Quincy City Council: May 4, 2026

Thank you for watching!

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the May 4th Oversight Committee to order. I'm David Jacobs. I'm the chair of the Oversight Committee. I'm going to read the open meeting law. Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived or unperceived, by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Mahoney, McKee, Riley, Ryan. present, Councilor Yuan, Chairman Jacobs, present, seven members, all right.

The purpose of tonight's meeting is to review and to better understand the current operations and tenancy and financial performance of the city-owned Monroe Building in response to Council Order 2026-032 and the report submitted by the Department of Public Buildings. The Monroe Building is an important municipal asset and serves a wide range of uses, housing small businesses, nonprofits, and city offices, as well as pop-up shops, while also playing a role in activating the downtown and supporting economic activity along Hancock Street. At the same time, the support raises a number of questions that fall squarely within this committee's responsibility. include the structure of tenant agreements and use of tenant at will arrangements and current vacancy levels in the overall financial framework under which the building is being managed. it's important to note that the building is operationally stable and has over time covered its costs.

However, stability alone is not the only measure of success. As a council, we have an obligation to understand whether this asset is being managed in ways that align with the city's broader goals and whether those goals are economic development, community use, revenue generation, or balanced combination of all three. Tonight's discussion is not about criticism. It is about clarity. We are here to better understand the administration's strategy and reasoning behind the current practices and what the vision is for this property. Tonight we're going to hear from Paul Hines, Public Buildings, and Joe Shea, Jr. Granite Partners, who is the, their company is the one who manages the building for the city. I want to thank you all and I look forward to a productive discussion at this time.

I will call forth Mr. Heinz, the Director of Public Buildings, and Mr. Shea of Granite City Partners to entertain questions from my colleagues, Mr. Heinz and Mr. Shea. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Pleasure to be before you. As was announced, I'm Paul Hines, Commissioner of the Department of Public Buildings. I believe you do have before you, or have received previously through Jen Manning in the Council Office, my report. of the operations of the Monroe Building. Both the narrative and a number of tables detailing financial information and others, and a rather voluminous attachment, a OneDrive link, to about 200 pages of current leases, agreements, licenses, and operating memoranda. So if you want me to read through the report again, my narrative. The Monroe Building in downtown Quincy is a two-story, 65,000 square foot gross, 43,500 square foot net commercial building on parcel ID 1151-16-2.

It houses businesses addresses ranging from 1229A to 1259B Hancock Street. The building was acquired by the city of Quincy in July of 2021 via the use of ARPA funds and through financial support of the office of Congressman Stephen Lynch. that building has been operated by the city as a mix of commercial and governmental uses, supporting the commercial tenants who are present at the time of acquisition and supporting new governmental, non-profit and temporary pop-up uses. These governmental, nonprofit, and temporary pop-up uses are specifically intended to enliven the street front along Hancock Street in accordance with the city's urban renewal goals. The Monroe Building is one of nearly 100 public buildings and structures under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Buildings.

that has been managed by Green and City Partners LLC on behalf of my department, providing the needed 24-7 property management services to its occupants. The current status of the building is the current occupancies and uses of the Monroe Building are detailed within the report. The uses are listed below in the report and each use is further detailed on the accompanying tables A and B. In sum, 12 occupants paying use and occupancy charges under tenant at sufferance status. And on the legal side, that means a lease that expired by its terms and still holding over. two non-Quincy governmental occupants paying government leases, 19 City of Quincy government occupants, divisions, groups, and uses, three occupants with annual licenses or temporary use licenses, and eight vacant spaces. The current spatial areas for these 44 occupants and uses are summarized.

18,860 square feet are occupied by commercial non-Quincy government non-profit and pop-ups. 15,160 square feet are occupied by the City of Quincy governmental uses, not including the basement. and 8,410 square feet are vacant. It's comprised of two street level storefronts and six second floor office spaces. The unfinished basement provides 22,000 gross square feet of space, which is partially included in a portion of the commercial occupancies from above and the aerial calculations for those occupants who previously had basement spaces in their original lease. Quincy's governmental storage space in the unfinished basement is not in the calculation of the above table B. The Monroe Building has collected use and occupancy charges on a monthly basis since its acquisition. These charges are recorded as revenues collected in munis and used to fund the operation and maintenance of the building.

the annual financials have been, for FY22, the first year, revenues collected, $495,000, operating and maintenance expenses of $225,910, and the end of the year account balance of $269,090. for fiscal year 23, $477,590 in use and occupancy revenues, $560,812 in expenses paid, with a net account balance of $185,868. For fiscal 2024, the use and occupancy revenues collected totaled $525,101, the operation and maintenance expenses totaled $339,545.

For the net difference at the end of the year balance actually is $371,423. for fiscal 25, the most recent completed fiscal year. The use and occupancy revenues collected totaled $388,772. The operation and maintenance expenses paid out for $574,175. The end of the year balance of the account is $186,019. and for the current fiscal year of 2026, the year to date operation, the revenues collected is $245,555 the operation and maintenance and management expenses paid out is $224,243. So the balance to date in that account is $207,340.

Currently, the Monroe Building operations collects $225, $306 per month in use and occupancy charges. The Monroe Building account balance at the end of February, 2026 was just over $200,000. the use and occupancy charge for each individually paying occupant is detailed in Table A as was requested. As detailed above in the accompanying tables, the annual fiscal performance of the Monroe Building overall has been net positive, meaning that the building has paid for its routine annual operating costs. the current expense breakdown for fiscal year 2026 year to date plus a full set of data for fiscal year 2025 are detailed in table C as requested. the sole capital expense incurred by the Department of Public Buildings to date was the installation of a new boiler at a cost of $199,000, $260.

and that was funded in 2024 by a specific vote from the City Council for CIP funding plus an expenditure of $900 in air monitoring for the asbestos removal portion of the project. The boiler replacement work was awarded to Enterprise Equipment Corporation after public bid. Some of the specifically requested information in addition to the tables and stuff attached are summed up. The name of tenant or occupant is in all of the tables. The suite or unit identification number is in all of the tables. The use of the space, meaning the nature, be it municipal, educational, office, commercial, storage, or other, are detailed in tables A and B. The approximate square footage for each usage if occupied is in, again, tables A and B. The lease and occupancy start and end dates, including renewal options.

There are no renewal options in expired leases or current licenses, so they're not listed. Current basis of rent, rent escalation schedule, and any additional recurring charges. for the record, there are no escalation schedules or recurring charges currently. Concessions, abatements, or rent forgivenesses are detailed in Table D. security deposit or guarantee terms held. They're detailed in the individual formal leases and licenses and are summarized in Table D. Any arrears or outstanding balances owed to the City are not detailed because there are none. All occupants are current to date. Copies of all formal leases, executed leases, amendments, licenses, and or occupancy agreements governing the use of the remote building provided with the report. I trust that the information was comprehensive and complete and in full conformance with the request. It was certainly intended to be so. So that is the summation of the report as submitted.

Very good, thank you, Mr. Hines. At this time, I'd like to open it up for questions from the Councilors. I just also wanna say that myself, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Riley, and Councilor Hubley just went on a tour of the Monroe Building with Mr. Shea and Mr. Hines. And it was interesting. I've never really been in the building. It was interesting to see the building. McHee.

Thank you so much. I have a long list of questions, so if you could keep your answers relatively short, that would be helpful. So you mentioned Granite City Partners is the administrator

Managing for it, yes. It's under the jurisdiction of my department, but on a day-to-day basis, they've been engaged to manage it.

So the cost, the $60,000 cost in 2025 that was for managing the property was for Granite City Partners? Yes. Okay. and they would be responsible for advertising vacancies in the building.

If we were to do so, yes.

So you haven't done that?

We have not.

Okay. I'm wondering about how the rents are calculated because I went to the website showcase.com which lists kind of nearby properties, commercial properties for rent, including one next door at Monroe Place and then four across the street at 1212 Hancock Street. Those are showing $3 per square foot per month, but only one of the tenants in this list is paying at least that much, which is Congressman Lynch, who's actually paying $5.33 per square foot per month. while the lowest commercial rent is being paid by Two Trunks and Compass Beauty for 83 cents per square foot per month.

So I'm just wondering if someone can help clarify how that is calculated.

I would. First, I'd like to say I have not been in some of the buildings you referenced. My doctor is in 1212, my dentist I see that it's a well kept building. So the class of the office space plays into the rent demanded, the amenities provided and such whether the It's the triple net where the rent covers the heat and electricity and all of that. At the Monroe Building, electricity is not covered by the use and occupancy fee. the heat is. There's one common boiler that heats the entire building regardless of who's in it. A number of the occupants have held over from when we acquired the property and when they had leases that were negotiated by the former owners. We as the city elected not to have leases with the individual occupants, the commercial occupants, for a couple of reasons. And one of the consequences of that is that

and the individual commercial occupants are at a disadvantage. Without a lease, they can't get financing. They can't go to the bank and get a loan and have their leasehold interest held as collateral. They're nonexistent. and there is a variety of uses. Thankfully, Congressman Lynch's office was done through the general services and the federal government and they were willing to pay that amount of money. They have a very nice office. the Norfolk County Sheriff's Office went through DCAM, their negotiations, their procurement process, disposition process, and we came to the dollar value with that. across the table of real conversation more than negotiation. The use and occupancies of the commercial tenants are, as I described, there are adjustment downwards actually of the former rents and for the licensed places, the nonprofits, the Quincy Auto Association doesn't pay anything.

It's a civic space that we and the mayor elected to give. The Dragon Boat Museum pays a small amount. Same thing, it's a nonprofit civic. It's used in occupancy through a license agreement. which isn't a formal disposition of real estate. Similarly, the pop-up shops, Two Trunk and I believe it's Compass Beauty, they are licenses, 90-day licenses, renewable at the will of the city, terminable by the will of the city. So they're not actually formal leases. And so they don't demand the rent that somebody with a more concrete and substantial interest would pay.

but there are some leases going into next year, right? So there could be, I'm just thinking that since, I mean, nothing's gonna be done with the building for, anyway, some months, it seems like there could be more income coming in for the city and for taxpayers. That's what I guess my...

Some of the units that are listed as unoccupied are actually on the second floor, which face the Monroe Tower, the residences, and it built up against it, so they no longer have outside windows, so they don't have proper ventilation. So although they're vacant, they're really not habitable. So we use them for municipal storage. And Quincy uses them for storage of their gear. Some of the other spaces, the one at the dentist's office in the back corner at Monroe just vacated maybe a month ago. We're looking at uses for that. it hasn't been determined what it is. But the decision was made, it's in the best interest of the city and our flexibility moving forward to not have long-term leases. So that's why those that had leases and expired, there are tenants at will. The only two that actually have leased leases, again, are the Congressman Lynch and the Sheriff's Office. Everybody else is a tenant in sufferance, a tenant at will, under the terms of their former leases that have expired.

Right. So I have so many questions. I'm glad to see that the city is bringing in more revenue than its spending on just monthly costs, I guess. But that doesn't take into account the $15 million or so that the building and nearby parking lot cost and so if $200,000 is the return per year, it would take 75 years to pay off $15 million. I know that you know plans there might you know there's discussion of potentially having you know knocking down Monroe building and putting up something else so things are up in up in the air but

I guess it still just feels like we're kind of leaving a lot of money on the table with the vacancies and the rent amounts that we're selling. and I wondered, you know, there used to be a restaurant there. What was the decision to move that restaurant out?

The Cherry Punch restaurant? Yeah. that was a landlord decision, mine. I'll take responsibility for it. They're a very difficult tenant. a number of times were pouring grease down the sanitary sewer system. You may be familiar with the consequences from recent discussions here. We continuously had backups of sewage into the building. Plumbing fixtures were taken off the wall in their spaces to facilitate the dumping of grease. And there was a consequences paid by all tenants of the building. It was a public health crisis. It was a management crisis. It was disgusting. And we worked tirelessly with them to address that, put them on a type of performance improvement plan. We asked for logs from the cleaning of their grease traps. We asked for logs. for the emptying of their fat vats and all those things, which went by the wayside. They went back to dump into the sanitary sewer. The problem started back again.

So we had to close them down. The Board of Health became involved, the building department. We all got together, spoke to them. We closed them down until the immediate needs were met. And that lasted for a very short term. that fell back to previous behaviors. So we had a very frank conversation. We're like, this is it. You're not opening again. So they chose, and thankfully, to our happy result, they chose to move.

Okay, thank you. I don't wanna, I have more questions, but does anyone, should I keep going for now, or?

Does anyone else have any questions they wanna ask? Yeah, well, she's, yeah. So you wanna just keep going?

So I'll keep going. So it looks like FY 2024 was the peak year for revenues collected. bringing in $525,000. Why did the revenue drop so much the following year when the revenues reached only $389,000?

You're saying 2025 was the peak year?

24. So that was 525,000, and then the next year it was 389,000.

I'm sorry, which table are you looking at, please?

I'm looking at the financial summary on the second page.

OK.

So total uses and occupancy revenues collected.

I'm sorry. I jumped ahead to the tables. I apologize. So in fiscal 2024, that Restaurant use was in the building and in operational and paying. And I believe that's prior to when Dr. Ryan moved as well. Yeah, this dentist, Dr. Ryan, who moved across the street to 1212 Hancock to a space that he bought. the two commercial tenants were there that became not there.

Okay, and then one thing that, so when I was looking at the list of commercial property, well the list, table A, of Occupants. One thing that gave me some pause was that some of the tenants paying the lowest rents in the Monroe Building have ties to Mayor Koch. One example is Simorian Office Storage, which pays just $240 per month at a rate of $1 per square foot per month. and its lessee, Greg Samorian, has donated $10,565 to the mayor since 2010, maxing out the legal limit for political contributions in each of the last three years, according to the OCPF.

Councilor, that occupant was a holdover from when we purchased it. They did not come in during the term of it. and beyond that and what that person's interests are, I have no information.

Okay.

All right. Why did the city spend $147,000 for contractor work in 2025, which is 37 times the amount that we've spent so far this year, $4,000?

In that fiscal year, we had the $52,000 and the $21,000. The $21,000 was directly one of the opportunities, for Custodial Service and Cleaning after the sewage backups owing to the restaurant's use of the for the sewer.

What was the amount that you just said?

Well, admittedly, I'm looking at it in a different column, but 21,000 went to one of the occasions that happened to clean up the raw sewage. but in January of that year, the $52,000 unrelated to that restaurant, there is a quasi public bathroom kind of back a house on the first floor that is used by those retail spaces and includes like the customers of Gunther Tootie's and would have at the time included the customers of Sura Punca. and somebody got in there and completely, physically destroyed the bathroom, causing major damage. It had to be shut down and rebuilt. Joe, can I ask you, refresh me, what's the, in October, there's 55,000?

Okay, the $55,000 from October of 2025 fiscal year was my understanding a contribution towards the build out of the city of Quincy's Welcome Center at the corner of Saville and Hancock Street.

Okay, and then why did the city spend $63,000 on legal and insurance fees in fiscal year 25?

the largest of the 59-9 was for commercial insurance policy to insure the building and the residents and such. But with the passage of time and the shift from more commercial to more municipal use, Jim Timmons, the city solicitor, opined that because the pendulum had swung more towards municipal use that we were not obligated to get the commercial insurance policy. so we did not do so in fiscal 2026.

Okay, that's what I was wondering because it's zero right now. Okay. So about 20 city-owned units don't collect any rent. Many but not all of them are city employees. I'm wondering where did these employees work before they got offices here, presumably after the city purchased the property in 2021?

There are some new uses in there that weren't present, one of which is the Citizen Technology Initiative, headed by John Kane. It's got a large portion on the second floor of the building. The more recently established Grants Department under Jim Scribby is up there as well. They've got several of the spaces. Downtown Committee. and I believe the TPAL operation administrative sides were on one of the buildings on Chestnut Street owned by Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Company. that they vacated because they were tearing down. And that site's now being redeveloped. So they were relocated from their privately owned building to the Monroe Building. And that's the ones off the top of my head. Obviously, the visitor center was new. That wasn't housed anywhere before the Quincy 400 space was there.

