Quincy City Council: March 2, 2026

Thank you.

Hi, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the March 2nd meeting of the Rules Committee. You can't hear me? Can you hear me now? Okay. So welcome to the Rules Committee. I will read out the open meeting law. Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible. McEague, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Ash, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Ryan, Riley, sorry, Councilor Yuan, Chairman McEague.

Okay. Oh, yes. Thank you. We have none, so those are the members of the Rules Committee. Also we have here the rest of the city councilors that we have, Councilor Ryan, Councilor DiBona, Councilor Mahoney, and Councilor Jacobs. So I'm just going to start by reading the order that we're talking about here, which is to establish public participation procedures for city council meetings. So whereas meaningful public participation strengthens democratic governance, transparency, and accountability, and whereas the city council is authorized under Massachusetts law and the city charter to establish rules governing its proceedings, and whereas the City Council seeks to provide a structured, equitable and legally compliant opportunity for residents to address the Council while preserving the orderly conduct of meetings,

now therefore be it adopted that the rules of the city council of the Quincy City Council are amended as follows. Okay, so this is section, adding sections A through G, public participation, resident first at city council meetings, A. open meetings. All city council meetings shall be open to the public except as allowed under the open meeting law. No final action may be taken in executive session. B, public comment period. A standing agenda item shall provide time for public comment at all regular meetings. Public comment is limited to matters within the city council's purview. see speaker priority. Residents of Quincy shall be recognized first for public comment. Speakers shall state their name and address for the record and may identify any group they represent. D, each speaker is limited to three minutes. Time may not be transferred or pooled.

The total duration of the resident public participation shall not exceed 20 minutes. E, speakers may express opinions, including criticism, policies, or operations not allowed, threats, incitement of imminent unlawful conduct, or actual disruption of the meeting. F, enforcement. The council president enforces time limits and order, verbal warnings directing a speaker to conclude recess or removal if necessary. Enforcement is behavior-based and content neutral. Public comment should follow roll call, approval of minutes and announcements before substantive orders, resolutions or votes. and it's effective immediately upon adoption and incorporation into the rules book. And I'm not going to read the order of business as it stands, but we will be adding number four, public participation, resident first after saluting the flag. at regular council meetings.

So is there any discussion on the order from the Rules Committee members? Oh, Councilor Riley.

Yes, good evening. Good evening. This order is something that we promised to the voters when we campaigned in 2023, and this demonstrates our commitment to deliver on that promise. The proposed changes to Rules 24 and 27 will make the opportunity for public comment permanent unless changed by a majority vote of a future counsel. The people of Quincy will have an opportunity at every meeting to be heard, a significant improvement in our local governance. Thank you to President Mahoney for bringing this forward. I support moving this out of committee with a favorable recommendation to adopt council order 2026-008 and bring it to a vote of the full council.

Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree. The public comment period is something that I will happily support. There was a question, I believe, around the timeframe for the public comment period. I know it's been clarified. and President Mahoney's interviews and some of the press releases. It does say for Section D time limits, As this is drafted, it says each speaker is limited to three minutes, time may not be transferred or pooled, and the total duration of the resident public participation shall not exceed 20 minutes. I know just from third-party communications that the idea will be to kind of suspend that rule and allow folks to speak if they are here during that time. I just wanted to make sure that that was something that was put on the record and that of course the folks in the audience and at home know that the idea will be to make sure if folks are here during the resident comment period that they'll have the opportunity to speak.

Am I allowed to respond to that now? Okay, so I think according to Robert's rules, we can, We can always make a motion to expand the time limit for something. I would recommend maybe keeping this and then if we really need it, someone can make a motion and someone else can second it and then we can have a majority vote to extend the rules because we're sort of in this balance of, wanting everyone to have an opportunity to talk, but also wanting to get a lot of stuff done. I think we can also, if we see a lot of people in the audience, we could I've seen this in other city council meetings, make a motion to change the amount of time that people have. So it could be down to one minute or two minutes in a situation will also continue to have public hearings on issues that are really big and important.

But what are other people's thoughts on that? Yuan.

Question. So if one speaker didn't use up for three minutes, can his or her time be used by other speakers so we can have more speakers to speak?

Yes. it wouldn't be able to transfer to a particular speaker. It says you can't transfer or pool it, but the total time can remain Thank you.

and I also have a comment. So, President, colleagues, I support this ordinance. I think it's a simple and reasonable step. having a public comment period before every city council meeting gives the residents a constant opportunity to speak. Not sometimes, not only on certain issues, but every meeting. People care about what we do here. They follow the agenda. They have concerns. They have ideas. Sometimes they just want to be heard. and sometimes they bring up things that we didn't think about. This is also about transparency. If we want a more open government, we need to make space for the public in a clear and predictable way.

I don't see this as making meetings harder. Clear rules and time limits keep things organized. Structure helps everyone. At the end of the day, we are elected to represent our residents. Making sure they have a voice at every meeting just makes sense. I'm glad to support this. Thank you.

Any further debate from Rules Committee members? Councilor Ash?

Just a couple more questions, Madam Chair. Will participants in the public forum be able to bring PowerPoints or other materials? Has anybody, have we discussed kind of

We haven't discussed that. I actually have that question as well. I don't know if there's any... It seems like there's not necessarily a limitation to the ability because we have this ability, but... maybe if they're going to do that maybe we need to arrange that slightly in advance because it could take time to set up but what what do people think? Any objections to being able to do a PowerPoint presentation or pictures?

Well, I don't necessarily have a preference one way or another. I just don't know what the idea would be for or if maybe people could if they're referencing something, I'm sure we could obtain it afterwards. Just a thought as we're going through the different... the different steps and the pieces of the rule as proposed. I just don't know if that's been thought about at all.

Councilor Mahoney.

brought this forward. I actually don't think it's a tricky balance because if you give one person the permission and they come with the right equipment, they can do it and somebody else doesn't, we'd be doing technical shots the whole way through. So if people have photos or things that they want to present or a PowerPoint that they want to share with us that we can take afterwards, we can. I believe at one of the last council meetings, it might have been the first one, it feels funny because of the snowstorm, I think one of the people who came up to speak left. We had to leave a flyer or something on the table and we were all billed to get collected afterwards. I think that's probably the best way to do it, personally, because it seems like a great thing to let everybody use technology, but it can turn into, that 20 minutes can go by pretty fast. The other thing I just want to mention too is 20 minutes is the amount of time that we want to have. If there's nobody here in the audience either, I think we can suspend the 20 minutes too and move the meeting because If there's nobody here to speak, we should also be able to move our meeting along and not have to sit for 20 minutes. I just want to make sure that this is really an opportunity for the public if the public is here.

we will have open forum. We'll wait five, six minutes for that, but we're not gonna sit for 20 minutes. I think that's another thing that we wanna make note of. So we'll suspend it and go into the meeting. So those are my two comments for that.

That was my next question. Do you think it's worth adding in that we'll leave it open for five minutes and then close it if no one shows up at the specific time? Sure. submit that as a friendly amendment, maybe under D for the fourth bullet.

