its place and whatever may happen, may happen. there's still controls that the city has. That's not in dispute. But what we lose when we don't take on this risk is the opportunity. We've given up the opportunity to do some very special things at a special place. We're here to answer any questions this body has and I respectfully ask for a positive recommendation from this committee this evening on both the acquisition and the appropriation order. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Anyone want to go first?

Mahoney. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Walker, as well. So before I start tonight, I just want to mention something, because we did ask the administration for other parcels to be sold. And after the weekend, I was away for the weekend, and I did see in the paper that it said that The Monroe Building couldn't be sold because it would be clawed back. But I did ask a question today of the finance department. The opera report identifies the Monroe Building as an opera-funded tourism recovery project. Can the administration please provide the specific... federal statute that treasury rule, grant condition, legal opinion, are recorded restrictions that support the statement that this building could not revert to federal ownership if sold. But the reason why I'm asking that is simply because When I was asking for this, I was really asking for something that was of value that would not take away from the downtown, could benefit another place, development should happen. Less about the building, but more about that fact.

and it is about transparency and when it was said that we can't do it, I think if we wanted to we could do anything here in the City of Quincy and that has been proven over the years and years that we've been working together. So I did some research today, and I do appreciate Mr. Delbarber getting back in touch with me. He was also away for a wedding, and I know he had a great time too. So both of us were coming off of a weekend of fun family. But at the end of the day, I still don't have that information. But to move on, you know, tonight has been framed in everybody from emails from a lot of people. We also have a lot of emails from people saying that they're concerned about debt. But it's been framed basically from this administration as a once in a lifetime opportunity It's only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if you can afford it, though. And that's where I get concerned in Quincy. This is not about ANC. This is about debt. This is about transparency. And this is about fiscal stewardship.

When I ran for office, the city's debt was discussed at approximately $1.6 billion. Later, when we asked for a debt presentation, what we found out was that we had $508 million in short-term bans, which bang our total up to $1.8 billion. However, I've been looking at a lot of other things online while I'm waiting for DIF information or other information, and I came across a report that was online, dated June 30th, 2025, from Hilltop. At that time, that report says that the city had approximately $1.36 billion in long-term debt. Remind you, this is two years ago, or a year ago. Approximately $708 million in authorized but unissued debt. Well, we found out in the last year that they issued $508 million of it. So there leaves you another $200 million that is authorized, but hasn't been spent yet.

That is some of the questions that we have been asking to this administration. College of UN asked for a two-year capital. We did get something on Friday. but it still doesn't even explain that $200 million worth of debt that we have approved, the council prior to me approved. and it wasn't disclosed in our debt. What we were told when we had the debt presentation is that the city of Quincy has flexibility in debt. Well, we all should have that kind of flexibility, but we don't because the flexibility is every taxpaying resident and commercial tax base in the city. So if we get in trouble, we can come back and ask you all for the money. Moving on. You know, what are the answers that we deserve? Why wasn't that full debt picture presented to the Council?

Why wasn't the $208.6 million that brings us up to $2 billion disclosed? Why were Councilors discussing debt figures significantly lower than what appeared in the City's own financial disclosures and their own reports from Hilltop Securities? Hilltop was here and they did not disclose it either. Why did counselors have to discover this information through consultants' reports and public disclosures? We shouldn't have to dig for this information. We should not have to become forensic accountants to understand the city's financial condition. We should not have to dig through consultant reports, bond statements, debt schedules, public filings to understand the city's debt position. The administration should have provided complete pictures from beginning to end. Councilors repeatedly requested a comprehensive debt review,

A multi-year capital plan. Much of that information was not provided. Some was provided just days ago, yet still the 200 million that has been secured through the appropriation of a city council was not disclosed. Downgrades also matter. I want people to understand that we have been downgraded, not once, but by two credit agencies, S&P and Moody's, and they're saying they're going to downgrade us again. What that means to all of you, it's going to get more expensive. These downgrades should have resulted in more transparency not less. Those downgrades should have prompted more scrutiny not less. Before asking for additional debt, taxpayers deserve a complete understanding of the City's financial position. The City has more than $200 million in authorized debt that hasn't been issued yet. Can any of that borrowing be delayed, reduced, or rescinded?

Which projects remain priorities for our city? Which projects are still expected to move forward in our city? Who is monitoring the city's debt exposure? Who is ensuring that the future borrowing remains affordable? Who is protecting the taxpayers taking on more obligations than the city can realistically support? This is not just a $22.5 million vote. Once the city purchases this property, taxpayers become responsible for it. If grants do not materialize taxpayers pay. If projected property sales do not occur taxpayers pay. If development plans change taxpayers pay. If maintenance costs increase, taxpayers pay. If operating costs exceed projections, taxpayers pay.

We are not asking to acquire the property first. We are being asked to acquire the property first and answer many of these financial questions later. That's what this council is being asked to do. Ownership comes with obligations. We all know that. I know many of you own homes. Future requests for funding will inevitably come back to the City Council. We just heard Mr. Walker say that. But once the city owns the property, there is pressure to continue spending because millions have already been invested. We have seen this before. We have seen major property acquisitions and redevelopment proposals before. The former Quincy Medical Center Hospital Hill property was presented as an important redevelopment opportunity. In 2014, in the Patriot Ledger, it was described as being the size was going to be limited and it was going to be in working with the neighborhood. Same thing. This is an ENC. We're going to purchase it working with the neighborhood. We will get a developer to develop.

The very similar story. Develop senior housing. It's going to be a great thing. But in the end, the developer who went in there, who said they were going to do senior housing, and they didn't. And that neighborhood was left out in the dark by themselves. Yes, there was a reverter on that property. Once the reverter came off the property. Fox Rock was allowed to develop. But the promise of what they said, that the council was promising that neighborhood, was not executed. and neighbors after neighbors came up to this city council begging for us to do something and we couldn't do it because they gave up the PUD and they gave all the authority over to the planning board and the administration that said that it wouldn't happen, it did happen and 495 units went up there. Years later, many of the same questions remain regarding long-term development, approvals, community impact, and future use. That's the questions we've been asking while we sit here. The lessons is not that redevelopment is impossible.

The lessons is that acquiring property and successfully developing property are two very different things. Property Acquisitions is often the easiest vote. It's so easy to sit up here and just say, you know, what comes after the hard part? What comes to the hard part? The planning, the financing, the maintenance, the infrastructure, the redevelopment, the ongoing taxpayer commitments. My responsibility is not to vote based on pressure. My responsibility is not to vote based on fear that the opportunity may disappear. My responsibility is to protect the taxpayers and my responsibility is to understand the risks before approving additional debt. My responsibility is to exercise fiscal stewardship on behalf of every Quincy resident. So a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if we can afford it. This is not about ENC. This is about debt.

This is about transparency. This is about fiscal stewardship. Taxpayers deserve answers. Taxpayers deserve transparency. Taxpayers deserve accountability. Taxpayers deserve responsible stewardship of their tax dollars. We have had to dig to find things. And just this weekend on my way to a wedding in New Hampshire, before I lost my capability of having Wi-Fi, which was probably for the best, was when I came across at the Hilltop Securities, June 30th, 2025 report and was reading it. as many people would say, I really like to read. I do like to read. I just don't read novels. I like to read debt service stuff. So I guess what I found out, I was surprised about, but more often than that I was disheartened, hurt and felt we've asked, we've given every opportunity

and people stood at that podium and people sit in this well and we didn't know that we're $2 billion in debt, not 1.8. And even when we were 1.8, they were saying we weren't 1.8. and even if we take away the pension obligation bond, we are still one of the highest to revenue, highest in the state, every city and every town. That says something about Quincy. $2 billion for 103. I thought the other night it was 17.5. Now we're at $20,000 per person in the city of Quincy, 103,000. That is something to really take a moment and take a breath about. So I just wanted to let you know where I came from, how I'm coming to this decision, and why it's very hard. Because the easy thing would be to say yes, but the hard thing is that we have to actually be prepared for what's going to happen next. This debt is cutting into your budget, your services, the very thing people have come up here and said, don't cut our services.

It's already happening. It's eating in to the operation budget.

Thank you. Thank you, President Mahoney. Anyone else like to speak? Councillor McKee.

Hi everybody. Thank you for taking the time to participate in our democracy. When we show up, listen to each other, and respectfully discuss the issues before us, We honor and strengthen that democracy, which is now celebrating its 250th year. With all of the divisiveness in the world, I hope we can work together to ensure that this beautiful civics experiment survives for another 250. I'm committed to doing my part, so let me outline my thinking about the proposal before us. On the face of it, the city buying this property seems like a no-brainer. The $21 million price seems like a steal for 27 acres. The city would control what happens on the land and residents would get to enjoy new community spaces. but as with any deal, the devil is in the details. And this council's job is to delve into those details on behalf of the residents we represent.

In fact, land and loan deals are so consequential that they can only move forward with support from two-thirds of the council. That is a high bar, and for good reason. Land and loan deals can impact the city for generations, and taking the time to scrutinize the implications, both good and bad, before committing one way or the other is just good governance. So how should the council go about that scrutiny? The administration's ENC information packet provides a helpful guide. The packet includes a draft request for proposals for its 55 plus residential development, which covers most of the central campus at least. In this draft RFP, the administration outlines the requirements for anyone bidding to buy or potentially lease that land. Then it describes the scoring system it will use to evaluate those bids.

that is a very useful framework. It provides a way for the administration to choose between different proposals that each might sound good individually. It takes into account each bidder's track record with similar projects, design plans, and financial wherewithal, and provides a transparent scoring system that applies equally to every bidder. that seemed like an excellent way for me to evaluate the administration's own proposal to buy ENC. So substituting the council as the evaluator and the administration as the bidder and expanding the RFP to include the whole ENC property the RFP requirements include developer qualifications and experience, development concept, financial proposal, and project economics.

Under development qualifications, the RFP is looking for a, quote, description of at least three similar development projects completed or underway within the last 10 years, particularly projects on institutional or campus sites, projects of comparable scale and complexity, and references for each example project. This is exactly why I submitted an order earlier this spring to receive a spreadsheet of all property transactions made by the city since 2010. The administration provided that spreadsheet four weeks after it was due and without all of the information I had asked for, but it did include a list of more than 70 properties the city had bought and 18 that it had sold. Based on that information, council questioning and press reports, the city's transactions include transferring 86 parking way in Quincy Center to development company Fox Rock, co-founded by billionaire Rob Hale,

for what amounts to $50,000, buying the Monroe Building in 2021 with $15 million in COVID funds after the council and office at the time indicated that it would not approve the purchase with city funds. At a recent council hearing about the city's management of the Monroe Building, I reported that only one tenant is paying what appears to be the going local rate for office space. Most of the building's units collect no rent or sit empty. and no effort has been made to address that by either the administration or the company the city pays $60,000 annually to manage the building, the same company that is consulting on the ENC sale. buying multiple properties that have been used for purposes other than their originally stated intent or have sat unused for years. This track record leaves a lot to be desired.

Some residents have suggested that a public-private partnership could be created to provide stricter oversight of the property if the city purchased it. But one example of this in Quincy, the Granite Links Golf Club, raises questions about whether this would actually help. For example, this council recently requested an audit of the terms of the lease between the club and the city which owns the land. and discovered that the city had overdrawn an account and had set aside to provide oversight of the course. Instead, it uses money in the account to pay the salary of an employee whose work is unrelated to the golf course. Two, development concept. Under development concept, the RFP is looking for details of the proposed development, including total number of units, unit mix and average sizes, and building footprints and height. These details have not been provided to the Council, but the administration's provided materials suggest some work has been done on them.

For example, just this morning, I noticed in the header of a spreadsheet, in what appears to be size two font, that the city's mid-size scenario for 215 units of senior housing puts 60 of those units in the athletic field. it concerns me that neither the Council nor the public has seen the full extent of the administration's concept plans for the property. Three, financial proposal. Under financial proposal and project economics, the RFP is looking for one, projected operating income expenses and key assumptions, and two, evidence of the developer's financial capacity. The administration estimates it will cost $1.5 million to carry out its plans over the next two years. And last week it provided more information about those costs in response to my questions. What I've seen so far suggests the administration's cost estimates are unrealistically low. For example,

The administration says it will list a dozen individual houses as is for their appraised value, budgeting an average of just $6,250 per house to improve their curb appeal. but its appraiser did not go inside all of the houses, so the amount of work needed is unclear. and if some of the houses need significant repairs or renovations, that might rule them out as options for first time home buyer programs. The administration has budgeted $40,000 per month to run the campus for two years, but the data it provided on ENC's costs show the college paid nearly twice that amount, $71,000 every month. The city justifies the lower estimate because it says its employees can handle a lot of the work, it can waive its own fees for inspections, and its electricity rate is lower. But having city employees do the work is not free.

It means there will be more overtime or additional hires since city employees are presumably already operating at capacity with their existing workloads. The administration lists the cost of moving the Wollaston Library to E&C simply as minimal, saying the branch's 350,000 books could be moved by current city employees. Again, this would likely require overtime at the very least, along with the use or rental of moving trucks. Similarly, the administration does not list the cost of the mosquito control or water testing it plans in EMC's marshes. The administration plans to spend a total of $340,000 on construction consultants, master planning of the main campus, civil engineering to subdivide the main campus and residential lots, and renovate two multi-unit houses into condos. But that figure may be, as S&P noted of the city's budget expectations, a bit optimistic.

given that the city has already spent an estimated $50,000 to $100,000 on the proposed purchase, including on the appraisal and consultant fees. Two, as for evidence of the city's financial capacity, I've poured over the city's draft 2025 audit, credit ratings from S&P and Moody's, data from the state's revenue department, and the proposed 2027 fiscal budget. and what I have learned has left me very concerned. The city's debt stands at $1.8 billion, maybe two billion now, more than any other city in Massachusetts when adjusted for revenues. In the last year or so, high debt and low rainy day reserves have caused both S&P and Moody's to downgrade the city's credit rating and label its outlook negative. Both ratings agencies suggest the city will need to raise taxes and boost rainy day funds to avoid further downgrades.

As Moody's analyst Nicholas Lehman told Bloomberg News, Quincy should monitor its capital debt issuance pretty carefully. According to the RFP, these three evaluation criteria, developer experience, development concept, and financial proposal, account for 70% of the points on which the RFP is to be evaluated. Under that rubric, my evaluation of the proposal falls short of a passing grade and as it stands now, I will be voting no on the purchase. I do, however, believe the council and the administration can still exert control over the property through zoning changes, and I hope to work with the administration on setting those up. Much of the property is in the floodplain, which severely limits what can happen there thanks to the floodplain zoning overlay.

could work to create open space, housing, or planned unit development PUD overlays to add additional guardrails. I know the uncertainty of what could happen at the campus if the city doesn't own it can be scary. But residents have long loved the campus, even though the city has not owned it. and I am committed to working together to ensure that it remains a beautiful neighborhood space.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor McKee. Enough. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for everyone coming out tonight. I've fielded a ton of emails, text messages, Facebook direct message and DMs. In the Flag Day parade, people were talking about how important it is. This has been on everybody's mind for the last I guess it was coming. It was definitely coming for a while now. Just to elaborate a little bit of recapping on the other meetings that we've had previously in front of us, First one starting in March at the Central Middle School where we had a lot of input from the residents over 400 plus people attended and it kind of gave us kind of a a blueprint of what the residents wanted, particularly their butters. A lot of the buildings sitting on that property had a lot of pluses to it, and I'll get into them in a minute.

also over the course of the last meeting, I was able to reach out to the five last, award five counselors, Dan Mitten, Chuck Phelan, Kirsten Hughes, Doug Guthrow, and Steve Durkin. For the last 40 years, they represented Ward 5, and I wanted to get their input. And all five of them were on board with this acquisition that's presented in front of us. To take it a step further, school committee person Joanne Bragg, a former school committee for 16 years, reached out to me and I actually gave her a call and she was on board with a lot of the same things that were coming from the 400 people that attended the Central Middle School. She abuts that property. She's been living there for many, many years. Over the last weekend, I've gotten Barbara Izola has reached out to me, which abuts this property as well. and she was on board with it. And just today, Emily Lebo has reached out to me.

So now we have eight former elected officials that have reached out to me personally and the other ones I've called stating that they were for this ENC acquisition. Now for some people that may not make a difference for other counselors, but to me it does. I served with four of them out of those eight. and I was always gonna get their suggestions, their comments, their advice on any of these issues that are going on in front of us. And a lot of them still live in that particular area in the but this property. For me, it's always about the abutters first. They're the first persons in this particular acquisition. The abutters that abut this property with the major wetlands and some flooding issues that have in that particular property. Secondly, we talked about taxpayers. This goes beyond taxpayers. What about everybody under the age of 18 that can't vote or don't own a property?

I feel that it's a fiduciary responsibility for myself for the children in the city. A lot of the performing arts center, the Cove, A lot of the ball fields in there, the library could be used, all the after school stuff that could be used on that particular site. I've got to think beyond those taxpayers, I've got to protect all 103,000 people that live in this particular city. This not only affects Ward 5, this affects the entire city. I want to thank the administration. I want to thank the administration for coming forward with this two-year capital plan. I've been on the council for the last 10 and a half years. We've had a plan in place previously, 2016, 2017, and then we hit COVID in 2020 and it changed a lot of things. We had to reroute a lot of the financials in the city. We did a great job.

We kept on constructing in the downtown. We moved the city forward. A lot of towns and cities stopped construction, and they're way behind. So we have a two-year plan in front of us, okay? And I think everybody, all the councils have received this since Friday. So I thank you. A lot of it in here is seawall repairs, and a lot of it has to do with the schools. the De La Chiesa Childhood Center, Snug Harbor Elementary School, MSBA roof stores and windows replacements, a little bit of public works, vehicle replacements, park improvement plans, and a lot of these are grant funded where they come back from the MSBA program from the state where we get a lot of reimbursements. I consider them all needs and talk about wants and needs. This is a need. So we come down to this transaction or this acquisition, and here we are tonight at the deadline. And for me, it comes down to one thing.

It's assessed at $58 million and they're gonna sell it for 21 million plus the contingency of $22.5 million. It's less than half of what it's assessed for. So financially, this is a good decision for the city. It's a great deal for the city. And with that, I'd like to make the appropriation for $22.5 million for the Eastern Nazarene College acquisition. I make that a formal motion.

OK.

We have a motion for the appropriation, but I would like to give anyone else a chance to speak.

Councilor Yuan. Thank you Madam Chairwoman. Just a follow-up, Councilor DiBona is talking about a two-year capital improvement plan who proposed that to ask require the administration to provide two years capital improvement plan. Several councilors and I, introduced this ordinance and been caught propaganda by Councilor DiBona. Everyone can watch the QATV record. If this is propaganda, why you are naming all those projects? The sole purpose of this order is to give residents and the city council a full picture of these two fiscal years.

which major projects need bonding and how many bonds still waiting down the road for the residents without the full picture just come through those projects one by one We can't blindly move forward just on one project and without knowing the full picture of two physical have a five year capital plan. The good practice of other cities all have a five years capital improvement plan. I just ask this modest two years physical Two fiscal year capital plan I asked for a month. They refused to give. Only the Friday, 48 hours ago, they provided a draft of this and the residents still haven't a chance to see it. Let me read about it.

The sewer repairs listed Previous phase, 70,550,000. In the second phase, the current proposal, according to city's document, is 18 to 19 million. Total funds in hand for this phase, 7,541,000. and the pending grant, pending grant, three million. So added together, you have around 10,541,000. minus this from the 90 million, you still, city still need issue bond eight million for 458,000. Second, Della Chiesa Early Learning Childhood Center, 3.5 to 5 million.

I will add all those numbers together. The third one, Snag Harbor Elementary School Transformation, 10,367,000. and the city is estimated the city funding need 5,367,000 for issuing bond. The fourth, MSBA supported roofs, doors, and windows, two to four million. 60% reimbursement from the state. City have to pay estimated 1.5 million. Fifth, police vehicle replacement, 300,000 per year. Public works vehicle replacement, another 300,000 per year. Capital Contingent Fund, 4,100 per year.

Add these three items, another one million. And Park Improvement Project. 2.5 million. Add all those together. I added it conservatively. It's 23 million waiting down the road. Still, I have a question with Mr. Walker. So, City has been talking about building a performance center, tear down the Monroe Building. Monroe Building was purchased by $15 million in 2021. Just after five years, they're going to plan to tear it down to borrow more money to build a performance center. I would like to ask, is this also on the list of two physical years plan? Mr. Walker, Chief of Staff.

Through you, Madam Chairwoman. No, it's not. It is too early in the planning and design phase and the fundraising phase to incorporate any sort of potential borrowing for that project. We need to get to a place where the project is feasible. If it's feasible, there'll be discussions about private financing. There's a lot of moving parts to that, Councilor. And at this point in time, certainly not prepared to put a number attached to any borrowing. I will say, when we talk about borrowing overall, and whatever the numbers are, what book says what and what presentation says something, The public should be aware that a great deal of what we borrow is offset by other revenue sources. The school funding, a large portion of our borrowing that we do, the school projects we do, the Squanam Elementary School.

Central Middle School, all of those school projects, the accelerated repair projects, all of those have at least 50% reimbursed from the state. Now, the debt shows the full amount. So that gets added all together. We have other outside funding sources. The downtown, several hundred million dollars, all of that paid for by revenue created by the development downtown.

Has your question been answered? My question, you already answered it. My next question is The building which is currently hosting step one early intervention center is going to be demolished and on its side a new building will be built to give to the Massachusetts native tribe. Culture Center, is that true? Is this also under two fiscal year capital plan?

Through you, Madam Chairwoman, I don't know why, well, that's not included in any capital plan.

Is this in this two-physical year plan?

It is not.

Okay, thank you. So, we just heard The city of Quincy, city of present, have reached two billion dollar debt and we just know that. In April, when city council ask the finance expert, director of finance department to come to give the presentation of the debt, We were surprised. Could you take your conversations outside, please? just in less than six months, $1.6 billion jumped to $1.8 billion. I was surprised. I asked, how did that happen? and one expert gave the explanation, say that's because there are some authorized but any issued bond.

But why nobody, nobody from the city administration tell if you add all authorized and issued bonds together, you already reached $2 billion. Where is the transparency? The resident city council don't know that. We dig out this information by ourselves. You talk about the transparency, $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion to $2 billion. This is not some small things you hide it. I don't understand why this information not provided to the city council. That's important information. Two billion dollar from 1.8 jump to two billion dollar debt. Even you take off, Pension Obligation Bond, $475 million.

Citi Steel Oil, $1.525 billion debt. Quincy Steel. number one highest debt per capita among all the city towns in Massachusetts, almost double the second place. Just imagine that. and now you want to issue more bonds to buy something nice to have but not a must to have. How can you say this to the taxpayers? This is, this project, the taxpayers is across the whole city, is not just in one ward, one precinct. We have to listen people's opinion across the whole city.