And then?

The Quincy Police Department, community police in the downtown. They have units. They keep their bicycles and other equipment in. They would have been wherever at the time.

and I wondered about, there's a couple of units devoted to historic and heritage resources.

Yes, so the local community of Native Americans have utilized the space to have some degree of storage and like an office space type thing. that was done through the generosity of the city at the direction of the administration.

I saw a separate one for the Massachusetts tribe, but there's two for historic and heritage resources by Bob Damon.

Bob Damon, yes. So he's a city employee. So that's another city function that's in there.

What are the historic, what are those uses, I guess?

He has a, I don't know his job description, he doesn't work in my department. He has kind of a general oversight of the Hancock Cemetery and other things. some of the things I have, I'm responsible for taking care of and doing. His is like, all right, you gotta do it, but do it to the national standards of historic preservation, things like that. So it's another set of eyes on a lot of those projects and things that we never touch. Turning Mill, or the Granite Rail Incline, things like that.

and then there were three units that John Kane has in this building you were just talking about for community technology integration and support and I guess I'm wondering how often are these spaces used? All of them for the city, but those in particular as well.

The totality of them I really don't know. It's quite likely 195 Monday to Friday. John Cain seems to kind of always be there. He's on Saturdays and Sundays. He has more of a public face than most of the other uses of the building. He's got a large kind of training room set up with computer stations that we just marveled at some of the stuff he had. So he uses that much more frequently.

Okay, and who decides which non-city employees get to be in this list of non-paying tenants?

Non-city employees, you say? that would be the administration.

The administration, okay. And then I noticed there was one company that had its rent reduced for five months because someone was out of the country.

Yes, there was a single proprietor, another local woman business that is housed there. She had a death in the family back in her homeland and went back and helped the family adjust or whatever. kicking around and closing up shop. We gave the concession and she's back at it and operating again. And thankfully she's rebounded and she's operating her business again.

All right, I think that pretty much does it for my questions, but I do see a lot of things where I feel like we could be maximizing revenue coming in in this building that we're not.

Do any of the council members have any questions? President Mahoney?

Thank you. I don't want to repeat the questions, but what's the policy that determines when a tenant is in place for a formal lease versus the licenses versus a tenant at will agreement. And is that decided by you or is that decided by the management of Granite Partners? Just curious.

The management only carries out the city's directives. Okay. So again, the only ones that actually have physical leases, like legally binding leases, are the two governmental uses, the Sheriff's Office, because that was insisted by DCAMP. and Congressman Lynch because that was insisted on by General Services Administration at the federal level. The tenants at will or the tenants in sufferance, those are holdovers that had written lease agreements with the former owner. which by their terms have expired and we have not renewed them. So they hold over, as a matter of property law, under the terms of their former agreements on a monthly basis.

So they're still paying the same amount of rent under their former agreements, okay.

They're prorated, yeah. But again, as I mentioned earlier, some of them have been reduced down from what had been their prorated rent because of the consequence of their business of not giving a lease, not having that security.

Okay. And could you just explain the pop-up piece a little bit more to me?

The pop-up piece was vacant. It's where the restaurant moved out of. Not long after the restaurant moved out,

When did the restaurant move out and when did it get occupied again?

They moved out in 2024. June of 2024 they were out. If anyone, it is good food. They were down at Newport Plaza in North Quincy. So individuals came to the administration. They were referred to go up to the mayor's office and speak. At that time, the space was vacant. I had not yet received direction on what we were going to do with it. I've been told many times I'm not the policy maker. And so the idea was hatched about this incubation space, short term, come in, set up your shop, you know, get your business going, much like was done at the old 180-year-old colony by the Quincy Chamber of Commerce, did it there, and somewhat like the tents at Kilroy Square with the winter markets. So the decision was made, you know, three month, a 90 day licenses, which is not a devolution or conveyance of real estate.

It's just the allowance of a use to help incubate those businesses and get them up and running. and that directive came from the administration and we carried it out. Any expenses for making the place ready or fitting it out for those pop-ups? were paid for by the pop-up proprietors or operators. It was not paid for by the city.

So the build-outs were paid for by the proprietors that moved in, not by the city? Correct.

Okay. On the two pop-ups, right?

And what are the two pop-ups, just so I know? So there are only two pop-ups in all of the buildings.

So it's the Compass Beauty and the Two Trunks. Those are the pop-ups.

And do they open at the same time? I'm just...

It was a common scheme. I don't really know who approached first, but from my perspective, we dealt with it simultaneously.

So I know that there was a ribbon cutting. I don't remember for Compass, but I know there was a ribbon cutting around October. And the license just went into effect in January. So just to clarify, were they paying rent since last October, or did they not start paying rent until January?

I would refer to the schedules, but I believe the ribbon cutting was at the finish when they moved in to start their fit outs in October.

Is that Joe speaking? If he wants to come up to the microphone, because I can't hear him, sorry. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. Joseph Shea with Granite City Partners, the property manager for the Monroe Building. One clarification, we just quickly said June of 24 was June of 25 that the restaurant vacated, just for clarification.

So June of 25 the restaurant left, not 24?

June of 25 the restaurant vacated. The license agreements with the temporary pop-ups I believe were October, November, December of 25. Then renewed through the Christmas season because the original push was a Christmas pop-up sale. renewed for January, February, March of 2026, then renewed on April 1st. So they are currently in the third 90-day renewal.

When does a pop-up, because it's the same businesses, right? So it's two trunks encompassed, but they're not other businesses coming in. When does a pop-up become not a pop-up? Just curious.

A little step back. That storefront that the pop-ups are in, their licenses are non-exclusive.

So could you repeat that? I missed what you said.

The space that they're in, the storefront that they are in, the two pop-ups, their agreements, their licenses with the city are non-exclusive licenses. If another entity were to come to us wanting to do the same thing, to open up a pop-up, you know, these people are obligated to move their stuff aside and make room for another. and if they don't do that, they don't get renewed. I'm not aware of anyone else that has come before the pop-up concept. I will say that I am aware that a restaurant operation came in who needed a minimum of a five-year lease in order to get the financing and stuff for the build-up. But again, the decision was made not to entertain long-term licenses. So they were given contacts of Quincy Chamber and some others. to hopefully find another space in the downtown.

Because there's an advertisement saying the storefront of two trunks in Cummins Beauty is more than one, just a home of our own brands. It's a space for building community creativity. I was just curious if they're having other pop-ups come in. Do they also pay rent to the city, or do they pay rents to the pop-up?

I'm sorry.

So the storefronts from 1237 Hancock Street have an advertisement that's out saying, two trunks and Compass Beauty is more than just one home for our brands. It's a space to build on community creativity and collaboration, which is great. So they're basically saying that they have shared space for local marketers and entrepreneurs can shine. So they're leasing it if they're bringing in other pop-ups. The other pop-ups pay rent to the city or do they pay rent to the two businesses? Just curious.

they're not in a position to be able to sub-license it. Any others added into that space would be by agreement with the city and payments would be to the city, not to the two existings.

We feature two rotating vendor spaces available for rent, giving local businesses the opportunity to showcase their products, connect with new customers, and grow alongside us. Our mission is to create... Sorry about that. Our mission is to create... I can't make it go away. Sorry. Our mission is to create a welcoming destination in Quincy where shoppers can discover unique, high-quality pieces while supporting local and small business communities. So they're basically saying that they have they rent out their space. But you're saying that they can't, that they should come to the city, and they'd have to work it out with the city.

Correct. So I would point out that they're using the word rental. I have no control over that, but it's legally not a lease. So, and again, I can't control their message, but I can control this.

Okay, you answered it. So you basically said if they're doing other pop-ups, they should be coming to the city. they shouldn't be renting out, potentially lowering their own rent.

They may also be realizing they don't need the full square footage. It's fine.

It's just a question because I was just curious, but I thought there might be more space for the pop-ups. We don't ensure consistency when it comes to occupancy charges beginning. And specifically, when it comes to tenants, how much is a small commercial tenant like Gridley Tax and Accounting paying monthly for their space? Just curious.

That is in the tables. Gridley is another one of the holdovers from prior to the purchase.

Right.

And I will say on the record, I apologize to Mr. Grindley for spelling his name wrong.

Oh, did I spell it wrong? I might have said it wrong.

So he's paying $1,250 a month.

How much square feet does he have? Because he's just a little accounting business, right?

For him, it's 640 square feet.

Okay, and then comparison to just the pop-ups again. I'm just curious. Mm-hmm.

Two trucks. That's 1,800 square feet for a combined $1,500 a month.

All right. And then this is just a clarifying question. This is really for Joe Shea. So Joe, you're the management services for the building, correct? What other buildings do you manage or what other properties are you overseeing in the city of Quincy for us?

Currently, we oversee Town River Marina. What is it? Town River Marina on Southern Artery for the city. is our only other current open building that we manage. We had previously managed many of the buildings in the downtown when they were vacated prior to urban renewal activities.

So and this is just a question because I remember this. So just to level set for a second. So we bought this building in 2020 approximately, right, with COVID money. and the idea that it was, you know, COVID money was supposed to be used for public investments to help get people through COVID, but we used COVID money, which was really not a correct use for it, but we did anyway to purchase this building and the marina, so those two things. and we've been paying Granite Partners to be the management facility for it. So we took two businesses, a Marina and the Monroe Building off the, this is probably less of a question for you, off the tax rolls. How much did that take off the tax rolls approximately? You might know. I don't know, Joe, if you know that.

Okay. That's not within the purview of the request, so I didn't gather that information. I don't know.

So you have no idea?

I didn't look for it. I wasn't asked to, so I don't know.

So it's probably around 200,000 at least, I would imagine. So then the other question I do have for Joe, I think at the time, and this might just be, this is kind of the tenants have changed, right? So there's tenants in spaces that changed. I think both you, Your Granite Partners had space in that building at one time, is that correct? No, we've never been a tenant in that building. Did your dad from the, there's a Joe Shea in that building back when, before all the other stuff was going through. I remember having it listed at the Monroe Building. Was your dad maybe in there?

the city clerk's office was in the Monroe building long before the purchase.

So he wasn't there for a commissioner, like the Norfolk commissioner, maybe? No, okay. I just remember seeing a Joe Shea on the list, so that was my question.

No, that was me. I was on the list, so people who came to the door to buzz in could reach us as a property manager, so you are correct.

So I just remember, yep. I just thought maybe you were so just this question because maybe at the time and you do a lot of work in the city. So you do have an office in the city, don't you?

We do. We have an office in a different building.

In what building are you in?

We are in the Adams building. Okay. 1354 Hancock Street.

I just thought maybe you might have been there for a short period of time while you were there, but that makes sense too. So I guess the reason why I'm asking all these questions is just simply you know, the financial framing for what I'm thinking. We took a property, two properties, the Marina and the Monroe Building. We used COVID money, emergency money, to purchase those buildings because it was a purpose. The purpose of the building that we bought this for was for a Quincy College campus slash City Hall. That's what we bought the Monroe Building for. You're going to say no. That is very well publicized.

So I think that's very... That was an earlier request to the Council that was... not supported. So the use of the IRA money for the purchase of the Monroe Building was to allow the use of the visitor center, which wasn't appropriate in audited use and approved and the...

So you purchased a whole building just for the... Okay, so that's fine. That's your COVID answer. But what we purchased it for, what we purchased it for and what the press release was for was that it was going to be used for a college and for... potentially the new home for City Hall employees, which it sounds like we have a lot of City Hall employees that are already there. And at the same time, We took those properties off our tax rolls, meaning we gave up significant and stable income to the taxpayers of the city of Quincy when we took those off the rolls. And now we have a system where we're charging people all different amounts. And the revenues appear to be going away. And they're not going to be able, they can't possibly make up the $15 million that we used to buy this. And now we're talking about the use. of this building for something completely different. And there was a meeting, I think it was last Monday night, at the same time we were having our council meeting, I think it was last Monday night, I was sick, I can't remember, but I think it was for the...

The Historic Commission was having a meeting and they were talking about the use of the Monroe Building. And they were basically saying that everything, they were talking about the John Adams Library, they were talking about the Performance Center, they were talking about Quincy, Discover Quincy, and they were talking about the National The National Parks going in. And then they came back and said everything could fit there except for the performing arts, which I think is kind of funny. So it's too small. They basically said it was too small. I wasn't at the meeting. Somebody sent me the notes. They said it was too small. So now the building that they're talking about is too small. but we bought it and we're leasing it out and we're not really making any money off of it and there's no taxes coming in for it so and we have no plan and this is another thing that was asked by another council and I can't remember who asked for it that we've purchased all of these properties throughout the whole city of Quincy for the use of one thing, potentially, that never ended up fulfilling its dreams and they just sit there collecting dust, waiting for another use.

We've come up with another use for the Monroe Building, but we are losing money off of that building too. And it's really based on seeing the really inconsistency on how we're defining tenants, how we're agreeing to tenants and how we're managing it. We're paying a management company to take care of it, but they're not actually proactively leasing it, they're just managing it. And we're seeing, there's just a lot of things going on. This responsible, this board, this committee, the council, is responsible for the checks and balances of the city. and the Mayor can make the policies. But when I'm looking at this and what I'm seeing back, we're losing money off of it and the plans changed for what the use is gonna be and the plans may not even be, and there was plans for the, Presidential Library going down the street at the Adams Academy, remember that? And how we own the land, but they own the building, and it went to the Supreme SJC, and they lost three times in it, do you remember that? So that costs a lot of money for the taxpayers.

So our job is to kind of go back and historically look at what we're doing and question it. And we have another one in front of us tonight that will go into committee for the ANC. and these are all great plans but if you don't actually have a prospectus of what you're going to use the properties for and you take them offline, you're taking tax dollars, valuable tax dollars offline and it's concerning to me especially where we're headed in the city.

Unfortunately, the ANC is already not paying taxes.

Yeah, no, that one's not paying taxes, fortunately. Fortunately, so thank God for that, right? But all the other ones were paying taxes. Thank God for that. We can buy that one. No worries now.

The money, the $15 million to purchase a Monroe is not at the cost of the city. It's not a loan. We're not paying it back.

What's that? Say that again.

It was a grant.

What was a grant?

The $15 million.

It was a grant? You were so cute when you said that, because you know what that is? That's federal money. So I pay taxes on my federal money. As do I. Yeah, so do I. So it is taxes. It's not free grant money. And it wasn't meant to be used for that. So I'm going to stop you right now, because I'm not asking that question. But you know, it's cute that you can sit there and say, that's not real, that's not tax money, that's not from the city of Quincy. It's coming from everybody else's pocket. Your left side is your federal, your right side is your city. So it's coming out of our pockets. We made significant investments, so this is what I'm trying to get at. We're managing the asset in a way that's financially sound, consistent, and transparent. I don't think so. because at the end of the day, the public here, the city of Quincy, we need to make sure that what we're told is true, that we've had a change in purpose again, what it's costing us, and what we're getting in return for those investments. So we need to make this very clear that we didn't make a stable, we're not making stable tax revenue and it's clear purpose for this less consistent and less transparent.

I will tell you that I was on the committee, I was on the council, and I asked about this, and you had it since 2020, it's 2026, and this is the first time anybody's hearing what's being rented in the Monroe building, Thank you very much. I'm aware of that.

Are there any other Councilors who would like to ask questions on this? Yeah. Councilor Riley, Ward 6.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner, for being here. You know, you did put together a very comprehensive package, and I appreciate that. I think you provided all of the information that was asked. and I appreciated the tour of the building. It is a beautiful old building and it's very surprisingly very well maintained. I've been in some scary basements in real estate and that wasn't too scary. So thank you for that. but a couple of questions that I did have. So there is no formal process nor has there been for anyone, any entities who wanted to apply for space or make use for storage or try to get some, Street frontage or an office space. There's really no formal process for people to be able to do that.

The process to date has been they've approached the city and they've approached the city. people with interest have approached the city and through the administration they thought it was again engaged in a civic purpose alive in the street or not. And by the time all of that's done, it's done by the time I get involved. I'm not privy to that. I'm not part of that.