Okay. And that would, how do you want to phrase that?

should know, well let me think about this. should no speaker approach the microphone or state their intention to be here and heard during the first five minutes of the public forum participation period, then the period will be closed. I think that would just help so that there's no ambiguity if folks don't show up or show up later.

Okay, that makes sense. I've got that. and did anyone else? Oh, yeah. Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to suggest that under just the wording, if I could, Richard, the total duration of the resident participation should not exceed 20 minutes. We could just add maybe extended by a majority vote of the council or suspended if no speakers are present to speak or something to that effect. As far as the presentation materials, pictures, whatever, I just think the three-minute forum doesn't allow for that. But if somebody were to come forward with the... you know, a subject matter, we could work that into a future agenda and be more planned for in terms of the audio visual. So that's my take on that. Thank you.

Okay, now I guess I'll open it up to anyone. So any non-rules members, just anyone here on the council. Any further suggestions?

Okay, so that's the final. Are we in agreement?

Oh, yeah.

broken out just for clarity. I agree with the first part of the clause that you just proposed, but I think that the five minutes should be the fourth bullet. We have three minutes as the first bullet in bold. I think we should keep that format.

But add by the majority vote of the body to the extension of the 20 minutes.

To the third bullet, yeah.

Yeah.

if that's all right, Councilor Riley. Yes, absolutely.

So on that point, so on the question of adding after that point about exceeding 20 minutes, which can be extended by a vote of the council. Everyone in favor say aye.

Aye.

Everyone opposed say nay. Okay, that's accepted. And then the second issue, which is to add a fourth bullet point under section D, which would say, should no speaker approach the mic, microphone or state their, intention to be here during the first five minutes of the period, the period will close. Does everyone who agrees with that say aye?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, great. So now we move, now we take a vote as amended. Everyone who would like to motion. Who on the Rules Committee would like to motion to? Yeah.

I'd like to make a motion that we move this out of committee with a favorable recommendation to adopt Council Order 2026-008 as amended.

Thank you. OK. Oh, yes, I just learned today that there's no second needed in committee meetings. So we're all learning this stuff. All right, so all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say no. Okay, thank you very much. I guess, can we start the next? Nope. Okay. So we'll take a 10-minute break until the ordinance committee meeting starts at 7. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the March 2nd meeting of the Ordinance Committee. I'm going to read the Open Meeting Law again. Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley, Ryan, Yan, Chairman, members of the forum.

Okay, thank you. Can I please have Councilor Mahoney read this order out? She submitted it.

So I was asked to read the whole thing out, so everybody get ready. An ordinance strengthening the powers of independence of the financial oversight authority of the city auditor. where the City Council of the City of Quincy has a duty to provide effective oversight, municipal finances on behalf of the taxpayers and the city. Whereas transparency, accountability, and independent financial review are essential for public confidence in city government. Whereas in 2008, the city reorganized its financial operations through the creation of the Department of Municipal Finance, resulting in the transfer of certain operational finances previously performed by or under the authority of the City Auditor, and whereas subsequent experience has demonstrated the need for clearer, stronger, and more explicit authority from the City Auditor to conduct independent financial and performance audits of the City Department's funds and capital projects. Whereas the City Council finds that restoring and clarifying the City Auditor's oversight authority will enhance fiscal discipline, protect taxpayers,

and improve transparency without interfering with the administration or day-to-day executive functions. Be it ordained that the City Council that Chapter 66 Officers and Officials Article III, City Auditor in the Ordinance of the City of Quincy as amended as further amended below by deleting Article 3 of the City Auditor in its entirety by substituting therein following Article 2 of City Auditor. Now therefore be it ordained that the City Council of the City of Quincy as follows. Section 1 Amendment to Section 66-38A Financial Oversight Authority. Section 66-38A of the Quincy Municipal Code is hereby amended to read as follows. The city auditor shall have unrestricted authority to examine, audit, or evaluate all books, contracts, records, accounts, Financial Systems, Obligations, and Expenditures of Every Department, Board, Office, sorry,

Office Authority Enterprise Funding Capital Project of the City for the purpose of ensuring fiscal accountability, legal compliance, and effective use of public funds. Section 2, Access of Records and Preservation of Evidence. A new subsequent and hereby added to Chapter 66, Article 3, as follows. All city departments, offices, boards, commissions, and authorities shall provide the city auditor with unrestricted access to requested records as follow. Electronic records, financial systems, database, and digital files that have been made accessible immediately upon request, hard copy, archived, or off-site records that shall be produced no later than two business days after request. Upon receipt of the request of the City Auditor, all responsive records shall be preserved in their existing form with no with no record that may be altered, deleted, concealed, transferred, reclassified, or destroyed. Any failure to comply with the section shall be reported to the City Auditor, to the City Council, and such reports shall become part of the public record. Section 3, capital project audits.

A new subsection is hereby added to Chapter 66, Article 3, as follows. The city auditor shall conduct annual financial or performance audits of capital projects which total authorized funding exceeding $1 million excluding but not limited to projects financed through district improvement funds, tax, and increment financing TIFs or other special funding mechanisms. Audit findings shall be submitted to the City Council and may be available to the public. Section 4, Escalation of Massachusetts State Auditor. A new section is hereby added to Chapter 66, Article 3, as follows. Upon recommendation of the city auditor, the city Quincy Council may vote to request that the Office of the Massachusetts State Auditor conduct a financial compliance or performance audit of any department, fund, capital, project, or activity of the city. If the City Auditor determines that the independent audit is necessary or finding such audit is not authorized by the administration, the City Auditor shall notify the City Council and the City Council may then vote to transmit

such request, such with any relevant finding to the Office of Massachusetts State Auditor. Any such vote in supporting documentation shall be transmitted to the City Clerk of the Offices of Massachusetts State Auditor within five business days. Section 5, Quarterly Finance Oversight Reports. A new subsection is hereby added to Chapter 66, Article 3, as follows. The City Auditor shall issue a Public Quarterly Financial Oversight Report to the City Council, which shall include, at minimum analysis, Budget to Actual Revenue and Expenditure Performance, Capital Project Balances and Cash Flows, Free Cash Trends and Reserve Levels, Overtime Expenditures by Department, debt service and long-term obligation projections, position controls, staffing levels, vacancies, and funded versus filed positions. Chapter six, construction and limitations.

nothing in this ordinance shall be construed to transfer operational or executive financial functions to the city auditor, interfere with the administration day-to-day financial operations assigned by the city charter to the mayor or executive departments. This ordinance is intended solely to strengthen the independent financial oversight, transparency, and accountability. Section 7, severability. any of these provisions in this ordinance is held invalid by court competent jurisdictions such invalidate valid validity shall not affect the remaining provisions which shall come in the in the full force of effect section 8 effective date this ordinance shall take effect upon passive approval by the publication as required by law. This is simply, back in 2008, there was a reorganization of the city of Quincy where there was a creation of the chief financial officer, which is something that the city of this size should have and most cities and towns do have. but what we also have is we, the city council, have Susan O'Connor, who's our auditor, the auditor who's assigned to the city council.