I'm Councilor at large. I need to listen to people from the whole city. And second, In April, I asked Mayor's representative, Mr. Walker, is the city going to make some change of this spending trajectory because the people have made their voice loud and clear through last November's election. They want to change. They couldn't afford more debt. The property tax keep increase. Youth, Councilor DiBona's word, the whole city flipped. several of nine councilors are new councilors. That has never happened in Quincy's voting history. This should give the administration

Alam, what's going on? And instead of administration come to the city council, work with the city councilors and the resident to discuss. What has gone wrong? Why people so upset? Why they come out and vote out all those mayor's yes men? And what can we do to fix, to correct this problem? and I asked Mr. Walker, is city going to plan do some change according to the, and he said no, city are not going to do some change, make some change. So if the administration, refuse to honor the overwhelming demand for change from people across the city. How can you ask people have faith in you? Just to...

believe whatever plan you present. Okay, I just stop here. I have more things to say, but I temporarily stop here.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Yuan. Anyone on this side looking to speak or make a statement?

You're all set. Anyone else?

Councilor Ryan? Through you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for coming here tonight. I just want to share a few questions that some of the residents in Ward 4 have sent to me as part of the projected purchase of ENC. This project is vast, and it's fine to acknowledge that it will be a cost to the city. Cities make policy decisions that don't break even all the time when the public benefit justifies the cost. But... but it doesn't account for any of the underlying work that needs to be done. There is nothing wrong with the city pursuing this acquisition even if it doesn't break even. what is not acceptable is presenting projected revenue against purchase cost and saying, the math works, why are you even questioning this? this is our job.

Our job is to question whether or not this purchase is fiscally responsible. We have questions on the sale of the 14 dwellings, which requires subdivisions, condo conversions, and unspecified disposition of the two two-family properties. Not a question, just pointing out that over half of these aren't turnkey, ready for sale. The sale of Messina lot, which was supposed to net us 4.2 million. As I understand, Mr. Walker has been taken off of the list of saleable properties.

Through you, Madam Chairwoman, based upon deliberation of this body, we had sent over a few examples. That was initially one of them. Based on feedback from this body, we removed that as is an example. So yes, and I believe that number is closer to the $6.87 million range for the value of that property.

is that part of the DIF funding?

It would be, and as discussed, yes, Councilor, that can be used to offset the debt service and the DIF.

Now, if there's a DIF loan on it, does the DIF loan also have to be conveyed to the purchaser?

I'm not sure I follow that, I'm sorry.

So if there's a DIF loan on top of the base, does it have to be conveyed to the purchaser? And maybe I'm not asking the question correctly.

Yeah, so... Thank you. Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing, Council, that the sale of that property would go against the debt. of that property that purchased it.

Okay, so though you say it's a net 6.8, it probably would be a little lower?

Point of information. Yeah. Point of information. So. One second. One second.

Go ahead.

Point of Information. So that property was actually bought at about 6.8, and with the debt on it right now, it's probably higher than 7. So if we did sell it, and this is what was brought up in the meeting, that we would be selling a property and paying off the DIF and having a net of zero, looking like we were selling a property to put towards the value of ENC. And the DIF, which we talked about earlier, Mr. Walker brought up, we still don't have the mathematics behind the DIF, and we are combingling that, which also tells everybody that the debt that we're pursuing is actually the general fund. That's where it's going into, is the general fund. So the very thing that's not supposed to cost us anything hasn't been proven by this administration, but has been told to us that it's commingled in the debt. So yes, we would have to pay off that loan, Councilor Ryan, and yes, we would not net much from that seal. But most importantly that I want people to remember is the sale of any of the properties in the downtown, that was the strategy of the DIF. We purchased these properties with strategies to build downtown.

A $300 million proposal came before this body and said that they were going to be investing in the downtown. And one of it was going to be a performance arts center. in the downtown. Since then, that developer has not developed anything. It's supposed to start in 2023. But as we all know, we only hear press releases about what's good. But when something doesn't happen, we don't hear about it. And now we have redirected the Performance Center from downtown to the Monroe Building. And that's where we stand.

Through you, Madam Chairman, The proposal for the Performer Announcement was never actually proposed. There was a conceptual to use a piece of property that was seen a lot for that. The ultimate transaction that took place for the property in that area of the downtown is now producing several hundred housing units, Trader Joe's, two parking garages, What I'm saying, Councilor, is that there was never actually a proposal before this body to dispose of the Messina lot to make way for a performing arts center. Yes, there was a concept, but we never put in a land disposition agreement for the Messina lot. The ultimate land disposition agreement for that area is the project that everyone can see going on right now, the really four separate projects, housing, Retail, Trader Joe's, Beth Israel, two parking garages.

That's where our money is invested right now.

Ryan, are you done or do you have more questions? No, no, through you, Chairwoman, yes. So all of these questions lead me to remember what happened at Hospital Hill. I was there at all of those meetings when we were concerned about losing the hospital, about what would be put in place of the hospital, We asked questions about 55-plus. We asked questions about veterans, housing. We did not get any answers, and what we got was Ashlaw Park. This is a very, very steep purchase with a lot of unknowns, and we need to know a truthful answer with these unknowns, and we're not getting them. Thank you.

Hubley?

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, through you. I had a little bit of concern in our previous deliberations on this matter where people were looking for specific properties that the city could sell in order to offset the cost of this purchase so that we don't have to bond more. and the reason why I have a little bit of a concern about that is I think when you start to project, if we were to put out a list of properties with a timeline tied to it, What we're essentially doing is giving the potential purchasers of those properties serious leverage. Right? So think about it this way. It's a bit like walking into an auto dealership, walking up to a group of salespeople in the auto dealership and saying, I'm leaving here in 30 minutes. I'm not leaving without buying a car. let's negotiate.

So I don't like the idea of tying any particular properties. If the administration is willing to commit to divesting a set of properties to be determined which are best marketable. I want us to get the full value. I want us to get as much money as we can for the properties, which doesn't happen when you have time constraints and you basically, because developers watch TV too. and they read the ledger too. And so I had a lot of concern about the push to identify specific properties that we were gonna put out there. Now, just a few remarks on the overall deal. I want to share sort of how my thinking has gone, and I shared a little bit in our previous deliberations. And so I spent a lot of time looking at this opportunity and about 10 years ago in a previous career. I also looked a lot at E&C and so

I've walked all the halls, I think, of all the buildings, been in a lot of the classrooms, been in the dorms, been in the offices, been in the attics, been in the basements. and I know that E&C has always been a great neighbor and in that process I discovered that they were also very good stewards of their property. So I had a lot of comfort in that the previous experience I had with all of their properties that they were of decent value and decent shape. So I weighed that into my equation. This potential purchase represents a ton of value, and some of it you can put a price on, and some of it you can't. And so some of the things you can put a price on, you know, what would it cost to bring in, to have a new library facility? and also much needed educational and childcare services. This is something that the state is pushing down and cities and towns are gonna have to react to it and it's gonna cost us money.

make no mistake and a lot of the things in this capital improvement plan are to respond to that as been voted on by the school committee so we're going to need to respond to these and that facility could be one part of the equation of meeting the need that the state is pushing down. There's also a theater facility for performing arts. I realize the projector might have been sold, but there's a good chance it had an RGB connection so it wasn't going to be able to use it anyway. Outfitting a new theater with audio-visual equipment is a very small number, relatively speaking. There's an athletic facility and a field for our students. One of the things that I really haven't heard too many people talk about, which was really what caught my eye and maybe that's because I get excited about boring infrastructure stuff, was the opportunity for stormwater mitigation for this neighborhood.

And I've been going through the list of city-owned properties in that area, and I'm unsure how we could accomplish what we could accomplish with this any other way. And the folks on Sims Road, and I know it's not my ward, but I still think about them, of course, because I have to think about everyone in the city. On Sims Road and the surrounding neighborhoods, I don't know what other options we have down the road for mitigating the storm. Water down there. There's also neighborhood parking that can be factored in, and I am hearing a lot about parking as a ward councilor. there are some other things you can't really put a price on. The beautiful arboretum and the trees across the campus, I would hate to see what could happen with those. There's the preservation of important marshland, which is an important part of our ecosystem and stormwater mitigation plan. Giving 55 plus residents an option to stay in the city is pretty important.

giving young families an opportunity to get in through a first-time homebuyers in a beautiful neighborhood. It's a gorgeous neighborhood down there. It's absolutely beautiful. I like the idea of having greater control over what happens in that neighborhood. I would like to see an option where there's a partnership with the council and administration to exercise greater control over what happens there. when we do sell off the land because we can exercise much more control if we are the ones selling it. I've also been surprised at suddenly how people have so much faith in developers and zoning rules. I can tell you... Nobody that I talked to in Ward 3 is going to believe that that's just going to kind of take care of it. So whatever happens here, we need to do something, an extra measure, and I feel like we would have control if we were selling the property.

Now the primary thing that gave me pause, and so that was an awfully optimistic assessment. The primary thing that gave me pause was the lack of visibility into a two-year projection of capital expenditures. And I appreciate Council UN's order, requesting that information. And quite frankly, I was a little disappointed, very disappointed that we didn't have it immediately. That for me was the last piece of the puzzle. because, I mean, you all know this in your personal lives, and what I say is not gonna come as a surprise, I think, to most people. You have to look at, there's all kinds of things I'd love to do. I'd love to redo my patio. I would love to be, I have a garage that's like really aging and needs some repairs. but I can't do it right now. I gotta pause for a little while.

I just had the House resided and so I just need to think about my debt services, my other things I'd like to do and so I'm putting it off for a couple of years. and generally speaking in my personal life, I think so to 10 to 15 years. I just had to replace my heating system which is why I can't do the garage over. So I'm pacing things out. I think 10 to 15 years with my house. During my time in one of my earlier careers in the broadband technology space, I was routinely responsible for capital budgets over hundreds of millions of dollars when we were building out new cable companies, adding new products, adding new infrastructure. Honestly, in hindsight, trusting the 35-year-old me with a couple hundred million dollars in capital budget is a bit of a surprise, and I can't seem to get my head around that, but I actually did pretty well with it. All that said, though, I always had a five-year plan, a five-year rolling plan of products and capital expenditures and how those things lined up so that I knew what I could do.

I definitely, that was my one pause going into this, well my final pause, rather, going into this up until we received the information that we got just last week. So I appreciate Council UN pushing for that information. it would have been very difficult for me to even think about making this type of decision without that information and future decisions that we're going to be asked to make when we go into the next session. So, and as I said the other night, having some experience in real estate development, not here in Quincy, but elsewhere, I didn't have as much uncomfortable feelings about the plan, the conceptual plan that was put forth by the city. I thought it was very well thought out. And I do like the fact that they went through the effort to make this a situation where we weren't going to have to do any long-term borrowing. And so I have a real hard time thinking about leaving all that value on the table and being able to accomplish that without any long-term borrowing.

And I don't know if any of my colleagues have other options that they're aware of where we can accomplish so much for the cost that this is being presented. So after reviewing the capital plan that the city put in front of us, I'm prepared to vote for this.

Ash, would you like to make a statement?

Thank you, Chairwoman Riley. So first of all, I want to start by saying everyone's questions and comments and opinions are really beneficial. So the idea that asking questions and trying to get information is not needed. I just don't think that any of us would subscribe to that. for everyone's, how we review things individually, we're all elected for a reason, so that is how we take on those duties and then how we carry them out is individual to each of us. I think everyone's doing the best that they can. That being said, with respect to this plan, the value is there. I think it's simple. The value is there. I think that there is a good plan in place. I look forward to having the council, having the future

points in having the administration come back to the council for approval of all of those items like long-term leases. the parameters to keep this on pace and the council involvement. Of course, Councilor Hubley just mentioned the arboretum and the trees. We also mentioned the step one early intervention there could be some potential there. But over and above the details of the actual plan, the community support for this has been overwhelming from individuals. and that is across the board from ward residents, from residents at large in the city, from residents that traditionally would not support an appropriation of this amount or may be pushed back on previous items.

the community support over the last few weeks for this has genuinely been overwhelming. So all of that, that being said, I'm prepared to support this. But I do... I do also appreciate the concerns and the questions and certainly the discussions up to this point.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Rasch. Councilor Jacobs, are you all set? No. Okay. I'm going to take some privilege and then I think we can move this forward. So ENC announced their closure in July 2024, which was preceded by years of declining enrollment, mounting costs, and a sell-off of assets. The announcement should have come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. The city had more than a year to try to work a deal with the college and instead waited until a wealthy alumni struck a deal to purchase it and develop the site. The city describes the proposal which was not widely shared as dead on arrival. What discussions took place has not been shared. Whether the city and the developer could have found a workable middle ground will never be known. Instead, the city brokered their own deal to purchase the assets for $21.5 million. after the contents of the building had been sold off, including the co-fine arts and audio-visual equipment, furnishings, and commercial kitchen equipment that could have made the site useful right away. The word that keeps coming up is control.

Under city control, everything will be better, and under private control, all kinds of scary things are gonna happen. City control means the city is on the hook to assume the risk and make it financially viable. How is the city in a better position to do that? Because your property taxes will make up any shortfall. When I look at the General's Bridge, for example, that has been closed for months, practically disassembled and now enveloped by two towering parking garages just feet from the ornamental bridge that many have dubbed the Bridge to Nowhere, I can only scratch my head and wonder why we have heavy equipment and cranes maneuvering around a $35 million bridge and consider that a successful endeavor. The safety headquarters and animal shelter all had substantial cost and schedule overruns. Both had to mitigate environmental contamination that was not planned. The city has far too much real estate holdings that have yet to yield a benefit. We are saddled with debt for decades to come, our bond rate is falling, and our reserves are minimal.

Managing it will add to the city's payroll, pension, healthcare, and union rolls. We tout the Furnacebrook Golf Course as an example of success when the bond debt and utilities are not included in the calculation of that profit. We have Quincy College, which the city has been carrying for decades, paying health insurance and pension obligations. We keep hearing how envious other communities are of Quincy's success. Are they envious or are they bewildered by how we're pulling it off? The finances just don't add up in Quincy. One thing I know is no matter how we vote here tonight, half of the residents will be unhappy with the decision. So with that, Councilor DiBona, you have made a motion just for 077, or are you motioning for both of them? The appropriation and the acquisition. The appropriation, okay. So just to be clear, the motion would be to move it out of committee. It is not the vote of the body.

The vote of the body will happen in the full council meeting. So this is just to move it to a full vote of the council at our 7.30 meeting. So with that, we'll take a roll call. Okay, call to the end.

Go ahead, Councilor Yuen. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I just want to know, we are vote this out of committee with positive or negative recommendation, or with no recommendation, just vote it out to committee? I want to clarify it.

It hasn't been clarified.

It's just about to move it on to a full vote. If it fails, it fails, but it's a motion to approve.

Okay. We don't need a second. We don't need a second in committee. Okay. Motion to approve with a favorable recommendation. Okay, motion to approve with a favorable recommendation, which is a little different. So on the motion, we'll take the roll call unless there's any discussion on the motion.

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

Okay, so that was a 6-3 vote against. Would you like to further motion on the other one?

if I could, thank you Madam Chair. I'd also like to talk a little bit, unfortunately that failed, so I'd like to talk a little bit about overdevelopment, which I've constantly been hearing in the city for the last 13 years of being elected, even as a school committee member, knocking on people's doors. One of the biggest things they talk about is overdevelopment. There's too much development. The downtown district is deemed for the development. But in these neighborhoods, we have to protect them. So that has been a major, major consensus on the street everywhere I go in Res A or a residential neighborhood that you have to protect these particular neighborhoods. And I thought I've done a very good job. I've had to write, I've had to go to ZBAs and pushed down units and all that stuff. And this particular item that's come in front of us before us, the private developer, wanted to put a little bit too dense.

and the Mayor was smart enough to say it's just too dense. So we've come to Plan B, which is in front of the City Council. I'd like to elaborate a little bit about some of the Councilors talking about the past and you've changed history, okay? It's a different council now. Every council that I've been associated with over the last 10 years, this is my sixth term, it's been a different council. It's different members. Some members leave, some members come on. There has never been the same nine for the last 11 years. Never. It's always changed. This particular year has changed. to talk about transparency, talk about accountability, talk about control, you've already changed history. So really in a nutshell, It's an obligation to the City Council. I'm still a City Councilor, regardless of the situation. I may disagree with a lot of the notions that are in front of me, but I'm still a City Councilor. And we have a responsibility.

We're the legislative body of government. We're not appointed by the administration. We don't work for the mayor. We are the city council. So I would tend to agree with you. on things that should be coming back to this council. I agree with you 100%. And for the record, that PUD back in 2017, and you can Google it, there was two votes that were against that PUD, myself and Joe Finn. Okay, so I never want to lose control of this council having the responsibility to have control. So just for the record, and she probably hasn't brought it up, Councilor Mahoney, You can Google it right now to Patriot Ledger. I don't like to give up the control from the council. Okay, so the overdevelopment is on my mind. and I've already talked to residents in the particular abutting area that are already talking about selling houses. They don't feel comfortable. So I think we have another order here and I'd like to make,

I'd like to make a motion for 2026-26 order, Eastern Nazarene College land acquisition. I'd like to make that in a form of motion to pass. I'd like to put that in a form of motion.

Okay, with favorable recommendation.

Favorable recommendation, yes.

Okay, 2026-076, we have a motion to move forward with a favorable recommendation. Any discussion on that?

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

I guess if there's no further discussion, I will take a motion to adjourn. Councillor Yuen, did you have a comment? Is it in response to his comment?

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Just to follow up with Councilor DiBona's comment, we know you voted no with Joe Finn, only two no's. I would like to give you credit. At that time, 2017, young DiBona still have a backbone to vote no. So, I would like to say, yeah, he said. He doesn't want to control, get out of the city council. And because originally, it is the PUD, every project, every zoning, everything have to come to the city council. and then once you give up this, just the developer just need to only go to the planning board. And then it's a fast track. Then you see what happened. No 55 plus.

Building, no workforce building is just become like a 450 high-rise apartment building. So I thank you. DiBona to vote it no that time. That's my comment.

Thank you, Councilor Yen. So we are going to adjourn this meeting. So we have a couple of minutes before the City Council meeting. I forgot to mention that the sign-up sheet for the open forum is in the back of the room, so people can sign up there, and we will re-adjourn, convene at 7.30.

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Good evening, everybody. We're going to call to order the Monday, June 15th, 2026 City Council meeting to order. Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll order.

Councillor DiBona. Present. Councillor Hubley. Present. Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, present. Nine members, you have a quorum.

If we could stand for a moment of silence. and if we could turn and pledge allegiance to the flag.

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

Madam Clerk, could you read the open meeting law?

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person can 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 impermissible.

Thank you very much. We're going to take out of order this evening the honoring of the chef Lawrence Louie, owner of Roboto, would be coming up first. So if you could just take that into consideration. That's Debbie. I didn't mean to jump in for you. No, no, no, no. Debbie, you have to go around.

You have to stand on the other side.

Welcome Chef Lawrence Louie from Roboto. Congratulations. Congratulations to North Quincy's own Lawrence Louie, owner and chef of Roboto, on being named a finalist on Top Shelf. Born and raised in Boston, he has built an extraordinary culinary career rooted in his Chinese American heritage, blending tradition, innovation, and refined technique. From his early work as a community organizer in Chinatown to acclaimed kitchens in Cambridge and London and ultimately opening Roboto in 2022, his journey reflects dedication, creativity, and perseverance. His many achievements, including a James Beard Award nomination, recognition as a Star Chef's Boston Rising Star Chef, and Roboto's inclusion in Bon Appetit's Best New Restaurants list, as well as winning Chopped, and Beating Bobby Flay.

You have brought well-deserved recognition to our community. We celebrate your remarkable accomplishment and wish you continued success both in and out of the kitchen. Thank you very much.

and so on.

So you're down there all the time.

Next is the Honoring of the Quincy Girl Scout Leaders.

Could I have Courtney Joyce, Cindy Trollcott, Donnie Liang, and Lisa Thank you very much. Gail Jacobs and Jenny Torres and Liz West and Amanda Diaz. Come up, please. All right. Yeah, I'm going to make you stand here through the whole thing. Yes. All right, thank you very much. So having been a scout myself as a kid and having served as a den leader for my son's den years ago, I really feel strongly and I know how important scouting is to the community. and what it does for young people in our community. It really warms my heart to see how active and engaged we have for a scouting program. And it's just beautiful. And in fact, some of the most

impactful people in our city and the people I admire the most in the city got their start from what they learned in scouting. It's incredibly important and it creates great leadership opportunities. Thank you. and we'll get to the scouts soon, but it does start with good leaders and having good role models around them. And part of what we're doing here tonight is to acknowledge just exemplary awards and activities from some of the parents who were involved. So I'll start off with the scout leaders. Courtney Joyce and Cindy Trillcott have received the Sustained Service Award, which honors volunteers for their many years of dedicated ongoing service in Girl Scouting. along with the President's Award which recognizes those whose leadership has made a significant and lasting impact on the Girl Scout community. Donnie Liang has been awarded

the Thanks Badge, Girl Scouting's highest honor for adult volunteers, given for exceptional and measurable impact on the organization. She also received the Red Rose Award for her outstanding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as the President's Award. Lisa, help me with the last name. Petticoat, thank you. And Gail Jacobs have received the Appreciation Pin, which recognizes outstanding measurable service that directly benefits local service units and its volunteers, along with the President's Award. and then Jenny Torres, Liz West and Amanda Diaz have also received the President's Award for their meaningful contributions to strengthening the Girl Scouts in our community. And so it's my pleasure, and this is really fun, to award them, oh sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry about that.

All right, so, all right. Very sorry about that. I must have mixed that up in my notes with the two Gales. So, all right. So Gale Spring received the President's Award as well. Sorry about that. All right. All right, so please join me in congratulating these amazing scout leaders.

All right, so now it's your turn. You gonna get up here? All right, so now for the scouts. The City Council would like to recognize Cora Wilson, Eloise Richowski, thank you very much, Greta Tolatino, and Caroline Martinez. who earned their Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest honor a junior Girl Scout can achieve, for their Recess Carts for Squamish School project. This was in response to the school being under construction, and these girls took action to improve the outdoor play opportunities for students during the instruction. Now this is an amazingly good example of how scouts show up to always be part of the solution.

And so these individuals, these scouts exemplify the very best in scouting and the City of Quincy is pleased to honor their achievements with these proclamations, sorry. Cook, congratulations. Any of my colleagues want to say a word or two? Okay, all right, okay. If we can maybe brief recess, take quick pictures, okay.

Before we take a brief recess, I'm just going to ask if anybody's going to be speaking at open forum, if you can sign in at the back of the room. Thank you.

So time to get in here.

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So now is the part of the evening where we're going to start the open, you can come up for open forum. So we're going to start with Alan Yakopian. I think it's Alan. Dr. Cuban. Oh, he went home. He went home, okay. Mary Travers.