Well, I'd argue that's not very equitable because 90% of the people in the city probably don't know who to call or who to reach out to. You know, it's... It's not easy if you don't know who to engage. But it's also not going to be very attractive because you're not going to commit to anybody for a long-term lease. they can't get any financing for any build outs or anything like that. But in terms of the financing as an investment, to answer your question, President Mahoney. The assessed value on 1255 Hancock Street is $7,291,700. So at the commercial tax rate of 2301, that would be $168,000 in real estate taxes that are no longer being collected. The parking lot at 1177 Hancock Street has an assessed value of $872,400. So that's another $20,000.

So that's $188,000 in revenue that's being forfeited since it's no longer privately owned. and if somebody were to spend $15 million on a building, they would expect their return to have to take into, they'd be looking for a return on that. So although we're covering our expenses in a little bit better than that and covering the maintenance and utilities, from a financial perspective, this is not a winning formula. So I agree that it was purchased with one potential vision, and now there's another potential vision. But I guess the question is, what is the long-term plan for this building? Personally, I think it'd be a shame to demo it. It is a beautiful building.

That decision is still being made, whether it's salvageable in its entirety or the facade or whatever. It's not a Class A space. It would take a full gut rehab, which would be very difficult to do the way that building is constructed. But that doesn't mean it's femme fatale. I don't know. The longer term, what you know at this point is what I know. at this point is proposed for the Adams Presidential Center and the Performing Arts Center, which all of the charrettes and the surveys for Quincy 400 requested. to discover Quincy or the city of Quincy Welcome Center would be there, potentially the National Park Service. Literally tonight is the first time anyone has uttered to me that the proposed building wasn't large enough for the Performing Arts Center. I don't know who raised that specter. I can't speak to it, but it's the first time I've heard that. Believe me, I will inquire of my representatives at that meeting where that came from and what the basis of it and if there's any veracity to it.

Thank you. I guess I would just conclude by saying that it's not prudent to purchase property and then kind of figure it out. I would hope that if we're gonna entertain real estate purchases in the future that we would have a little bit more of an understanding of what our plan is.

Thank you. Any other questions from any of the councillors? Councillor Yuan?

I just have a general comment. from the data you show, the Monroe Building is in a golden location, but still have such huge vacancy rate. So I'm wondering why. it's clear this building is not well used to generate any revenue for the city and the city spend a lot of money to purchase it. So I want the explanation.

Okay.

Again, as we just discussed, it may be the potential site of the Adams Presidential Center and the Performing Arts Center and other municipal uses. So it's not in our best interest to get a long-term lease because then we would have to pay to relocate any leased tenant. if it came time to take the building down or renovate it. We would have to pay to relocate those businesses. That's probably foremost the reason. A number of the tenants have held over. They're still there. We do have revenues. It's paying for itself. there are factors in municipal owned building as factors other than just the bottom line dollar amount. And I get that's the oversight committee and we're concerned about the taxpayer. I pay over $30,000 in real estate taxes to the city of Quincy. I'm concerned about Texas and Quincy. But there are other bases of municipal policy. It's the startup of the businesses. It's the urban renewal. It's providing the event space.

So that's a larger conversation that is going on within the administration, and I will be told what that result is when it's done.

My follow-up question is when did the city already start to thinking about tear down the Monroe building to make a performance center so you so you're not give the long-term list? I mean, how many years has it been doing like that?

I have not been told that yet. I don't have that answer. I haven't been told it.

Yeah.

Any other councillors want to speak on this matter? Councillor Ashworth, too.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Hines. A very concise report. I have a couple of quick questions with respect to the oldest tenant, do you know who the oldest tenant that is under a TAW is?

A chance? Yeah, it's Samarian. Okay. Maybe like 2014, I believe.

So with respect to the tenants at will, the amounts that they're being charged now for use and occupancy, they would presumably go up over the years, right? So when they signed their first lease in 2014, Samorians paying $240 versus, and I won't ask for each one, but we would think, or it would suggest that say, Artistic Threading LLC at 2300 for tenant at will. That's a more recent tenant prior to the sale of the property. Correct. Thank you. and so forth. My question is actually with respect to insurance. So if we have a, and it may be outside of the purview of the request, I know, it just was something I was thinking when you were going over the presentation.

If it's a municipal building and there are commercial tenants, are all of those commercial tenants required to obtain I don't think that's the case but I think it maybe would that be beneficial for folks listening? Maybe if you know the answer to that with respect to who insures the actual inside of the offices that we rent to.

So the tenants have been encouraged to get tenant insurance, much like you would if you rented an apartment for residents in the city of Quincy. self ensures the building now that it is swung to primarily municipal use. So much like City Hall, the high schools, the schools, there's only two or three buildings that we have a commercial policy on. This building, the Monroe Building, and the Adams Academy. All the rest and other vehicles, the city is self-insured. Okay, thank you.

versus Nguyen.

Any of the other councils, just very quick question. We are gonna take a brief recess in a minute to go into the general council meeting, do the open forum, and have the presentation on the budget. and then we'll come back to this meeting, but we have about two minutes left in this hour. So, Councilor McKee.

I just have a follow-up question to Councilor Ash. Oh, sorry. I just had a follow-up question about that. So when you say the city self-insures, if the tenants don't get their own kind of voluntary insurance and there's a fire or something like that and one of them the city's on the hook to pay for the damage if they don't have their own insurance?

It depends upon the circumstance of the fire. If the fire was caused by the city of Quincy or the acts of employees of the city of Quincy, then we would potentially have liability but we also have governmental or sovereign immunity and our liabilities are capped. So we would not be in the, first of all we would have to have caused the fire or the building systems itself caused the fire. We would have had it known about those defects to create a liability on the city before there would be any liability to the individual tenants.

So, but I mean if the tenant doesn't have insurance, You could try to charge them for damage, let's say, that wasn't due to the city's faulty wiring or something like that, if they caused something. But if they couldn't pay, then the city would pay.

So if you're suggesting if that tenant caused the fire, that's different from what I was just describing. I was styling it as someone's damages to the tenant. We would not generally be responsible. As to whether that tenant caused the fire, and they were then liable to the City of Quincy, they don't have chivalry immunity and they could be sued for the full value of the damages to the building and the other tenants technically.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, thank you. We're gonna recess this meeting so we can start the general council meeting and we'll reconvene following the mayor's budget proposal.

Good evening. I'm going to call the City Council meeting Monday, May 4th, 7.30, meeting to attendance. If we could call the roll, please, Madam City Clerk.

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

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

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands for liberty and justice for all.

That sounds so much nicer when everybody's in a room.

Madam Clerk, Clerk, can you please read the Open Meeting Law?

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

And we are moving on. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to the open forum and public comments. I just want to remind everybody, if you're from Quincy, you'll be able to go first. If you're outside of Quincy, you can go after. It's three minutes, and if we could try to keep to that, that would be great. Do you want to go fast? Yeah.

Can you leave the second sheet? Okay, by the time I get back. Let's go.

Okay, so the first person we have coming up is Hank Dondero.

Hank Dondero, C.P. Five Minute Ave, Quincy, Mass. 02169. Before I address real topics, Sure a while ago, or two months ago, there was a demonstration out on the plaza there, and it was a No Kings protest. Well, I understand the rumor mill is active, and they're talking about No Queens protest, okay? Not mine. I'm just letting you know it's out there and it's happening. Life in the city, then and now. Sharpest time in the USA back in the 40s and 50s. and then suddenly the plaza developed and what do you have? You have downtown that's slowly but surely dying. Safety became an issue and has become an issue prior to what's going on now. If you look at what went on back then, it was safer to walk downtown at night than it was during the day. All right, very clear, very simple.

What's going on downtown now is an enhancement. It's an enhancement of livability and it's an enhancement of property values in the city. The mayor has a vision. He's had a vision from the beginning. The city originally was tied in with an organization called Street Works. The mayor, when he came in, it was already in motion. After six years of dealing with them, he dumped them. Why'd he dump them? Because first of all, they only had a history of $200 million construction projects. They were talking about $1.2 billion that was or was not ever going to happen. Get out. Get lost. took it in a new direction with developers that have the city of interest in mind. I'm not going to comment about budget rate, city ratings as far as the budget is concerned. That's not in my endeavor, not in my bailiwack. But I'll tell you something.

You can start cutting because 90% of the city budget is fixed. You start cutting 10% of the budget, what's going to happen? you're gonna start losing services. You're gonna be browning out police stations, browning out firemen, you're gonna be browning out DPW. All right, cut it, cut it, go ahead, cut it. You're gonna turn the city back in the way it was before. and if you like, or if you've ever been to Downtown Crossing, the place is a dump. A lot of vacant stores, very high crime rate, And is this what you want to envision for the city? Not me. I've lived here all my life. and it's really going, it'll get down fast. So if you want to brown out fire stations and brown out police, DPW, go ahead and cut. You can start talking about credit ratings. As far as I can see, you don't make money without investing it. You don't save property without buying it. So thank you very much.

And by the way, someone referenced me as a Clint Eastwood. And I really appreciate that, because he's a little bit older than I am. He's probably got a better attitude than I do, so good night. Adios.

Thank you. The next up is Jacob Levine. I'm not sure if it's Levine. I apologize. Looks like Levine.

You're correct. Jacob Levine, 140 Quincy Avenue, 02169. I'd like to talk about the Eastern Nazarene proposal. I moved to Quincy in 2020. I'm 34 years old and I would like to stay here for a few decades. Like many people, I came to Quincy looking for an affordable city, affordable private city. And like many people, I fear if I start a family, I may have to leave Quincy. To that end, I'm keeping a close eye out on housing projects. I think senior housing can be a win-win for residents of the city by allowing resident empty nesters currently in family houses to stay in the city they live in. They can both enjoy that and put their house on the market to bring in new families, done correctly. My fear, however, is the proposal, as it is, will become an attempt to preserve the campus in amber, to stop development, and to limit new residents only to those deemed less trouble or cheaper.

With that in mind, I ask the Council and the Mayor to make sure that any housing proposal, senior or otherwise, adds more units to the city, includes multi-units, and if money needs to be spent to offset the cost of purchasing, that some of that be used as private development to also build more housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Joanne Collins.

Good evening, Joanne Collins, 88 Hillside Ave. I'm here tonight as a concerned taxpayer and resident of Quincy. I want to speak about the proposed acquisition of Eastern Nazarene College. by the city of Quincy. This is an enormous financial decision and many residents are asking the very basic question, how can we afford this? The ordinance before you proposes appropriating 22.5 million to purchase ENC, along with all incidental and related costs, while authorizing the city to borrow the full $22.5 million through bonds or notes. This means taxpayers are not simply discussing a purchase price. We are potentially committing to decades of debt, interest payments, and additional associated expenses. at a time when taxpayers are already facing rising costs, major upcoming financial obligations like a seawall repair and school-related expenses, along with existing infrastructure concerns,

and other pressing budget priorities, taking on this level of borrowing demands complete transparency and accountability. Before moving forward, the public deserves clear answers about the true long-term cost, including debt service and interest, the full scope of incidental and related expenses, the city's concrete plan for the land, and how this purchase directly benefits Quincy residents. My second concern is trust. Once this land is purchased, what safeguards are in place to ensure it's used responsibly and in the best interest of the public? Many residents have seen patterns of political favoritism, insider deals, and benefits that too often seem to flow towards well-connected individuals rather than everyday taxpayers. That history makes it difficult for the public to simply trust the process without a firm oversight. Quincy residents deserve a detailed public plan for the land's future use.

full financial transparency, independent oversight, protections against political patronage or backroom deals. this land purchase should not become a blank check. We are talking about 22.5 million taxpayer obligation plus long-term borrowing costs at a time when Quincy faces numerous other critical financial responsibilities. I urge this council to proceed cautiously, demand transparency from the administration, and ensure that any decision made serves the people of Quincy, not private interests or political networks. Thank you for your time.

Mike Cotter is up next.

Hi, good evening. Mike Cotter, 5 Post Island Road. Thank you to the Councilors for your ongoing renewed efforts Transparency, Accessibility, and Responsive Government here in Quincy. I'm speaking to support the resolve that will be made tonight by Councilors Ryan, Mahoney, and Riley seeking the formal audit of the current leased deductions, expenses, and payments by Quarry Hills Associates. the terms of this resolution which are very specific in detail will do much to assure that the citizens of Quincy receive the fair and exact amount that should be paid by Quarry Hills Associates for the lease of this public land. This audit is also essential to enlighten the legislature, which is considering the home rule petition. which would waive two state laws, one regarding 30-year leases and the other that has to do with competitive bidding.

and it would grant QHA a substantially new lease until the year 2106. also essential to the current lease and any future lease are the following. Restoration of the required oversight committee comprised of independent members that are more representative of the city population. public access to the city on land, including the originally agreed upon walking trails around the golf course. proper maintenance and improvements to the ball fields and responsible environmental stewardship of this land that is leased from the city and the residents of Quincy. on Eastern Nazarene. We've read of a price tag of about $22.5 million, but I'd echo that sentiment with no definite specifics of development or maintenance. of this, once the city owns this property.

We have great suggestions that have emerged from the first public meeting, but the specific plan should come before the purchase. Thank you.

Thank you. And next up is Heather Dovey.

Hi, I'm Heather Doney and I live at 912 Southern Artery. I'm here tonight to speak about Granite Link's use of city approved water abatements and the large amounts of Quincy's public drinking water to hydrate their golf course grass during droughts. As I understand it, the golf course typically uses rainwater saved in the old quarries but in times of drought, they tap into public drinking water that comes from the MWRA, which as anyone who has a water bill in the city can tell you is good and clean but not cheap. A public records request shows that in October 2025, Corey Hills racked up a water bill for over $100,000 with fees and interest for being late multiple times, paid $44,000 of it, leaving $58,000 due. They applied for an abatement on this $58,000 balance, which was approved, and then they only owed and paid $34,000.

The abated $24,000 was paid for by us, the ordinary residents of Quincy, people with brown lawns and our own high water bills, people who can't afford a trip to Granite Links Green. Yet in the written request for the 2025 abatement, it said in part, water is purchased and used for the operation of Granite Links Golf Course and Recreation Facility on land owned by the City of Quincy Granite Links leases the land to operate the golf course, which generates rental income based on the city of Quincy. It also said that this abatement is essential to maintain the aesthetics of Granite Links course as one of the best in the United States, Granite Links and the City of Quincy have a unique partnership and the success of the golf course is mutually beneficial to Granite Links and the city. In 2022, there was another water bill that was adjusted down from $70,000 to $42,000 using a water abatement with a note from the city saying it was a 39% reduction to current charges

with all fees and interest on the account waived upon payment. This leaves me with a lot of questions. I hope it also leaves you with a lot of questions. But I'm glad to hear that an audit of Coral Hills Granite Lynx Golf Course is being proposed by Councilors Ryan, Mahoney, and Riley tonight. And I hope all of our city councilors will vote yes on getting some clear answers on what exactly the people of Quincy are and are not getting out of this unique partnership where all of us pay the Quincy Water, all of us who pay a Quincy Water bill are subsidizing a multimillion dollar golf course. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next up is Bill Zanzo.

Good evening, Councilors. As last week's administration representatives failed to provide you with projections on how they plan to fund the FY27 budget, much less going forward, please consider my projections for 27 and 28. Given a conservatively projected 1.5% spending increase for 27 and assuming level spending in total in 2028, my pro forma indicates a 16% property tax increase over the next two years. the need to take down all the current $24 million in unpaid levy capacity and also the needed availability of $9 million in reserves. Further note that there is some flexibility as the allocation of the projected tax increase over the next two years. And as for dollar amount figure, on a bid over $1,300 property tax increase on the median assessed value of a residence in Quincy over the next two years.