All of the people that I mentioned from the chief financial officer straight through, as we all know, when you go and meet with department heads, they are extremely helpful to all of us however they work and they are appointed by the mayor they are not appointed by the city council and therefore we need to empower our auditor to be able to do the fact checking that we need to do as well. It's just to make sure that both sides are being completely informed and transparent to the general public. and that is the reason why it's been since 2008, it's time to actually bring a little bit more transparency back to the city council side and that's the nature of what this ordinance is for.

Thank you. Any discussion? Oh, yes, Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With respect to the site, when I was looking at the code for the city auditor, at least online, it looks like it's It looks like it's section 66-13 would be where the duties start. Just for continuity and obviously to make sure it goes in the code at the right spot. I don't know if that was looked at. It looks like section 66-38 was related to the Harbormaster.

So we can certainly make that adjustment. So I don't have it in front of me at this time, and it was written several, it feels like this point many months ago.

Okay, at least that with my review of the code, it looked like the city auditor was started Article 3, Section 66-11. and then when you get down to 38, it looks like it's related to the Harbormaster.

Yeah, this is really just meant to be about the auditor, so...

So with respect to the duties as it stands in the code, one of the enumerated and Dutty states that the City Auditor shall exercise the duties enumerated by Mass General Law Chapter 41, Sections 50 and 53. is it the thought process that those duties are not encompassing of what the body would like for the city auditor to be able to do?

The problem is back in 2008, a lot of the power of what the city auditor was able to do for the city council has been wiped clean. We don't have access until after the fact. So when we go to the auditor now and we ask a question, it's usually after the fact and if we want to have an audit of something we have to ask the department come up to do that and we what we really should be able to do is ask the auditor to look into certain things for us and report back to us the committee we shouldn't be asking the administration to present that presentation it should be something that's being presented to us through the audit. That's strictly how it goes. Back before 2008, the auditor actually signed off on all warrants. They were able to see everything that was being done before it went out to pay. Now when we are seeing things, it's past that. And yes, Susan can see things in Timmunis, but she can't see that backup, and she has to ask that request. In some situations, you don't get that information right away. I know that from being a city councilor prior to being back here on the city council. Sometimes you didn't get the information as timely as you wanted to get it.

So in this particular case, it gives her power back to be able to get it. When she asks for it, it should be given to her and she shouldn't have to be jumping through any hoops. Whether that's Susan or any other future auditor in the future, any future city councilor, We need that balance to be able to strike between the administration and the city council to make sure we have the information. And that's strictly what I'm trying to do. Not take away the power of the administration, but to put back some of the oversight into the city council.

Thank you. I just want to just to rectify, you know, to general law sections, the powers and duties of auditors and municipalities. I just want to make sure that we're not being too redundant or that it's been contemplated so that everything makes sense with respect to mass state laws and our ordinances. But I don't have any further questions.

I will say what I will say is I did review this with Susan. I sat down and spoke with her and I have spoken with her while I was six years on the city council prior to the limitations that are allowed through the auditor. And all I'm trying to do as a body for the city council is to give some of that and power back to the auditor that we appoint so that we can actually have her be part of, or any future auditor, because I'd like to think Susan's gonna be around for a really long time, but as we all do, there's gonna be a new person who eventually comes into these seats and we wanna make sure that they're empowered to be able to do the job the best they possibly can.

Ash, can I just, I didn't quite catch what, so are you saying that for the first point that you made, that anywhere there's a mention of section 66-38A, That should say...

I believe that President Mahoney was, from the code online, the city auditor provisions start at Article 3, Section 66-11.

Okay, so it would just be a find and replace for those two things. Okay.

I believe so.

Yeah. Is there any further discussion?

I'm sorry?

Further discussion from anyone? Okay, Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The auditor's role is critical in providing independent, accurate, and timely oversight of the city's finances. There should be no limits on their access to any and all records, period. We need to know emphatically that the auditor can follow the money wherever it leads. Fraud, waste and abuse starts with opportunity and relaxed oversight. Regular audits and unannounced inquiries are a part of good stewardship of the people's funds. I support moving this out of committee with a favorable recommendation to adopt the Council Order 2026-009.

Okay, so I guess we do not need a second. So all those in favor, say aye. All those opposed, say no. Hearing nothing, it will go to committee. It will go to the council then. Motion is passed. All right, I think that's it for our, that's it for ordinance committee for today. Oh, I wanted to, We forgot to mention, if there's anyone here for public comment, which will start at 7.30, please sign up in the front with your name and address. Please write clearly. and then we'll start the next portion of the meeting at 7.30.

I'm going to call the March 2nd, 2026-730 City Council meeting to order. Madam Clerk, could you call the roll, please?

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

If we could all stand for a moment of silence. and if we could turn to the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, could you 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 permissible.

Thank you very much. At this point, we're going to start the Residence Open Forum and public comment. I'm just going to remind people we have three minutes. We do have a clock. We were requested to get a clock the last time. We'll see how this works out. So the first person we have is Kathy Thurn. So Kathy, could you join us? If you could state your name and your address, Kathy, and then we'll start you.

My name is Kathy Thrun. I live at 234 Everett Street in Wollaston, Massachusetts. I want to start by saying very clearly, I fully support purchasing new firefighter gear. I want our firefighters protected and I want them protected quickly. But I also want to make sure that that gear we are about to purchase is safe, both for fire protection and long-term chemical exposure. This is not, what I'm about to say is not about delaying safety. It's about making sure the new gear does not create future health problems. I've emailed you all some more detailed information. I'm just going to summarize now. Perfloral and polyfloral alkal substances. They're the infamous PFAS, or ubiquitous PFAS. There are tens of thousands, well, about 10,000 of them.

They're in nonstick cookware. That's your Teflon cookware. They're in waterproof fabrics, food packaging, cosmetics, and other consumer products. In firefighter gear, PFAS has been used because they repel water and fuel and withstand extreme heat. and the Board of Trustees. Thank you. exposure limits, so the chemistry and the science on this is fairly new. The occupational paradox is that the same chemistry that protects firefighters from flames may carry long-term risks. Patriot Ledger reported that one of 30 gear sets was tested using a proton-based total fluorine screening method.

It's a useful screening tool. but it measures total fluorine only. It does not identify the individual PFAS which are in fact the cause of health problems. It's not the total fluorine. It is not an EPA compliance method and it is not definitive for risk assessment or litigation. I would ask that proper sampling and accredited laboratory testing and confirmatory Environmental Protection Agency methods be used to confirm that the new gear is indeed free of PFAS, or as free as humanly possible. and we need to avoid something called regrettable substitution. That's namely replacing PFAS with another chemical class that later proves harmful. It's already happened.

some of the PFAS equipment has been replaced with something called bromine flame retardants. And there's health problems with that. Kathy, you're at three seconds. Okay. Basically, I'm asking that, and I'm hoping to hear about adequate test results that can prove this gear is safe. Thank you very much.

Next up is Mary Orlando. Did I have your name wrong? I'm sorry.