Mary Travers, 148 Presidents Lane and Quincy, Ward 5. Few things that I've been gravely concerned about in the past week. I've noticed the chairperson never uses the gavel when certain councilors verbally and angrily attack another council for absolutely no reason at all. I'm not sure what good that gavel does if you only use it on residents and not rein in childish, unprofessional behavior on your own council. I was disappointed with my ward council last week in the way that she spoke to Patricia McGowan. Ms. McGowan is the head of human resources and telling her how to conduct job interviews right after making remarks about a high percentage of whites and males being hired was just short of accusing Ms. McGowan of using racial profiling. I was very disappointed. I do marvel at the tenacity and research my ward Councillor does.

I give her a lot of credit for doing her due diligence and wanting to help ward five. and some of the platforms she actually ran her campaign on were no rubber stamping what the mayor wants in transparency. So how is it when Mr. Timmons would not rubbish stamp the answers my ward Councillor wanted, you did an end rhyme and hired your own lawyer? and an email to Mr. Timmons, my Councillor alleged the Mayor's Chief of Staff advised her to hire her own attorney. Mr. Walker is a Chief of Staff on an administration you vehemently oppose. yet you stated you went to him for legal advice. Now he's many things, patients being his biggest virtue in the past six months that I can tell, but he's not working a legal clinic on the side. and now you refuse to name your lawyer. I guess your platform of transparency has a more of a do as I say and not as I do hypocrisy to it. Thank you.

Kathleen Kyle, Franklin Avenue, Quincy. I hope the six are real proud of themselves for screwing the city and the neighbors and the residents in that community. You've taken away the opportunity for the 55 and over housing. You've taken away the affordable housing for the first time home buyers. against also a new library for us. There are several other things that I can go on. The Trojan horse has entered Quincy, and the six of you are in it together. We are... Digging in the backgrounds, we are stitching the seams together. And Miss McKee, there's a lot coming up. McKee, it's McKee. I said McKee. I said McKee. and we're stitching it together. You're coming in, you're trying to destroy the city and this is the start.

You may have won this battle. You are not going to win the war. Quincy is united now. From all wards, we've come together on this issue. They just saw what you did here tonight, and we're not stopping now.

Hank Dondero.

Hank Dondero, 65 man and a half, the neck. I've been cautioned by a family member to behave myself, not get angry. and I promise I'll try and do it, really, seriously. However, one and done. what can I say? You folks have 16 months and 16 months plus to demonstrate that you are capable of being the stewards of the city of Quincy. till now, it hasn't presented itself. Look at yourself in the mirror. What have you done for the city? Not for your individual agendas, not for what you feel your constituents are limited they are at this point in time. But you're going to find out in 17 months how well you're doing because as Councilor McGee said,

You're not working towards getting re-elected. Well, you should be working towards getting re-elected. And the bottom line is, if you're going to work towards getting re-elected, then you're better listening to your constituents, all of them, not just a select few. That's really all I have to say. I'm really... Oh, yeah, one last thing. My wife and I were out walking around the neighborhood the other night, and we happened to talk to a new couple that moved in. down the neck. And a conversation came around to why they select Quincy, why they select Howe's neck. and they said they hear a lot of good things about the city they love the restaurant scene the entertainment scene in the center they love the downtown and they take the tea to and from the neck I haven't taken a T in 35 years. I wouldn't know how to pay for it on a bus. But this is the new generation. This is the younger generation. I think you're overlooking those people.

I think you're overlooking what's been going on in the city center. and I think you're really doing the city a disservice by what you've done. I have nothing else to say. See you in November 27.

Dale Callahan, 437 Quarry Street, Quincy, Mass. First and foremost, thank you, Walter. Thank you, Noel. Thank you, Richard. You all voted the way the rest of you should have voted. I'd feel a whole lot better if I thought that this was a vote because you truly believed it and not a vote against our mayor. But unfortunately, that's how I feel. Maggie, if I was in Ward 5, I would be out of my mind. I wasn't happy that my Ward 4 Councillor voted against you, but at least she's in Ward 4. This is your ward. These are your people. How could you do that to them? You are losing the library. You are losing the gym. You are losing the cove. You are losing the ability to deal with the flooding issue. You don't care. You believe this.

You don't care that money will come back to us from the school projects. That apparently doesn't matter. You don't believe in any of the grants that we get from anything. Apparently that doesn't matter. You don't believe that what we're going to do with the money that we're getting from the retirement thing and what we have to do with that That doesn't matter. We just listened to Ann, who, Ann, in my sleep I hear 1.8, 1.8, 1.8, 1.8. Drinking games are going on with 1.8. So again. It's 2.0. I just, well now it's two, sorry, you're right. We got a new bingo card here. But I just really think in this particular case you've missed a chance I believe, believe it or not, I believed in you as a council with Ian leading, believe it or not, I truly did, that you guys could have taken this and you really could have made it something special. You really could have made the difference in this whole thing.

You could have controlled it. You could have controlled it. You really could have. But now, you're putting it out there for anybody to do whatever they want. And yes, we can hope that zoning will take care of us. We hope that you'll put down strong things for zoning. I'm not buying it. I'm really not at this. I hope, honestly, that you all prove me wrong. And honestly, nothing could make me happier than you all proving me wrong. Truly, I mean that, but I don't see it. So I'm highly disappointed about this. The one thing that was good tonight, Love seeing Chef Louie. That was nice to have that here. Loved having the Girl Scouts here. That was another nice thing to do. So yay on both of that for the city. That was a good thing. the whole ENC thing is a disaster. But again, thank you Walter, thank you Noel, thank you Richard.

Thank you, Madam President. I had a hopeful speech planned. Neil McColl, 79, West Elm Ab, Ward 5, Precinct 5. bachelor's degree in business administration, master's degree in finance, graduate certificate in municipal finance from Suffolk University, four years as the finance director of the planning department, Four years as finance director of the DPW. So I know a little bit about what's going on. There's really only four ways a municipality can acquire assets. They either get gifted, they use cash on hand, they use grants. or they borrow. And this deal was a combination of all of that. If my fist represents ENC asset building and lands, it's about $55 million. This rock in my right hand compared to my fist would be a $5 million borrowing against a $55 million asset, right?

So about 25% of the $20 million borrowing. Okay, that's 0.25%, 0.25% of your now $2 billion. So we've just squandered this land acquisition deal for 0.25%. Unbelievable, it was a slam dunk, and it seems like it's gonna be missed. I think the notion of needing to sell off assets to purchase ENC, it's not necessary. We didn't sell off property to acquire and build seawalls. I know. I was part of it. I met with the residents when it flooded in 2018. I saw the tears. I was in the planning department. We put programs together. I was in the DPW cutting checks for the $17 million for the seawalls. It's definitely needed.

Didn't sell off any property when we bought the church down in Germantown and converted it to a community center. Millions of dollars spent on that over the last 20 years. Unbelievable success, I've been down there. but we didn't sell anything for that. It's about $5 million worth of infrastructure going into squantum right now, electricity and drainage upgrades. Not selling any property for that. But the biggest question here, really, is in Ward 5, we didn't have a council-led meeting. 1,000 people would have probably showed up. You didn't listen. You had a chance to lead. You didn't do it. You didn't do it. Madam President, you live in Ward 4 across the other side of 93 at the Blue Hills. You sent your three kids all the way across town to Beechwood and Old School into this neighborhood You launched your political career as a school committee candidate at Beechwood and Old School 20 plus years ago. Sounds like you're turning your back on the neighborhood that launched your political career. It does, Ian.

We're friends, but it does. I hope not. You said disheartened, and that's how I feel, and I think a lot of people behind me feel the same way. Half the chamber left, by the way, if you're watching on TV. I'm just asking to vote yes, figure out the details later, for residents of Ward 5, residents all across the city, just vote yes and figure it out, collaborate. That's what leaders do.

Thank you.

Well, I am going to stick with these, which I have, and pretend I didn't see the vote earlier. So good evening, Councilors. I am Joanne Brown, 74 East Elm Avenue.

Joanne, can I stop you for a second?

Can you pull the mic down? Oh, thank you. I want people to hear me. Yeah, I'm shorter than you. OK, should I start again?

Sure.

Yes, okay. Good evening, Councilors. I am Joanne Bragg from 74 East Elm Ave. I have lived on East Elm Ave for almost 57 years. I previously served on the school committee for 16 years. I have a financial background and have worked on multi-million dollar budgets. Previously, I wrote to each of you and heard back from most counselors, but the only Councillor that called me was Noel DiBona, not my Councillor. The worst thing to happen to this neighborhood would be to let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip. The E&C property is 27 acres in a prime residential neighborhood. which could be turned into a gem, not only for Wood Fire, but for the entire city to benefit from. I realize there is a big price tag. but there are ways to bring down the cost.

But not supporting this proposal, you are opening the door for developers to come in and possibly put up, excuse me, I haven't given a speech in a long time, multi-housing units that would attract families. And those interests would not be the same as the councilors are supposed to be towards us. So get ready to build another school because the neighborhood is going to need one when all these families move in and the capacity in the schools right now cannot handle all those children. So I doubt you're ready to build another school, but you're gonna have to look at it down the road. In March, as some of the other speakers have said, there was a community workshop in which 400 people attended, myself included. There were over 1,600 comments through the workshop in the online portal.

There were signs all over the city, not just in Ward 5, all over the city. hundreds of concerned citizens have attended city council meetings week after week. Please listen to us. That was before the vote. We want the city to control the property. Residents and the mayor have offered ways to pay off the bonds and generate revenue. Some of the properties could be sold as well as others around the city. A first-time homebuyers program could be put in place to help families across the city owned for the first time their own home. That would bring in millions of dollars to pay down the bond and generate property taxes. City would have more money. There are rental opportunities to generate funds. Quincy College could pay rent for the athletic fields, the gym, and any classrooms they want to use.

the recreation department, youth sport groups, and senior citizens across the city could benefit from this property. The Nice Library is one of the newest college buildings and would make a great library for the city and for the board five. There are two lower levels. I've already hit, you're kidding. I'm not even near my closing. You're really shutting me off?

Three minutes. Oh, you're telling me three minutes. No, you have three minutes for open forum. We've hit three minutes.

Okay, well, I'm just gonna end by saying I ask for your support to approve the plan, and I respectfully ask for this body to work together, which they are not doing, and use every opportunity to reduce pay off the bond and generate revenue for years to come. Thank you.

My name is Elan Nelson. I live at 28 Village Drive in Quincy. Thank you City Council for all of your work to advocate for city residents, for Quincy residents, and you're making a huge positive difference. A woman just took a video of me in here without my consent and she and others are claiming that I'm part of some kind of setup I am speaking on my own behalf as a mother of a child with several chronic medical issues. I am part of a concerned group of Quincy parents whose babies, including my almost two-year-old daughter, are in early intervention and receive therapeutic playgroup services at the Molly Hershberg Learning Center in Squanam. Early intervention offers therapeutic services for babies age zero to three. with developmental delays. Mayor Koch, we have been asking to meet with you for several weeks. We have not received a reply from you.

We have called you, we have emailed you, begging you to help our babies. to receive full services in an equivalent building to the Molly Hershberg Learning Center. We continue to ask you, Mayor Koch, to meet with us. We parents toured the new 54 Miller Street space. where the early intervention therapeutic playgroup services will be moved at the end of June. It is a medical building with no outdoor playground there is an adequate security. We saw at least 10 random people, including a food delivery person, coming in and out of the area where our babies would come to attend playgroup. More importantly, our children's new learning space shares a floor with a psychiatric crisis unit. I was able to look directly into the psychiatric crisis unit and saw adults wandering around. Our babies will also be sharing a bathroom with adults, and their learning space will be shared with an adult day program.

I do not feel comfortable with my two-year-old sharing a space that can be accessed by unknown adults experiencing a psychiatric crisis as well as unknown adults in a day program. Not only that, the space is much smaller and requires playgroups to double in size while staff leading the groups will be cut in half. There's also no space to expand therapeutic playgroups when more children need early intervention in the future. there is no urgent need to move out of the Molly Hershberg Learning Center in Squanam. Mayor Koch, please allow early intervention to continue in this building until an equivalent space is found. Again, we want full services for all children all the time without being interrupted. That's what our children of Quincy deserve. please help us Mayor Koch, please help us community of Quincy to protect and care for our most vulnerable children. We urge you to meet with us Mayor Koch.

Next up, I'm going to say your name wrong again, Marquin Brockington. I apologize. No worries. Okay. Sorry.

Good evening, my name is Mikewin Brockington, Gilson Road, Quincy resident, National Board certified teacher, and early intervention mom. I want to make this point loud and clear. I am a grown woman with my own beliefs, thoughts, and ideas. I am not being used or forced by any Quincy resident or any council member to speak about the Molly Hershberg Learning Center and how much this place means to me, my family, and other early intervention families in Quincy, Randolph, and Milton. I also want to be clear. I support reparations for all groups of people who have suffered harm from European colonization in this country. And I strongly believe that indigenous people should have all of Turtle Island returned back to them. by no means am I trying to prevent or disrespect a land back initiative.

All I want is a safe baby and toddler appropriate learning space that is equivalent to the Molly Hershberg Learning Center or better, for our EI playgroups. Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to visit the new Miller Street location, and we were so sad and disappointed, me and the other parents, we cried. the new space lacks many of the indoor and outdoor playgroup activities for gross motor skills. They plan to transform two adult conference rooms into a classroom and an indoor play space, both significantly smaller than what we currently have at the Molly Hirschfer Learning Center. and I have serious concerns, safety concerns. The rooms are on the same floor that services adults who could potentially have or experience a mental health crisis.

No Quincy classroom in Quincy Public Schools shares a wing with adults in crisis. the bathroom that our toddlers will use is a shared bathroom. When my toddler with sensory issues had a tantrum during the visit, the echo of the smaller space from his own crying sent him into a full meltdown from sensory overload. When we left the building, there were adults smoking outside, and I can go on. I know Aspire and Step One are going to, and I quote, do the best they can to make this work. But this is not the best for my son, and it is not the best for the babies and toddlers of Quincy, Randolph, and Milton. As of right now, there is no date for when the tribe is going to move in. But June 26 is the last day for our playgroups at the Molly Hirshberg Learning Center.

This center was intentionally built for children like my son with sensory issues. Taken away, the Molly Hirshberg Learning Center takes away his ability and other babies' abilities to thrive in a space that was designed for them. All I want is you all, we can all work together to put our heads together for a better solution. And Mayor Koch, please meet with us. We want to meet with you.

Heather Duny.

Hi, I'm Heather Doney, and I live at 912 Southern Artery, and I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of the board of the Quincy Tree Alliance. I want to thank the city council for doing due diligence with the potential purchase of E&C. I understand it's a process. And for the city administration for clarifying an important fact and that is that just because a grove of arboretum trees is not currently listed as protected in the proposed plan does not mean it's therefore slated to be lost to development. We hope that the entire arboretum is preserved as the many mature trees are irreplaceable, unique, and add both monetary and quality of life value to the city. Prior to any redevelopment or subdivision of the property, we would like the city to consider preparing an arboretum tree inventory and management plan led by a certified arborist.

the plan would document the existing tree collection, assess tree health and preservation priorities, identify protection measures for future construction, and establish a long-term approach for maintaining the entire Babcock Arboretum as a connected landscape resource. The Babcock Arboretum at E&C is more than a collection of trees. It is a legacy landscape with trees that have been part of the site for more than 100 years. With thoughtful planning, our guidance and public input it can remain a point of civic pride for Quincy while the city considers the best use of the property. This kind of approach would give residents confidence that the Arboretum is being treated as a shared community asset during the different stages of development. We also, once again, reiterate that we are here as the Quincy Tree Alliance to support the saving of the Bangkok Arboretum in any way you might need us, including help with RFP language, arborists, volunteers, just let us know.

It is such a wonderful thing that this city has an Arboretum to call its own and the Quincy Tree Alliance thanks you for considering it in your work ahead. Thank you.

Andrew, Carleen.

Andrew Carlene, 63 Brook Road. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I don't think E&C was an easy decision, and I'm grateful that this council didn't treat it like it was an easy call. That's not what I'm here to speak about tonight, though. Fourteen years ago today, I was a junior officer in Afghanistan muddling my way through a sleepless week in which the base I was on had been rocket attacked every night multiple times. Wearing the uniform of the United States Navy was the privilege of my lifetime. And while I had questions about why we were engaged in that particular war 11 years in, I was certain about why I had chosen to serve. I chose to serve to defend the Constitution of this Republic and the rights enshrined within it.

And it's for that reason that recent developments at the national level have been dispiriting to me. We're living through a crisis in First Amendment rights with the federal government being weaponized against people who speak out against the administration. I find a lot of the commentary at these public comment sessions to be toxic. At best, some of these ad hominem attacks leveled at the new city councilors are unproductive and skirt the substance of important issues we should be focused on. and at worst, they come across as thinly veiled, misogynistic and racist attempts to bully our elected officials. And yet, when I step back, and try to look at the big picture, there is something profoundly beautiful about these seemingly endless public comment sessions.

Here in Quincy, a stone's throw from where one of the architects of this republic lies, this city council has enabled us to unequivocally reify the tradition of freedom of expression where citizens can come face to face with their elected leaders and even crassly or uncivilly challenge them without fear of retribution. It gives me something like hope, and it gives me pride in this city. I know this is easy for me to say. I'm not up there with all of you on the receiving end of the messiness of democracy, but in forbearing that abuse, you are all performing an invaluable public service and I want to express my gratitude for it. And with a few remaining seconds here, I just want to say, Mayor Koch, please meet with these parents. Thank you.

Amy Kelley.

Good evening. Amy Kelly 157 Rice Road. The purchase of Easton Nazarene College is a once in a generation opportunity, one that really could shape the city and the neighborhood for generations to come. The question shouldn't have been whether Quincy can afford it. The question should have been, can Quincy afford to lose it? To say that your votes tonight, other than the three councilors that voted favorably, is a disappointment is quite an understatement. you had the opportunity to really do something and you chose not to. What's also equally concerning is currently Ward 5 is basically an island on its own. We are not being representative.

Our councilor is not representing us. I'm a lifelong resident of Quincy. I've paid attention. I've been engaged my entire life. I've never seen this kind of situation happen where Ward 5 didn't rally for its constituents. It's very disappointing and alarming. Thank you.

Jocelyn Sedney.

Hello, Jocelyn Sedney, 85 Monroe Road and former Girl Scout. For any Councilor who campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility, oversight and accountability, I do not see how you can vote in favor of the purchase of E&C. I say this even though I love the campus, the buildings are wonderful, and I regard the Arboretum to be one of the nicest hidden gems of the city. If I lived by this campus, I would be advocating for the purchase, just as I sat asking that Hospital Hill be developed in the way originally represented. This administration has known that the 1.8 billion debt and the low reserves are of primary concern to most of the members of this council. They have done nothing to address that in the last six months. Two national watchdog groups have flagged the deficit as a major problem for the city. They are not in cahoots with the squad and are not politically opposed to the mayor. They are neutral groups taking a dispassionate view of what has been happening here from a financial standpoint.

Had this administration come to the Council for authorization to purchase E&C with a plan to deal with the debt, that would be one thing. but they did not. As part of the package, they proposed selling the Messina lot and using that money. They did not count on this council doing its job and being savvy enough to know that that was not proper. Once the council had asked the right questions and halted that improper use of those funds, it offered no better solution. The Monroe Building does not have to go back to the federal government if it is sold. There are many ways to work with the relevant authorities to allow those funds to be used for proper purposes. I live in Ward 5. The ward is comprised of many neighborhoods. Our ward Councillor has an obligation to represent all of us. To look back to other Councilors for direction, I have one response. We did not incur $1.8 billion in debt oversight. overnight. We did because council after council said yes when asked to spend and borrow.

Had someone exercised fiscal responsibility then, we would be able to purchase this campus now. This purchase is a want and not a need. We do not need to expand the Wallace and Library branch. If we need room for pre-K or after school activities, there is St. Mary's School that we bought and no students are there. We do not need additional affordable housing as I understand from the Quincy Sun advertisement. Applications are being taken as we speak for housing by the Quincy Housing Authority. When this council has complained about the debt, I have heard Mr. Walker say that the council approved it all, and he is right. And after tonight, he will have the same response. You will contribute to the crisis if you vote for this. When you received the budget for 2027, you were told no new projects, no new employees. This new project is huge and will require many new employees. The city can control the use of the site.

There are many possibilities, but there must be an adult in the room when it comes to managing fiscal responsibility for this city.

So the next up is Maria Mulligan. I'm just going to say one more time, there's one more sheet out in the back if you want to sign up. If you haven't, please do. So Maria Mulligan, you're next. She's coming down from the back. It's outside, yeah. So if you want to sign up, there's a sign-up sheet outside the two doors, and Maria's coming up now.

I'm sorry, Maria Mulligan, 21 Winthrop Ave. I'm talking independently, not part of any group. I have to say I love ENC. I wish the vote was different. and I was I think the first one in October 2024 when I wrote this really long. Letters to the Mayor to save E&C. So maybe I was one of the first people who gave them the idea. I like to think that. So where do we go from here? I would hate to think that this is the end of a conversation. Is it? I hope not. You know, what was missing in the proposal? I think there's three things. It was missing time, it was missing creativity, and it was missing collaboration between you guys

and the Mayor's Office. Time. No one had enough time to come up with a plan. Of course not. It was a couple of months. Who could? The plan is okay. It's a sketch. It's a concept. It needed a lot of development. to me that was good enough to say yes, but I guess it wasn't for you and that's okay. I see it not as a risk, but more as a challenge. Our zoning laws are not going to protect it. It's a unique property. and it needs a unique process. So I guess I'm gonna say to all of you guys, come up with a way forward. Come up with one. Be creative. Use your right brain. Collaborate. City, come up with the money. Figure it out.

Go to the state. You know, we got $25 million from the state to build a parking garage. Can't we get that for this awesome piece of land? I don't know. Solve the problem. Be creative. Find a way. Imagine if we could do that. Thank you very much.

Sudhardi.

Hi, my name is Sue Daugherty. I live at 922 C Street. And I want to speak about the ENC, but also the Early Learning Center. I don't live in Wollaston. I used to. I think it would be great if the city could buy that, but I trust the council to do the right thing, that they've done the research, that they've been very thorough, have tried to come up with ideas. I'm also someone who doesn't mind paying taxes. I was a public school teacher. I feel it's a part of being a part of a community is to pay taxes, and my real estate taxes go to good schools. Vick Seawalls, and they do lots of good things. I think that's really important to state. I worked in public education my whole life, so I'm not somebody like, I don't want to pay taxes. It's not about that. It's more about, again, cities can go bankrupt, like that happens with cities overspend. They end up going into bankruptcy.