The reason for such a considerable tax increase going forward in spite of but minimal projected spending increases is care of the need to replace fund the allocation of over $34 million in one-time only use of reserves to fund the current fiscal year. At the same time, if there is more than $9 million of available reserves to tap, figure on a 0.32% and $25 increase. decrease in tax bills for each million in additional reserves tapped. However, it is reasonable to suspect that the $9 million in available reserves could well be an optimistic projection given last week's dissembling by administration officials. Next up, the Mayor's Chief of Staff described untapped property tax level is a reserve as a misnomer. Reality, untapped levy is actually the ability to tax more than the usual prop two and a half limit given taxing less than previous years.

Further problematic, the reason Quincy has $24 million in untapped levy is the administration has failed to duly fund $57 million in standard and obligated reserves. In other words, the administration has been eating seed corn and so compounding the city's financial problems. For example, how the city opted to send a mere $2.3 million dollar buy of emergency gear for local firefighters via costly bond funding. Next up, the Mayor, Chief of Staff also asserted that the $475 million in pension obligation bond is not debt. So what for the fact that the debt service expense on the $475 million is yet again accounted for as debt in the proposed budget? Further, even if the pension bond were to be curiously excluded as a debt obligation, Quincy's so revised debt load would be over a million three, billion three, with local taxpayers still facing the highest debt load in the Commonwealth.

In closing, I thus wish you all good luck dealing with a mess not of your doing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up we have Taylor Campbell.

Hi, my name is Taylor Campbell. I live at 133 Willow Street. And I'm here to talk about the proposed plans or the discussions that have been going on around Eastern Nazarene campus. I understand there's been a lot of comments about density and traffic and parking and I want to share my experience living across the street from a high density development with a parking ratio of about 30% per resident. And that development is Eastern Nazarene. It is in fact a fairly high density plot of land while there were students there. There were about 700 students at Eastern Nazarene living in a land of about seven acres. If you do the math, that's about 60,000 people per square mile if you were to expand it out. That's higher density than Paris. That's almost the density of Manhattan. which is interesting because if you go there, you might not think of it as a high density place.

Even while the school was in session, it looks like a nice lush greenery and a few sparse buildings. And of course, it's not an entirely fair comparison to put just residences in the scale of Paris, because you also need other amenities in a city. You need places to eat, like a dining hall, as Eastern Nazarene had. You need administration buildings. You need other things. which Eastern Nazarene had. And in spite of this, they only had about, I counted on the zoning map, it's a little hard to tell exactly, but around 150 or so parking spaces maybe 150, 200 or so parking spaces in a land where 700 people lived. Now, my understanding is that the school actually prohibited the residents from owning cars at all. and as a result, there was very little traffic that came in by use of the students.

In contrast, if you go into North Quincy, at the North Quincy parking lot, North Quincy TU Station development, the Abbey, There's about 600 units there and 1,600 parking spaces. And the landscape is a desolate concrete jungle. It's a terrible place to be. I wouldn't want to hang out in that parking garage, sit down and read a book, the way I would want to do that at Eastern Nazarene. I think in order to avoid concerns with traffic, with creating a demand for new parking spaces everywhere else in Quincy, It is important for any future developments to preserve the character of the neighborhood, of the high density neighborhood with very low parking per resident.

and make sure that there's space for a lot of people to live and create a market for commercial properties perhaps and mixed-use development so that we can have, say, a grocery store there that residents can walk to. I'd love to walk across the street to a grocery store. That'd be great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up we have Jennifer O'Brien.

Hi, good evening. I'm Jennifer O'Brien. I live at 9 Samoset Ave. in Quincy. I'm also one of the owners of Two Trunks Permit & Jewelry & Boutique. I was at home watching, but because our store name got brought up several times, I felt the need to come in and speak. First of all, Councilor Mahoney, I want to thank you for reading our mission statement and what our business stands for word for word. off of our website. We support small businesses and we support local. That's important to us. My sister and I who own the business are both Quincy residents born and raised. We do share the space with Compass Beauty. Our hours vary depending upon because we all have other jobs. We leased the property. We did approach the city. We leased it as is. spoken about before, it was in disarray, it was a public health hazard, and it was disgusting.

We, the four of us, put a lot of arm work into it and grease and money, and we flipped it for some of you that did tour the building to what you see today. That was important to us to make it welcoming to others, the Quincy residents, and the visitors to the city. Regarding the pop-ups, we have managed over 30 small business pop-ups in our shop. That was not mentioned earlier. that is 30 small businesses that do not have storefronts that have come into our shop. We do charge a small fee. It is not a lease. It is not going towards rent. We do public advertising on all our social media. We man the shelves ourselves. Those people do not have to come in and work. We sell their products. So we're being paid for that time. We're using our own bags in anything to package their product. and that's where that small fee goes. So it was stated as if we're taking money, we're paying lease and we're making money off of this. We're not.

But we do have to be compensated in some way when we have businesses come in for two weeks to a month and We're the ones running the shop and setting everything up for them. With regards to not just that, but we also have had over 12 non-profits and foundations in our storefront. We're very big on not only small businesses, but supporting causes. We've had a lot of different causes set up in our shop and sell their products. We do not charge them. We do not take a fee. , 100% of the money we collect off of what we sell for them goes towards their nonprofit and their organization. We've opened the space up. We're doing the best we can with it. We can't thank the city enough for the opportunity and the feedback from the residents has been nothing but positive because they have some way to come. They take classes. We do Candle making, wreath making. We had macaroon class the other day.

And these are the things that people in the city are loving. They're loving to come in somewhere. So we're working hard managing that schedule between just the four of us. Thank you. Thank you.

Stuart Rowe. Stuart Rowe is next.

Good evening, Council. Stuart Rowe, 53 Woodbine Street, apartment 20 in Wollaston. I wanted to thank the members of the city and their advisors for taking the time to present at last week's meeting, and I'm looking forward to tonight's presentations. Last week, the City's Bond Council, in a discussion about what the City does with additional incremental tax revenue from the DIF, the District Improvement Financing District said, it's not been set aside per se. There's not a sinking fund or anything. There can be funds like that set up when you do a DIF financing. Most communities haven't done that. In fact, I know of only one that has done that, and I've worked on probably a dozen. Later in the meeting, I believe it was the Director of Municipal Finance clarified there was a time when the DIF revenue was coming in and going into the DIF sinking fund. I believe it was up until like 2022.

But at some point, you know, the city decided that those revenues were going to come in and go through the general fund. and according to our bond council, we're doing it the exact, you know, perfect way according to the way the law is written. We don't have to exclude and have the diff sinking fund. We can have those revenues come right into the general fund. Though the bond council cited that the city's current practice of DIF revenue flowing directly to the general fund aligns with other communities he has worked with, I want to request that the council request from the bond council the council, request from the bond council, and Department of Municipal Finance request clarification. of which specific statute permits flow of DIF revenues directly to the general fund before servicing DIF debt via the sinking fund as required in Mass General Law 40Q and Quincy's own development and invested revenue plan. Thank you.

James Dunn is up next.

Good evening, James Dunn, 167 Babcock Street, Quincy. I hear a lot of the comments this evening, the young girl about Quarry Hills water and everything. I would guarantee that abatement is, because of the sewerage charge. Everybody knows you pay three times as much for sewerage water. And if they're watering grass, wouldn't be going in the sewer. Everything everybody talks about is negative. Why can't we change the position here? Let's face it, Quincy's an expensive city to live in. It's a beautiful city and I choose to live here. I've lived here my whole life. My business is here. My son's business is here. I have thanked the Mayor many times for my family's prosperity because of his outlook on the city of Quincy. We have inside developers, inside deals with Eastern Nazarene College.

We're already calling it a crime before it even happens. Okay, why can't we change the atmosphere and let's be joyous? Okay, let's see what comes of it. let's talk about maybe first time home buyers program for young families in Quincy for it. Let's put some thought into that instead of thinking about, oh, this is gonna be an inside deal, the connected people are gonna get it. Well, those people that you think are connected are why we have a beautiful downtown and a beautiful city of Quincy. Yes, I'd like to see the costs go down, but it's also, the infrastructure that's done in this city of Quincy, stuff people don't see underground. I know because I do the work, not in this city, okay? My daughter's moving out of Abington.

She can't even use the water to cook food with in how I'm working down in the old Paragon Park. The water comes out of the 10-inch pipe, brown. You'd think you've struck something. We live in a beautiful city. Let's give credit where credit's due. And that's all I have to say. Thank you for your time.

So we have Leah DeGloria next.

Hello. I'm Leah DeGloria, and I live in Weymouth, Massachusetts. So as I watch these council meetings, there seems to be a similar move where we or you people on the council like to look at what other towns and cities are doing. And so I'd like to do a comparison. Do you realize that you're almost 40% are higher paid than the average city council members in the state of Massachusetts. So you are potentially 40% overpaid compared to almost every other town in this state. You are at the top of the list for part time officials, but I don't ever hear anybody mention that comparison at all. What's really off-putting is the moral outrage you used to get those seats. You terrorized the previous city council.

You used the media, you staged protests to single-handedly run two councillors out of office with constant emails and borderline harassment, all under the guise of civic engagement. You called them lame ducks. You told the public the raises were a betrayal. You single-handedly are responsible for people stepping down because you wouldn't stop hounding them. But suddenly, you got into those seats and the betrayal is looking like a fair wage for all your hard work and it's complete and utter nonsense. As I look around this room tonight, the irony is deafening. I can identify at least 15 people in the audience right now who are out on the street corner right outside Hancock Commons holding signs and screaming about the race. And now, nothing. It's like a silent agreement that you have because your voters, the taxpayers that you think support you,

have stopped screaming. And you think the rest of the city doesn't notice. But you're only listening to the people who you think got you into office. they're the ones who are telling you that you're so hardworking that you deserve the raise and it was all about process and I'm here to tell you that you are delusional if you think The City of Quincy doesn't see the hypocrisy of pocketing a 50% raise while you're trying to talk about the budget and cut police and fire overtime or the whole time that you were haggling over the bond. or any time that you talk about fiscal responsibility. So you sit there and I hear all these comments about you think that you're more deserving because I don't know, sometimes the meetings are longer. I don't believe, and I think there's a lot of people who would agree with me that you haven't earned an almost 40% markup

over the rest of the state just by dragging out meetings for four hours. A four hour meeting isn't a sign of hard work, it's a sign that you don't know what you're doing. So if you even have a fraction of the integrity you talked

You're all done, thanks. Thanks.

So at this point, is there anybody else that would like to speak for open forum? Come on up. If there's anybody else other than this person, if you want to line up, because we have a lot of work to get to tonight.

Hello. Hi. My name is Sue Daugherty. I live at 922 C Street. And I don't have anything prepared. I just want to speak generally about the budget and about My experience is in Quincy as someone who moved here in 1999. And when I hear people say, I was born and raised here, that's a very exclusive phrase and I hear that a lot in this space. So people who've moved here more recently don't count, right? So what I'm kind of here to say is I'm glad we're looking at the budget. and that the city council is actually looking at the budget for everyone in the city and thinking about the fact that So when I moved here, I'm just kind of rambling now, but I really want to make these points. When I moved here in 1999, it was because it was affordable. I was a teacher. I had no money. My brother lived here. I wanted to be kind of near family. but I've seen like we're building, building, building and who can really live here?

It's a churn, right? So you're gonna get people to move in and out. It's not a community. It's not a way to build a community. I don't trust this mayor, I'm sorry, I'm going to be honest, to do the right thing with this college buy. So I lived in Wollaston and it was walkable. I'm hearing the people who live in Wollaston, that's where I first lived when I moved here was in Wollaston. And it was walkable and yeah, you could re-energize it in lots of different ways, but Again, the developers come in. They don't bring in any affordable housing. They're making it really hard for people to live here, for people to stay here. I ask that you do look at all the budget items especially the ENC purchase with the idea is this going to help our community or is it going to just create more density that the city really can't Handel. And when people say like, you know, about the city, the old city, the real people from the city are Native American.

Unfortunately, this has been taken over by colonialists, and people can laugh, and I hear that behind me. And I do want to say this to the president of the firefighters union. I'm a unionist. That's how I became an activist. And if my president was saying that everyone wanted a sink on the building, I would be beside myself. I would be like, why the hell is the president of my union doing that? And they're not saying that to you. And the fact that you have the mayor's nephew on top of it, that's what we need to stop. And that's why I appreciate the city council. because it's about the whole city, not this, oh, and the last thing is the mayor actually had people screw a sign to my fence one time. because I had asked them to take the sign out of my lawn because I didn't like something. He called me up. I said, oh, yeah, you can put it back. You know what? They came back and they actually screwed it to my fence. And that's the feeling I get from that kind of like, oh, we were born and raised here. We love the mayor. So that's my little rant. I'm going to stop now. Thank you.

Welcome. Good evening, Madam President. My name is Kylie from 42 Presidents Ave. I've lived here for 20 something years. I'm also not born and raised here, but my kids are. I've been at a lot of the school committee meetings. My kids take advantage of a lot of the programs, the arts, the rec program, so I wanna, let you guys know from a parent's point of view some of the things that I like and would like to see continued being funded. saw the school programs, summer program, the Parks and Rec. One of the things that recently opened up was Bradford Park that was part of the Summer Program, and there's a Gaga ball pit. My kids and their cousins, my nephews, niece, they love going to it. And then a sense of community.

I'm also on the PTL and we helped brighten up the Southwest Middle School last week over the weekend. And then also part of a youth group that's all farm. Jacobs was there too. We went to Bethany, helped spruce that area up, and we're looking to work with other areas to do so as well.

Thank you. Does anybody else want to come up?

Hi, City Council. My name is Jeff Sullivan. I live at 1 Chestnut Place, up the square. I was born and raised there. I say that with a full heart, and I also say it as everyone that says they were born and raised here, because at 54 years of age, We know what Quincy was before you showed up. Quincy was a dump. We had a $50 million dump up the street called Quincy City Hospital. By the way, I was raised, I was born there. Now we look around and we see a beautiful city that we're proud of. I'll share a quick story. I lived in New York City for a long time. I met someone out. They said, how'd you get here in this beautiful apartment from Quincy? I said, excuse me? What do you mean, how did I get here? You're from Quincy.

I said, oh, God. That's right, you're from Wellesley. She couldn't understand how a kid from Quincy had a nice apartment. A kid that was born and raised here. Now we have a beautiful city that we look around and see all the beautiful progress that's happening. And as Mr. Dunn said earlier, let's get along. Let's talk about the positives. this is a great city, we're moving in the right direction, and I know you all were voted in to continue to move it in the right direction. Thank you so much.

Anybody else for open forum? Any takers? All right, so we're going to close open forum now. So we're going to move on. We're going to do the general fund. We're not going to have to do it. Okay. So we're going to move on to, can you read the, thanks.

Number two, 2026-073, an appropriation fiscal 2027 general fund budget. Mayer, Koch.

Good evening, Madam President, members of Quincy City Council. It's an honor to be here to present the annual budget, our fiscal 2027 proposed budget. Go through a few slides here. which is also, I think, helpful to the public as we go through this process. Before I get into the numbers, I'd like to just take a moment and thank the city department, its department managers, our city employees in all the departments, the great work they do each and every day providing the best of services in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I also want to give a shout out and thank my Chief of Staff, Chris Walker, Paul Della Barbara, Director of Municipal Finance, and Michael Roland from Municipal Finance for the work they did on putting the document you have before you together. I also want to thank almost 200 members of the boards and commissions that serve in a volunteer basis in so many different capacities.

I'm grateful for their work, and they do it because they love the city. So tonight before you, we have a budget number of $491,849,705. It's a 2.9% increase in 2026. In addition, attached to the packet is the water budget of 27.6 million and the sewer budget at 31.7 million. as we know those revenues come from direct users and pay for those department costs to run them. So as you know we're part of the MWRA district. but we run the local system itself. So I know that's in the packet a little bit later. Talking about tonight is really strength through stability, if you will. I've seen a number of cycles over the years. I've been in a few years. We've been through difficult times. We've been through challenges.