Hello, my name is Jeff Tarcio. I'm counsel for Mary Orlando, who is here. also Council for Quarry Hill Associates. I'm going to read a statement that I'll pass over to the Council. Dear President, Mahoney and Councilors, I am writing to respond to questions and assertions made by Jocelyn Sedney, at your February meeting. I've lived in Quincy for 23 years and am the CEO of Marina Bay Management Services, property manager for Quarry Hills Associates. I served CFO beginning in 1987 and responsible for GrantLink's financial reporting and lease payments. I was appalled by allegations made by Ms. Sedney posed as questions, accusing Quarry Hills of failing to properly pay rent in 2023. She cited a fourth quarter financial payment and suggested that Corey Hills failed to pay the full amount due. Her assertions are wrong and suggest a basic, or I suspect faint, misunderstanding of how lease payments are made. The lease provides for quarterly payments of percentage rent.

Each quarterly payment is accompanied by financial statements prepared under the cruel basis in a fourth quarter reconciliation showing the earlier quarterly payments made. The financial reporting structure was established with the mayor's office in 2003 and is followed strictly. The payment referenced by Ms. Sedney was the fourth quarter payment only, a mere fraction of the total rent paid in 2023. Adding together the four quarterly payments referenced on the statement, it is clear that the full rent was paid to the penny. Importantly, the city's independent auditing firm reviewed the reporting and payment practices, including 2023, and confirms Quarry Hill's compliance. As a resident and local business leader, I am dismayed to be need to respond to unsubstantiated claims made by Ms. Sedney at the Residence Open Forum.

Her comments were, at best, tangentially related to a matter within the Council's purview. There is value to inviting responsible public comments. However, the forum is not an appropriate venue to allow a trained lawyer to insinuate that a tenant to the city failed to meet its lease obligations in direct contradiction with the public record and independent professional audits. The public record shows that Quarry Hills has saved the city tens of millions of dollars in landfill closure and maintenance costs while providing recreational opportunities in paying nearly $12 million in direct revenues into the city treasury through lease payments and meals taxes. Those are real dollars paid to the city that don't have to be raised through taxes.

In closing, I personally and professionally affirm to residents and neighbors that there are no missing funds, no manipulation, and no failure to comply with our financial responsibilities. Quarry Hills has made all rent payments on time and in full. and I stand by the integrity of our reporting. Respectfully submitted, Mary Orlando, 68 Woodward Avenue and she's also the CEO of Marina Bay Management Services. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Joanne Collins.

Good evening, Joanne Collins, 88 Hillside Ave. I will not take the whole three minutes. I just have general comments. elected officials are not above accountability. They are public servants with responsibilities to the communities they represent. it is entirely appropriate to expect transparency, accountability, and effective performance. That is how democracy works. For that reason, I find it concerning when members of this council seek basic information to properly fulfill their responsibilities and a small group of citizens takes offense to that request. Asking questions is not an attack. It is part of good governance. whether being asked to approve millions of dollars for new firefighter gear, requesting transparency of the American Rescue Plan, or asking for an update of the Quincy retirement pension theft, all questions are okay. They are not attacks.

They are asking for more information so the public can know what's happening. I feel like if we had had this kind of open forum and more of a transparency, with the last council, we wouldn't be where we are today with the statues that was done undercover. The council did not know about the statues. Nobody knew about the statues until it was leaked. We shouldn't have to find things out through leaks. So I really appreciate this council allowing people coming up to speak, ask questions, and find out information. So thank you once again for having the open forum.

Joe Murphy.

Hi, I'm Joe Murphy, 18 Macy Street. Good evening. I want to take a moment to say something simple but important. There are many residents in this city who appreciate the work this council is starting to do. Oversight is not obstruction. asking hard questions is not disloyalty. In fact, it's often the highest form of loyalty. Loyalty to taxpayers, to transparency, and to the long-term health of the city. Political bravery doesn't always look like applause. Sometimes it looks like discomfort. Sometimes it looks like slowing something down, asking for more documentation, requesting clarification, or insisting on process. that takes courage. And I want you to know there are residents who recognize that courage.

We understand that you can support public safety, support community institutions, and still insist on due diligence. Those positions are not contradictory. I would also encourage you to take both the loudest criticism and the loudest praise with an appropriate shaker of salt. Volume in either direction is not the same as consensus. Your fans will not always be right. your detractors will not always be wrong. The people who cheer the loudest and condemn the loudest rarely represent the full community. Many of us value representation that is thoughtful, careful, and independent. Please keep asking questions. Please keep doing this work. there are more residents who support responsible oversight than you may hear from on any given night.

Listen to each other, trust each other, and you will fulfill your obligation to the voters.

Okay, Veronica Bertrand is next.

Good evening, Veronica Bertrand, 195 Copeland Street, Ward 4, Quincy, Mass. I promise I won't go over tonight. I just have a couple of quick things. I too second the idea that we must protect our firefighters. I am lucky enough to live within a stone's throw of the West Quincy Firehouse. They've been basically my only firehouse my entire life. So I've come to know a lot of the firefighters in that building and I've also, was part of the complaint team when they didn't really get the improvements they needed, and they finally did this year. It's looking much better over there. Secondly, I'd like to thank Al Gracioso. I just met him in person for the first time. I email him often because I am the president of my board at 195 Copeland. I represent 12 families there, so I might be the resident complainer, but I'm doing it for all my neighbors there.

He always comes right back with a good answer, takes care of our issues with trash, whatever, and I must say the plowing on Copeland Street was excellent this last storm we had. and thirdly I'd like to thank the council for having open forum like many other people here and asking questions and I know sometimes that people can seem to be like a little bit of a pain in the butt, but we have a right. We're taxpayers, we're citizens, and we live in the United States of America. And the last thing I wanna say is God bless our troops.

Next is Bill Zamzow.

Bill Zamzow, 46 Tilden Circle, Quincy Councilors, again, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity for public input at council meetings. In turn, please consider additions to your seeking answers regarding the city employee pension fund cyber heist. As two of you may recall, five years ago I posed on the record concerns about issuing a half billion dollar pension obligation bond. My concerns were soon proven sound as shortly after the bond was subsequently issued, the pension fund suffered a 10% drop in value. While the market has since recovered, the portfolio is still underwater by tens of millions of dollars on its obligations. In short, so much for the mayor's claim that issuing the pension bond would fully cover the pension fund's then woefully deficient pension obligations. and more recently, the Mayor failed the budget for a $16 million pension installment payment for this fiscal year, something which both DOR and the Pension Employee Retirement Administration Commission insisted be paid

and so helped fuel a record breaking going away 13.5% increase in the city's FY26 spending along with a substantial increase in local property taxes this year. Even so, the Mayor asserted the PAIR Act was wrongly figured, the assessment, and so initiated an outside review which was said to be completed by, expected to be completed by the end of January. It is now March, but no report has, No report, or at least none has been made available to the public. Where is it? Next up. why does the retirement board continue to manage 47% of the pension fund, whereas these funds are seeing roughly a 200 basis point lower rate of return in up markets than the roughly 53% of the fund that is managed by the highly regarded Massachusetts Pension and Retirement Investment Board. Placing all the funds with PRIM would have seen a roughly $25 million pop in the pension fund's annual income over the past three years.