The debt is very concerning. and unfortunately because of a track record of not necessarily seeing the city be good stewards of some of the properties they've bought in the past, it makes it a little harder to have that leap of faith. So I fully support whatever the council decides. If the council had decided to vote for it, I would feel comfortable that you had done that due diligence and that you were making a good decision. So that's... Stroud. I just want to just say I'm you're actually doing that work. And I do want to mention the public comment that it's very important that we have this and we can hear from our people. I'm a member of Quincy for Palestine, although I'm speaking as an individual tonight, and we used to come to the city council meetings every week, every time, and we weren't allowed to speak. In fact,

I went up one time to pass out papers to people because we weren't hearing anything back from anybody, any Councilors that we reached out to. and we got in trouble for that. Like, it was sort of a hands off. You weren't allowed to, you know, we would chase people around during recess, but that was about the only way for us to talk to the councilors. So I really just want to say I appreciate that. and that kind of leads me into the idea of like the early learning center. I've been thinking about that a lot, the idea think globally, act locally. We have a lot of these issues are all about land and property and You know, pitting Native Americans against early children is really awful. I've seen that happening in the city. And I think that we could probably come up with a solution, hopefully, would make everyone happy. And the city does seem to have a lot of buildings, maybe the Monroe Building, other places that the children's program might be able to locate.

And I think the land should be actually given to the Native Americans if that's what they want because... I've seen that it's just going to be leased to them and they're going to be allowed to use it. That's not true reparation. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Al Bina. Al Bina.

Good evening, council. My name's Al Beanup. I'm president of the Quincy Choir and Granite Workers Museum. I'm here tonight to actually ask the council, I know we got a preservation grant that's coming before you. and I just want to kind of bring yous up to date on the Stone House. The application is for the second phase of the handicap access to the new Stone House up at the Quarry Museum. I'd just like to say this stone house is unbelievable. You gotta remember, this stone house is not for Albina, it's not for the Quincy Quarry, Quincy Quarren Granite Workers Museum. It's for the city of Quincy. It's for the residents of the city of Quincy. This stone house will be here not for 100 years like the police station, not for 500 years. This stone house will be there for 1,000 years, the way it's built. It'll look like some of the buildings over in Europe that have been there for 5,000 years.

when all the other buildings are gone in Quincy here, this stone building will still be standing. So I ask the council, when it comes before you, the funding, please move that forward. Just a couple of little updates I'd like to. The building is completed. The interior is completed. We're actually open right now, but it's not handicap accessible. This next phase will make it completely handicap accessible, access to it, the walkways. and also another big thing that's in this preservation funding for the City of Quincy is we have the first, a replica of the first commercial rail car in America. right at the museum right now. It has to be covered. And in this grant here, they're gonna put a platform and kind of like a, post and beam covering over it.

And this will attract not only tourists to the city of Quincy, it'll attract the rail enthusiasts to the city of Quincy, not only the granted enthusiasts. So I want to ask the council to kind of move this preservation grant we got along when it comes before you. Thank you.

Kyle Castiglio.

Thank you, Councilors. Kyle Casiglio, 34 Tabor Street. Before I get started, I want to second the previous speaker as a rail enthusiast myself. Big fan of the Stonehouse and the project going on there. So thank you, Al. I think like most City of Quincy residents, I would rather be anywhere else doing anything else tonight. I'd much rather be having dinner with my family right now. Unfortunately, I am by profession a urban planner and there is a topic that some of you may be aware of that has been discussed tonight that I felt I would be remiss if I did not offer my thoughts and opinions on. The Eastern Nazarene campus presents an incredible opportunity and I see a lot of the value that the city is proposing with this project. Public Resources, Protection of Wetlands, the provision of first-time homebuyer housing,

A lot of really great laudable ideas and things that I don't think should be abandoned just because of the vote tonight. That being said, I do strongly feel that the vote tonight was the correct one, that the plan that was presented to the city council and was up for consideration was not a plan and was not something that could be were all actioned upon. The various approaches to funding it just frankly did not make sense they meet reality, trying to use affordable housing trust fund funding for what is not going to be affordable housing would not work. the use of district improvement financing, which, as an aside, has been egregiously abused in this city over the past decade plus. Using that land, which I know is no longer on the table, would not have been an appropriate use to fund this project.

What I think we all want is some kind of community control over this area, which is very reasonable and which we should have. and I think that is why as municipalities we are granted land use controls. We have things at our disposal and I completely acknowledge what Councilor Hubley said about how in the past we have seen PUDs not be used in a way that actually delivers on the promises that have been made to the city? However, I think that that is something that I have much more trust in the current council than previous councils in overseeing. and I would like to encourage this council to amend the zoning of ENC to a PUD so there is greater municipal control over that area.

and I suppose with my remaining 15 seconds here, we'd just like to say that whatever happens at that site, please let's not let it be used in the way that the current buy right zoning dictates put a ton of pavement all over it. So, thank you.

Jim Dunn.

Good evening, Jim Dunn, 167 Babcock Street. Pretty sad night for the city of Quincy here tonight. This was for future generations. Generations, I understand you councilors have the best interest in the residents of City of Quincy, tax, money, everything. they didn't have enough time to put a plan together. Anybody that knows, you were talking about the cost it's gonna take to upkeep it for the two years, you have your bathroom done, oh, 15,000. Yeah, the contractor's leaving with $22,000. Okay, things happen. You're not gonna have another chance to get a piece of property like this. You're not gonna get another chance to have a piece of property to take care of the flooding on St. James Street and all those streets down there. This is not an opportunity. People are talking about going in there on private property, that's private property,

and making an inventory of the trees like they belong to the city of Quincy. They don't. The owners left here tonight, they didn't even have a chance to speak with their attorney, Mr. Frank Marinelli. he was disgusted. Nobody's talked about the tax revenue that could have came up from that property. None of you fiscally responsible councilors, Ms. Yen, you're always throwing out figures and everything. Nobody talked about the potential for, and I'm not here to argue or disparage anybody, please. We're beyond that. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We did all Mr. Walker's plans. Did everything work out? Or would it have worked out? No, but we're Quincy strong. We would have figured it out, just like Mr. Koch has. in the past along with his administration, and I had faith in him. Apparently,

none of you councilors had faith in them. You're not gonna have the opportunity for that land. I respect your decision, but I don't agree with it. That's all I... It's crazy, it's crazy. As far as your early Senate, it's just I hope they can come up with an agreement and you keep talking about Presidents, the hospital. I was doing that bill and I took down the Morissette Post to put the satin dealership in there. A gentleman walked up, he said, His name was Chuck Giacchetto, Compass Medical. He said, we just bought Quincy City Hospital. I said, so you're the son of a bitch that's going to put all my neighbors out of work. He said, that'll never happen. and then my dog dropped his rock on his $700 leather shoes. That's exactly what happened.

Okay, it's just, it's a sad night for the city of Quincy. No disrespect to anybody, but we're not gonna have the opportunity.

Joseph Graham.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. This is my first foray into speaking for the City Council. I think you folks made the right decision. Unfortunately democracy is messy. and there's gonna be some hard feelings and there are gonna be some people that need to put on the long pants and try to work together. and to work with the mayor and try to get the best work product in general from the mayor. I see a lot of lack of cooperation from the mayor's office to the council. And I don't think that's acceptable. And I think that, really, I think the city government should seriously look at creating potentially a city manager position and take some of that burden off of the mayor.

Let the mayor shake hands and go to ribbon cuttings. But let a professional manager manage the city? Because I don't feel that the city has been professionally managed. And I don't think previous councils have held the man's feet to the fire. I think this council is doing that and I think you've made the right decision. I was 100% against this former Eastern Nazarene College purchase. I live at Ground Zero. I live on Wendell Avenue. I think it would have been a terrible mistake, and I think the council did the right thing or is doing the right thing. Thank you, and have a good evening.

Veronica Bertrand, 195 Copeland Street, Ward 4. I've missed you all. I haven't been to meetings in a while. I just wanted to say that lately there have been some really nasty comments at Quincy Council meetings People wearing T-shirts saying born and raised like that gives them permission to decide who belongs in Quincy. Well, these people to me are ignorant in their beliefs. They fight for Catholic statues and yet treat other people, especially women, like trash. They attend church, private prayer groups, then sell a school that has been helping development and delayed toddlers, and force them into spaces totally unacceptable. They lie continually to cover up. in the name of being good Catholics and pro-life. And yet they look down on everyone that doesn't bow to their beliefs.

I was born and raised and never left Quincy. but lately I don't know the city that I have loved. I found a song on Facebook and it was actually written and sung by a country singer who happens to be Asian. So I thought I'd give you a play and let you listen.

Thank you for watching!

They say Asians don't do country music like there's a rule I missed Country is only for Americans like I wasn't on the list I've heard go back to China Yeah, that one's been thrown my way And leave country Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching.

Thank you for watching! and a little bit of stubborn love.

If they say you don't belong, just keep on pushing forward.

Time, Veronica. Helen Schreiner. Helen? Is she still here? Is Helen here? Pam Brennan. Is Pam still here? Pam Brennan left. So we have, it's up to Leah. Leah, you're up.

Leah DeGloria.

let me know when the All right, good evening, members of the Council. Article 7 of the Massachusetts Constitution drafted by John Adams explicitly states, government is instituted for the common good for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men. That is the definition of the social compact. When you take the oath of office, you swear to uphold this contract. You are legally obligated to protect the safety, stabilization, and long-term prosperity of the entire community. Yet right now, this council is destroying that promise. They use protecting tax dollars as a political shield,

but they are just weaponizing their votes to serve a narrow short-term ideological agenda. Why would any elected official block the city from buying the 27-acre Eastern Nazarene College campus do you honestly expect people to believe that a no vote was truly about fiscal caution? I don't believe it was. I think the fiscal argument is just a convenient smoke screen. The real reason behind the no vote is the progressive ideology does not view the E&C campus as a permanent generational asset to be protected for the neighborhood. Instead, some of you look at it as a sandbox for social engineering. You want to bypass the city control entirely, to clear the path for private developers and outside entities who align with your progressive housing theories. Noel DiBona stepped up and stated exactly what the public wanted acknowledging that securing this land was what the majority of Quincy demanded for the neighborhood safety and stabilization.

Yet the Bulley Alliance voted no. Ward 5 is exactly where the campus sits. The local representatives should have been the absolute first person fighting for this, to protect the neighborhood from the outside forces. Instead, a no vote was thrown down, leaving the community completely vulnerable. To make matters worse, it's disgusting to watch members of this council look like they're actively celebrating after saying no to the acquisition when there were so many residents disheartened and left almost in tears. A plotting after stripping away, protecting a city shield from the established neighborhood shows a complete disconnect from reality. It was celebrating blocking progress, leaving families exposed, just to score political points for your inner circle. We don't have to guess what the playbook looks like. We have seen the history. We've seen activism in favor of going to Cambridge, looking at small

Module Housing, using small unit developments and dense housing models, openly stating the desire to partner directly with private buyers who match the vision. The downfalls of this approach are severe and immediate and a total loss of local control, the destabilization of the neighborhoods, and the zero long-term vision for politicians who treat their seats on the...

I'm done. Sorry, you're done.

You were done 10 minutes ago, but that's okay. Pam Brennan.

Thank you.

I live on 65 Dickens Street, Ward 5. I'm a lifelong Quincy resident. Sorry I was late for this podium because I was talking to Albina to find out some information about my great-grandfather who worked in the quarries. That being said, I'm really happy with the vote tonight. Anybody who's walked the grounds, and I know that A number of years ago, all those buildings were in prime condition. They're not now. The college had been really falling apart. They had downed. people coming in and it was, I mean, if you look at those houses for first time home buyers, I don't think anybody could buy that. that have to tear them down. So I did a complete walk with a number of my neighbors. So it's not all the residents that were for this. So there's just some people here tonight, no, not everybody was for it.

And not all those councilors that you mentioned for Ward 5 were representative of all of us either. So as a longtime Ward 5 rep, I'm really happy with the decision you made tonight. Thank you.

Zachary Christopher.

Hi, Zachary Christopher, 67, Montclair Ave. Number two, I'm back to speak about the Emergency Management Department. This issue has bugged me for the last couple weeks. Instead of stewing in confusion and worry, I decided to reach out to my Councillor, Walter Hubley, regarding the issue. I asked him a series of questions, and this is an excerpt from his reply. Councilor Ash made a motion to table the topic and revisit it at a follow-up meeting because he had an appreciation for the department's function. having worked with them in the past. I voted in support of this motion because I believe in being true to how we all campaigned, doing our due diligence and taking our time when making important decisions. I was surprised that only one other of my colleagues were willing to join me and Councilor Ash to spend more time considering this decision.

At that point, it was clear to me that the majority had already made up their minds and did not want to hear anymore on the matter. This begs the question, why did this body come to such a quick decision to effectively cut an entire department and make this decision without any input from important stakeholders such as the fire and police departments? These department heads seem like obvious key stakeholders whose voices should have at least been heard. With respect to your questions below, I started going through to answer each of them and quickly determined. that they all have pretty much the same answer, which is this. I don't know. The ripple effects of this change can only be decided upon by the city administration. How this change gets addressed is not in this body's purview. It will fall upon the executive branch to figure it all out."

I find it frankly disappointing that the Councilors made such a lofty decision so hastily. To better understand everything, I talked to my friends, family, and comrades to hear their opinions. One recurring worry was that Mr. McCarthy was an incompetent, unqualified fool who was unfit for his position, a position, mind you, he held for all of six months. Whether that's true or not, I can't say, but assuming it is true, one of the perspectives I heard was that this was the only way the council could remove him from his position before he had a chance to fail during an emergency. That, of course, brings up the question of why the council has exactly zero say in who is appointed to department heads, but the power struggle between the mayor and the council is a topic for another day. With that said, my main point today is in regards to the optics of the situation.

From my perspective, the perspective of an outsider, what I saw looked like a coordinated attack by the new council coalition against a political rival. a man who by his previous work appears qualified and has yet to settle into his role. It felt as if the political grudge was more important than the city's emergency preparedness. it felt as if those of you who voted for the cuts didn't care about transparency, due diligence or your responsibilities to your constituents.

In fact, the actions of the council... ...of a one-way mirror, the due diligence of a toddler throwing a tantrum, and by God, if there is a plan for emergency...

I'm asking you to stop. If you don't stop, I'm gonna ask you to be removed. So the rules are very simple. When I knock on this, your time is up. And I'm going to ask if the police officer will be here in this audience. We only have a couple more. But going forward, if I tap on that and your time is over, I will be asking people to be removed. It's a long night already. Jacob Levine.

140 Quincy Avenue. I'd like to thank the council for doing due diligence on the Eastern Nazarene proposal. From what I've heard of the proposal, it's been both and it must be done now, it must be done immediately, it won't cost anything, it will pay for itself, it's the only person's investment. And I have to paraphrase Councilor Hubley, if this were a used car sales pitch, would you use it? So I hope with this proposal down, the city can work with the developer, with developers, with the ENC, and find a proposal that may have city-owned property, may not, but does mix conservation and development. I'd also like to say more generally on the topic of what was called hyperdevelopment.

I do find it intriguing how, on one hand, developments like Trader Joe's are praised and the Quincy Center are praised, while others are deemed hyper-developments. and that seems to be an arbitrary and very selective determination. I'd like to see the Council going forward take a more collective view on what development actually looks like. and finally I'd like to address maybe the concerns of the city residents more broadly in a decorum. It does concern me greatly how some speakers feel the need to defend themselves against accusations that they're a shadowy conspiracy on some projects. And I'm concerned that of the six councillors that did oppose the ENSI proposal, two were deemed equitable. And I do not believe I need to say the names. I believe it is self-evident which those are.

So I would like to encourage, remind the City and encourage the Council to not be a government of hecklers and instead continue on a straightforward, planned, conscious path. Thank you.

Pam Bailey.

Hi, my name's Ann Bailey. I live at 46 Filbert Street in apartment three. I wasn't born and raised here. I moved here three years ago with my adult child. We share an apartment. We moved to Quincy because it was affordable and no other place that we looked at in the general Boston area where we had gotten new jobs was affordable. And I wanna say that since moving here, and seeing this new city council, I'm really proud of what it takes to marshal evidence and back buck the tradition of what's gone on in the city. That's hard to do. It's hard to sit here and say things that people consider Ah, uppity. It's a hard thing to do and I respect that. I would have totally supported this purchase except for the history.

I have only lived here for three years, but I've learned of so many instances where the city bought something and mismanaged it to an extremely expensive degree. And I'm just going to talk about Granite Links because I live up near the Quarry and I love the Quarry. I go there once a month. It's awesome. But the golf course has been... I mean, all of the sort of contracts that go in, the way water is used, the way that it's designed by the sort of government of Quincy to maximize the profits of the city and minimize the control. I don't want more of that to happen. I think making decisions that are about how to properly proceed in such a way that the interests of the city and the people who live here are respected is really important and hard to do. thank you for what you did and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam President, city councilors. Over the weekend, we had Flag Day. I had a great time. It was good to see many of you. Flag Day and other city celebrations, something very important to myself and a lot of families I'm in contact with. We enjoy the small city feel where anyone just run up and say hi, give a hug to someone, and see faces that you might not normally see. So that's one piece. and then I want to congratulate Mr. Hubley and Ms. Hubley on their anniversary today. And then I also want to congratulate my fellow Girl Scouts. I'm not Girl Scout, but I'm Cub Scouts. But my fellow Scouts on their recognition.

What Mr. Hubley said is, Councilor Hubley said was very true. It takes that much more to be a scout leader. It's easy to drop your kids off, let them do their thing, but it takes someone special to lead kids, and they're all volunteers. That's another piece, too. Earlier today, I listened to one of the podcasts where the folks on there shared stories about how the community came together, saved the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater. put together the Bear Garden. I was wondering before coming here if ENC was going to be one of those. So maybe the rest of that story has yet to be written, but I'm looking forward to a future episode of that. Thank you.

So last on our list, and this is the last one for the evening, Liberty Schaff.

Hello, everyone. Liberty Schaaf, 28 Howe Street. We've all been here for a very long time, weeks actually, so I will keep it short and as sweet as possible. To say I'm disheartened and disappointed at the vote you took would be a grave understatement. This is a huge missed opportunity for our city. Notice I said our city, not just your city. It is all of our city. And I do not believe that the majority of you are listening to your constituents. I think that the majority of this council will go against anything that the mayor endorses, and I think that is just as bad, if not worse, as the rubber stamp yes vote you keep talking about in previous councils. You are so interested in syncing the mayor that you are willing to sync the city along with it. I'd like you to start thinking for yourselves.

I beg of you, please do what you were elected to do and start doing what is right for the city of Quincy. Thank you.

With that, that's the end of open meeting. I just want to mention that there's going to be two, this is the last council meeting of the scheduled season, but we're going to have two more council meetings for the budget. And on the 22nd, there'll be no open forum on those two because they're special meetings. So we'll see you all back for open forum next September, right? September, okay. So moving on, Madam Clerk.

Number two, review of the open meeting law complaint regarding a meeting on May 18, 2026. Excellent. So thank you.

Before we begin the discussion, I think it's important to clarify the purpose of tonight's review. The City Council has received complaints alleging that Councilor Maggie McKee violated open meeting law by consulting with a private attorney regarding matters before the City Council and not disclosing the identity or the attorney or legal advice received. The Council's responsibility tonight is to review those allegations, discuss the facts, understand them, and determine our response to the complaints in the Attorney General's office. I would also note, while the discussions have occurred regarding the circumstances surrounding these complaints, no formal determination has been issued by the Attorney General's Office. Therefore, it's appropriate for the City Council to conduct this review and provide a response to the established open meeting As I reviewed the complaints, several observations stood out to me. The complaints focused primarily on Councilor McKee's decision to consult with a private attorney, and the fact that the attorney identity and legal advice was not disclosed.

The complaint further requests disclosures of attorney's identity, legal opinions, communication and qualifications. However, the central question before us tonight is not whether members agree or disagree with Councilor McKee's decision to seek out legal advice. The question before us is whether conduct described constitutes a violation of the open meeting law. Therefore, I believe the council should focus on several questions. Did a quorum of the city council deliberate outside of the properly posted public meeting? That's the first question I want you to think about. Did Councilor McGee engage in discussions with other members of the City Council outside a public meeting concerning matters within the Council's jurisdiction? Did the attorney act as an intermediary between members of the council? Is there evidence that council business was conducted outside the public view in a manner prohibited by open meeting law?

I would ask members to focus on these comments and on those questions. Additionally, I want to also acknowledge that during this process, concerns have been raised regarding matters beyond the scope of the Open Meeting Law. I believe we all received emails as well. The concerns include statements made by the city solicitor during the ordinance committee meeting. The appropriateness of publicly identifying or signaling out a single Councillor while providing legal advice during a public meeting. the release of email communications concerning McKee and her legal representative. by the city solicitor. Questions regarding what information should or should not be released and whether certain communications should have been reviewed for possible redactions prior to that release. These are legitimate governance questions. However, I believe they are separate from the open meeting law complaint before us tonight. So now I'm gonna open up for the councils to discuss.

We'll go from there and we'll find out. The one thing I'll be asking is we need to make a decision on how we are to proceed and how I'm to respond. But then I'm going to open up to Councilor McKee.

Thank you. These four complaints rest on an incorrect premise that a single Councillor violates the open meeting law by consulting an attorney. That is not the law. The Open Meeting Law governs what quorums, or simple majorities, of public bodies may do outside of public meetings. For a nine member council, a quorum is five or more members. As a single city councilor, consulting a lawyer to help ensure that the laws I'm proposing are legally sound, I do not constitute a quorum. I am one person, not five people. My private attorney is not a member of the City Council. Therefore, my individual consultation with legal counsel does not involve a public body and does not implicate the open meeting law. The Open Meeting Law also prohibits serial communications among a quorum, but I haven't done that either.

No other member of the City Council has participated in these communications. Equally unsupported is the assertion that my conversations must be publicly disclosed to comply with the open meeting law. That is not how the law operates. individual counselors routinely conduct independent research and consult with experts, constituents, business owners, and other government employees. These efforts inform and strengthen our policy making so that we don't rely solely on our own opinions and understanding or misunderstanding of what we find online about often complex topics. Simply put, talking to my attorney helps me be a better Councillor. and that goes for anyone I speak to. If individual counselors were prohibited from discussing anything outside of a council meeting, we would have to answer every call or email from a constituent publicly in this chamber

just in case the interaction impacted our thinking on a matter that could come before us. That is not only impractical, but antithetical to the idea of a representative democracy. We can only represent the people we serve when we can listen to them. Unsurprisingly then, there is no law, including the open meeting law, that precludes me from retaining outside legal counsel. I have a right to seek independent, individualized legal advice on matters within my official responsibilities. These complaints attempt to undermine my ability to do that. That interpretation is unsupported by the open meeting law. It should be rejected. With all of that said, I remain committed to furthering my understanding of the open meeting law. In January, I took open meeting law training through the Attorney General's office, and when these complaints came in, I called the Attorney General's office to confirm my understanding of the law.