And we continue to make what I think are smart decisions for the good of the city long term. This budget includes the negotiated salary increases for other employees. It adds $2 million to the reserve funds. It includes the fixed cost increases for areas like health insurance, debt service, contracted services like trash, recycling, energy costs, and fleet fuel. Next up, the largest budget within the city budget, of course, is our investment in education, La Quinte Public Schools budget, which you see here, 148,419,432. that's not inclusive of all the money that comes into the school department. There are federal dollars and grant programs go directly to the schools that would add probably seven and a half million more to that number. It's a pretty good increase. I've said oftentimes after public safety, there's nothing more important we do than educating our children.

And I think this city does a great job at that. I'm grateful, I don't know if any of my colleagues of the school committee are here. The superintendent's leadership team, administration, teachers and staff do outstanding work. I want to thank our state legislators, our chapter 70 money which goes directly to Schools Education is up about $2 million. Unrestricted aid is about level. Go to the next slide. Next item is public safety, which obviously is inclusive of our police and fire departments. This represents a 4.5% increase over the 26 level. You know, I would put our departments, I'd put any of our departments up against any across the Commonwealth. We have the most manpower, men and women police and fire since before prop two and a half. It's great to see when you drive by a station a shiny engine sitting in the bay.

But if you don't have the appropriate manpower What good is it? We used to have more two, three, four-alarm fires, and that was just to get more manpower to the site. the last couple of years, the multi-alarm fires are minimal, if any, because we have the appropriate manpower on the equipment, which is good for the residents, because they're responding to people in need, emergency. also good for the department because guys aren't overextending in creating injuries for themselves. As you know, we have eight stations that serve the city. and we have less than, I think our response time is about less than four minutes. In most cases, there's always exceptions, but both police and fire is pretty amazing. We're joined, as you know, by Brewster Ambulance, the ambulance service. They do an outstanding job with our departments.

As you know, the Public Safety Headquarters has opened. We're waiting for the old building to be completely mitigated from the hazardous materials and then we'll see that building come down. the area landscape and we'll probably have a nice public celebration and certainly let the public take tours of that investment. I'd also suggest because of the manpower safety rating is one of the best and people pay less insurance because of the manpower we have for fire insurance so that is a good stat to have. I'd also suggest that I always brag and I get around the state a little bit being on the MBTA board, the MassDOT board, and people who comment frequently about Quincy and what's going on here. And we have truly the most professional people which results in low crime rate. and I put myself up against any city in Massachusetts.

And this department, if a crime happens, you're gonna get caught in Quincy. So I give a great credit to the men and women of Quincy Police Department, the job they do. and that's one of the most important issues I think anyone looks at when moving to a community. How safe is it? How are the schools? How are the open spaces? and I think we stand high and tall in all of those areas. We provide services that many communities do not. I'm sure we can discuss comparisons on taxes, we can compare on excess levy capacity, we can compare on debt, but day-to-day services, and what we're doing for the city going forward, preparing it for the next 50 to 100 years. I don't think anybody has kept up with Quincy. You go to the infrastructure slide, this includes several departments.

and I know that I've talked about it before, but when it comes to infrastructure, there's a lot of pipes under the ground. Infrastructure's not a sexy topic, but it has to be done. We have spent millions over the years replacing water lines, sewer lines, work with National Grid on replacing gas lines, fixing drain lines, It's an old city with old infrastructure and we just can't keep kicking it down the road. So we've been very aggressive over the last several years. And people don't think about that until the toilet doesn't flush or the water doesn't come on. And then it's too late. So I'm proud of the work that each of our departments do. Public Works literally maintains hundreds of miles of road sidewalks and all kinds of pipes as I described. They do outstanding work keeping the city clean. A public buildings department has more than 80 buildings that they maintain. I don't know if any of you were around a few years back when we created that public buildings department.

not much was getting done to buildings prior to that. It was literally bailing wire and tape on things. We now have an incredible professional department with the right trades, people that can keep up and maintain those assets because those are public assets. And just as we look at what a debt service is outside, investors look at how we're maintaining those public assets. and Natural Resources Department. They maintain, as you know, hundreds of acres of land Marshland Parks Open Spaces, Ponds. They do outstanding work maintaining the city's tree inventory. The Recreation Division. provide some of the best services for free recreation for our citizens, whether it's at the playgrounds or whether it's at the gyms after school, do outstanding work. Many communities don't have that.

Traffic, parking, and lighting, they maintain 7,800 streetlights, 200 miles of fiber, traffic lights, street signs everywhere. They do an outstanding job. We can go to the next one. We'll go to the Human Services and Cultural side. These are departments that directly deal with folks. We come here with a budget that includes several departments and we look at the big picture and we fund the big picture. There are many people that are loyal to the libraries. Maybe that's the only city service they use. Perhaps it's veteran services that somebody uses and don't necessarily have kids in the schools and all. but every department in the city has a mission. And each of these departments do an outstanding job at their mission.

Our library system, for example, has almost 400,000 visits annually. I mentioned the Recreation Department. The Health Department does pretty amazing work in many areas keeping the city healthy. including rodent control, restaurant inspections, making sure everything is clean and people are safe from food, et cetera. Veterans Services, I think about 1,500 veterans depend on our Veterans Department helping them with their services, and by the way, As you probably are aware, for every dollar we spend on a veteran, we get 75 cents back from the call at the Massachusetts. Council on Aging has tens of thousands of visits at the Kennedy Center and another tens of thousands that take advantage of the VAN program. getting to medical services in hospitals. So these departments do great work and truly are essential. Our next slide is managing our debt portfolio.

This budget has a $5.5 million increase for our debt. A substantial increase in the debt in fiscal 26 was the big jump in the pension obligation bond, which now will be level going forward to 2040. I know that this has been a touchy subject with some folks, and a lot of people have weighed in. I just want to emphasize, and I know this is all going into committee and there'll be robust discussions on all of these things, Pension obligation bond, note the word obligation. And if you look at the graph on the next page, if we didn't do the pension obligation bond, we'd be making a lot tougher decisions every year what not to fund in order to fund the unfunded liability that we had with that pension system. It was 43% funded when we took advantage of the pension obligation bond. and we did this at historic low rates of 2.6%.

It received a high praise from a lot of financial experts across the country. So we put what was an unfunded liability here and moved it to the debt side. In doing so, we're gonna say between 100 and 180 million during that timeframe. I still stand by it. It was a great decision. We solidified the pension system, which the city is obligated to do under state law. We can't walk from this. So it's a very important note. I know there's been discussions about the DIF, District Improvement Financing. Had we not done that, we wouldn't see the improvements in the downtown. I think we've done a masterful job using the DIF model, investing hundreds of millions, and the private sector matching that in hundreds of millions, providing jobs, providing much needed housing for this region. providing jobs in the construction business and beyond.

So I think it's always fair to say that you get three different pieces here. The regular debt, which is the schools, and other projects like Sea Walls, and then the DIF, which is the downtown, and then the pension obligation. I think it's important we break those down and remind folks what each of them are for. So I look forward to our department heads and managers coming before you to discuss these in further detail. But that slide really emphasizes the spread that would We would need to come up with a lot more dollars each and every year, which would have resulted in cuts in a lot of our departments. So I think it was a brilliant move, if I do say so myself. The next slide talks about our revenues. I know maybe some folks may be tuning in for the first time. I know this body knows what receipts are.

We break it down in the tax levy, property taxes. State Aid, and then the local receipts. Those are the three major revenue categories. Obviously, every year, Every city and town goes up on their taxes to fund their budgets. That's how it's built in Massachusetts. The state then provides state aid, local aid we call it, in fashion this year. As I mentioned, it's up in the Chapter 70 line. It's pretty level on the unrestricted line. Local receipts, there are all those other items. when they call and marry somebody, and there's marriage certificates, birth certificates, building permit fees, all those other fees that come in through departments that go into the general fund are called local receipts. So those are the three major categories we depend on. And I do want to thank our state legislature for advocating for us on the local aid side. If you look at the local aid over the years,

whether it's chapter 90, whether it's chapter 70, whether it's unrestricted, it really hasn't kept up with inflation. So I'm certainly hopeful that we can look at some of these formulas and make some changes that may benefit the city a little bit Healthier. So those are the categories. The Chapter 90, as you know, is for roads. That comes in not through the budget, but through a separate line item by the legislature. And as you know, we've been undergoing under the the wise Department of Public Works Commissioner, a lot of road work in conjunction with the pipe work. So we're grateful for that. That concludes my remarks on the budget itself. Let me just say this, that the people of this city have high expectations of what we do. whether it's rubbish collection, whether it's snow, whether it's our schools, whether it's 911, whether it's our libraries, whatever department you pick, there's high expectations.

And I think we meet those expectations. because I think we have a shared value on what government is supposed to do. In addition to all the work we do as a municipality, we're blessed to have some incredible, incredible nonprofits that work with us to help help the needs of many of our residents that government not necessarily can't help them, but we work with those non-profits, In some cases, they receive Community Development Block Grant money, and we help them along the way. And whether it's the food pantries or other areas, I just want to give them a shout out. They do great work for us on a daily basis. So with that, Madam President, that completes my presentation on the budget. I know that under the Finance Chair, there'll be several meetings held in the coming weeks. where department heads will be up here to answer any questions and probably expand on what they do in more detail.

But that's the general overview regarding our municipal budget for 2027.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

So at this point, I'd like to open it up to see if any of the Councilors have any questions before we move it into committee. Any questions?

Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. I just have a comment as well as a question. Mayor, good to see you tonight. Thank you for your presentation. I'm consecutively now with you 11 straight years in the budget, two on the school committee in 14 and 15, so 13 straight years here. I think about the vision of Quincy and where we've come from over the years. The Hancock-Adams Common right out here where you had the vision and sold it to the city council and we have what we have today. It's beautiful out there. and I remember you coming to us, Councilors, back then, the Joe Finns, the Brian Palmucci's, the Chuck Phalans that are no longer here. We have a totally different Council. just thinking back of the TPAL, the Traffic Park and Alarm and Lighting Division, that new department, the natural resources, which you went back to, which is a great model. on the grant writing. Some of these things we didn't have at one point. We didn't have the tree warden.

You've really helped us counselors over the years by your departments helping us attack and really do good constituency work. I want to thank you for that. Just looking back on COVID time, 2020, 2021, coming out of those times, 111 inches in 2015 with the snow removal, which he had a little taste of this year. Just looking at chapter 70 and chapter 90, how are we looking in position to or federally, how does it impact Quincy with some of the stuff not keeping up with what you said with the inflationary times? How do we sustain that as a city?

Well, those are the decisions we have to make together. Title I, for example, is federal money to the schools. I know we're going to be getting cut about $380,000 in that program. If the income tax question passes, if rent control passes, that's going to have an impact on the values in cities and towns. It's going to put more pressure on municipalities. I have certainly observed across the Commonwealth. You go back 20 years, most cities and towns were doing overrides for projects, for schools, for special projects. Now they're doing them for of Operations, just operate to keep the budget going with override. So I do think that's a discussion that we have to have in Massachusetts going forward, how we best continue to serve the people in our cities and towns with the best of services, recognizing some of the challenges on the revenue side.

I was driving over here tonight from a baseball game in Bishop Field. I coach Babe Ruth, and I was over there. And I remember as a kid when I was growing up talking, some people coming up here talking about Bishop Field, and I played on that field when I was a kid. but the tennis courts are all done over. They're revitalized. There was two batting cages that we were able to hit in before the game. We didn't have that when I was a kid. The playground adjacent to it was not spriced up like it is today. and I saw a lot of people today. It was a beautiful day out. They were walking, they were saying hi. We got to keep the positive thing going here in the Quincy. And as for the city council and the mayor, We have to work collaboratively to get things done. So I want to thank you for coming in tonight. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam President.

Thank you. Does anybody have a motion? Oh, Councilor Yuan, do you have a motion?

Oh, no. Through you, Madam President, I have a question to Mr. Mayor. So this afternoon I went to City Hall. I basically just want to get one number. I want to ask what's the certified revenue of fiscal year 2025 of DIF? So first I went to assessor department, and he hasn't that number, and he pointed me to the finance department. then I went to finance department, the finance director also doesn't have this number. But my question is, The DIV statute requires a new certification of the incremental assessed value by the assessing authority.

Then finance applies the tax rate to derive that revenue. So fiscal year 2025 ended June 30th last year. We are now discussing fiscal year 2027 budget. How do we not have the physical year 2025 DIF revenue? And which department is responsible for producing that number? and if the city council can't obtain basic financial information like this, meaningful financial oversight is impossible. So I would like to ask which department is responsible for producing that number, the revenue, certified revenue of fiscal year 2025 in which department? Can they provide?

The municipal finance department should be able to provide that to you.

Finance department?

The municipal finance department.

Today, this afternoon, I went to finance department, and he doesn't.

Well, he might not have it at his fingertips. They might have to do a little research on it.

He pointed me to assessor department. I said I just came from assessor department because his assessor tell me to go to finance department. So I went to finance department and he said you should go to assessor department. and I asked the bond specialist, Rick, what's his name? Rick Kosher? and he doesn't know that and then Chief of Staff Chris Walker walked in, I asked him, he also didn't give me this answer, I just asked this simple, number 2025, fiscal year 2025, certified revenue in DIF. Which department can give you?

I'm sure we can get that to you.

Okay, thank you.

Municipal Finance Department should be able to get that, pull that together. The Assessors Department is involved in the process, but Municipal Finance should be able to get that number to you.

Okay, thank you.

Mm-hmm. Councilor Riley? Yes, I'd like to, thank you. that we accept this and move it into Finance Committee for further discussion.

Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Asch. I do want to actually add... Your quick question. OK. I'm going to let you go first, then. Councilor McKee. And then I have a question.

OK. Mayor Cook, while we have you here, I know that sometimes there's pros and cons and risks and benefits to everything. With the pension obligation bond, there's the graph that you pointed to. We might have been spending much more So anyway, my point is sometimes you have to spend a little money and then it might work out better in the long run. One of the things that people have been raising to me that I think makes sense is to have a city audit so that it might cost some money to do But as we've seen from last week, a lot of these things are very complicated and it's hard to get answers on them. Where would you stand on getting a city audit, either through the

from the State Auditor's Office or through a separate firm.

were required by law to do a city audit every year, and we do that. And I think we share those results with the body, including the auditor. So I'm not clear on your question.

I guess a kind of a more in-depth audit of everything that's going on and how the processes of various departments

if you want to get specific, we can get more specific, but we have an audit every year as every city and town does that. and I know you mentioned the pros and cons and people can differ on opinions. The pension obligation bond idea actually came from this body a number of years ago. it was actually City Councilor John Keenan that pushed the passage of getting the authorization ready because he felt at that time, and him and I don't agree on a lot, but he felt at that time, at some point, if the interest rates are right, it might make sense to do it. So of course we followed through on that. It was a lot of work. with a lot of outside advisors as well as internal, our auditors, everybody was involved in looking at all of that piece. And again, we'd be dealing with much higher numbers in this budget. to deal with the pensions if we didn't do that. We do an audit every year. I'm not really clear beyond what the audit is.

I know that Quarry Hills is a separate item and I'll commit tonight that we'll have an audit done at Quarry Hills for sure, a separate item. It doesn't get the detail in the regular city audit, so we can have an audit on that. That's not an issue, but we do a city audit every year. I'm not really clear what you're looking for.

I guess I'm thinking as I am starting to look into things, there may be questions about procurement or purchasing or something like that or just accounting that we're having with and Elder Services that might be helpful to have more oversight on and more clarity into. So anyway, we can talk about that individually later. I know that some work has been done. We've heard about that, but we haven't yet seen some of that. But anyway, I'm glad that you're open to it, and it makes me really happy to hear about Corey Hills. Thank you.

Yes, I hear the word transparency thrown around all the time. Our books are open. We come to this body every year for a budget. We have public hearings. We have a complete audit. The state has to certify our tax rate. They look at all our numbers. and all the various areas as well. So if there's certain things you're looking for, we will certainly provide the information to each and every one of you as needed, absolutely.