The Retirement Board should thus explain to the Council why it has opted to forego tens of millions of dollars in income when the pension fund has been upside down by an even more tens of millions of dollars after all. The pension fund is supposed to be fully self-funding via employee contributions, but it's not. For example, this year taxpayers are variously funding $53 million on pension funding obligations. Roughly 11% of the budget as well as roughly two and a half times what the employees will be contributing this year. Further, the Pension Board recently voted to increase the pension funds discount rate by 7.75%. The discount rate is the expected rate of return on funds assets. The higher the rate of return, the less is expected to be needs to be raised to fund pension obligations, and so trim the annual... You have about 30 seconds left, sorry. Okay, I've got a few other things. He copied you the... and I appreciate your consideration of them because there are some serious concerns about the city's pension funds shortcomings.

Thank you. Thank you.

Next we have up John Rodefell.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for letting us speak. I mean, I love to speak, so the fact that you're giving out this privilege is just great.

Name and address.

John Roderfield, 62 Groundwall Road. within my three minutes. Thank you. You gave me an extra 15 seconds. I did. Basically, I'm for the firefighters. I believe they need the new equipment. Two point six million dollars is not a lot of money to protect the firefighters, but I do think we are borrowing a lot of money, and that's only 7% of their budget. I would have rather seen that included in the next year's budget, which is coming up. and then we could pay for that with, you know, if the taxpayers have to pay a little bit more, that's just how it works. The taxpayers deserve to protect the firefighters. So I hate kicking the can down into the future. One of the things I've been trying to do is, you know, I'm a little bit disappointed. I actually used to be a contractor for the city up in municipal finance, and I'm no longer doing that, but I have some experience in what they were doing up there.

and they do do a good job, but again, all our departments, it costs a lot of money for all the people that we have. It is disappointing that with so many people in municipal finance that We've seen our bond rating go from the AA minus to the AA plus. I go to the taunt meetings all the time, and we've done the exact opposite. from AA minus to AA plus and our municipal finance department is just Patrick Della Russo, which is just one guy. We do pay him like about $260,000, which is a lot of money, but still he does a very good job. So as an individual person, what I'm trying to do is to do my own auditing and do my own research. I'm just finishing up my master's degree in accounting at University of Dartmouth. and I made two public requests on January 28th. I requested the 1099 payments of all the vendors and I also requested

all the employment data of all the people that work in Quincy, both for fiscal year 2024, actually for calendar year 2024 and 2025. More than 30 days has passed. I have not heard back on my public request. When I was in September, when I was still at Municipal Finance, someone was making public requests on me. I made a request in September. to try to find out who was making these public requests. Again, that public request was not responded to. So I want to do some free research and do some free auditing and to do that, I need the request that I did honored. So the city council is here. I called some people. I don't know who can help, but the reality is is the city of Taunton

when I requested the 1099 data and when I requested the employment data, within 15 days it was sent to me in an email. So I would appreciate that maybe by the end of the week if I could get that data sent in my email. Thank you very much. Thank you.

So next up we have Steve Paradios.

Hi, Councilors. Good evening. Steve Pardios, 86 Ruggles Street. Just very quickly, wanted to come up and say congratulations, for starters, to all of you and your recent victory and your appointment to City Council. Congratulations. Great work. Great job. Wanted to say also thank you for the opportunity to come up and speak. This is quite a breath of fresh air in our city to have this opportunity to speak in front of the council. As you've heard tonight, a few people say the same thing. I wanted to throw my voice behind that. Thank you. It's very appreciated. I also want to congratulate all of you on your very aggressive agenda. I love the agenda you're starting off your term with here. A lot of really good topics. I don't have anything specific about them. Great job. keep being aggressive as much as you can and taking on these really important large issues. Thank you very much.

And mostly I just wanted to come up in a public hearing and say something positive because I'm always on the other end where I'm saying something negative and it's nice. I've been labeled a naysayer and it's nice to be a yaysayer for once. So congratulations and great job and keep up the good work. Way to go. Thank you.

Next up we have Debbie Nesset.

I think I said her name wrong.

Hi, Debbie. My name's Debbie Napstead. I live at 16 Cornell Street, Quincy. I just want to say congratulations. It's nice to see a new board up here that's going to listen to all of us. I'm for the fire department to get whatever they need. They shouldn't even have to ask. It should be an automatic push through. Just like if the police department needs something, DPW workers, I just want to say the DPW department did a phenomenal job over the blizzard and the bosses all need to know that the guys worked really hard and they did an awesome job. And I think you guys all need to hear that once in a while. It's nice to hear that, you know, they worked hard. We have a very small department, but they really did a great job. And I just want to let everybody know that they really did work hard. So that's it. Thank you.

Next up is Leah D. DeGloria.

Clerk, I know you all. Okay. My name is Leah DeGloria. I live on 141 Lakeshore Drive in Weymouth. but Quincy is my hometown no matter where I currently reside. And it's been very sad and painful for me to watch what's been happening here in Quincy from the other side of the Four River Bridge. First I saw the spirit and heritage of police and fire departments attacked when their tributes to Saint Florian and Archangel Michael were blocked and right now they're currently in court as interested parties fighting for the symbols of their heritage in front of their own workspace. and now firefighters are literally fighting for their lives. I've heard some people say about, has the gear been tested?

But I feel that's a delayed tactic because Quincy has already done more testing than anyone. The firefighters and their union have done hard work of finding gear that meets the strict new standards. just to cast doubt on the union's research while firefighters are being poisoned every day is completely unacceptable. Words and actions have to match. You can tell these men and women that you support them in a newsletter or in a campaign speech, but if you actively act against their health and their safety by keeping this bonding committee too long, your actions don't match your words and then your words do not matter. That's really important. Cancer is insidious and there are no safe levels of exposure. For one person, it could be a shift. For another, it could be a year. You just don't know. So every day that this is in Council,

and committee is another day that firefighters have to put on a uniform that they know is cancer causing and yet they still do their job every single shift they do their job to keep the citizens of Quincy safe regardless of the risks. So councillors, you need to do your job. You need to not stall this in committee and you need to just get the bond out as quickly as possible. and so there can't be any excuses for that. Thank you.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna say this person's name right, Rick Davio, Davio from 105 Adams Street. I'm so sorry. I thought it was yours. I was like, I think it's him, but it's not the way it was.

Well, my wife agrees that I have that handwriting. I'm sorry about that. That's OK. Hi, everybody. My name is Rick Doan, the executive director at Interfaith Social Services. I'm practically a resident at 105 Adams Street in Quincy. So Interfaith has been serving the city of Quincy for the past 80 years. We have a mental health counseling center. We provide rent and utility assistance. We have a retail thrift shop. But most people know us because of our very visible food pantry. and each month we provide food and essential hygiene assistance to over 2,000 households, most of whom are Quincy residents. As is the tradition in New England, before a storm, everybody goes out and gets milk and eggs, and that's what they do, and bread. And when they can't afford to go to a supermarket, they come to a food pantry. and likewise after a storm, they need to come to a food pantry. And during the two storms that we experienced, I just want to thank the city of Quincy

for everybody's help in cleaning up around our food pantry. We would not have been able to open. We were serving about 120 households a day. When we closed for two days in a row, All of those households are coming in as soon as we reopen. And the snow was removed, and we are just so grateful for everybody's help. It made it safe for 160 volunteers that served with us who are mostly Quincy residents. And it's just wonderful to know that we can depend on the city in a time of real challenge. And so on behalf of our board of directors, staff, volunteers, clients, we just wanted to thank the city for the cleanup during both of the winter storms. So thank you.