Because the law is so important and so detailed, I recently signed up for another AGO training session. These occur every few weeks and registration is free for everyone.

Riley. Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is profoundly disturbing that these open meeting violation complaints were as a result of a direct comment from our city solicitor. they have no merit and I would like to make a motion to declare that this body does not find a violation has occurred and permission from President Mahoney to respond to the complainants. Hall, please, and provide a copy to the Attorney General's office as required under the law. So we have a motion on the table.

Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Ryan. Is there anybody else who would like to speak on the motion? DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. I would like to get some advice from the city solicitor on this particular item because we got four, we have four different complaints that are in front of us tonight. I'd just like to get some clarification. I'm not familiar with this. In all my years being up here, this is actually, we've had more open meeting law violation complaints here in the last three months than we've had in all my time of being up here. So I just want to get clarification.

Before I open the mic up to City Solicitor Jim Timmons, I would like to recommend that this council has a decision to make as to whether or not we are going to write to the Attorney General whether we're in favor or not. you get one vote in that. I'm happy to open it up to Mr. Timmons. Mr. Timmons. And I will limit Mr. Timmons to three minutes.

Thank you, Madam President. What happened in this particular matter was that prior to the May 18th meeting where the alleged violation occurred, I was in possession of three different ordinances that had already been filed with the body, and then a new ordinance that was being added to the discussion that night. and I was confused about how that ordinance came about. It was unclear because it was just in the package. So I went and I looked at the file for Council Orders 2026030 and 031. And what I found in the file, and this would have happened on

Friday afternoon, or perhaps Monday morning. I honestly don't remember which day it was. What I found in the file, was redline versions that I suspect all of you have seen because they were emailed to all of you. All right, I have an email, I have copies that I'll share with you, but I'm explaining why I said what I said at the meeting that night. Because during the meeting, The new ordinance wasn't introduced. These red line versions were never introduced. They were never discussed. And then Councilor McKee said, my lawyer drafted the revisions to the ordinances that were being discussed that evening. And frankly, at the meeting, they were primarily being discussed by Councilor McKee.

So, when she said that her lawyer had done this work, and this work is in the counsel file and was never introduced publicly, and there's an email that's sent to everybody at 9.30 on Friday, 9.29 a.m. And it's got a... It's got a statement in it. Councilor McKee may also have suggested amendments for council order for the other council orders, but these were attached to that email. So this is what I reacted to when I found out that an outside lawyer who's never spoken to anyone here

I don't know if it's from a lawyer from Morgan & Morgan or a divorce law firm. I suspect it's not.

It doesn't matter who the lawyer is, Mr. Timmons. Let's keep it in the order. It doesn't matter who the, you don't know who it is.

Well, I'm explaining what went on that night because you opened up the challenge to it in your preliminary remarks. So I want to explain what happened. I'm asking you to keep it to the relevance. I beg your pardon?

I'm asking you to keep it to the relevance, not mentioning Morgan & Morgan or a divorce attorney.

I'm keeping it to relevance. My concern is one cannot simply refer to a lawyer and follow that lawyer's advice and include it in something that's sent out to all the members of the body. write in something else that I have. I don't know where in the process this is, but there's a quote here. the independent consultation of outside legal counsel by an individual member of a public body without evidence of deliberation among a quorum. does not in itself constitute a violation. That's absolutely correct. But once an email is sent, to all the members of the body, and it included this. That was my concern. That's why I said what I did. And I want to make that clear because

I am told by the members, I hear you tell the public that you want to be doing things the right way for the right reason. I reached out after this occurred and asked Councilor McKee to give me the information about our lawyer so I could talk to the lawyer and find out what happened. I didn't raise this at the meeting that night. because I wanted to look into what happened in the hope that we could attribute this to a mistake. but instead tonight the hole's been dug deeper and you're telling me now that you're AG trained and you understand the process and yet you would not work with me the following Monday when I asked you, you know, tell me what went on. and the discussions were rebuffed.

So I don't want anyone to think that the job I'm doing is not being done for any reason other than the right reason. I wanted to inform the members of the body and work with the members of the body by working with the individual member who had created this situation. I didn't send out any emails to other folks. I didn't send out an email to Councilor McKee other than give me this information so we can look at it. So I tried to get a discussion. This is my answer to your question about what's going on. The concern is, Mistakes can be made inadvertently, perhaps made intentionally, but you can't be sending out emails to the entire body prior to the meeting of this nature and then not be sharing any of it.

None of this came up at the meeting. on May 18th and I'm happy after this meeting to give you all. I have a copy of the cover email and then I have a copy of the two pages that show redlined, which is Microsoft Word, and I'll review, redline changes. And according to this email, these were sent to you on Friday. So if it wasn't redlined, the copy that was included in the package that I I saw and didn't understand and it prompted me to go look at the file. That copy wasn't redlined. So if

perhaps if we had just gone off that copy alone, I wouldn't be concerned about the fact that you would be influenced after hearing at the Monday night hearing that a lawyer drafted the changes that you would be influenced by that statement and by these changes. So that's my concern here. And I hope I answered your question.

Thank you, Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Timmons.

Thank you, Madam President. I'm addressing a question from Councilor DiBona. I just want to make sure I've answered it.

Thank you, Mr. Timmons.

So the email itself is a violation, but what if no other members returned any email back? I just, I'm confused.

You have no other, well that's, That's what I wanted to explore and find out. So, Councilors are shaking their head, but the problem with the email system

Mr. Jimenez, can I just stop for one second? Because what we're talking about, what happened that night was, Ms. McKee, I just want to make sure I understand. So I'm going to stop for one second.

Well, I'm answering a member's question.

I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this. Can I have a point of order so I can ask? Just let me talk for a second.

Oh, go ahead.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So what I'm trying to say is that night you said you can't be talking to any lawyers. I don't believe anybody responded. I never even saw that email. So if she did put something through an email that was to the and the whole body and none of us responded back, that would be an open meeting if we had responded back and had dialogue in that email.

All right, I didn't say that.

So what you said was there was an email that had red lines in it.

You're completely misquoting what I said.

No, but you said there was an email that had red lines in it that went out to the full body.

I didn't say you can't talk to any lawyers. What Councilor McKee described was what's called an ex parte contact. Those aren't a violation of the open meeting law. She did say correctly during her preliminary comments tonight. Open meeting law governs when a quorum gets involved in a discussion. Talking to a lawyer, I don't agree with it. I wanted to have an opportunity to talk to the lawyer and find out what's going on because that lawyer is clearly influencing how you're dealing with things.

Mr. Timmons, I'm not knocking on you. I'm just asking for the audience to be quiet because you're talking behind you. So thank you.

So the talking to outside lawyers or consulting with people, that's not a problem. But then what's supposed to happen is when you come back in front of the body collectively, you're supposed to discuss what you've learned outside. That's what's supposed to happen. That's what the open meeting law is about.

So thank you very much. I think what we can do now is move on because what we're talking about is an email and I thank you Mr. Timmons and on that. Does anybody else have any questions?

So what are we voting on? What is this body voting on?

Well, why don't we let Mr. Ash get the answer? We have... Oh, sorry.

I'm sorry.

Not necessarily a question, but so the email, it looks like Councilor McKee sent an email on Thursday, May 14th to Ms. Manning, our Clerk. with versions of these ordinances with some red lines. And then the next morning, Ms. Manning sent them to all of us. just so everybody's clear at the exact transmittal. Which I think, you know, I think that is what we would usually do when we're revising ordinances. I understand that we don't usually send around, say, like the red line issues, the red line documents. but it's my understanding that as long as it goes to gen first or that that wouldn't be a violation of the open meeting law.

Thank you.

So Mr. DiBona asked what the motion we were voting on. So the motion, if I could just take a minute, I will say. The quorum complaints that we have, we are addressing all four at the same time because they are all about the same thing. Based on my review of the complaints and the information presented, I have seen no evidence that a quorum deliberated outside the public meeting or council business as conducted in a manner that would violate or constitute an open meeting law violation. That's what we're voting on, Mr. DiBona. That said, I look forward to hearing, and we just talked about your responses. In the conclusion, which is what I think Ms. Riley and I just want to see, I would be looking for an entertainment for a motion. So if you could repeat your motion.

So I'd like to make a motion to declare that this body finds that there is not a violation of the open meeting law and permission for President Mahoney to respond to the complainants and provide a copy to the Attorney General's office as required under the open meeting law.

So we had that on record. So I'm sure we had it on record. And we had a second by Councilor Ryan. And I believe Councilor McKee also had her hand up. So I'm going to go back to Councilor McKee before we vote.

So I actually didn't realize that I had sent around the red line version, and I... Anyway, but... My intention was to ensure that everything that I was doing, because I am not a lawyer, the ordinances were correct, but what I'm responding to, this response that I just read to the OML complaints or the actual complaints that we were given, So I'm now again hearing more from Solicitor Timmons, but that none of that was in the complaints so my response is to the complaints and I believe those are the ones that are going to the AG's office and so I think I would support responding to those complaints.

Okay, and then on the email that was sent, I'm just going to repeat what Councilor Ashton, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the emails went to Jen Manning and then were sent out to all of us. That is how we are able to get things out to people. That is not also, I just want to make sure that we understand, that is not a violation of open meeting law. I appreciate Mr. Timmons explaining that he received an email that had red lines in it, but it has nothing to do with that. We have a motion on the table. there is a second and I'd like a roll call vote.

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

Yes.

Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yen, President Mahoney, nine members. Thank you. Moving on to item number three, 2026093, an appropriation for $2,935,000 for year-end transfers.

Good evening, Councilors. How are you? Sorry. Good evening, Councilors. How are you?

Good.

So this order here is year-end transfers, what we do in municipal finance at the end of the year. We'll look for... any line on our budgets that have a deficit in them and then look for surpluses and other budgets to offset those deficits. This is a really important tool that DLS gives municipal finance to cover any deficits that would be labeled illegal deficits at the end of the year. And these transfers directly affect our free cash calculation dollar for dollar.

So with that, does anybody have any questions in regards to Councilor Ryan?

and Mr. Della Barbara. There was just two transfers from that I had a question on. The first one was police personnel services. I also noticed that in 2020, Five, there was a similar transfer out of $725,000. I mean, there seems to be a trend. Last year it was $725,000. This year it's $700,000. Is that normal?

Will. I think you might see a trend, but it's coincidence. It's coincidence? Right. I believe last year the police department moved some money out of their personnel lines into contractual to buy a police cruiser or something like that. So there was money moving around there. No, I don't see a trend there.

Okay. All right. Well, I'll take a look next year and see what happens next year, too. All right, the other item that I have a question on is Veterans Personnel Services. In 2025, there was 88,000 moved out. This year is 80,000, and we received some feedback from some residents with regards to cutting some funds from these services. So I just want to see whether or not I understand that you do have to balance the funds that are in a deficit. but Veterans Personnel Services are very important, so is this gonna happen again next year? I mean, I'm sure you don't have a crystal ball, but.

I believe the breakage in this personnel services line was created from a vacant position or somebody leaving throughout the year, which created that. That's our plus? Correct. Okay. It was an admin secretary position, and I think there was some breakage in the salary, wage. Templine. Okay. Yeah.

All right, because we did receive some negative feedback from, so, okay. All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Anybody else that would like to speak?

Motion to approve. I actually have a question. We have a motion to approve by Councilor DiBona. If you could give me a second. So this is just a question that I had. First, I want to start, before I even have that question, I want to start by, when I was looking at the city's transfers over the history of the last four years, there were some positive observations. Worth noting, in fiscal year 23, the transfers were $6.8 million. In fiscal year 24, the transfers were $8.9 million. In fiscal year 25, the transfers were $2.6 million. In fiscal year 26, we're back up to $2.9 million. The transfer activity has decreased significantly from where the city was just two years ago, and that suggests improvement in budgeting. But I also just wanted to make a note of the Federal Insurance Contribution Acts. the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare. The city is required to pay an employer's share of these payroll taxes for employees

because FICA is calculated as a percentage of the payroll. When payroll costs increase, FICA costs also increase. Examples of this would be overtime, wage increases, contract settlements, retro pay, leave buybacks, retirement payouts, additional staffing. and this is the transfer history for this. In fiscal year 23, it was $272,628. In fiscal year 24, it was $220,000. In fiscal year 25, it was $488,131 and in fiscal year 26, it's gone up to $700,000. This is not a discretionary expense. It's directly tied to payroll costs. When we're seeing recurring transfers into FICA and MACE, it makes an indication that actual personnel costs are exceeding the assumptions during the budget development. So I just guess I have a question as to why has the city required FICA transfers in each of the last four fiscal years?

what specifically has caused the increase from approximately $488,000 in fiscal year 25 to $700,000 in fiscal year 26 is the increase attributable to overtime, wage increases, contracts elements, leave buybacks, staffing changes, don't know if you have the answers, but just curious.

None answers to all of that, like what is the actual driver of that, but I could say that the budgeting of this line item has been, You know, flat. It's been level funded for at least the last three years, I believe.

Yeah. So this goes back, although I did say that we're doing better in budgeting, but this goes back to one of those things that this is really driven by the employees that we have in the city. And if we're under budgeting that, that means that if it's been flat for the last three years. We're not taking into consideration all of the employees we're putting on the payroll. So that's something that we need to look a little closer at. I'm not saying that it's just, it's an indicator that it's going up every year. and it shouldn't be something that goes up every year. We should be able to do a head count and be able to know what those percentages that should be taken out and we're not doing that. So that is a concern that I have and I'm flagging that concern and I see Chris Walker writing it down. It tends to have the, it indicates that payroll assumptions should be revisited during the future budget plannings and it would be more appropriate to adjust an annual FICA budget to reflect actual historical experience rather than addressing these in shortfalls through fiscal year-end transfers. So I just wanted to raise that as a real concern. And the other area that I'd like to just talk about quickly, and I think

This is something too that is part of our budgeting that I want to make sure we understand. and this is the fire personnel services. So the history for that in fiscal year 23 we had 2.295 million transferred. In fiscal year 24 it was 4.104 million transfers. In fiscal year 25 it was $770,000 in transfers. and in fiscal year 26 it's 1.1. Now, this is not meant to be a criticism to the fire department and I'm sure it will be turned into that, but the fire department operates under a 24 hour shift have a similar schedule with minimum staffing requirements, vacation coverage, sick leave coverage, training requirements, and emergency response obligations. Many communities operate with a similar schedule and recognize these costs are structural rather than unexpected. My question is, if this is a recurring transfer primarily because of the staffing model, how much is attributed to the overtime minimal staffing requirements or coverage that are needed?

have other communities implemented, they know other communities, I personally know other communities have implemented relief factors for staffing factors for overtime and stabilization accounts to improve the predictability. And our budget is not accurate reflecting the true operating costs providing fire service under the current staffing model. This is really a year after year recurring cost that we have to transfer at the end of the year. and it's telling us that our budget should be more closely reflecting our operating costs. So I just want to flag that as well because it is something I did talk to when the Chief was up, I was actually asked this question too. It is a year-over-year thing. So does anybody else have any questions? Because those were mine. No. And we have a motion. Councilor DiBona made the motion to approve. Councilor Yuan, are you seconding it? Okay. Do you want a second before we make the comment? Council UN's going to second it. That's good, Council DiBona and Council UN.

And on the motion, Council UN.

Thank you.

So I can make a comment now? Yeah. Just a follow-up with President Mahoney's comment. The budget should be more reflect the reality. Otherwise, if... If a department say, okay, we just keep the total number the same, but the line item just can money shifting around, and then it's no meaning to have those nine items. That's become just the number holding. And so that's just the recommendation for budgeting, each department should budget each non-item more closely reflect the reality, especially compare the historic spending. So, and then at the end you don't need some like the Overtown both police department and the fire department, the Overtown,

always like over the budget. So if like that, why when you budget it, you not budget more reflect to the reality? So that's just my question. My question, otherwise every year at the end, you have to transfer money in.

Well, you know, the fire chief and the police chief has department heads. have a lot of discretion on what goes into their budgets. We ask them, municipal finance, when preparing a budget, we'll reach out to them and say, does this number look right? Does this feel good? And they say, We can get by with that. That number could work. So that is a recommendation that I will take. and when budget season rolls around, again, in FY28, it's crazy, FY28, We will sit down and work with both chiefs and all department heads throughout the city closely to really dial in a number for overtime. And if that number is higher, we're going to come and we'll ask for more money. And we'll say, we looked at a five-year average, and this is closer to the five-year average.

I just say, because according to historic data, every year they end the budget over time for one million or two million. That's a huge number. So why not, according to the realistic spending, make a budget more close to realistic? So resident can know what's really spended. from the budget. Otherwise they see, okay, the overtime only one million, but actually at the end you spend like 2.5 million. So that's not good for resident taxpayers. to see clearly the picture.

Thank you, Councilor Yuen. So I'm going to just say, I'll just close this up before we go to the vote. The transfers are usually a meaningful management tool, so I do recognize that. Della Barber, I think what you're hearing is that at the same time recurring patterns in accounts such as the fire personnel services, FICA, and municipal finance, personnel services, It's just part of the forecasting. So one of the other things I don't think we have here, and I'll add, it's not gonna stop me from voting to do this, but I think what's helpful in the package is also seeing the breakdown of where the transfers are coming from. because that's an important part of this equation is understanding not only what departments need the transfers but also where we're actually cobbling together to transfers because you're at the end of the year and this is part of the financing. That's so much fun, isn't it? It's the end of the year and you're trying to close out the year. But it is a tool. I just wanna make sure everybody in the council knows that this is a tool that they're able to use at the end of the year

and the goal isn't to have a ton of money left over the end of the year, but enough. But the goal is to have enough money to be able to cover those things. And my guess is, I'm gonna, because I know I do this monthly, expenses being looked at monthly, correct? Excuse me? Expenses throughout all the departments are probably being looked at monthly, I would assume.

Of course, we're running year-to-date actuals.

Yeah, but you're looking at it monthly. I mean, I'm doubting that you're starting in month nine. You probably don't, so. So with that, we have a motion by Mr. DiBona and a second by Council UN. So can we have a roll call vote on this transfer?

Ash, Councilor DiBona, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Riley, Council Ryan, Council Yuan, President Mahoney, eight members. Moving on to item number four. 2026094 in appropriation for $97,603 to Parks Department Personal Services from Community Preservation Fund Administration. Councilor Riley.

So we are actually going to have to push this off. One of the things that our Madam Auditor does as part of her due diligence is to make sure that these accounts that are being transferred from have the sufficient funds, and this one does not. So we're going to bring this back on Wednesday evening with probably another transfer to make up the difference. And so we're going to push this one off.

Okay.

so that's item number four is being held off until Wednesday night, correct? Do I need a motion for that?

Okay.

Number five? Number five. 2026095, an appropriation for $2,509,261.50 to community preservation historic and recreation projects. Riley.

Yes, so the Community Preservation Committee met over the last several months, reviewed a number of projects. These are the projects that they agreed to fund. They pretty much funded everything. Everyone went through their due diligence. and it is the recommendation of that body to approve these appropriations for this cycle.

Is that made in a motion? Yes, please. So we have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Seconded by Councilor Ash. On the motion, does anybody have any questions? Councilor Jacobs first.

On the second page, there's one that's in bold. It's letter O. Why is it bold and what's going on there? It's for $500,000. Where is it?

Where is it, though? Where is it? Is it on a stick?

Is this more coffee?

I don't know. There's so many coffees.

Oh, that one. Yeah, it's that housing authority one.

It is the Housing Authority. There was a legal question on whether that was an appropriate use of community preservation. Everyone was in favor of the project, but there was a concern that it might not fall into it. a revised legal opinion with rewording the application and it is now suitable for community preservation funding.

Yeah, I can't support that one. I don't know. I don't know. Does that mean I have to just vote no on the whole thing? Okay.

Okay.

Yep.

Thank you, Madam President. I just want to thank Deb Riley and the Community Preservation for funding these projects. I think they're vital with the city. I see on here, which is huge, is number four, affordable housing. I know serving prior to Councilor Riley that it was always very hard to get an application for affordable housing and it looks like 600,000 is going to NeighborWorks Housing Solutions. in Germantown Townhouse Project, which they've done a lot of great projects over the years. I want to thank the community preservation for having the wisdom to move that forward. There's a lot of other great projects in here. the one I see also, City of Quincy Veterans Services, Cemetery Headstone Rehabilitation Project. that's huge, I really like that, and the Hill Historical Preservation. All these are really good. There's another one for Tree Alliance. There's a spring 2026 tree planting, I know,

the folks out there will be very happy with that. The House Neck Garden Club, revitalization of the Brill Field at Monument of Veterans of All Wars and Conflicts. Seaside Gardens. and I see that we're continuing to do the restoration efforts at Manit Lake, the natural resources. I know Councilor Jacobs and myself have been advocating for that for years. and into fruition to get the proper funding for those type of things. Restoration efforts at Faxon Field, which are huge. So I think these are spreading out across the city, which I really like. I see them in all wards. as an at-large Councilor, and then Mr. Albon being his granite building ADA walkways and rail car president. the preservation is huge. So thank you for coming up today and talking about that. Al's been a great CPC guy that's been advocating for these type of projects for many, many years.

There's a lot of other projects in here that are great, and I thank you for taking your time and the due diligence of all the members on the CPC to get these and move these forward. So thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DiBona.

Oh, and the dog amenities project. Oh, you can't forget about that one, which is huge. And by the way, I was very supportive of the animal shelter. Been on the council for a very long time. So anything that near and dear to Susan's heart, with animals. So they've been great. They've been great. So thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Riley, I'm going to ask, I know you made a motion to approve the whole thing, but because Councilor Jacobs is not in favor of one of them, can we go line by line? Certainly, I'd be happy to. So we're going to withdraw the first motion.

I don't seem to have the one with the one that is in your life.

Section by section, section by section. I don't know.

I have so much paper. I'm not lying.

My last section. Do you want it? OK. I can give her mine.

OK.

I do have a question regarding that because the committee did recommend this in favor I hesitate against going line by line because it was a recommendation of the whole.

Jacobs. All right.

So with that, then, Councilor Jacobs, you'll have to vote no for all of it. We could bring it back if need be, right, as a one-off. I guess in order to make it a little bit easier, if it's okay, can we just do a motion to approve all of those under the Historic Preservation Fund 4902? Can you name every one of them off?

One second. So the Clerk is saying that because you voted as a motion as a body, the body, we have to, we have motion, we have to motion that we can't go through line by line, so Councilor Jacobs will have to vote no for all of it, and that's okay. So we'll just go back to the original motion, if you could, to approve. That's what you're saying, right?