Okay, anybody else? So I do have a quick question, so, and it does, and I did go, too. So I asked, after our presentation last week, I was hoping for five-year projections and just a little bit more information that we didn't get. and with the DIF, I was asking specifically, I reached out to the CFO, Paul Della Barbara, and asked for the schedule on the individual notes that make up the 14, million dollars that was in the budget last year, as well as the fiscal year 23, 24, 25, and all DIF receipts to date in fiscal year 2026. and what I received back, and I was basically saying if I could have it before this meeting tonight, and what I received back was that from the CFO, I can certainly send you a schedule of the individual notes that make up the $14 million by Monday morning, which I didn't get. As far as the diff, John Roland, the assessor, is out of the office having knee surgery. I sent him your request and he'll circle back.

My confusion with this is that the Chief Financial Officer should be able to provide that to me, especially the certified, and yes, both the assessor and the Chief Financial Officer play a part in uploading our final numbers at the end of the year. for our taxes. But this is certified information that we should easily be able to have access to. And it would be the tax collector that would work with the assessor to make sure that we're billing out those DIF incremental taxes that we're looking for. So if we could get that, I think that would probably clear up Councilor Yuan's question there. And I think it's just a matter of just sharing it with everybody. But the other thing that I would ask, just because of the fact that we're going to be going into this, that I was unaware, and I should have probably because it sounds like it was 2022, that we're no longer using the sinking fund. for the DIF, and all of the money is going into the general fund. So I would really like to see the bond authorization for those DIFs, the specific expenditures in each of those DIFs broken out for everybody for this finance committee.

as well as any revenues realized from any of the seals of bonds that would go to pay off the DIF for the pond premiums and then again the incremental taxes from the DIF. I figured I would just ask it here tonight, Mr. Mayor, because we're having this conversation. I think it will help. and many of the people and maybe clear up some of the questions that we have. I'm certainly happy to reach out to Paul tomorrow.

The money comes in and the money goes out. There's different ways that we can book it. in some ways you can completely separate the DIF and others you can just write it through the general fund but it is tracked.

That's what I was asking for and specifically I was asking specifically from the DIF and I was asking it to the Chief Financial Officer and I wasn't just asking for fiscal year 26, which we should at this point have billed out Q4 at this point of the fiscal year for the taxes. but I was looking for the fiscal year 22, 23, 24, 25 and then fiscal year 26 so that we can take a look. And then also the short-term notes and how that expenditure because when you make that you're probably applying it to your bonds to make sure we understood that because it was a question I asked as well last week for the $14 million. They basically said it was made up of the $508 million that you just took out this year, which was probably made up of the short-term notes that were taken out last year. Again, just looking for that information so we can tick and tie back together.

Yeah, I think during the Finance Committee meetings, I'm sure we can get into those details. I'm sure we can, too.

I just figured we'd just ask tonight. And I appreciate the presentation. I appreciate all your department heads being here this evening. and I know that we will work our way through the budget. I don't think anybody has cut anything yet but I do appreciate the passion that people bring up telling us what we're doing and we haven't done anything yet. We have a motion on the floor from Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor Ash. All those in favor to move this into finance? All those in favor, aye. Any of those against? So this successfully moves into the Finance Committee, and I thank you again, Mayor Koch, for coming. It was a pleasure to see you.

I think I'm here for the next item.

Yep. Next is number 3, 2026074, an appropriation fiscal 2027 sewer enterprise budget.

Yes, I'd like to make a motion accepted and move it into Finance Committee, please.

Motion made by Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor DiBona. All those in favor? Aye. Any against? Again, thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Okay, moving on to the next one.

Next is number four, 2026075, an appropriation fiscal 2027 water enterprise budget.

Motion to approve and move into Finance Committee, please. Seconded by motion made by Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. All those in favor? Any against? You guys have it. Moving that into Finance. All right, moving on.

Next is number five, 20-26-076, order, Eastern Nazarene College Land Acquisition. Mayor Cole.

Okay. Thank you, Madam President. We've seen a lot in the news about Eastern Nazarene College over the last couple of years. Let me first say that Eastern Nazarene's been an important institution in this community for over 100 years. thousands of young people were educated there. A lot of people that taught there, invested there, lived in the neighborhoods and were part of the city in many, many ways. We saw the sale play out with a developer who came forth with some pretty dense proposals for a couple of major buildings on that site. And we weren't too happy with that, and that message was delivered. After analyzing and looking at the property, we set up a community meeting. Many of you were there. opened it up to the community to get their thoughts on whether we should buy it and what should we do with it. We had, I think, 383 people signed in.

and of course we had hundreds of other emails and calls and comments throughout that process. And the only thing we've ruled out is somebody suggested a casino on the site. We're not going to proceed with that. Having said that, I'll give you a general overview of what I think could very well happen there. First of all, will create our own destiny if we purchase this site. How often does 20 acres of land come up in a urban setting to be available? That's number one. Number two is what kind of things could we do with that property? We've got some challenges. We hear frequently about the cost of housing, and that is a challenge. We hear about other groups that the nonprofits who are challenged. Quincy After School Daycare, for example, they have hundreds of kids on a waiting list.

They serve our kids, they work in our schools. There's a lot of need out there in a lot of different ways. Now, as you all know, eastern Nazarene is surrounded by mostly single family neighborhoods. and anything we do there, we want to do it in a way that would protect the neighborhood and enhance the neighborhood, not to bring a burden to that area. But let me rattle off a couple of options, a couple of ideas. and again, I know this is gonna be going into committee and we'll have a robust discussion in detail on that. There's 14 single family homes that are owned by AENC on the perimeter of that site. We would be looking essentially to sell most of those, if not all of them off, which would then return somewhere around $7 to $9 million back into the till, which then could be used against the purchase of the property. We would look at probably try to do something for a first time home buyer for Quincy Kits.

Something that we went on to develop a coming in knocking them down, putting townhouses. We want single family homes to stay and we want those Quincy kids to have that opportunity because we know breaking into the housing market is very, very difficult. We've also talked about, perhaps at the core of the site, We build 55 and over type housing. And that has a couple of things. One is I've talked to a lot of seniors who they struggle to stay in their home because they're house rich and cash poor. and they don't have the funds to maintain their properties. So there aren't many options out there. Not everyone wants to go to public housing. So this would be an option for that group, that demographic, but I would add to that that if you had, and part of the requirement I would suggest would be these would have to be Quincy people selling their home in Quincy to be eligible to go into this program.

and then that frees up housing stock for the younger families who we know are looking to purchase a home and raise their families here for all the right reasons. Those are a couple of, The gym and the fields are on one side. We believe that Quincy College would use the gym and use the fields with their programs. And additionally, perhaps the rec programs at nights and so forth when the gym's not used, they could use it. So they would help fund the purchase of this property with an offset. If we do the If we do the housing piece, we would use affordable housing fund and also other grants that are out there for affordable housing. That would then help offset the cost of the project. of the Cove Center. We had a lot of interest. I'm sure Councilor McKee, you heard it.

A lot of local theater groups, dance groups, cultural groups that would like to have use of that facility. And of course they would, pay some fees to do that. They're gonna have to pay towards the rent and the carrying costs. So I think that's something that is doable. The Administration Building, which is connected to the Nice Library Building, which is the newest building on the campus. both pretty good shaped buildings. I think a number of the buildings on the campus generally are not in that great a shape. These are and I think there's some potential great uses for those and I think that the if the library, it's a very big library, the space there, I don't see that continuing as just a library use. Perhaps a couple of floors of that could be that. after school day program or pre-K with our school system. We just got a 500,000 grant on the school side looking at pre-K.

These are some of the challenges as a community we're facing to try to deal with. and this property will give us some options to perhaps not completely solve them but certainly make a dent in these issues. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. There's no question about it. There'd be additional engagement with the community. and there's no right or wrong here. There's just opinions on what we should do with it. The other thing I will say is that a number of the acreage is in floodplain. and there's areas on the site that ought to be returned to nature, quite frankly, where the tennis courts are over on the backside, not far from Abbott Ave. That area could be restored into a real wetland and then help alleviate the flooding in the neighborhood. perhaps there's some additional house lots that are created in addition to the homes that are already there for single family homes so we can sell those off.

Not only do we bring the money in, but then they go on the tax rolls. Their property is not on the tax rolls today. as an educational institution. So we're at the beginning stages. The challenge is with Eastern Nazarene College, obviously they want to move on. They've got debt on the property. They want to pay the debt. and move on. So we've been working with them and we certainly appreciate that. So that is the general idea of why we're in front of you. Somebody said a long time ago, buy land, they ain't making any more of it. I think it's a great opportunity for the city. The land was assessed at approximately 58 million. The deal with the developer was in the $31 million range. So I think we're getting this property at a reasonable price to pursue some great program for our city. Any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I know it'll go into committee and have a detailed discussion.

Any questions? Councilor McKee.

Hi, I'm Eric Koch. I don't know if this is a question for you or Chief Staff Walker, but I'm wondering about putting this into executive session. I'm wondering about whether discussions in the council would affect the negotiation price.

What you had before you is a deal that's been made with the ANC. Negotiations are done. This would be a vote to authorize the purchase and then the appropriation to pay for that purchase. So I don't think there's a need for executive session.

Okay. Yes, I see the letter of intent is in our packets. I hadn't seen that before. So is that also public or is that the letter of intent? That's also public, okay.

Anybody else?

Council Yuan. through you, President, Council. So I think before we talk about the buy-in ENC, let's look at other major projects that will require bond issues this year. World One Sea Wall Replacement. There was a community meeting on this just last Tuesday. A few years ago, another section of the seawall cost about 17 million, with several million from the states. So what's the estimated cost of this new project? Also, on the agenda, there is an ordinance like, say, the school repair project. repair roofs and windows. And on the agenda, if the state grants don't cover the full cost, the city will have to make up the difference.

For these four schools, how much will the city need to contribute, and how big a bond is that? School repairs and sewer replacement are far more important and urgent than ENC. Let's understand how much bonding will be required for this project this year. prioritize them, then talk about ENC. Also, I heard Waterfall has a plan for the renovation of Aminio Della, Kisa Early Childhood Center to accommodate overflow students from other schools. That project is about $4 million. So we should let the resident know how how many bonds are down the road waiting for us and then we should prioritize them to see if we if we have some money, we should do something most urgent.

So I mean, I just want the resident to know, and I would ask mayor, How many bigger projects planned for this year that need issue bonds? And how much are those bonds?

Well, let me say a couple of things, because I probably should have said it earlier, but we've leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars from state and federal government on a lot of projects. So school projects that we've done, we've received tens of millions of dollars to reimburse on those schools. So my job is to put things before you and make the case for those projects before you. We're an old city and we're catching up with a lot of old infrastructure. and if you don't keep up with the infrastructure, you're gonna pay a hell of a lot more money down the road. We did 8,000 linear feet of seawalls. Adam Shore, roughly to the rock at Howes Neck by the Willows, started in Marymount and Arrogant Street Road. that was a complicated project. There were a lot of community meetings and a lot of sidewalks superintendents, but we got it done. It raised the seawall by two feet because that part of the city used to get inundated with major coastal storms. The next phase is the Manit Ab piece.

Manit and Babcock going down to Brinsley. That's about half the length. It's about 4,000 linear feet. It'll be about the same height. we already have a $3 million MEMA grant and we're looking for other funding grants as well. We don't have a price yet on it. We're gonna bid it this summer, come back to this body and have those discussions.

I fully supported for school repairs and the civil replacements. I think that should be on the top of the priority list. So I would like the resident know and what's the project down the road we should think about this year we should do if we if residents still can afford then you should do the most urgent most necessary project first, like repairing the roof of the school building and replace the seawalls. and after that, if resident still can afford issue more bonds, then we talk about buying ENC or build a performance center. That's my point.

I appreciate your point. I'll reiterate that what we've been doing for the last 10 years is rebuilding our city that had been let go for a long time. We're in our fifth new school. It's unmatched in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I could go on and on about all the projects we're doing. That first seawall section was very important to those neighbors. and maybe people in West Quincy or other parts. I don't care about that. But West Quincy had major flooding in 2010. We've made major improvements to the culverts in Furness Brook. that help mitigate going forward some of those challenges. So everybody in this room might have a different opinion on each of those projects. That's part of life and that's part of the discussion that we'll have going forward. So my guess is if you were here, you wouldn't have voted for half of them.

Yeah, I mean, my point is I think that's on the top of the priority, like repairing schools, like sewer placement or flooding issues. I want to... I think I made it clear that I should be ahead of thinking about purchasing ENC and the Performance Center. So I fully support the infrastructure and like update and repairing the roof of school buildings and the sewer replacements. I think those are the top priorities. If we have to issue bonds, then we issue bonds to those projects first. If residents still can afford to issue more bonds, then we think about issue bonds to buy ENC or performance center. That's my point.

Jacobs.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. How are you? Thank you for your presentation tonight. It's much appreciated. Thank you for all your work. from Eastern Nazarene College. It was also nice seeing you out there. A lot in Ward 1 over Cleaner Greener. I saw you a few times. My concern here is people are fatigued. Fatigued, I'm fatigued looking at these projects. You did a video the other day online. It was very well done about all the things going on downtown, and I think everything going on downtown is great. but there are residents in Ward 1 right now still waiting for their maritime center that you took away and it's not there. And that was a project that was promised to the people of Ward 1 and it's still not there. and there's projects like that all over the city. Pie in the sky projects that were promised to the residents of Quincy.

Give me another example.

an elementary school in West Quincy that wasn't built.

We purchased the property for a future elementary school, which is called Good Planning.

Okay. I'm just telling you, as a tax... You're fatigued?

You're in office for six months and you're fatigued?

So I just want to remind you that I represent the people who put me into office. There's a lot of people my age who are living paycheck to paycheck. paying mortgages on seven $800,000 houses, a married couple making less than $150,000 a year. and we're raising our kids. And I think sometimes, and as I look around this room, a lot of people aren't doing that right now. So I'm just saying, I know we want to control the, Development going on in this area. We have zoning in this area according to the zoning map online. This is all zoned Res A and Res B. so the density shouldn't be that high as long as our zoning board controls properly what's going in these lots if they were to be sold privately. that's all I'm saying.

I look forward to the further discussion about this project but there are a lot of projects that are unfinished and that's what I'm here and I'm here to represent the people who are living here, raising their families here, sending their kids to school here, they don't have the money to pay for this. Thank you.

Anybody else? Councilor Riley.

Yes, I'd like to make a motion to approve this and send it to the Finance Committee. No, just, oh, sorry.

I could, again, not to create this, but I do believe, and I can't remember where it went into, but I think it was Councilor McKee who asked, before this came before us, we knew Eastern Nazarene was coming. You told us in February when you did your stay at the address. I think it was Councilor McKee that asked for all of the properties that have been purchased by the City of Quincy, how much they were purchased for, what they're being used for, have we sold them off? Did it go into oversight? I was trying to look quickly. So, and it was also, I think, if I remember correctly, I think there was also kind of a deadline if you could just give the report to us. So we were hoping we would have that, so hopefully we'll have that soon too. And the reason why we're asking that And it's been 20 years that we've been doing these projects, so I appreciate the last 10 years. We've got a lot done, but it's been 20 years. And I'm just saying, and there's a lot of changes that have happened.

I don't think it's been 20 years. There's a lot of per- It hasn't been 20 years, Council President.

18, okay. So there's been, it will be 20 when you're done, but here's the thing. There have been a lot of purchases. The Monroe Building was discussed earlier. It was purchased for a specific use, and we've changed the use. We purchased two properties down the street with the hope that we were gonna buy, not buy, we were gonna win in court the Adams Academy, which we didn't. And I think that was going to be the land of the Adams Academy. So there's been a lot of moving parts in the city of Quincy. And you are absolutely right. They are not making more land in the city of Quincy. But we have to be careful about what we're doing. I think what Council UN is simply saying is that there's a lot of stacking of projects that are happening being talked about one-off, and it is your vision to bring it to us. but it's also our responsibility to make sure that we're looking at all the projects that we need to get done and also making sure that we're making it affordable for the taxpayers in the city of Quincy. And saying things like, your house rich and cash poor sounds great for those poor people that are, or the new families that are moving in. And it all sounds great right now from what we're hearing.