Next up is Stuart Rowe.

Good evening, Council. My name is Stuart Rowe. I live at 53 Woodbine Street in Wollaston. On February 2nd, I made a public comment about snow and ice clearance on sidewalks. Tonight, I want to examine the larger systemic reality that snow removal points to. On February 18th, three and a half weeks after the large January snowfall, I was walking to the Y on Coddington Street. At the corner of the Y parking lot across from Quincy High School, I encountered a person who uses a power wheelchair stuck in the mud, their wheel spinning. They had been forced off the paved sidewalk as most of the path was obstructed by a large utility box and snow and ice blocked the rest. Five feet to the left, there were empty parking spaces cleared to bare pavement. While pushing them out, they told me that this was their first wheelchair trip out since the storm. Three and a half weeks of not leaving the house. not because of their disability, but because of our infrastructure and priorities.

Sadly, snow only makes more visible what is true year round. Looking around Quincy, you won't find telephone poles, utility boxes or light poles in travel lanes or parking spaces. While driving, the road never simply ends unannounced, forcing you to go off-roading or into oncoming traffic. But outside a car, you see this every day. Cyclists in some ways have it worse. Staying safe means choosing between riding on the sidewalk, which is still illegal in Quincy, or trusting that a white line of paint on the asphalt will protect you from a sedan door or garbage truck. Fortunately, the city has plans to address these inequities for the roughly 35,000 residents who cannot or do not regularly drive. Quincy adopted a complete streets policy in 2018 and the 2014 bike and pedestrian master plan is being updated. However, I have doubts about how much real change these plans will yield as actual spending suggests the city is doubling down on the car centered status quo.

For example, in 2024, the previous council unanimously authorized $157 million in public borrowing to build two more parking garages in Quincy Center. Of note, the city's own financing documents for this project cite motor vehicle excise tax growth as a key revenue source to service this debt. meaning the city has built a financial model that depends on putting more cars on the road, not fewer, a model that harms both non-drivers and drivers. Let's be clear, you cannot build a multimodal city while financing a system designed to ensure we never become one. Tonight I'm asking that President Mahoney's audit and accounting proposals on the agenda be expanded to include, firstly, a public line item accounting of city dollars spent and borrowed on car infrastructure versus pedestrian, public transit, cycling, and accessibility infrastructure over the past 10 years.

Second, a dedicated accessibility infrastructure fund in the next budget cycle with a binding commitment to close ADA compliance gaps on city sidewalks. And finally, a resolution that every future road and parking project will be evaluated against its impact on non-car mobility before approval, not after, as an afterthought. Thank you all very much.

Thank you very much. Next person we have up is Robert Quinn. I'm not sure if anybody else wants to speak tonight, but Robert's the last one on the list. If there's anybody else, we could line up behind Robert.

Hogan.

Thank you, Madam President. Members of the Council, my name is Robert Quinn. I'm resident of the city for the last 47 years, and I currently live at 20 Dixwell Avenue in Ward 5. I'm here tonight to talk about a potential disturbance that could be coming to the city and the need for the city to prepare for that disturbance. The disturbance I'm referring to is the enhanced immigration enforcement by Homeland Security. We have seen across the country, cities and towns and states that have been immobilized and disturbed by this enhanced enforcement. and I think it is necessary for this city, either through the executive or through this city council to take action and set up protocols and procedures so that the city is prepared for when that happens here in the city. the city should be looking at what its properties are, how the public facilities are gonna be accessed by Homeland Security, including our libraries, our schools, our city hall,

Council on Aging and Recreational Programs. We should be looking at our parks and cemetery area and determine whether or not before they come to our city, whether they can use those facilities for their staging of operations. The police should also be looking at this issue. And they may very well be. I don't know. But they should be looking at these de-escalation policies to ensure that they not only take into account when divergent protests are coming together and how to stay between those and maintain the peace. But in this case, you're gonna have protesters that come before a law enforcement organization, which is armed. it's gonna be a much different scenario than what we faced in the past. With respect to the schools, you gotta remember that many schools, many students will not be attending school because of this enforced action.

and that the school should be preparing for either alternative schooling methods or making sure that when they do return to school that remedial lessons are in place. and then we must also look at what the community at large should be doing. Businesses, social service agencies, churches, they should be looking at what they can do in order to mitigate the disturbance that's gonna be coming. you can agree or disagree with the enforced enhancement that's coming but we should realize that it is going to have a disturbance not only on the people that are directly impacted but on our city at large thank you very much thank you

So at this point, is there anybody else who would like to speak for open forum? All right, going once, twice. Open forum is now closed. Thank you for everybody who came up. Next up is Commissioner Al Grazioso for the snow operations overview per Councilor Jacobs' resolve. Before we start, Councilor Jacobs, did you want to say anything before we start or are you all set to? Okay, excellent.

Good evening, Councilors. Tonight, as requested, I'm here with Superintendent Prendergill and members of the DPW team to give an overview of DPW snow operations and specifically the January 25th and 26th storm and its aftermath along with the snow hauling operation that followed. I will also be happy to answer questions about the recent 21 inch storm from last weekend. Before I start, I want to acknowledge the men and women of the DPW and other departments that contribute and contributed to this storm and most recently the storm of February 22nd and 23rd. I'm so proud of their hard work and the dedication under trying circumstances in extreme weather conditions. I want to acknowledge Larry Prenderbilt, 18 years of experience running the snow operation for the city.

He has an incredible knowledge of equipment and operations. He's respected throughout the state. Many other communities, including the State Highway Department always contact him at the beginning of a storm saying, what's Quincy doing? Eddie Leary. 37 years experience in snow. The dedication this guy has is unbelievable. Works all hours, sometimes days without sleep. Does a tremendous job. the DPW workers from the plow drivers, the shovelers, the sidewalk plow drivers, the clerks in dispatch that answer the phones or the emails, employees who give out the fake tickets, employees that work with police in towing, my water and sewer guys who work snow but then get called out on water main breaks or sewer backups in the middle of a storm.

I also want to acknowledge the police department Captain Flaherty, Lieutenant Linkey, Captain Ward, Sergeant Fady, they were unbelievable during these storms. Working with us, towing cars, knocking doors, notifying residents to please get their cars off the road. They did it in a professional way, a courteous way, They're with us during hauling operations. We need a lot of resources out there. They're always there for us. I have to mention TPAL. TPL is unbelievable. Eddie Grennan and Allison Luff, they work with us every step of the way. setting up to take the fake tickets, getting signage out there, working with the police department

setting up the details, working with us, getting all of the, getting sidewalks cleared, crosswalks cleared, bus stops, and they work around the clock with us, days without sleep. are snow chasers. These are individuals from inspectional service department, public buildings, TPAL and DPW employees. These are the individuals that are out there during a storm, working with the plow drivers, working with Larry, myself, Eddie, Larry, going days without sleep, making sure that the plow drivers are doing what they do and what they do that is correct. Without these gentlemen, we'd have a tough time. The fire department. and I have to mention Chief Gary Smith. He was with us throughout these storms. He's working at the Emergency Operations Center.