Yeah. As presented. Motion approved as presented, seconded by Councilor Ash. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Hubley. Jacobs, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Seven members. Moving on to item number six. 2026-096. I'm sorry, sorry. Councilor Jacobs had this number. Sorry.

I guess this is more for the Clerk, but can we just have it reflected that it was just for line item O in the meeting minutes? All right, thank you, sorry.

Okay.

Moving on. Did you do it? Number 6, 2026-096, an appropriation for $950,000 to traffic, parking, alarm, and lighting, personal services for reserve for appropriation, parking receipts.

So this is just another FY26 year-end, I guess you could call it, housekeeping item. It's in the budget, the offset. It was voted in last year for $950,000. We're here before you with the council order now that will move that $950,000, which is a personnel services line offset. May I ask you to vote yes?

So, motion approved by Councilor Ash. Do we have a second? Seconded by Councilor DiBona on the motion. Does anybody have any questions?

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Walker, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Moving on. Number seven, 2026-097, an appropriation Riley for $371,871 to the tourism for hotel motel tax tourism. Councilor Riley.

Make a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Seconded by Councilor Yuen.

And on the motion, is there any other questions? Ash, Councilor DiBona, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Moving on to item number eight. 2026-098, an appropriation for $300,000 to Parks Department Capital Expenditure for Tree Offset. looking around. Do we have a motion?

Motion to move with Councilor Ash. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor DiBona on the motion. Seeing none, oh, sorry, we have one. Councilor McKee.

I just have a question about this. Is this, can you talk about what this is and It says it's coming from hotel and motel tax and going to open space. And it's just for trees. Is that?

No. It's in the contractual services line offset. So if you go back and look at the park department budget, I'll call it a bucket of expenses within contractual services. This is a $300,000 offset there to offset any one of those expenditure lines. It reduces the bottom line by $300,000, more or less.

Any other questions, Councilor McKee? No. So we have a motion and a second. Any other questions? With that, can we have a roll call vote?

Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor DiBona? Yes. Councilor Hubley? Jacobs, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, nine members. Moving on. Number nine, 2026099, an appropriation mass general law, chapter 44, section 53E and a half, setting the limits of what may be expended in FY 2027 for the department revolving Accounts. Mr. General, DiBona.

Yes, I just want to point out or bring to your attention that there is a revolving account on this list that I would like to strike. It would be the Furnaceburg Golf Course revolving account. You can see that. It's three up from the bottom on page two.

Okay.

Does anybody have any questions in regards to that? what is the reason for, sorry I didn't open the mic for you, what was the reason for that change?

You talking to the commissioner? Commissioner Murphy. It was the general fund. It's self-supported within the general fund. It does not require having a revolving fund at this time.

Can we have a motion to approve? We had Councilor McGee had a question. Councilor McGee?

Sorry, I just want to make sure that I... Can you walk through just generally what these revolving... Is this similar to what we were just talking about or something different?

It's different.

Okay.

So... If we take a look at, these funds are supported by fees generated by whatever activity is happening in that department. For instance, in the park department there's a recreational Revolving Fund, and a lot of the activities that go on through REC, such as basketball or something else, come with a fee. So the department's allowed to collect all these fees for all the participants and then keep it in this revolving fund which they can use to offset some expenses within that department as per their permissions on this matrix. So it's great.

OK.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All set? So we have a motion, and it was seconded. Do we have any other questions? OK, roll call vote.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Yes. Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, seven members. Moving on to item number 10. 2026-100, order Quincy Housing Authority Board appointees process review.

Mr. Jacobs.

Yes, good evening. So I'll just read the order here. It's order number 2026-100. Ordered that the mayor or their designee appear before the oversight committee at its meeting. It says scheduled for... June 17th, but that's going to be changed to, we say June 22nd. So we're going to have to change that. 2026, and I think we said, is that going to be at six o'clock? to come up with a time change, to provide information, documentation regarding the appointments submitted to the Quincy City Council under order numbers 2026-40 and 2026-41 for service on the Quincy Housing Board. whereas on February 23rd, 2026, the Mayor submitted the following appointments to the Quincy City Council. Number 40, the appointment of Timothy Baker, 54 Ocean Street, to serve as the Mayor's at-large representative.

on the Housing Authority Board for five-year term effective February 2nd, 2026 through the first Monday of February, 2031. In order number 41, the appointment of John Delcarly. of 170 Coburn Street to serve as the tenant representative on the Quincy Housing Authority Board for a five-year term effective on February 2nd, 2006 through the 1st in February in 2031. Whereas the members of the Quincy City Council requested additional information regarding the qualification, experience, prior service, and interest of the nominees in continuing to serve on the Quincy Housing Authority Board, and whereas the members in the Quincy, the City Council also requested information regarding procedures followed in making the appointments, including compliance with provisions of the Massachusetts General Law. Chapter 121B, Section 5, governing housing authority appointments, and whereas consideration of the appointment was postponed...

to allow time for additional information to be gathered and provided by the City Council. And whereas the City Council has not yet received any of that information requested concerning the nominee's appointment process. and whereas the Massachusetts General Law 121B Section 5 establishes procedures for governing the appointment of the tenant representative to the local housing authority boards, including notice requirements to recognize tenant organizations and opportunities for those organizations to submit candidates for consideration. And whereas the Quincy City Council has an interest in ensuring that the appointment to municipal boards and commissions are conducted in accordance with the applicable law and that sufficient information is available to permit informed consideration of nominees. and whereas the Oversight Committee is charged with reviewing matters related to the administration of city government in promoting transparency and accountability in municipal operations. Now, therefore, I be it ordered

that the Mayor or their designee appear before the Oversight Committee and provide the following information. Number one, the number of prior terms served by Timothy Baker and John Delcarly on the Quincy Housing Authority Board. Number two, copies of resumes, statements of qualifications, letters of interest, or similar materials submitted by either nominee in connection with those appointments. Number three, information concerning each nominees prior service on the board, including accomplishments, initiatives, and projects undertaken during their previous term, and any goals they have identified for future service. Document number four, documentation identifying tenant organizations that were entitled to receive notice by Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 121B, Section 5. Number five, copies of notices provided to recognize city-wide, project-wide tenant organizations regarding the expiration of the tenant representative position. Number six, documentation demonstrating when such notices were issued and the manner in which they were provided.

Number seven, copies of any candidate lists, nominations, recommendation, correspondence, or other submissions received from the tenant organization regarding the tenant representative appointment. Number eight, information concerning process used by the administration to review candidates and select the nominees to the city council. and number nine, any additional correspondence or materials relied upon by the administration in making the appointments submitted under Orders 40 and 41. be it further ordered that the purpose of this hearing shall be to review the appointment process utilized for the Housing Authority appointments to receive information previously requested by the City Council to better understand the administration's compliance and with Massachusetts laws, chapter 121B, section five, and to promote transparency and public confidence in the appointment of members of the Quincy housing. Ford. And I just want to say about this, this has been going on for quite some time. On Sunday, March 15th at 5 a.m., I know Chris, is Chris still here?

Chris, I know you only get texts from me at 4 o'clock in the morning, so I apologize. That's when I get out of bed. and you often reply, which is good. Chris, I wrote to who's the labor representative on the housing board. also according to 121B of Mass General Law, the mayor is supposed to reach out to tenant groups and each of the groups can submit two to five names. The mayor can choose whoever he wants if no list is put forward. but the administration is required to let the tenants know 90 days prior to the expiration of the tenant representative's term, did the administration do this? and then I said after that, after some research, the labor person looks like Brian Clifford, but I never got a response to that. Sorry. And then on April 10th, I sent you an email. I'm sorry, April 8th.

Chris, I was hoping you might have an update on Quincy Housing Board members. and then you responded on the 10th, hi, yes, I think we'll plan on bringing them back to the council on the 27th, I assume that's April. I owe you, I think, tenant recommendation letters and I'll have them invited to the meeting. And so we haven't had any of that information. And I was really just hoping this information would be provided and we'd never have to have this committee hearing. But it looks like we're going to have to have this committee hearing. So do you have that information now?

Through you, Madam President, not with me at the moment. We'll certainly review the order and return with a response.

Okay. And again, we have to change the date on that to June 22nd, because that was, so just let me know. I think it's at 6 p.m. Is that what we said, 6 p.m.? Yeah, 6 p.m., let's do 6, yeah.

You need to pass and refer to, do you have a motion to pass and refer to oversight? Yes. Okay, do we have a second? Second by Councilor Riley. Anybody on the motion? Councilor Yuan?

Through you, President, Council President, I have a question to Mr. Walker, I already sent an email to you, ask what's the administration's standard of practice when they submit a board appointment to city council for confirmation. and specifically, what kind of information and documentation about this appointed should be submitted to City Council for review prior for the confirmation vote. So you didn't give me the clear answer, so I'm asking now, what's the city's standard of practice?

Through you, Madam President, that's entirely contingent on the body and what the body requests from the administration. Yeah.

Pardon? Specifically, what information and documentation about this appointees should be submitted to City Council for the confirmation vote?

Again, that is, the council is the confirming body. That is up to the council to determine what information it requires to make an affirmative or negative confirmation.

Jacobs.

I'm sorry. So I guess what I'm saying, and I guess this is what Councilor Yuan is trying to say too, we've been having this conversation since February

Yeah, and I understand that. What's happening? No, I understand that. And it's a timing, it's a scheduling, it's... ultimately, you know, from a practical standpoint, those members serve until their appointee, until their successor is appointed. It's not... I think I acknowledged in the email that occasionally you lose track of these things. When they come back up, you've raised it again, and we'll provide the information. These are volunteer boards. It's not volunteer.

They get a little stipend. $600 a month, which I had to basically file a FOIA to find that out, which I think is ridiculous. One of the reasons I'm bringing this up is because I represent a lot of folks who live in public housing down in Germantown. I got a call a couple of weeks ago, and I know that we spoke on that day about tree removal. And the residents down there just don't feel heard at all. even to this day like the fence along the seawall is still got gaping holes in it and it's not like the wall is up high the wall is level with the with the surface so kids could just run right off the wall into like 10 feet of water, right? So there was also when I went down there, there was no safety, there was no nothing. You know, I mean, OSHA would have had a field day. and the people down there just don't feel heard.

And that's one of the things that I'm gonna bring up in my next thing, sorry.

So we have a motion and we have a second. Does anybody else have any questions?

Thank you, Madam President, and thank you for bringing this forward. I think it opens up a good dialogue about the appointment boards and committees and commissions in general. I think people serve for decades and often feel that there is nobody else interested in doing some of these jobs. I hope that we can create more of a general dialogue about how these boards, committees, and commission appointees happen, when their expiration is, and some of them are dictated like this maybe by laws that are the same with the CPC. You know, there's ordinances and things. Some of them are more, you know, a little more loose and have less authority. So it's my hope that we can move this into... Oversight, and have a more robust discussion about appointments. Okay, so we have a motion and a second.

You ready to move to roll call vote? Roll call vote, please. Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Yes. Councilor Yuan. Yes. President Mahoney. Yes. Seven members. Moving on to item number 11. 2026-101, a resolved Quincy Housing Authority board tenant representation. Councilor Jacobs.

Your mic is on. Yes, again, order number 2026-101, ordered whereas Chapter 121B, Section 5 of the Massachusetts General Law establishes the composition of the local housing authority boards and provides that in a city of in a city, four members of the housing authority will be appointed by the mayor, subject to confirmation by the council, with one member representing organized labor and one member serving as a tenant Representative, whereas the Quincy Housing Authority provides housing and services to a diverse population of residents throughout the city of Quincy. whereas the residents of the Quincy Housing Authority are primarily comprised of two different distinct populations, elderly disabled and residents living in senior housing developments and families residing in family housing developments. whereas these populations often face different challenges, priorities, and concerns regarding housing, maintenance, accessibility, safety, community programming, and quality of life, whereas meaningful representation

from both family housing residents and elderly housing residents provide valuable first-hand knowledge and perspective that can assist the Quincy Housing Authority Board in making informed decisions that affect all residents, whereas healthy discussion, thoughtful deliberation, and effective governance are strengthened when the Board reflects the diversity of the residents that it serves, and whereas while Chapter 121B, Section 5 requires the appointment of at least one tenant representative, nothing in the statute prohibits the appointment of an additional qualified tenant to serve on the board through one of the otherwise unrestricted at-large appointments. Now therefore it be resolved that the Quincy City Council recognizes the importance of tenant representation on the Quincy Housing Authority Board

and encourages the appointment of individuals who reflect the diverse housing population served by the authority and be it further resolved that the City Council expresses its support for ensuring that both family housing residents and elderly housing residents have meaningful voice in governance and oversight of the Housing Authority, and be it further resolved that the Quincy City Council respectfully encourages the mayor when making appointments to the Quincy Housing Authority Board to consider appointing qualified tenant representatives from both family housing and elderly housing communities whenever practicable and consistent with state law, and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be transmitted to the Mayor of Quincy, the Quincy Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Executive Director of the Quincy Housing Authority. So I made a motion.

So I'd like to make a motion to put it into oversight as well.

to approve and move into oversight. Is that your motion? Yes. Okay, to approve and to move into oversight. Do I have a second? Seconded by Councilor Ryan.

On the motion, is there any other questions? Ash, DiBona, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Eight members. Moving on to item number 12. Item number 12, 2026, 102, a gift for $14,525 from various donors to Deer Camp. Motion to approve by Councilor DiBona, seconded by Councilor Riley. On the motion. Roll call vote. Councilor Ash. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Riley, Council Ryan, Council Yuan, President Mahoney, seven members.

So now we're moving on to the approval of previous minutes from April 27th, 2026. Motion by Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor Ryan. Are we going to do an all those in favor for this? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? So the ayes have it. Communications and reports for the mayor, city officers, city boards.

Clark's Traffics. Thank you. We do have one traffic to refer to Ordinance Committee for Advertising, Ward 6, Councilor Riley at Handicap Parking at 15 Walker Street.

Excellent. Okay, moving on to unfinished business and proceeding meetings. Councilor McKee.

So this is, we're gonna do a little bit different.

That's reports of committees.

Oh, gosh, okay.

Sorry.

It's okay, it's coming up. Never mind.

Okay, so there's no unfinished business in proceeding minutes, so we're gonna move on to reports of committees. McCabe, would you like to kick it off?

Yes, I think. So we'll just do this a little bit differently, the traffic. We'll go first to just take them out of committee, to just vote to take them out of committee. I think we can just probably do. So a motion to take it out of committee? Motion to take all. Can I do them all at once? All the traffic ordinances. out of committee.

Second by Councilor Riley. How about we do a roll call vote because people at home can't hear us. Roll call vote, please.

Councilor Ash. DiBona. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Yes. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Yes. Councilor Yuan. President Mahoney. Yes.

Okay, so now the Council Clerk very kindly put them, organized these by ward. So I'll go through one by one. And then if the ward councilor who's responsible for it can just do like a one sentence description, then we can go through and vote on each one. So, Councilor Ash, can we start with you for Ward 2? 2026-069, this is to add two stop signs on Germain Avenue at Commonwealth Ave, creating a four-way stop. Did you have anything to add to that?

No, it's just a request that came in from a few of the neighbors in my ever ongoing battle to combat the congestion in the neighborhoods surrounding Clifford Marshall. So I'm hoping that that helps with some of the speeding and pickup drop off and help with some of the congestion over there as well.

Would you like to make a motion?

I'd like to make a motion to approve 2026-069, traffic at two stop signs under Main Ave at Commonwealth Ave, creating a four-way stop.

Motion to approve by Councilor Ash, seconded by Councilor McKee. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Next one, 2026-082 at stop sign on Alton Road southbound intersecting with Nickel Street.

Yes, this is on Alton Road in the Penns Hill neighborhood. It intersects with Nichols Street. There's a lot of children that play in this area. All the properties are but Faxon Park. at the top of the hill. There's a lot of children that play outside at night, a lot of young families. Having an additional stop sign would help with the traffic and obviously create the need for those cars to stop while the kids are outside and not continue through that corner without doing so. So I would like to make a motion to approve 2026-082. at stop sign on Alton Road, southbound intersecting with Nichols Street.

Motion by Councilor Ash, second by Councilor McKee. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Ash, unanimously approved.

Next one, 2026088, add handicap parking at 121 Martinson. This is for Councilor Ash.

Yes, I actually don't have any background on that. That came into the Traffic Department. However, I will say Martinson Street is in large part a senior senior population over 55, Quincy Housing. And I see, I did drive by the property to to look and see exactly which one it was. I see no issue with that. And if traffic sent it up to us, they've obviously vetted that application as well. So I'd make a motion to approve 2026-08. 082 at Handicap Parking at 121 Martinson Street.

Motion by Councilor Ash, seconded by Councilor McKee. Yes. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? unanimously passes. Anything else?

20-26-08-9. This is also Councilor Ash. No parking on the even numbered side of Phipps and School Street, et cetera.

Yes, this is actually next to St. John's Church. I do not believe there's anything, there's a sign going in, but nothing will actually change with respect to the existing parking rules and regulations. and Regulations. Essentially, this is the bottom of 5th Street. We're right next to St. John's Church across from the two buildings, 25 and 45 School Street, all the curb cuts next to St. John's. If anyone's familiar with the church, if you're looking at the front of the church, to the right is the parking lot. all the curb cuts on Phipps Street that creates essentially no room for cars to park there anyway. There's just a few that when it's very congested try to squeeze in and create quite an issue in the morning with respect to being close to both the intersection and also opposite a lot of the driveways there and those early, the bottom section of Phipps Street. make a motion to approve that ordinance to add no parking signs.

I believe it's 325 feet from School Street on Phipps Street. Thank you.

Motion approved by Councilor Ash, seconded by Councilor McKee. on the motion, not seeing anything. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And the ayes have it.

Moving on. So we actually will just skip Ward 3 with Councilor Hubley. Ward 4. 2026071, add no parking on the even side of Malvestee Way from Forest Ave to 70 feet southwest of Forest Ave.

Yes, this was requested by Joe Valenzi, and basically what's happening is there's some positive popping. inside of the street, and it's preventing emergency vehicles from making the accurate cut to get to specific addresses. There's like three streets that converge. So the request for approval for 2026-71, traffic, add no parking on the even side of Malvestee Way from Forest Avenue to 71. Feet, southwest of Forest Avenue.

Motion by Councilor Ryan, by Councilor Riley. I'm sorry, Councilor McKee. On the motion, any questions? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

I guess I can... I don't actually know what these are, but if we're... Okay, then we can just get them done. So I'll do the three ones. 2026070 is to add two stop signs on Lincoln Ave at Winthrop Ave, creating a four-way stop. I make a motion to approve this.

Motion by Councilor, motion by McKee, Councilor McKee, seconded by Councilor Riley. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

2026-083, add stop sign on Barham Avenue northbound intersecting with Hilma Street. Make a motion to approve.

Motion by Councilor McGee, seconded by Councilor Riley. Anything on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? The ayes have it.

2026090, add handicapped parking at 64 Hobart Street. Motion to approve.

Motion approved by Councilor McKee, seconded by Councilor Riley. The motion is saying none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No. Moving on.

OK. Now we move on to Ward 6, 2026072 and handicap parking at 82 Glover Avenue.

Yeah, this is, sorry. The handicap parking requests are vetted by the traffic department. They make sure that people provide a copy of their placard and whatever medical documentation they may need, so I make a motion to approve this.

Motion by Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor McKee on the motion, saying none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

20-26-091, add no parking on the odd-numbered side of Vane Street, Billings Road to the dead end.

Yeah, so this is a small dead-end street in the Norfolk Downs area. They have consistent problems with people parking on both sides, such that people cannot pull out of their driveway, but more importantly, emergency vehicles. and the trash trucks are not able to pass through there so the traffic engineer made the determination that it would be best to restrict parking on the odd numbered side. Motion to approve, please.

Motion to approve by Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor McKee on the motion, seeing none. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it.

And then there's something that I would like everyone to take a vote on to take out of Rules Committee 2026084. in order amending the council rules 24 and 25 about meetings notice, so kind of updating things so that it's not like everything by paper and horse-drawn carriage and stuff, so electronically. So I make a motion to take it out of Rules Committee first.

Motion to take out of Rules Committee. Do I have a second? Second. Seconded by Councilor Riley. Any questions on the motion?

So now I'm making a motion, 2026-084, to accept and pass the order.

Okay, we have a motion to accept. Pass the order, seconded by Councilor Riley. On the motion, seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Are you all set? I thought there was a utility. Utilities. We're moving on to utilities.

Yeah, I can wait on that. Sorry.

So no utilities? No utilities. No utilities. Reports at committees for public works. It's listed, but is there something for public works?

No, that was it.

Okay. And do we have any updates from ordinance? Any meetings? Because ordinance is listed. So ordinance. Moving on to Councilor McKee.

So I'd just like to make, I'd like to schedule an ordinance committee meeting for June 22nd.

Those are reports of committees, so we're still in reports of committees.

I'm all turned around.

Okay. So you don't have any reports from ordinance, correct? No. Okay. So we'll move on to finance. Sorry.

The Finance Committee, we had Order 2026-7, establishing fiscal safeguards, reserve protections, and financial transparency. This matter was reviewed in committee with a friendly amendment introduced by Council UN that required it to be notified. Clerk Manning had advised that this was advertised on May 7th in the Quincy Sun, so we can now take it out of committee and a vote for the council to approve. So I'd like to make a motion to move that out. So a motion to move it out of committee. Do we have a second?

Second by Councilor Jacobs on the motion to take it out of committee. Do I see none?

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Moving on to Councilor Riley.

Do we need to approve that? That's it. No, that's out of committee now. Out of committee now. Okay, so I'd like to make a motion to approve 2026-7.

Okay, we have a motion to approve 2026-7. Do I have a second? Ryan has a second on the motion. Seeing none, we're going to have a roll call vote on that.

Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor DiBona?

Yes.

Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes.

OK, and on 2026-076 order for the ENC land acquisition in 2026-077, the appropriation for the $22,500,000. We did not vote to... bring that forward with a favorable recommendation but I would like to vote to take it out of committee and a final vote so that we can dispose of this and I personally would welcome any new orders or motions or Anything we can do to bring this conversation forward again? Okay, so we have a motion to take.

I'm going to have to go back to the meeting. Sorry. 76 and 77 will be part of the committee. Do we have a second? Ash has a second. So all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

So that is now out of committee. Okay, so we probably have to do each of these separately. 2026-076, I'd like to make a motion to

and I. Motion to deny. Motion to deny. Okay.

That's fine.

Motion to deny.

Do I have a second? This is from the stuff we did earlier with the NC. Can we just pause for a moment?

It's my intention to dispose of this matter.

You can request that it be removed from the calendar.

Hubley. Okay, so I'll make a motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Councilor Ash, seconded by Councilor DiBona. Thank you, Councilor Ash.

All right, on the motion.

Question committee.

You have one question on the motion? Okay. Councilor DiBona on the motion.