We're gonna create a 55 and older so, It's going to be Quincy residents that get to move in to those. And it's going to be used by the Quincy Housing Trust. These are all just pie in the sky things right now. And I'm sure you're going to have a complete plan. But we also should have had a complete plan for the Monroe Building. It didn't turn out to what that was supposed to be. Block down the street where we were buying that for a creative arts facility that we were going to have. That dream is over, that down there too. So we have had a lot of things that we've purchased with taxpayers' money that didn't come to fruition. And we just want to make sure that before we make any decisions that we have a lock and loaded plan for this because there have been plenty of things, and I have supported them, that didn't turn out the way we were thinking they were going to turn out. And that does happen. And this is not meant to be a criticism. It's just meant to be a conversation where we can work together if we have that information. Information was asked from this council. It wasn't provided. Information was asked from this council to the finance department.

It wasn't provided. There seems to be a trend of the door is always open except for when you ask for something. We'll get it to you tomorrow. We need these things promptly so that we can make these decisions together. And I think if we had those, then maybe we wouldn't be having the next question of how we pave the seawalls.

Those are fair. Those are fair. I would like to say a couple of things, though. I wouldn't suggest, I don't like the term pie in the sky, number one. We don't always like the same terms we use. We have been building projects for 18 years because My first two terms, we're making major cuts. We're laying people off because we went through the worst recession since the Depression. We also then went through the Thank you. Thank you. particular projects. We'll get the information that you've asked. I'll make sure that our team provides that to you promptly.

and we can go back and forth on this truthfully because COVID money was used to purchase the Monroe Building because it was before this body and this body was going to say no to the purchase of that building. and magically it turned into a COVID purchase. I'm just saying, Mayor Koch, with all due respect.

Magically, it was federal money.

It was magic because we used COVID money for the wrong purpose and we based it on having it be a tourism event. But that's not what it was used for. And now it's being rented out to next to nothing, we're not making the profit and it's off the tax rolls. We can go back and forth and do these things, but I don't want to. So we have a motion to put it into committee by Councilor Riley, seconded by, who do we have second? Seconded by Ryan. All those in favor? Any against? So we have now moved into committee, and I appreciate the back and forth.

Thank you, Councilors. Have a great evening.

Next is number 6, 20-26-077, appropriation for $22,500,000 for Eastern Nazarene College land acquisition.

Motion to move to Finance Committee.

Second.

All those in favor?

Any opposed? Moving on. Number seven, 20-26-078, appropriation for $322,377.03, community preservation projects closeout.

Riley. Yes, thank you. So this is the second wave of recaptured projects that either had money left over or did not get off the ground. So the total of 300 and how much is it? Where is it again? 322, 377.03. I motion that we return that back to the Community Preservation General. Do we have a second?

Do we have a second on the motion first? We have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor DiBona on the motion.

I thought this was like over 500,000 initially.

That was last week. That was the last one.

Oh, this is a different one.

These are the ones that the POs weren't closed yet, so we had to hold them back.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor from Councilor Riley, seconded by Councilor DiBona. Can we have a roll call vote for that, please?

Councilor Rash. DiBona, yes, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, yes, nine members. Next is number 8-2026-079. Order, Massachusetts School Building Authority accelerated repair program feasibility phase. Okay.

So we need to have a motion on that first?

Because this ordinance was not uploaded on the city website, so residents haven't a chance to see what's what's this ordinance about? Can City Clerk read this ordinance aloud so residents know what's that about?

Would you like to read it for us?

The school building authority accelerated the repair program feasibility phase. That's actually the ordinance I talked about. If state grants couldn't cover all the costs for repairing roof and the windows of those four schools, the city has to come up with the money, that means we'll issue bonds again. And I would like to know what's the estimated amount of those bonds. because the resident should know that down the road what are waiting for them.

Okay, Councilor, if you could, Mr. Walker, because it came in late, I think you asked me if it was okay to go on. Could you just tell us why did it come in late? I'm going to ask you because you asked me first. Yeah, it came in late. Was it forgotten? I think it was just forgotten.

It came in Thursday. The order was done on Friday. after our agenda meeting, but it was discussed prior to that. This is a typical order that we've done, I don't know, 18 to 20 times in the past. This is the Massachusetts School Building Authority Accelerated Repair Program. this is just the feasibility phase. The school committee has taken a similar vote. This enters us into the feasibility phase. Once we're accepted into that part of the process, schematic design is done. and approved by the MSBA, then we come back to this body for a full appropriation request with a substantial reimbursement, as the Mayor had mentioned, from the state that goes along with these projects. It was my intention in communications with you and Councilor Riley that this would go straight to committee in part because the order was on Friday that you received it.

Was it posted on the website?

Yuen. To Chief of Staff, so are those repairing project are expected to be done this year or next year and if the city have to issue bonds to to repair those buildings will be this year or next year.

. As Mr. Walker suggested, this appropriation is simply to get us into the feasibility study, where the MSBA will appoint an architect and Enota's project manager to create a study to see if the roofs do need the repairs, if the windows do need to be replaced. I can tell you the result will be yes. And then there's the next phase. So this $500,000 isn't intended as our contribution to the construction.

I understand that.

It's our initial design. So by the time we go through the MSBA process, We're not even technically fully in it. We've only been invited into feasibility. It is somewhat of a lengthy, I'll use the word bureaucratic process, but it is a good process. There's a lot of input. I would not anticipate Construction of those roofs, I would say till 2028. Calendar 2028.

OK, thank you. motion. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. I just, I'm listening to Councilor Yuan and I'm hearing you all night and I understand where you're coming from. but you're a little inexperienced at times and you don't fully understand everything, okay? I just wanna say just these type of, hold on, hold on, I got the privilege to say what I wanna say, okay? No, no, I've been up here and I've, you know. So here's the situation. This is school buildings. These are, we have... 11 elementaries, we have five middles, we have two high schools, we have a special needs center. We have a window of time to put these feasible studies in. If we miss that window of time, there's 351 communities throughout the Commonwealth other people, other towns and cities are gonna take that funding. It's his responsibility as Public Buildings Commissioner to do a spot check in each facility, each school. We have to present this in front of the council.

And I understand your bonding,

will be issued and how much will be is a projection. What you are talking about is not my question at all.

You're talking about this is why we do a feasible study. That's why we present this in front of us.

the feasibility study, but it clearly said the last sentence, any project costs the City of Quincy incurs in excess of any grant that may be approved by and received from MSBA shall be the sole responsibility of the City of Quincy. That's my question. So how much money will be that? How much money City of Quincy have to come up to cover that? That's my question. What you are talking about is not my question at all.

My question back to you is My question back to you is, is a lot of these programs are reimbursement programs where we get funding back from the MSBA. So you have to do the process first. And that's what we're doing here tonight. We're trying to get the process.

If I may, thank you, Madam President. On the short term for this schematic design phase, I've budgeted, I anticipate that 500,000. that doesn't make it 1.5 million. I anticipate the 500,000 will cover all of the costs of this feasibility study. So that for the feasibility phase, that's our maximum exposure. that language that you're reading is typical of an MSBA mandated language of any council order. You'll find that in every MSBA related order that comes before you. and it's somewhat of their protection of their program. It's to set our expectations that we would never anticipate them paying 100% of any project

and quite frankly, even when we get fully developed budgets and even bids for projects, they don't pay 100%. They have disallowed costs, they have excluded costs, they have caps on square footage, So before there's the vote that appropriates the construction money by this body, we will know what the MSBA has given us for funds and we will know what the city's obligation is at the time of that future vote.

I just want to know the time frame.

Okay. I wish I did. And I don't mean to be wise with that, but it is a long process. So we'll get into this feasibility study. The next... MSBA board meeting, I believe is in August. Well, they'll say, yes, you're invited in, or no, have a good day. that will actually physically do the feasibility study and I call it cartoon because they're very, very sparse and not detailed plans to give an understanding of what the future project will be. and then the MSBA board will vote on that and invite us to the design development phase where the plans become more robust. and of course the price goes up when that happens. So there'll be funding requests for the design development

and that really sends this whole project down the slippery slope until the construction cost is known and requested for appropriation by the council. So I would anticipate Feasibility being done, completed, maybe like December of 26. And then the next phase to be happening in calendar 27, which is likely when we come back to you, either fall of 20, and that's how I anticipate the summer of 2028 to start the construction. The roof projects generally take the summer and then a couple months into the fall the window projects are likely to take longer. And we have done them before and we've worked with the educational community to adapt to that.

Thank you very much for detailed explanation. I really appreciate it. Because I don't want to sit here. If there is something I don't understand, I want to ask. I don't want to pretend I understand everything and just sit in there. Don't say anything, don't ask question because I'm elected to do checks and the balance on the administration. So it's my job, my duty to ask a question to make it clear and the resident to hear that too. Thank you very much.

I fully understand, thank you.

So, Councillor Hennessy.

Mr. Hines, if you could just have one quick question.

And if I could, Madam President, I have a responsibility for the children in these schools too. So I just want to make, I reiterate a little bit of, we've been through this procedure before. It's a feasibility study. I don't want to miss the window of time. And if we miss that window of time, other communities are going to take them. That's all.

Thanks. Thank you.

Can I add one other comment, too?

OK, we're going to stop. So I just.

Madam President, before your question, just one other comment. for this round of accelerated repair projects. The MSBA has changed up their process. They've now gone, rather than an annual application process, it's every two years, So if we as a city don't engage and follow through now, we can't even put in another application for another two years. And then on top of that would be about that same two year design construction bid process. So we're talking like four years out. I just want to add that to everyone's understanding.

So quick question. So we're going to be approving tonight to go into the feasibility. So this is just the school committee has voted. We're voting this will go into the feasibility, correct? And second to that, this is for four schools, is that correct? Is it for four schools?

Four schools, yes.

And now because the MSBA has changed, because feasibilities can only go in, they have a window of two years, is that correct? Window of two years, is that what you just said?

every two years for applications. Applications.

So we're putting it in, and when's it due? When's the application due?

We're in. So our current application is what triggered this feasibility phase.

Okay, so we'll be in it. So my only question for you is that we have a lot of schools with a lot of needs, and these are the four that we have. do we have any other ones that won't that so it would be great if we could just get I always say this every time you know a public facility kind of an idea of what everything needs to be done broken up by schools and by now we have like the Monroe building we have to look at too. So if we could get that just from you as a committee I think it would be very helpful and also because usually you know these things happen sometimes they're emergency you know things happen when there's emergency and things happen when we're planning so we'd like to have those plans so On this, do I have a motion to approve the feasibility study? Councilor Riley. Councilor Riley.

I think we should motion just to approve this tonight and move it along.

Seconded by Councilor Jacobs. Do we need a roll call on this one? Roll call on this one, please. Thank you. Councilor Ash.

Yes.

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

Thank you.

All right, so moving on to number nine. Number nine, 2026-080, a resolve calling for the city Ryan, Quincy Housing Authority, QHA, vacancy data to access viability of 55 plus housing incentives. Councilor Ryan.

Thank you, Madam President. So this is order number 2026080, resolution calling for Quincy Housing Authority QHA vacancy data to assess viability of 55 plus housing initiatives. Whereas the City of Quincy is committed to addressing the evolving housing needs of its senior population, ensuring that residents can age in place with dignity and security, and whereas in an interview with Quincy Access Television, QATV on March 31st, 2026, Mayor Thomas P. Koch discussed the future of city-owned and managed properties, including the strategic plan for the former Eastern Nazarene College property and the potential for expanding 55-plus housing options

and whereas current eligibility requirements, inventory and demand for QHA housing may vary between its 55 plus and 62 plus developments. which could affect the feasibility of such a transition. And whereas data-driven policy requires an accurate accounting of current vacancy rates, weightless lengths and unit turnover within QHA's elderly and disabled housing portfolio. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Quincy Housing Authority provide a comprehensive report detailing the current vacancy rates across all elderly disabled designated developments. that this report includes a breakdown of units currently restricted to 62 plus versus 55 plus to assist in determining the viability of the Mayor's proposed expansion of 55 plus housing.

that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Office of the Mayor and the Executive Director of the Quincy Housing Authority for a response within 30 days. Okay, so one other item is we could use this report in concert with the proposed acquisition of ENC. And I would like to move this resolution forward to oversight.

to pass and move to oversight. There's a motion on the table. Is there a second? Councilor Jacobs on the motion. Anybody have any questions or concerns? Roll call vote.

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

Yes.

Councilor McKee. Yes. Councilor Riley. Yes. Councilor Ryan. Yes. Councilor Yuan. Yes. President Mahoney. Yes. Eight members. Moving on to item number 10. 10-2026-081, a resolve seeking formal audit of lease deductions, expenses, and payments by Quarry Hills Association, LP.

Councilor Ryan. Thank you, Madam President. This is order number 2026-081, resolution for the formal audit of lease deductions, expenses, and payments by Quarry Hills Associates LP. Whereas the City of Quincy maintains a long-term lease agreement, the lease, for the operation and management of the Quarry Hills Golf Course, amended and restated development lease, an operating agreement dated December 20th, 2002 and whereas Powers and Sullivan LLC in a letter dated November 20th, 2024 to Mr. Paul De La Barba stated they did not do an audit or provide any of the insurances on the calculations in its report to Mr. De La Barba. and recommended that the city have an audit performed on an annual basis.

And whereas section 15.7 of the lease allows the city to conduct periodic Audits, and whereas Section 14.2 of the lease established the oversight fund for the purpose of negotiation, oversight, and enforcement of the lease terms. and whereas since fiscal year 2006, the Oversight Fund has received 1.071.20932 from the leasee for payment of such expenses. And whereas the fiscal health of municipal assets depends upon the transparent reporting of all gross revenues, operating expenses, and any subsequent deductions that impact the final lease payments owed to the city. And whereas public oversight of municipal contracts is essential to ensure

that the terms of the lease are being executed in a manner that maximizes the public benefit and adheres to established accounting standards. and whereas quarterly financial reports provided to the City list a breakdown of expense categories not specified in the lease. and whereas the Office of Inspector General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued an advisory on municipal golf course contracts. In this advisory, the Inspector General recommended as follows. Vendor oversight by municipalities. Municipalities must ensure that vendors comply with all contractual requirements. Municipalities should not rely on vendor relationships or a belief that the legal and moral weight of a contract by itself will ensure compliance. Revenue share agreements, trust but verify.

In revenue share agreements without adequate reporting and controls, municipalities have no assurances that they are receiving a fair and complete share of revenue. whereas the audit shall include an inspection of Quarry Hill's records including all files and records of Lisey and vendors deemed reasonably necessary to document Lisey's expenses. now therefore be it resolved that the City Council hereby calls upon the City of Quincy to initiate said audit pursuant to section 15.7 of the lease conducted by an independent and third-party certified auditor selected by the City Council. The City shall pay for the audit from the Oversight Fund. The results of said audit shall be completed within six months after the passage of this resolution. Be it further resolved that the City Council schedule a public hearing following the submission of the audit to allow for an explanation of the audit results

and to ensure that the city's interests are being fully protected under the terms of the existing lease. So I would like to move this to finance.

Okay, so we have a new passage, a motion to pass and move to finance. Motion made by Councilor Ryan, seconded by Councilor Yuan. On the motions, anybody have any questions?

I was happy to hear Mayor Koch express support for this. that was very encouraging. You know, audit isn't a dirty word. We should not be, it would be irresponsible of us as the lessor of this property to not be doing I don't know if any audits have been done in the past. There doesn't seem to be any readily available. If I could ask our auditor Do we know how much money is in that oversight fund to cover this?

I don't have any records in front of me right now, but the last time I looked it was in a negative. negative 168,000. Okay.

Okay, well, I guess we can hammer that out in Finance Committee, but we're gonna have to allocate some money for this. Not us, the city, not the city, but we're going to have to figure out where that went.

So a motion by Councilor Ryan, seconded by Councilor Yuan. Anybody else on the motion?