He was out at three in the morning in the middle of the storm with Director McCarthy. dealing with flooding issues. Gary was fantastic in these storms. I have to call out the fire crews. There's 2,250 fire hydrants in the city. And these men and women are out there shoveling these fire hydrants to keep all of us safe. Also in the last storm, we had numerous wires down because of the wind. If a wire goes down and we get a call, we have to start plowing operations on that street. We can't send a plow down that street. The fire department has to come out and let us know if that's a live wire or if it's just Comcast or Verizon. So those men and women getting called out in the middle of total white outs doing that job, just phenomenal.

Natural resources helping us with the downtown, the cemeteries, the schools, trees down during the storm. and then I have to actually call out Chris Walker from the Mayor's office. Chris worked around the clock with us in these storms, sometimes not going home for a couple days. Did a tremendous job and I also have to thank Dan Korek publicly. Dan allowed us to open three snow farms in the floor of a shipyard. at no cost to the city of Quincy. If we had to pay hauling fees like a number of other communities, we would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But thanks to Dan's generosity, we don't have that. Also, we wanna thank the Lieutenant Governor. The Mayor called the Lieutenant Governor, asked about setting up a snow farm at the marina if needed. Fortunately, we didn't need that.

but those are the people I want to thank. And most of all, I want to thank Mayor Koch for his leadership and direction no matter what the emergency, He directed us before the storm. He was out with us during the storm and most nights during our hauling operation, making sure his high expectations were met. Most of these individuals worked through the winter of 2015 when we received 110 inches of snow and through the snow and flooding storms of 2018 when parts of the city were cut off and millions of dollars of damage were done. the experiences individuals have second to none during these type of emergencies. And I just want to publicly thank them and ask them all to stand up because I know a number of them are here.

The DPW goals during a winter storm event are the reasonable management of snow and ice on the city's 254 miles of roadways, 320 miles of sidewalks, and the clearance of snow and ice around our schools, public buildings, T stations and bus stops, our pump stations and tide gates, and the maintenance of the city's water and sewer and traffic systems. Our responsibility is to keep our community safe, our city functioning, and our road and transportation network accessible during winter weather. Every storm develops differently depending on the day, the date and time of the storm, tides, tide surges, temperature, wind and moisture content, amount of ice and snow and the accumulation of snow by the hour and the duration of the storm.

With the proper application of storm forecast, personnel, equipment, and materials, and with the cooperation and the assistance of the public, desired results should be attained. Flexibility is needed in order to adapt to a variety of circumstances and conditions during each storm and snow event. I'd like to start the PowerPoint now. Tonight we'll be talking about the general overview of snow operations, our planning and preparation, management during a storm and snow hauling operations. Again, we'll talk about the January 24th through 27th storm. That was what was requested, but we can touch on in the questions on the previous storm.

As you'll see here, this is our snow operation org chart. self-description. It's how we set up and access multiple disciplines throughout a storm. Planning and preparation, summer and fall. We start to plan for snow in the summertime. We develop our fleet of contractors. This year was a little bit tricky for us. As we all know, everyone's struggling to get snow cloud drivers. Different reasons is liability insurance, CDL licenses, Equipment costs, so it's very difficult. All the cities and towns are struggling. We had a situation where we had a major contractor for us for several years, Feeney Brothers. They supplied 60 pieces of equipment to the city.

In August, they told us they would not be coming back. So we really had to scramble. And again, thanks to Superintendent Prendergill, we were able to fill that gap with various companies, and it's difficult because the cost of snow operations are going up. We compete with someone like Boston that pays very high prices to their plow drivers, so it's very difficult to compete with that. but we filled that void. We start to, we bid our hauling and disposal in the summertime. This year we bid our weather forecasting and consulting services. We go out and we look at salt. We look at our equipment needs, our plows. We start to find out if we need snow farms, where we can get those.

and we confirm those locations. In the fall, we do training. We bring in all the contractors and all of our employees employees, we go over how we want our spinners set for salt. We don't wanna waste money on salt. We don't want salt going everywhere, ruining trees, ruining grass borders. but it's a balance. You wanna get enough salt to melt the ice and the snow, but you don't wanna put it everywhere. So we train with that. We train, we check all of our CDL licenses, hoisting licenses. We get all the paperwork in order, insurances and licenses. Without any of that, we don't allow anyone to work in the city. Contractors perform their own training as well. At that time, we also review all of our snow maps. You can see this is our snow map.

We have our city broken into 42 routes and specific contractors are assigned to each of those routes. During the wintertime, we maintain and upgrade equipment as needed. We look at our inventory of supplies, we coordinate our salt deliveries, and we do ongoing coordination with our weather consultant, Nexus. Nexus, company Nexus we use is really state of the art. We work with former WBZ-TV meteorologist Ed Carroll, who actually grew up in Quincy, Natasha McGrady, who was a former senior meteorologist. And I can see there's a typo there. for the US Navy. This is a custom built risk dashboard. It's powered by AI.

It calibrates a forecast specifically for Quincy. we have installed onsite weather sensors throughout the city and it creates a proprietary model that is tailored to Quincy's infrastructure and decision thresholds. the way we have the city set up, we have it set up in four different weather grids. We have Squanam, we have Howes Neck, We have Quincy Center and we have West Quincy. And each one of those sections gets their own separate weather forecast because we could be getting rain in Howes Neck and Swatham and we could be getting four inches of snow up in the hills of West Quincy. It's very, the system is tremendous. It's very accurate in when the snow's gonna start, will tell us how much snow we're gonna get per hour, wind speeds, temperatures, road temperature. And it has allowed us in snow preparations

One of the most difficult things we have is trying to plan what time do we bring in those plow drivers. We're trying to save money the best we can. We don't want to bring them in too early. We don't want to bring them in too late. But we don't want plow drivers sitting, waiting, and us city paying for that. It gets very expensive. So this weather forecasting system has been tremendous for us. when a storm is forecasted, the planning initiation, we start, the mayor's office generally calls a meeting, and we have all the people at the table, DPW, Natural Resources, TPAL, Emergency Management, Public Buildings, School Department, Police, Fire and Brewster Ambulance. the Mayor wants to know what's going on. He wants to know the weather forecast. What are we gonna do?

You know, are we gonna receive flooding? Is it gonna be high winds? Then we talk about when we're gonna declare a snow emergency. that's when there's a public notification. We use Alert Quincy website and social media. We, if necessary, will mobilize the Emergency Operations Center. And then we generally deal with them in TPAL and DPW, have team meetings. Prior to a snow emergency, the parking ban goes into effect Public notifications of the parking ban is alert Quincy. Once again, social media, website, signage. TPAL coordinates the distribution of fake parking tickets as we want. One of the biggest issues we have is trying to get vehicles off the streets so we can plow the streets. We try to give plenty of warning to our residents to move vehicles.