Thank you, Madam President. Just a lot of people, maybe the viewers didn't fully understand. This is the ENC vote that's coming out of committee for the finance. We deliberated quite a bit. I got a lot of feedback from the city, from the residents of the city. We had a little open forum after the vote. One person really struck me. I'm going to say her name because I have worked with her over the years on the opposite side, Maria Mulligan. She came up, and she was almost crying. It told me a lot about how she felt about the property. And Maria, I've gotten a thousand emails from her over the years, most of them, some of them negative, against things. And she was for this tonight. So it told me a lot about what I call is the crossover.

There were some people that were against some of the approvals for certain things over the years that were actually for this one. I want to say other names, but there was a crossover of some of the people that were against other projects in the city that were actually for this ENC, Eastern Nazarene Campus acquisition. I just want to note that to the people. that a lot of people that might have been against other projects or other approvals of acquisitions of funding over the years were really for this. it kind of told me a lot about, you know, when I had other people reach out to me that were against other things in the city and they had the confidence of a new city council up here to make those better decisions, I guess I could say. The more oversight, the accountability, the transparency that all of you have been talking about.

I've been trying to sell this situation from the council level to all of you for a very long time. I never want to give up right and dictation from this body of government. That's why I continue to run as an elected, as a councilor, as a councilor at large because I feel it's very important to have another set of eyes or another set of views from the council level. That's why there is a checks and balances of the city. but what I saw with the different people that reached out to me over the last course of the last three months from Central Middle School, all the way up to all the deliberations, all the open forums, that there was a crossover of people that were against a lot of things over the years that was for this. So if you wanted to gamble and actually went with something, that actually gave us a lot of dictation and control, this would have been one of the ones to do.

I just feel that we lost as a council, you lost that opportunity. And I tried to pitch it from the council standpoint rather than from the administration or the mayor standpoint.

Thank you, Mayor.

That we could be part of this.

Thank you, Councilor DiBona.

I'm going to be voting yes for this for the E&C acquisition. Thank you.

Councilor Riley.

I'll withdraw that motion. And administratively, the more proper thing to do is to just remove it from the calendar. What I don't want... There's a motion from Councilor Asch to approve.

Okay. And it was seconded. Okay. Councilor Jacobs.

Yeah. Sorry, yes, I just want to add to those comments. You know, Maria, I'll talk about Maria too. very informative. She does her homework, that's for sure. And it was hard to obviously watch her because unlike the administration. She really had plans. like she had really detailed plans. I spoke with her through the phone, I spoke with her on text message, she sent me emails, and we went back and forth. and one thing she said was that this process was not collaborative. And if I take one thing from this whole, this whole ordeal, it's that it wasn't collaborative at all. There was almost no collaboration whatsoever.

and I would say that's true about honestly just being on the City Council the last six months like how much how little collaboration there actually is between the City Council and the administration and I was I am shocked to know how little it is. And that's the real letdown here tonight is you know the administration doesn't collaborate and that's the message that people at home should really listen into because of their failure to collaborate you know we missed out on this opportunity so hopefully the administration will be more collaborative as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Jacobs.

We have a motion on the floor to approve, a second by Councilor DiBona. Anything else on the motion? I'd like to move this to a vote. Roll call vote, please.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. No. McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, Councilor Mahoney. The order fails.

077. Because I don't want to make the motion to approve. You can make the motion to approve.

077.

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve 2026-077 appropriation, $22.5 million for Eastern Nazarene College land acquisition.

Thank you very much, Councilor Ash. We have a motion to approve. Second by Councilor DiBona. would like to move that to a roll call vote. Anything on the motion? I think we've said it all. Roll call vote, please.

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

No.

Councilor McKee.

No.

Riley, no, Councilor Ryan, no, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, no. It doesn't pass.

Does that end here? Okay, so we have finance, ordinance, and public works all set. Presentations of petitions, memorials, and remonstrances. Councilor Ryan.

Bear with me for a moment. So I recently attended a celebration of life for a very good friend of mine. His name is George Valley, who passed away on June 3rd, 2026, the result of a long illness. He was born on October 6, 1954, in South Boston to the late George and Rosemary Valley, the second of four children. He moved to Quincy, Mass in childhood and attended North Quincy High School and went on to work for the Gillette Company as a honer, machine operator for many years. And that's where I came to consider him a very good friend. George married his beloved wife, Gail, on October 6, 1984, his 30th birthday. They had two daughters, Caitlin and Alexandra, and made a home in Quincy with wonderful friends and neighbors.

Later, he would welcome his sons-in-law, Ryan and Damian, happy to embrace new family members. His granddaughters brought him so much joy in his later years, he adored his family. He had many hobbies and interests. He collected antique books, was an accomplished blues guitarist, and loved movies and reading. He loved the outdoors as a younger man and loved to go camping with his lifelong friends and family in the woods of Vermont. His bookshelves were stuffed with classic novels and books about music, films, the sea, and history. He truly loved visits with his cherished siblings and was always happy to chat or watch a movie with them. So George is survived by his wife of 42 years, Gail, his daughters, Caitlin Valley, and her husband, Damien Sula-Minoche.

and Alexander Hawes, and her husband Ryan, his granddaughters Lyra and Summer, his sister Maureen Giordano, his brother Chris Valley, and his wife Bridget. George was an incredibly smart, funny, and kind man. We will miss him. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited. Well, that's for the wake. but I just want to let you know that George Bailey was diagnosed with multiple myeloma at the age of 48. He was allowed to live 23 years with modern medicine and a lot of medical trials. So that's when he passed away a week ago. 23 years. Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to remember Jonathan Emerson Twining, who taught environmental science at Eastern Nazarene for many years. Professor Twining passed away on Friday, May 29th. after a series of health challenges following a heart transplant in February 2025. I was lucky to have gotten to know Jonathan a bit over the years. He gamely showed up at local environmental events with his coterie of critters and patiently and joyfully talked about them with visitors young and old. I was also inspired by his online posts of snakebite rescues and tree plantings he helped support in Kenya and by his gorgeous nature photography. Since his passing, his Facebook feed has been full of heartfelt remembrances from his students, colleagues, and collaborators around the world, and I wanted to share some of them. They paint a picture of a very compassionate soul.

Thank you for teaching me, for widening my horizons and opening my eyes to a beautiful world I was barely paying attention to. He taught me far more than science. He taught me wonder, gratitude, perseverance, and the importance of caring deeply about God's creation and the people around us. To be loved by him was to be fought for. I am the person I am and I have loved and cared for the lives I have, not because I have to, but because Prof taught me that they all had value and worth and that they deserved love simply because they existed. Prof. Jonathan, you taught us that fear can be replaced by knowledge, that a snake deserves understanding before judgment, and that every life, human or snake, is worth protecting. As the founder of Snake Community Action Now in Kenya, he dedicated his life to educating communities about snakes, Oh, providing snakebite prevention, ensuring that people receive life-saving treatment when they needed it most.

Okay. So when your professor teaches you about the trees, the water, and the earth, you cannot go anywhere or see anything without remembering something he said. Our thoughts are with his wife, Julie, and son, Jonathan.

for motions and petitions.

Thank you, Madam President. Donald Jackson died on May 20th, 2026 at the age of 70. Don adored his family, especially his boys, Scott and Craig. Scott is, of course, in the audience, our beloved Quincy Sun reporter. They loved traveling together, taking cruises to Bermuda and exploring New England. He enjoyed going to the beach, birdwatching and feeding the birds and fishing with his boys. Don was a great cook and enjoyed listening to music and watching old war movies. When his boys were younger, he coached Quincy Youth Hockey and was a den master for the Boy Scouts. Don was a happy-go-lucky man who will be deeply missed, reads his obituary. Beloved husband of Teresa Ford Jackson of Quincy, cherished father of Scott Jackson of Quincy, and the late Craig Jackson, who passed earlier this spring. Loving brother of Paul Jackson, retired QPD, and his wife, Diane of Quincy, and the late Sandra Ames, Kenny Jackson, Bobby Jackson, Diane Smith Dickinson, and Bruce Jackson, survived by many Nieces and Nephews.

And his cat, Hazel, is also notably mentioned in the obituary, which means I'm sure that she was very special. Certainly my condolences to the second large loss for the Jackson family in this spring. To Scott and Teresa, a celebration of life is this Saturday, June 20th, 2026, Quincy Point Kong at 10 a.m. Thank you.

Moving on to Councilor Jacobs.

Councilor Jacobs. I have a memorial for Sue Chan of Quincy. It's State Representative Jackie Chan's mother. 80 years old, passed away peacefully on June 5th, 2026, surrounded by love and friends of her family in her home. Su was born to her father, Ho, and mother, Lam, in Canton, China, on October 14, 1945, as stated on her birth certificate, though she was actually born in 1944. The family resettled from Canton to Hong Kong in 1950 during the Chinese Civil War. She was a graduate of Pui Middle School and in 1967 received her degree in nursing. from Alice Ho Mu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Hong Kong. She was a Hong Kong licensed midwife and registered nurse, and later served as a nurse at the New England Medical Center, currently known as Tufts, for 35 years.

Su met Lap Man Chan in Hong Kong and began a romance that lasted over 20 years across three countries. She immigrated to Canada and worked as a nurse there before arriving in Boston. Sue and Lapman married on July 25th, 1970 in Boston and reside on Mount Vernon Street. In 1973, they became homeowners for the first time. 246 South Street in South Quincy, and started raising their family, two sons. In 1977, the family moved to their current residence at 66 Meadowbrook Road in Wollaston. When Lappman was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1987, Sue was steadfast and personally cared for him until his passing on February 10th, 1989. Sue's retirement was rich in activity, community, and adventure. She returned to New England Medical Center to work as a translator formed the cancer group with Dr. Elaine Choi, who visited Quincy's elder care facilities and patients' homes. Listening to their stories, sharing her personal hope,

She organized holiday and birthday parties, ran errands for those who could not, and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was a founding member of the Quincy Chinese Church of the Nazarene, For nearly a decade, she worked on Election Day as a city Quincy poll worker. In 2013, Quincy Asian Resources recognized her devotion to the community with the Jean Lee Unsung Hero Award. In her spare time, Sue was an avid traveler, sightseeing with her friends inside and outside of the United States, visits to Canada, China, Australia, Israel, Egypt, Italy, Monaco, Greece, Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, South Dakota, New Mexico, California and more. All of these trips, her most memorable vacation was in November of 2012 with her sons. and daughter-in-law and grandchild in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Mao. In May of 2012, she again returns to New England Medical Center when she was diagnosed with terminal stage four sell lung cancer.

She spent 14 years at the hospital she worked at, undergoing multiple treatments and hospitalizations. Despite having a fatal disease with no hope of remission, she never lost her desire to live, both relying on and reciprocating the love and friends and family that she had found in her faith. My life is governed by God, not though any other means and not even influenced by the doctor. Sue is survived by her brother. Dr. Michael Ho and his wife, Ellen of Toronto, and a brother, David, and his wife of China. He also has two children, Rocky Chan and State Representative Tacky Chan. Just as an aside, I do want to say that I have known the chans for many years. I met Tacky in 2009. and worked on his campaign when he became, was running for state rep. It was a very interesting time. Mrs. Chan was there every day in our kitchen on the map.

highlighting the streets that we walked down and the people we talked to. And I do remember when Tacky won the election, we had the after party over at Five Spices, which was over at 1250 Hancock Street. And I just remember how proud she was, you know, tacky for those of you who don't know. is the first elected Asian state representative in Massachusetts, not the last. But what a proud moment and what, A true life that the Chans have lived here, emigrating here, raising their family here, and to raise a preacher and a politician. What is more American than that, right? So I just hope that we can keep Mrs. Chan. and our thoughts and prayers. I did attend her services and, you know, she looked like she was going on a trip and just, I think, the way she would have wanted.

Thank you very much. Do we have any other? Oops, Councilor DiBona.

Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. Just a heavy heart and condolences to Helene, Betsy McDonough's family, formerly of South Boston, a longtime resident of Squanam. She passed away peacefully on June 4th, surrounded by a loving family. She was a daughter of the late John Ross and Helen Sullivan Ross and beloved sister of Dennis Ross and his wife, Louise. and the late Jack Ross and his wife Margaret. Raised in South Boston, Betsy graduated from Conner Cushing High School with the class of 1957 and then she came over to Swanham. Bessie was the beloved life of the late Paul McDonough, devoted mother of Paul McDonough and his wife Deidre, Brendan McDonough, Timothy McDonough, and the late Jack McDonough. She was a loving grandmother of Emily McDonough, Aaron Bergen and her husband Josh, Kelly McDonough and Maggie McDonough, big McDonough family, as well as her cherished great-grandmother of Brooks Bergen.

She was also deeply loved by her many cousins, niece, nephews, and whose fellowship and devotion stayed here with her throughout her life. Squanam held a special plate in Betsy's heart, a proud resident for many years. She loved her community and friendship she made there. She was a longtime permissioner of the Star of the Sea Church and a member of the Seaside Gardeners. and enjoyed countless days at Orchard Beach and along the shoreline she called home. Betsy loved gardening, karaoke, bowling, Cooking, and the fan of all New England sports teams. Above all, her greatest joy was her family. Betsy will remember warmth, kindness, deep faith, and unwavering devotion to family. Her presence has comfort and joy to all of Newark. She had her wake and funeral just past week, June 11th. So please keep the McDonough family in your thoughts and prayers.

I'd also like to, another person unfortunately passed away at the age of 94 was Marie Russo. She's a lifelong resident, died peacefully June 11th in the comfort and home surrounded by her family. Marie was born in Quincy to the late Augusto and Esquidi Quintiliani DiBona. Raised and educated here, she graduated from Quincy High School, Class of 1950. she was a graduate of the Chandler School for Women in Boston. Often referred to as the woman of style, Marie pursued a career in retail and fashion industry. She was a longtime employee with a former Lord & Taylor in the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, which brings back a lot of memories. Hired when the store opened in 1979, she worked tirelessly for 36 years, retiring from the age of 84. Her employment at Lord & Taylor, where she met many friendships, brought her immense joy and satisfaction. She was known for her vibrant personality and accessible customer service.

She was a woman of great faith and a nurturing soul and had a lifelong parishioner of St. John the Baptist Church in Quincy. She shared 73 beautiful years of marriage with her devoted husband, Dick. Together they built a home filled in love and laughter. They raised their five children. Marie was truly a heart of her home and her family and one everyone turned to. Her kitchen was always filled with warmth and good conversation and comforting aroma of her cooking. More than a wife, she was a best friend. Marie was intelligent with great sense of humor, very independent, kind, strong, and happiest when surrounded by her family. Her good business sense and knack for finance was an asset in helping her manage her family business, the Lincoln Granite Company, which she co-owned with her late husband, Dick. She will be sadly missed, yet her spirit will continue to guide all those who note her.

beloved wife of the late Dick Russo and her love of life, devoted mother of Lynn D'Andrea and her husband, Jim Wayne Russo, and his wife, Debbie Charlene Bellum, and partner Paul Beston, Rick Russo, and Annette Russo, adoring grandmother of Leah, Danielle, Derek, and Scott, and cherished great-grandmother of Haley, Alaya, Anthony, and Dylan. Loving Sister of Benjamin DiBona and late Louise DiBona and her dear cousin of Maria DiBona. She will have her wake this Tuesday, June 16th, which is tomorrow, 4 to 7. And then it's at the Sweeney Brothers on 1 Independence. Funeral Mass is celebrated on Wednesday, June 17th. Please keep the Russo family in your thoughts and prayers. With that, is there anybody else that's gonna entertain anything else?

I'd also like to just add that this past Saturday was a nice Flag Day parade here in Quincy. I just want to thank everybody involved with the Flag Day Committee. It was a beautiful weather night. We had no rain, which we've had in the past, and the fireworks were phenomenal. I thank everybody. It's a great day. for families and friends to come out. And we had such a big crowd at the parade this past weekend. So kudos to everyone that was there. I know some other counselors, a lot of different people. a lot of non-profits and sports organizations and bands and just want to say thank you for everything and keeping the tradition going because We might be a city of 103,000 people, but it felt like a really small town feel just being around people. Thank you.

I believe that ends the petitions, memorials, remonstrations, motions for orders and resolutions. Seeing none, moving on to upcoming meetings. We have Wednesday, we're just finishing up Mondays tonight. Wednesday, June 17th, we'll start our meeting with 7.30 and move right into Finance. and that's a special council meeting on Wednesday night. And moving on to June 22nd will be a special council meeting as well. We're gonna start at six o'clock that night with oversight. Right, that's Mr. Jacobs.

Oversight, yep. And we're going to hear 202656. Sorry. We're going to hear 202656, Resolve Council on Aging Department Head Theft and Federal Charges. and we're gonna hear the ones we just, we're gonna hear 2026-100, we'll talk about that, 2026-101.

OK, thank you very much. And then we're going to also have an ordinance committee meeting. Councilor McKee, do you have the number?

Yes, so an Ordinance Committee meeting, I guess we'll do at 6.30.

These probably could be closer to 7.30, but that's okay.

Oh, 7?

7.30. We're going to start the special. We'll figure out the times afterwards, but we're going to start at 6, go into oversight. He's got three things for oversight. and our special city council meeting will start at 7.30. We'll move right back into oversight ordinance at 7.35.

Okay.

All right. And then... Can we do rules before, since it's not a full committee meeting, can we do that at like, 645 or something like that. We just, Councilor Yuan has been waiting very patiently to do the transparency order about posting information ahead of time.

Why don't we do that after your... We'll see how it goes. We'll do it after your ordinance meeting. It can be a little bit later because we have to get time to get through the oversight or the ordinance piece. We'll put the time together. So we have a special meeting on June 22nd. We have three oversight issues, one ordinance, and one rules. We'll work with Jen to get those all taken care of.

Okay.

Anything else? How about a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn by Councilor Riley. All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you for watching!

Thank you.

75 off the shore.

Chilagas has the tow. I'm going to give these two properties a courtesy ride to 14 Safford Street. Side mileage 50043.9. One male, one female. 2251.

Yeah, he won. Good. You can close that call at City Hall. We'll be clear. I'm reaching.

8-1 on Pluto Station. 780.

With Brewster 605 C Street for the outlet with high blood pressure.

Thank you, Clerk, for both.

X-Ray 5 is on C Street.

Received. 7777.

Go ahead. Clear the transport into mileage 50046.4. 2259.

Portugal

Attention, everyone.

Attention. Representative. please enter our nominees for Heritage Day of Portugal. Let's welcome them all.

Thank you.

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Good morning, everyone. I'm State Senator Michael Rodrigues. It's a pleasure to welcome you here to the 42nd Annual Heritage Day of Portugal. Yeah, let's hear it. We take this opportunity to recognize and honor those Portuguese Americans within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that make so many contributions every single day. here to make Massachusetts the best place to live and to work and to raise a family. So we thank all of you for being here. We congratulate all of our honorees. We are going to ask Representative Alan Sylvia to please come to do the invocation.

In the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, we ask you to bless all of the honorees and all those present as we honor the Ambassador and all of you of Portuguese heritage. Ave Maria, please join me. Santa Maria, Maindez, Wipe, Nose, Caduce, Inor, Rosamoth, Amen.

Thank you, Representative Sylvia. Now to sing our United States National Anthem, we have the Mullen Hall School from Falmouth, Massachusetts. Please rise if you can.

O'Shea, can you see by the dawn's early light? Thank you for watching. Gladys Stein, for the grand first we must, whence the valance we seek.

Thank you. Thank you.

and the rest.

Fantastic. Fantastic. Now if we could welcome to sing the Portuguese National Anthem, Sofia Almeida.

It was my O Padre, send us your voice

and others.

and others.

Thank you very much. You may be seated. Once again, I'm State Senator Michael Rodericks, and it's a pleasure and an honor for me to co-chair the Massachusetts Legislative Portuguese American Caucus, along with my good friend and colleague, State Representative Tony Cabral. and for 42 years, we have been hosting Heritage Day of Portugal here at the State House, as I said, to honor and recognize all the great contributions made by Portuguese Americans throughout the Commonwealth. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce members of the Portuguese American Legislative Caucus. We have Senator Joan Lovely, We have Senator Liz Miranda. Senator Jacob Oliveira.

Senator Dylan Fernandes, Representative David Vieira, Representative Alan Sylvia, Representative Chris Hendricks. Representative Tommy Vitolo. Representative Danilo Sena. Representative Erika Udehoven. Representative Kip Diggs. Representative Priscilla Souza.

Representative Rita Mendez, Representative Mark Sylvia, and Representative Steven Ouellette. We also have some very honored, distinguished guests with us today. Of course, we have our guest of honor, the ambassador, the Portuguese ambassador to the United States, who will will be saying a few words there. Thank you. You honor us, Mr. Ambassador. We have Council General of Portugal, Tiago do Rujo. of Portugal in New Bedford, Tiago Souza, Councilor General of Cape Verde in Boston, Octavio Gomes,

General of Brazil in Boston, Santiago Morao. We have other guests also in the audience that we'll be introducing in a little while. But once again, it's just wonderful to see such a great group of fellow Portuguese Americans here gathering in this historic and Chamber. You know, it was a little over 80 years ago that my grandparents immigrated from Portugal, never dreaming that their grandson would have the opportunity to serve in this legislature. and that story is echoed throughout the Commonwealth. The achievements made not only by our immigrant Community, but by the second, third and fourth generation, the contributions are just amazing. And today we're here to recognize that.

I now would like to take this opportunity to turn the microphone over to my very good friend, co-chair of the Portuguese American Legislative Caucus, Representative Tony Cabral.

Good morning. Good morning. Bon dia. I think I'm going to say very few words in English and then I'm going to transfer to Portuguese. I'm the only one up here who really can do this in Portuguese. But first and foremost, welcome to all of you. and especially to the nominees today. It's a great honor for us, as well as the Portuguese American Legislative Caucus, to welcome all of you to celebrate Heritage Day of Portugal, but to highlight on those nominees that were picked this year by the members of the caucus because that's one of the main reasons why we are here today. Not only to celebrate Heritage Day of Portugal, but we will celebrate the nominees that have given back to their communities, given back to this state, and given back to this country.

without your efforts of our communities and the nominees, the places that we live in, they would not be what they are today. So again, congratulations on your nomination. Welcome. It is always a pleasure to welcome the Portuguese language community here in this plenary room of the Chamber of Representatives in Massachusetts. It is an honour for all of us to have the pleasure of seeing you all here to celebrate the day of Portugal, the day of Camões, but above all the day of the Portuguese communities.

Our celebration is, above all, about the Portuguese communities, the Portuguese language communities and represented here by our guests who will be will receive the Heritage Award today. Therefore, it is always good for us to see so many people From all parts of the state of Massachusetts to be here to celebrate with us. We are one of the largest ethnic groups here in the state and we also know how to give We know how to give to our communities and represent our communities in all aspects, in all professions, including the US Armed Forces.