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

Yes.

Nine members.

So now we're going to move back into the oversight meeting. I'm going to switch places.

All right, we're continuing the oversight committee from earlier today, where we've been talking about the Monroe Building, which is next door. It's been used for... you know, private business, some public business, some nonprofit type stuff. And we're just gonna continue that conversation. and we still have it open to anybody. I think Councilor McKee was the last one to be involved in discussion. Is there anyone else who'd like to ask any questions? of our two guests, Building Commissioner Hines and the Property Manager, Granite Street Partners, Joe Shea. All right, great. I just had a few questions. When we took the tour, and I thank you so much again for the tour. It was great.

Anytime, any building.

It was also nice that we talked about the school across the street from my house, and you knew everything about that school, and it just was interesting to see that.

It was very understanding.

like we were standing right there. So the restaurant that was over at the Monroe Building, what was the name of that restaurant?

Probably shouldn't because I was trashing them earlier.

Yeah, I just remembered. So you were saying that they moved out in 2025, and that was probably one of the reasons why the amount of money that we took in went down. and you said the reason that we moved them out of there or kind of pushed them out was that they were causing a lot of those fog issues that we kind of talked about. previously in another meeting. So I guess if they had these issues, right, and we moved them, I shouldn't say we moved them, but they moved down to Southern Ottery, right? That's where they are now?

They moved to Newport Avenue, the Newport Plaza, I believe it's called.

So they're at the Newport Avenue. If they were having these issues, why would we reissue their... you know, certification to continue to operate a restaurant in Quincy when they're like a habitual offender.

When they were my tenant, I'll call them, in the Monroe, I worked with several city departments. and the Health Department and other various departments were aware of what they were doing and what my concerns were. When they chose to leave, I was happy. I suppose they couldn't summarily assume they were gonna continue the bad habits and had to give them the chance. I quite honestly don't know how they're performing down there. I wish them well, I wish their landlord well, and I wish the city's pipes well.

Another question I have, it's not related to that restaurant, but when we were speaking over at the building, we were talking about that bottom, kind of southwest corner where the dental office was. In our discussions in this meeting, you had said that we had no outstanding, you know, debts from our renters. But in our meeting over there, you had mentioned that the dental office was upwards of five months in the rear. Yes. So I just want to confirm that the city actually did acquire that five months worth of rent.

We tried the Mr. Nice Person approach for a number of months, heightened our concern, heightened our communications. They were ignoring us. When it got to that five-month thing, they got the legal notice to quit, the non-payment of rent document. And lo and behold, the next day, there was an envelope in my office with five checks for the five missing months. and fortunate part is they already gone past this statutory right to a cure. So we accepted the money, we put it in our account gladly and we still cause them to go.

So we did collect, but we did collect those funds.

We did collect in full.

All right, great. And I have a question for Mr. Shea, I guess for both of you. So Granite Street Partners is managing this building for us for the last, let's say five years, 2021, right? what is that? Can you explain like on a day to day basis, like we're paying you $60,000 a year to manage this building. So over the last five years, that's like upwards of $300,000. So what is it exactly on the day-to-day that the taxpayer is getting for the $300,000 that we've spent over the last five years?

Absolutely. Thank you. And just to be clear, it's Granite City Partners. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's okay. Happy to be Granite City Partners. the city solicits real estate support services on three year contracts through the purchasing department. We were selected and then we were reselected and given the assignment of the Monroe building. Through that, we manage the portion of the spreadsheet that I understand is probably 300 different numbers on it over the course of the last 18 months. That is ours, is that we have a superintendent who spends time in the building every day.

Can you say like how much time is he spending?

So it is budgeted on four hours a day for him to be in the building work with the tenants, make sure that the building is clean. work with our vendors when our vendors need to be there. So whether that is custodial services or as we talked about the boiler and HVAC contractors who are in the other columns on your spreadsheet, really, facilitate and coordinates the management of that building. Now what we've learned is that's budgeted at four hours. The way that it actually unfolds is sometimes it's a full day and sometimes it only needs to be there for an hour. What we also do with that budget is we are 24-7 as discussed. We're in the on-call box outside of the building. When called in on a Saturday night for some reason, often in the wintertime, we will be called in. People who are not part of that building may have gotten to the building trying to get warm or looking for a place to sleep.

So we get called in for effectively managing and tending to that building through the on-call contract, through the funds that are put into the revolving account. by use and occupancy charges. And then we also end up managing or coordinating some capital projects. The replacement of the boiler is a great example.

Right, so the city pays for it, but you make the calls to the people who actually, the contractor who's putting in the boiler. We did a great job, by the way, as we all saw.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We do. We do. And tenant relationships, being a tenant liaison, checking in on various items. When someone leaves the building or when someone comes into the building. we facilitate all of those processes as well.

Do you feel that part of your $60,000 fee that you're getting every year you should be advertising that the space is available, even if it's for a non-lease. I mean, it seems like we're not really doing that. I mean, is that part of your agreement that you are supposed to kind of you know, find, I don't wanna say find tenants, but like help attract tenants to the building.

If we were directed to do so by the administration, we'd be happy to. We really would. We want to enliven that building, too. As indicated, this corner you just called out, kind of the closest corner to where we stand, is a beautiful corner. be happy to assist the city in trying to find a vibrant use to keep that corner going.

But right now the city is not asking you to do that.

not at this moment we haven't been asked, we've heard discussions about some internal uses for that corner as concepts and I refer back to the Commissioner on those.

I just want to remind both of you and everybody who was in this room that we're counting on you to make the best use of that building because those people were in here today because their budgets are coming up. and they want to make sure that their firehouses are staffed and we want to make sure that our classrooms are full and we want to make sure that our roofs are new. Everything we do here is dependent upon the two of you making sure that we're getting the most money from that building that we can. and I don't think we are. And I'm not saying it's anybody sitting here's fault, but I do think that, again, I know we don't wanna do leases, because we have potential future plans for that building. But I do think it is possible to bring in more revenue to that building. Just as an example, down on the corner where Stephen Lee Jewelers, was, I'm also a lifelong Quincy person, so I know where Stephen Lee Jules was.

But there was a store that was recently in there the last couple of months run by a gentleman who lives up in North Quincy. and it was, I think, a good business idea to really try to foster a community in Quincy and it was really geared towards bringing kids in playing board games, they had a Nintendo set up. And I went into his store and I spoke to him and he was paying almost $10,000 a month. and had he known, I mean, it was, I think it was a great business venture. And I think that, you know, that is something that should have probably been in the Monroe Building, because we are using it as a space. like the two trunks to really build a community. And I feel terrible for that person who spent thousands and thousands of dollars. And had he only known, had we only, you know,

have been advertising that space as available for a community center like that. I do think even that dental office, although you said, maybe was gonna be used for inter-office space, but could have been something really great and beneficial to the community that, you know, that was lost. So again, just when I started off this meeting, this was not to be pointing fingers. It was just a conversation. And again, we just want to make sure we're counting on you. to make sure that we bring in the most amount of money to fill our classrooms with teachers, to fill our fire trucks with firefighters, to fill our police cars with police officers, to pay for the materials that are going in the manhole that I saw them rebuilding down on Edgewater Drive today. And I know it's just, maybe it's a couple of hundred, it's $100,000 here, it doesn't seem like a lot, but again, when you add it up time over time over time,

it really does add up. So I just wanna thank you for the work that you have done there. I'm hoping that we can get, you know, Moore, short-term tenants, you know, in the short term, to fill those vacant storefronts. So thank you so much. Understood. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? All right, I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn this subcommittee hearing of the Oversight Committee. A motion. President Mahoney, and a second. Award three, Councilor Hubley. All in favor? Very good. Thank you very much and have a good night.

We're going to go back back into the City Council meeting and we do not have any minutes tonight so we're going to move on to communications of reports from the mayor and other city officers and city boards.

I do have a couple of traffic requests to refer to Ordinance Committee for Advertising, Board 2, Councilor Atte. Hubley, add stop sign on Alton Road southbound intersecting with Nichols Street. Ward 3, Councilor Hubley, add stop sign at Berham Ave northbound intersecting with Hillmouth Street. So that means in advertising. Okay.

Anybody else? Nope. Doesn't look like anybody else. All right. Moving on to unfinished business and proceeding meetings. Nothing. Okay. Reports of committees. Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. So unfortunately, Director Congeni was here earlier. I was hoping to give her a little shout-out, but she, I guess, had to leave. This is our Veterans Services Committee. So for the past quarter, which is January 1st through March 31st, The department filed 98 VA claims. Each claim comes and requires a significant staff support and up to two to three office appointments, many follow-up calls and so forth. A lot of work goes into servicing each of these claims because each situation is unique and special and important to the family that it pertains to. With respect to Chapter 115, Financial Assistance, 120 veterans and eligible dependents, including non-medical, medical-only cases, This is a state-funded program that supports low-income veterans, supporting spouses and eligible dependent children. Let's see.

Enrollment fluctuates based upon changes in eligibility and financial status during this reporting period. Eight new applications were submitted and three were closed due to relocation or their passing. The third section, employment support. So there are currently eight active employment plans. Participating veterans are required to attend weekly meetings through this program, provide documented search efforts, and submit regular updates. The program's goal is to promote long-term self-sufficiency and successful reintegration into the workforce. And with section four, burial assistance and grave marker submissions, the department provides assistance to families during times of loss by coordinating burial benefits and facilitating grave marker applications for eligible veterans. Services include processing requests for burial and funeral reimbursements, assisting with applicants of VA issues, headstones and markers,

coordinating with cemeteries and vendors to ensure proper placement and documentation and providing guidance to families on eligibility and required documentation. This work ensures that veterans are honored appropriately while easing administrative burdens on their families. there's been a couple events coming up but first I'll talk about an event that just happened so this past week on the 30th at 2 30 in the afternoon at the Marina Bay Clock Tower Lieutenant Colonel retired James Walsh from the US Marine Corps. POW was a keynote speaker. Anytime you think you're having a tough day when you hear remarks like this from Lieutenant Colonel James Walsh, retired Lieutenant Colonel James Walsh. It makes you kind of realize how fortunate you are. Just an amazing story of perseverance and just stuff I couldn't personally imagine. It was a great ceremony.

Director Congenia did a wonderful job orchestrating everything, and we had a great luncheon afterwards. And so for upcoming events, we have Christopher Chowda Hill, Captain, United States Navy, North Quincy Class of 1992. There'll be events happening throughout the week, May 11th through May 15th. Then we have our Memorial Day parade and ceremony on May 25th, 9, sorry, 10.30 a.m. step off. and the parade begins at the Quincy Credit Union and the ceremony immediately follows. And then lastly, there'll be the Veterans Expo on June 18th and that goes from 10 a.m. to three, oh sorry, July 18th, thank you. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Pageant's Field. So this report's available on the website, and that's all I have for that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, you all set, Councilor Hubley? You all set? Yep, so we're gonna move on to presentations of petitions, memorials and remonstrances, Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. So, May is Foster Care Awareness Month, and so I wanted to say a few things about that. My parents were foster parents for about 30 years and many kids went through their home. I was among the final kids that they cared for and then eventually adopted. Later in life, I became a foster parent myself back when my wife and I were starting our family. and then again, more recently during COVID for about four years, we cared for a number of children from Quincy and throughout the community. Let's see. Okay, so just some statistics. Currently there are about 8,500 people in care, in foster care. Among those 8,500, 6,953 are under 18. Let's see.

So there's a great need out there for foster parents and a lot of the kids who run into challenges are because oftentimes they're getting moved from different homes or different facilities or different placements. and what really drives home and helps success stories, like many of the people in my family, is when they have consistency of care. And so the state does need foster parents. So my wife and I are going to be hosting an information session. We're still working out the details. We'll be working with representatives from DCF and the idea is anyone who's interested in learning more about becoming a foster parent, what's involved, what's the process, what it's like, you'll be able to join us and hear firsthand from foster parents as well as the Department of Children and Family. We're currently looking at scheduling this for, let's see, Monday, June 29th. I promised myself I would not add one more thing to my calendar that happened before PorchFest.

So I pushed it out a couple of days. We have the common market reserved at 6 PM. If anyone's interested in learning about this process, please reach out to me by email or social media or whatever mechanism you'd like to choose. I'll get you on the list and let you know about the logistics and the final date and time and location. You can really make a difference, and thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilor Hubley. Is there anybody else for prison? Anybody else for presentations and petitions, memorials, remonstrances?

Councilor Yuen. I have a comment for all my colleagues and to the resident. I want to say city councilors are elected to do checks and balance. It's their duty to ask questions and get answers for residents. Today, at this meeting, a senior councilor insulted and intimidated another Councillor just for asking questions. This behavior is totally unacceptable. To prevent such an incident happen again, I strongly suggest we should put this instance in writing, put in the record, and I would want to put this issue in the oversight committee and let all the councilors to discuss how to prevent such kind of things happen again.

DiBona publicly apologized to me for insulting and intimidating me just for asking questions.

There'll be no commentation from the, please. This is a meeting, and no, I'm talking to both of you. I'm talking to both of you. You are booing, and I'm talking to this side, too, so I'm asking no from either sides, okay? Thank you.

Yep, Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. Councilor Yon, if I came off across a little too strong for you, I understand, I apologize. However, there... You accept? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other presentations of petitions, memorials, or remonstrances? Seeing none. Oh, seeing one. Councilor Jacobs.

Sorry. I just want to... Let folks know if they don't already know, this Wednesday night there's going to be a school committee meeting where they'll be addressing Lunar New Year holiday. If that's something there is a group who wants to make that a holiday on the calendar, If that's something you support or you don't support, you should know that there is going to be an open meeting. You'll be able to voice your concerns. You can also do so in writing. And that's going to be this Wednesday, so today's Star Wars Day, May 4th. So it's gonna be on May 6th. And it's gonna be here at City Hall. I think it's at six or six, I'm not sure. I think it's at six, though.

Anybody else for presentations, petitions, memorials, or remonstrances? Seeing none, moving on to motions, orders, and resolution. Seeing none, moving on to upcoming meetings. Councilor Riley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. We have a schedule for our finance committee meetings to review the department budgets. Monday, May 11th at 7.30 will be the public hearing followed at 8 o'clock by the Finance Committee meeting. The next instance will be on Tuesday, May 19th at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 2nd at 7 p.m. and Wednesday, June 10th at 7.30 p.m. Yes, Wednesday, June 10th, 7.30. Yes. I'm sure Jen's going to be sending this out. Yeah. Councilor DiBona?

Intent to back up one?

No, we have a full schedule.

Full schedule. So you're going to break them up into four?

we have four currently scheduled and we have a fifth day if needed, or I guess the council meeting, right?

When are you going to have the schedule ready for us to find out which department?

Just waiting for the department heads to confirm.

It needs to be posted by Thursday, so I'm hoping to do it tomorrow or Wednesday morning.

If I could, I know you've already scheduled some of these for 7.30. It'd be better to do them later since you're gonna do four. 7.30 is better for me.

We do.

Is that accommodating? Yeah. The 6.30 just doesn't work at all.

We don't have any 6.30.

Okay.

7.30, 7, 7, and 7.30.

Okay. So 7.30 in the last one. Okay. That's fair enough. Thank you.

Any other committees? Councilor McKee.

I think we need to have an ordinance committee meeting, so I'd like to have that for next Monday at 6.30.

What's the date?

May 11th.

We have budgets.

We have the budget.

But that starts at 7.30.

Yeah, but we start at 7.30 because people aren't available.

Oh, okay. So I guess do we need to do it on a different night then? Okay. All right. I'll get in touch with you then and I'll schedule that. Yep.

Anybody else for scheduling committees?

Yep.

So I guess the only thing I'd say is that there was a lot of asks tonight from this council to the administration. Some came about DIFs, some came about projects, some came about extended projects, and I'm hoping that True, Mr. Walker will be able to get all that information hopefully first thing tomorrow morning because I was waiting for it all day today. You know, 7.30 to start. Thanks so much. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Ryan. Second. All those in favor? We're going to go home now. Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you for watching!