From the Revolutionary War in the United States to the last wars in the United States. In New Bedford, for example, We have several monuments to American soldiers of Portuguese descent, and not only, but in other communities, in Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence, Ludlow, Bracton, Taunton, and so on. I'm going to talk about New Bedford because I represent New Bedford and I'm more familiar with New Bedford. I just want to give an example of two American Lusitans. I'm going to start with the first one. This is important to say. The first American soldier of the city of New Bedford, who died in Vietnam, was a young man of 20 years old.

I had emigrated to the United States with my parents when I was 10 years old. Ten years later, he died in Vietnam, defending our values, our principles, our dreams to a certain extent. His name was Thiago Reis. Immigrant, and when he served in Vietnam, he was an immigrant with only a green card. But he was called, he responded, he defended the rights we have today and therefore it is important to highlight the sacrifices made for the community as well. We have another individual in New Bedford. who was the first American soldier to die in the First World War.

His name is quite a Portuguese name, right? At least the last name, right? The first name was Arthur, so Arthur Gollart. There is a square in the south of New Bedford called Gullard Square, in honor of this American illusion. The first American soldier of the city of New Bedford died in the First World War. Demonstra que nós, como comunidade, estamos envolvidos em todos os sectores da nossa comunidade, não só agora, mas de longa data. Portanto, devíamos ter orgulho nisso. We are the second most spoken language in the state of Massachusetts, including English.

It's Portuguese. Well, I'm going to stop here. For those who didn't understand what I said, we're going to start some Portuguese classes, you know. and being a former teacher, I will leave those classes. No, I'm only kidding. But as I said very briefly, I think all of us should be very proud as a community in this state we've given back So many ways to make our communities and our state a better place for all of us to live, right? I use two examples of two veterans who died in two separate wars from the city of New Bedford. And I know there are others throughout the state. Maybe one of these days we've got to have a research that we collect all that information. actually throughout the state.

So we also can highlight in other future celebrations, we can highlight Portuguese Americans that have passed away fighting for the Armed Forces of the United States to be recognized as well. But I mentioned two from New Bedford. One was the first American soldier from the city of New Bedford to die in Vietnam. And his name was Thiago Reyes, or Thiago Rees, if you want to get an American pronunciation. He was a young man of 20 years old who immigrated with his parents. They lived on Rivet Street on the heart of my district. He was 10 years old when he came with his parents, and I'm sure he had lots of dreams, and his parents had many, many dreams for him and the entire family. But at 20 years old, he dies in Vietnam defending our values. of the United States, defending our freedoms.

And he was only a green card holder when he died in Vietnam. Chara that goes on throughout our communities, I think we should use these examples of why the immigrant or already someone who was born here from the Portuguese American community, we give and we pay the ultimate sacrifice to make this country the country that it is today. After Congress, actually, Congress passed an act to give Tiago Ruiz his citizenship. And that's wonderful. The other soldier that I highlighted was the first American soldier from the city of New Bedford to die in World War I. was also a Luso-American. His name was Arthur Goulart.

There is a statue, actually, not a statue, there's a square in New Bedford named after him, and so if you go to New Bedford in the south end, River Street, Famous Street, maybe one of these days we'll name after a Portuguese American, River Street. There is a place called Gulach Square at the top, sort of in the middle of River Street. A very, very Portuguese American neighborhood actually there. So, having said all that, Thank you, welcome, and I'm going to hand it over to the senator as well. We're going to do the governor's proclamation, which we'll normally give to our honored guest, in this case the ambassador of Portugal to the United States.

Thank you very much, Representatives. It's an honor for me to read this proclamation. Whereas, Massachusetts history has been shaped by many Portuguese immigrants who established residence in our state and have helped develop the commercial fishing and whaling industries. and whereas the Portuguese community has contributed significantly to our economy with their work in such vital areas as fishing, agriculture and textiles. and whereas Portuguese is the second most spoken foreign language in Massachusetts, and whereas people of Portuguese heritage continue to be a vital part of our rich diversity by contributing significantly to all aspects of daily life, including education, medicine, commerce, agriculture, communications, public service, and high technology.

and whereas generations of Portuguese Americans have lived the American dream and continue as exemplars of hope and inspiration, not only to their fellow Americans, but also to the new groups of Portuguese people who are joining the American family. Now, therefore, I, Maura T. Healey, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim June 2026 to be Portuguese American Heritage Month. and urge all of the residents of the Commonwealth to take cognizance of this event and participate fittingly in its observance. given at the Executive Chamber in Boston the first day of June in the year 2026 and of the independence of the United States, 249th. signed by Her Excellency Maura T. Healey, Governor of the Commonwealth,

Kimberly Driscoll, Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth, and William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth. It's an honor that I get to present this to our honored guest, Ambassador Lopes. I'm going to introduce the rest of them.

Well, I have always the honor every year of reading a Portuguese poem. It's usually, for those who've come, it's the same poem that we read every year. It's an awesome poem. It's the poem of a famous, I would say the most famous poet, Portuguese poet of the 20th century, who was also an immigrant. Spent some time of his life in South Africa. But he's better known for his writings in Portuguese than actually in English. But he has writings in English as well. And that's Fernando Pessoa. for those of you who might know a little bit about Fernando Pessoa. If you don't, it's a great research project for you. He's an awesome, awesome poet.

I'm going to read it and then I'm going to introduce the ambassador. And believe it or not, some of the poem also touches a little bit all of us because Part of the message is a little bit about people who have left their country to other places. And the name of the poem is Mar Português, Portuguese Sea. Oh mar salgado, quanto do teu sal são lágrimas de Portugal. For you we crossed, how many mothers cried, how many children prayed in vain, how many brides got married, For you to be ours, Omar.

It was worth it. This happens a lot of times. It was worth it if we came and our parents came, our grandfathers came to the United States. I have here a little bit of that sound. Valeu a pena. Tudo vale a pena se a alma não é pequena. Quem quer passar além do bujador tem que passar além da dor. That's the poem. I know that if you take Western civilization in college or even Western literature, usually Portuguese writers are not included. That's something for us to do, right?

as a community that we not only want to, we expect that that Western's literature course especially if it's given in a public university in Massachusetts, should include Portuguese writers or Portuguese poets. I'm sure you remember if you went to college, there's none on that list. That's something we need to change. All right? Well, today we have the honor of having with us, and it is an honor for all of us, to have with us the Ambassador of Portugal in Washington, D.C. Ambassador Francisco Antonio Duarte Lopes has quite a resume. I'm going to read just a few of the points of his

with his biography and resume, if I may use. He's ambassador, of course, of Portugal to the United States since June 7th, 2022. He was a permanent representative of Portugal in the United Nations in New York. from 2017 to 2022, Director General for Foreign Policy, Political Director 2014 to 2017, Director General for European Affairs 2012-2014, Chief of Staff of the Secretary of State for the European Affairs 2011-2012, diplomatic advisor to the prime minister between 2009 and 2011. And if you have your book, You can continue reading. I just gave you a little sample of someone who represents Portugal in DC.

someone that has the utmost qualifications, someone who cares deeply also, not only of course from Portugal and the affairs of Portugal, but also cares deeply about all of us. about the Portuguese American community in the United States. He has traveled this country from one end to the other. He has made sure that he has stopped in as many communities as he could. He has a few more to go, I think, but I'm sure it's on his agenda. Someone who is, if we need to talk to him about any issue, He's at the end of that line. You don't have to go through the switchboard. You can call him directly on his cell. So that's refreshing, right? And that's important that we have the highest representation of Portugal in the United States. Is that accessible?

He cares, as I said, to the things that might impact the Portuguese American communities, not just what impacts, might impact Portugal. So to you, our honored guest, Ambassador Francisco Duarte-Lopez.

Well, good morning, everybody. Senator Rodrigues, Representative Cabral, Senators and Representatives, Consuls, and all protocols observed. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends. Well, it's a pleasure to be here in this State House of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It's always a pleasure, by the way, to come to Massachusetts. and I want to thank you, especially to Senator Rodrigues and to Representative Cabral, but all the Senators and Representatives of the Commonwealth for this invitation. I want to start with a good memory from 40 years ago, four decades ago. Around 40 years ago, I came to this State House for the first time.

I was a university student and I was included in a group of European students visiting the United States. When we visited this State House, The then governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, was kind enough to receive this group of young students from Europe. So we met with him. We actually have a photo in the stairs at the entrance of the State House with Governor Dukakis. And this was all possible because of the work of a lady that some of you will remember called Mary Vermette. I see some of you remember her. Good to know that there are other adults in the room. It's not only myself.

By the way, I noticed that when I looked at my CV here, that you didn't note, you didn't indicate my date of birth. That's very, very kind of you. Thank you very much. But coming back to 40 years ago, Not only we visited the State House, but we spent one week working and studying and presenting works at the Southeastern Massachusetts University that I visited. and some other times as Ambassador of Portugal. But it was, if I can say so in an American way, my My first university in the U.S.

So in an American way, my alma mater in the U.S. Now the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. But by then, in this visit 40 years ago, we also visited the Embassy of Portugal in Washington. It was the first time I entered an embassy. Of course, I could not imagine that after four decades, I would not only living and working in Washington, D.C., precisely at the embassy that I visited when I was in my early 20s, but that I would also be here to commemorate the day of Portugal in the State House of Massachusetts that I also visited 40 years ago. So, fast forward.

to today, 40 years later, I'm here to speak to you about the relationship between Portugal and the US. To commemorate Portugal's day, to congratulate the US for its 250th anniversary and to praise, to rightly praise our Our bilateral and our transatlantic relationship between Portugal and the US. And our relationship is a perennial alliance. It's a successful partnership, but it's also a relationship with the future. It's a perennial alliance because, as the Senator and the Representative already mentioned, it all started many years ago. since the founding of the US.

250 years ago, when the founding fathers toasted to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as as you all know, they toasted with Madeira wine. Be sure that they didn't toast with Madeira wine because this was the only wine available. Please be sure and spread the word. It was because Madeira wine was the best wine available. Please don't forget that. But by then, There were some Portuguese already in the Sartin colonies, including here in Massachusetts. And what were they doing? They were basically wine traders. That's why the Madeira wine was available for the founding fathers. But they were also whalers. And again,

Like in what has to do with the wine, the Portuguese whalers were here because they were among the best whalers. And, of course, since 250 years ago, this alliance between two maritime powers only developed with the several waves of migration from Portugal to the US. And I've been visiting many states in the US Such a wonderful and diverse country, as you all know much better than me. And of course, I visit mostly the states where the Portuguese presence is more common. where we can find more Portuguese Americans.

And as you know, this is basically in the two coasts and in Hawaii. But I have been finding also Portuguese and memories of the Portuguese presence all over the country, including in Alaska, again the whalers. including in New Orleans, thank you very much Professor Paula Nuversa for the hint, including in The Interior and in different coastal cities of California where the Portuguese presence is more than a centennial. The Portuguese have been there for several centuries. Thank you, Professor Frank Souza, also for some hints.

And I mentioned already Hawaii and the presence in Hawaii is very, very special. We are, by the way, going to commemorate in 2028 the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first boats with Portuguese in a wave of managed migration that started in 1878 and went until 1913. As we know, as you know, Portuguese and American military fought together in the First World War. We were together and are still together in the largest airbase in the Azores, and we have been together for 80 years. But we have been fighting together in several peacekeeping missions of the UN, in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and so on and so forth. And as you know, Portugal and the US are founding members of NATO.

So this is a perennial alliance. It's a very, very strong bond. But it's also a successful partnership that started precisely with the Portuguese that came to the US. and with the common interests of both countries of the US and Portugal precisely right at the beginning of the US independence with the common interests in maritime trade. And today, if you look at the last decades, you see that the figures in trade, in investment, in learning of the Portuguese language in the US Thank you very much, João Caixinha and his team. The numbers keep on increasing, but also in tourism, of course. In the American community living in Portugal, that it's bigger and bigger.

But this is also a relationship with the future, as I said. Why? Because we see not only the interests of young Portuguese in the US. Portuguese that come out of our universities and come to the US or seek in the US Innovation, financing, markets for their companies, but also American companies and American young professionals that seek in Portugal opportunities for their companies and for their universities. and this has been developed again and again. And Boston, by the way, is a very good example of this trend. We see more and more

people coming out of universities in Portugal that find their opportunities here in this area in sectors that are very promising and very innovative. So, as I said, our own Portuguese commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the U.S. started some months ago in Newark, and rightly so, at Peter Francisco Park, because we wanted to start by recognizing the veterans of both armed forces

and especially the Portuguese Americans that fought and some of them gave their life in the service of their new country. But then We will continue to organize several events and we'll call them Toast to America, precisely to recognize the toast by the founding fathers with Madeira wine. and as some of you already know, we will have the training ship of our Navy coming to the U.S. among other ports, Sagres, it's the name of the ship, will be in Boston and in New Bedford and you can all visit the ship and hopefully sip a little bit of Madeira wine with a little bit of cheese from the Azores.

And the cheese, allow me to tell you also, and please spread the word, The cheeses from the Azores are the best in the world. I would just like to conclude in Portuguese, if you allow me. So, two notes in Portuguese to conclude, and once again thanking Senator Rodrigues. Representative Cabral and all Senators and Representatives for the invitation and all of you for being here today. I would just like to conclude with two notes. The importance of having here with us today

joining the celebrations of the day of Portugal the consular representatives of Cabo Verde and Brazil, to whom I especially thank, and, last word, to all of you, because as you know, Portugal is such an ancient country, that we don't know when it started. The historians haven't set a date yet to define concretely when Portugal started. And that's why we dedicate Portugal Day to a poet and the Portuguese communities abroad. And that says a lot, I think, about the country we are. And so I would like to conclude my speech

Thank you all, and in Portuguese, to all of you, to your parents, to your grandparents, to your great-grandparents, Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you all and congratulations to the United States in its 250 years and long live the friendship between Portugal and the United States. Thank you very much.

We're now going to present the award to His Excellency, Ambassador Lopes.

Let's try to take a picture.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. And while we are getting ready to be entertained once again by Ms. Sophia, Let me introduce some folks that are in the audience today who we're honored to have. We have the former Mayor of Totten, Bob Nunes. former Mayor of Taunton and present Registrar of Probate and spouse to one of our honorees, Tom Hoy. Superintendent of Schools for the City of Taunton, John Cabral. our very good friend and longtime Senate Chair of the Portuguese American Legislative Caucus, Senator Mark Pacheco.

our best friends from Lisbon, Miguel Vaz and Leonor Barroso from the Luso-American Development Foundation. someone who used to be somebody, former Senator Vinnie DeMacedo, brother of one of our honorees today. We have our Chancellor from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Mark Fuller. Another good friend in Frommer State, Representative John Quinn. We have from the Center of Portuguese Studies at University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Antonio Ladera. from the Saab Portuguese Center of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Dr. Frank Souza.

from the Luzo Center at Bristol Community College, Carlos Andrade. Almeida, Almeida. Sorry, I know that. from the Pedro Piedras Institute at Bridgewater State University, Angelo Barbosa. We have Dave Rocha, President of Prince Henry Society of Fall River. Maria Ferreira-Bredard from Surge Arms in Fall River. Helene Hughes from Immigrant Assistance Center. thank you all for being here. I'm sure there'll be others that we recognize and that we'll make note of, but now without further ado, we're gonna hear a little Fado. Sophia.

Thank you.

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Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! of the House.

Thank you for watching!

and others.

Thank you for watching! Thank you for watching! Thank you.

and others.

and others.

Thank you.

Well, Sophia, thank you very much for that. That was great. It's a very, very difficult father to sing. It's a famous father from Amalia. Barco Negro. That's the name of the father. So thank you. Fantastic. and she will be performing downstairs on the great halls when we have the reception. So we'll give you more information on that as we go along. We're gonna start what we're here for. which is to award every one of you with a medal. So I think the first one on the list is yours, right? Where is it?

Okay, we're going to start with Senator Rodericks and his two nominees. We're going to begin first with Bernadette Simoes. And you can read on the book, on the program book, a little bit about each one of the nominees, so please take the time after. If we were to do that here, will be here the rest of the day. Next, Tony Abreu.

Representative Tony Cabral's nominee first, Tara George.

Another nominee, Representative Tony Cabral, is Louis Chaves-Laura. Mr. Louis.

We have the nominee of Senator Joan Loveling. Could you come forward? The nominee is Alexander Alexandre Martins.

The nominee of Senator Liz Miranda, Senator. Raquel Semedo.

You've got time.

Congratulations again. Next, Senator Oliveira, and his nominee is Carmina Fernandez.

Holly, MSU, Vince Bradley, yeah.

Viva!

Next, Senator Dylan Fernandes and his nominee, Olavo Ali B. DeMacedo.

To the nominees, when you come up to receive your medal, take off your name tag. It makes for a better photograph. That's your job. You're having a good time, I know. Save you a step, Representative.

Okay, from Representative Vieira, Nancy Silvera.

Next we have Representative Alan Sylvia. Representative Sylvia's nominee is David Mello. Thank you.

It's really sad to see you here.

The next nominee is from Representative Sena, and it's Beatrice Maimon.

Representative Sena here.

I think he's running late. Rodericks will step in and.

Next, Representative Erika Ulohoven. And her nominee is Maria Matos.

Yeah.

Yep.

The next nominee is from Representative Priscilla Souza. Representative, and the nominee is Jacqueline Goncalves.

She's here. She's here, man. She's here.

Next is State Representative Rita Mendez. Representative Mendez nominee is Ceda Arruda.

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The next nominee is from Representative Mark Silvio. And the nominee is Michael Cambra.

Next is State Representative Stephen Ouellette. His nominee is Arthur Paiva. How about Brady? Is Brady here?

Next, we have Senator Michael Brady. I don't think Senator Brady is here, but we have Senator Brady's nominee, Domingos Vega. Well, maybe we don't. Okay, the next nominee is from Senator Rebecca Rausch.

I believe the Senator is not here right now, at the moment. The nominee is Hilda Demara Dillon-Viter.

Senator Ivana Howard. I have not seen Senator Howard. Senator Howard's nominee, Christina and Debbie Freitas.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next nominee is from Representative Kate Hogan, but due to her nominee not being able to be here, Her nominee, the award will be given to the nominee at a different occasion when he's back in the country. The nominee is, and I'm sure all of you know him, I'm going to give him his full name, but you probably just know by the first and last name, is Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bentancourt. Nuno Bentancourt. Nuno is the famous, famous guitar player from the band Xtreme. He was nominated by Representative Hogan, Speaker Pro Temp, for his contributions in support of the Portuguese community and the Hassan Portuguese Club

and for his artistic abilities as well. Nuno is a Grammy Award winning performer and guitarist and could not join us today as he is in Germany beginning his European tour. This award will be presented to him at the Hudson Portuguese Club on a future date.

Next, Representative Thomas Walsh. Representative Walsh's nominee is Manuel Zaviera.

Thank you very much.

The next nominee is from Representative Murray. It's Melissa Thomas, or Tomash.

Next, Representative Mary Keith. Representative Keith's nominee is João Victor de Carvalho.

The next nominee is from Representative Worrell. And the nominee is Sydney Baptista.

Next is Representative Dennis Gallagher. Representative Gallagher's nominee is Christopher Chaves.

The next nominee is from Representative Field. and this, Stephanie Hoyt.

Thank you.

Haynes,

That concludes the nominees. Can we have one big round of applause for all of our nominees? I'd also like to recognize some other individuals who can have a seat, that are seated in the audience. We have our Portuguese American War Veterans of Taunton,

Taunton City Councilor David Shaves, Taunton School Committee Donna Shaves, Taunton School Committee Gregory DeMello, We have Greater Tyne Area Day of Portugal Committee, Paul Ferreira. We have Tim Rodericks, President of the S.S. Sacramento, the President of the Face. We have Mr. Paulo Pinto, from the Master's Association of Portuguese Speakers. I'm now going to turn it over to Representative Cabral and Representative Vieira for the reading of Old Lucidates.

As I said at the beginning, today is also the day of Camões, right? We're going to do a reading and I'll let first Representative Vieira go in English and then we'll go in Portuguese.

We started this a few years ago because we were talking about that academic setting, and I know we have some of the academics here. We teach about the Iliad and the Odyssey. But what we don't teach about is the Lucians. And so we wanted to bring just one verse of Canto I to our day of Portugal. They were promised by eternal fate whose high laws cannot be broken. They should long hold sway in the seas where the sun makes his purple entrance. They have endured a winter's voyage. Their people are driven and exhausted. It seems no more than justice would require. Soon they should gain the new world they desire.

Psalm 1, verse 28. have long been the government of the sea, Thank you very much. Well as you all know, this is a very special year. for all of us. One is the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America.

And as I said, we all need to celebrate that. And for that celebration, also Portugal is participating, as the Ambassador mentioned. So Sagres, the tall ship, the Portuguese tall ship right now, is in New York to participate on the Fourth of July parade of sail vessels, or tall ships, I should say. And then Sachs is coming to Boston to do the same in Boston. And then it will go to New Bedford. It arrives in New Bedford on Sunday morning, July 19. and they will be escorted into the New Bedford Harbor by the Azorean whale boats and by the Ernestina.

Also on that same day, it's the final game of what? The World Cup, right? And we have an event in New Bedford. that starts at New Bedford High School Auditorium. Live, the game will be broadcast live. Compliments or sponsorship of the Lutheran American Foundation. Vlad. Following by a concert. I have famous performers coming from Portugal. Again, compliments of FLAD, Fundação Luso-Americana. So we want all of you there. I want all of you there, all right?

And also there's another important that we should also remember. For the first time, for the first time in the World Cup will be three countries of Portuguese speaking background. It's amazing, right? It's amazing. Two are small countries, one is very big, right? But it is Portugal, Brazil, and Cabo Verde. And for the first time, Cabo Verde qualified to be in the World Cup.

They are in a tough group, let me tell you. Their first game was against Spain. But we have faith. and that's why we're gonna support them and to highlight their accomplishment, we're gonna have a little group come through that represents Cape Verdean culture. Come on in.

The name of the team is Tubarões Azuis. Huh? They're gonna be facing other Tubarões, you know? But we wish them well. It's the first time they're on the World Cup. We thought... and we ought to recognize that fact, very important. Three Portuguese-speaking countries at FIFA World Cup, right? That's fantastic. We thought it was important to do this because this is about us coming together as communities, all right? Together builds strength, right? and the communities from Brazil, from Portugal, from, I must say, when I say Portugal, Azores, Cabo Verde,

Timur Lasht, by the way, Timur Lasht just last month celebrated 24 years of independence. Many of you had to help that cause because it was the Portuguese-American community and other Portuguese-speaking communities in the United States that built the pressure and put the pressure on the Clinton administration. and for a referendum organized and conducted by the United Nations that Indonesia agreed to because they thought they were going to win the referendum. The people of Timor won that overwhelmingly, 90 some odd percent of the vote for independence, right?