We have the Winter parking rules, whatever year in October, whatever year that is, that's the side of the road. If it's an odd year, then people can park on that odd side of the road. During the snow emergency, TPAL and DPW, we coordinate with the Quincy Police Department. We knock doors. The police go out with their loudspeakers. We drive down the streets. We warn residents, asking them to move cars. We do this before we call in the tow trucks to try to give people enough time to move their vehicles. We use four tow companies and they're split over 42 snowboats. Priority areas are main emergency arteries and heavily congested streets. During a storm, all the contractors and staff meet at DPW daily and nightly to review our plan,

Plow routes are assigned, maps are distributed, snow chases are sent out, salting is done if needed. We try to stagger the plows during a long storm, so at the end of the storm, we still have people that are fresh. We continuously monitor our snow hotline, emails, and online requests. Ongoing reprioritization of snow routes are based on location, schools, safety issues, and available equipment. We're frequently updating our maps and reassigning snow routes. We're always planning ahead. We prep for the following day's operations. It's not just about plowing streets. We plow approximately 90 miles of sidewalks. And that timing and coordination is very important on that because we can't send those plows out right away

we have to kind of wait till the streets are pretty much plowed. We're responsible for 19 public schools, 18 public parking lots, two public garages, over 20 public buildings, police, fire stations, library, senior center, the downtown and the cemetery. The Water Department tries to clear out our critical infrastructure, pump stations, tide gates, and catch basins, which we have 9,300 of, 14 pump stations, and I believe 49 tide gates. our Clerks Dispatch. We get our Clerks Dispatch and Constituent Services continue to monitor and respond to our hotlines, our emails, and our online requests. This is our sidewalk clearing routes.

Councilor Jacobs was kind enough to let me know there was a little mistake down in Ward 1, and that has been corrected. The next is our Snow Hauling Operations org chart. And you can see, again, this is self-explanatory. Pretty much this is a combination of DPW and TPEL. Hauling is a very difficult, timely, slow process, but it's absolutely necessary in the type of storms we've had. During a snow hauling operation, as you can see the pictures here, that's one of our snow dumps. We prioritize our schools, our intersections, our crosswalks, our bus stops, public areas,

Resident concerns we do around funeral homes and downtown business areas. Each day we start out between TPAL and DPW, we drive around the city. We review what was done the previous night. We look at the progress and we prioritize as needed. We have daily meetings to debrief and update our plan. We update the hauling maps, TPL does signage. We try to do public notifications. We do snow farm management and staff management. We try to get people sleep. During the 24 and 27, January 24th to 27th storm, EPW consulted with our weather consultant and we were in constant communications with the mayor's office.

The mayor called the snow emergency preparation meeting and met with all critical departments on Thursday, January 22nd. On Friday, the city declared a snow emergency beginning January 24th. We began scheduling contractors, continuously monitored our Nexus computer software, and were in communication with a meteorologist for ongoing communication and updating the mayor's office and emergency management team. Emergency management team was working with NGRID to prepare for emergency shelters if needed. met with the police and city approved towing companies to formulate a towing plan. We began distributing fake parking tickets. That Saturday, we continued to monitor our Nexus software. City team distributed a bulk of the fake parking tickets. And this was done in basically sub-zero wind chills.

So our staff was out there in very tough conditions. the city's team distributed the bulk of the fake parking tickets. We door knocked with Quincy Police Department. We drove through the streets with Quincy Police Department urging residents to move their cars. Emergency management team sends out Quincy notification and the Emergency Management Team prepared warming shelters for potential power outages and prepped the Emergency Management Center. Ongoing communication with the Mayor's Office, DPW continued storm prep, maintaining vehicles, loading salt trucks, reviewing snow routes, and reviewing our weather reports. Late Saturday night, National Grid had a power outage in Marymount. Marymount power outage on Sunday morning continued until early in the morning. The second power outage in Montclair and North Quincy

the length and time of the power outage precipitated emergency management to open our warming center at North Quincy High School. towing efforts began to make access for plows, plowing and salting full operations began. We had 190 pieces of equipment were active throughout the city. We continued towing and vehicle removal efforts. Sidewalk and shoveling teams were deployed. School clearing operations began. We continued snow clearing throughout the day and night. Monday evening, most operations wrapped up. Then we had to be called back because there was a storm backlash. These are the things that happen sometimes you can't plan for. The team reconvened. with just a few hours sleep and sent out plows for the second time in a row. and Tuesday, January 27th, the hauling efforts began focusing on our schools and critical infrastructure.

Our goal was to get the schools open by Wednesday morning. Sidewalk and shoveling teams continued. on Wednesday, January 28th, our schools were open. Plowing and snow clearing efforts continued. During the intensity of the storm, city crews were working 24 seven, clearing 254 miles of roadway throughout the city. to maintain plows, we had a plow multiple times. Maps and snow routes were updated, daily, nightly, based on priority areas. Snow hauling operation began on Tuesday, January 27th. We focused again on getting the schools open, and the crews were working overnights. The hauling locations once again, schools first, intersections and crosswalks,

major common areas, fire stations, bus stops, all public buildings, funeral homes, critical infrastructure, including catch basins and flood prone areas. across from the mayor's office, city councilors and residents. We met daily with TPAL and the mayor's office to review the previous night's work and upcoming schedules. public notifications, coordination of signage, road closures. Again, working with TPAL, we're updating our daily map and working with Quincy Police Department for details. And then we worked on snow farm oversight and coordination. The map you see here is a storm hauling map. Everything you see in blue were all the routes that were hauled. Everything you see in red is a school area.

Fall and weekend, we had potential flooding in our coastal areas. on Sunday, February 1st through Monday, February 2nd. The wind direction, the high tides and ice covering portions of Quincy Bay played into that. We actually look back at 2018, we had a very similar situation. in the January of 2018 storm. We had a lot of ice pack on the bay. We had a similar tide and we had similar wind direction. So we're really nervous that we were going to have the same situation because there was some there was some pretty good damage back in that storm. We were prepared for that. We had a team meeting with the mayor's office. We met with emergency management, police, fire, and booster ambulance to prepare for potential flooding. We always try to protect the peninsulas in those areas. We make sure a fire apparatus is out there and ambulances.

We work with our GIS team, our engineering team to come up with our critical infrastructure, DPW to clear the catch basins and flood-prone areas. TPL deployed signage for road closures. And we coordinated with the police and fire departments. As you see, these are the potential flooding areas. And these were the area we cleared critical catch basins in these flood prone areas. These are the streets in each ward. By the numbers, city got approximately 27 inches of snow in 48 hours and higher drifting in areas. Approximately 190 pieces of equipment operating throughout the city day and night. 40 city pieces of equipment and over 150 contracted plow vehicles.

Approximately 110 city employees involved in snow operations, these are the general people involved. We put out 1500 fake tickets. We plowed 250 miles of roads, multiple times, 90 miles of sidewalks, a total of 27,400 tons of snow were hauled since then, since last week's storm. we hauled 86,000 cubic yards of snow, 43,000 tons of snow hauled to our snow farms. The challenges, obviously lack of snowplow drivers is an issue throughout the state. Infrastructure issues due to severe cold.

Some workers were pulled off. to deal with six water main breaks, a sewer collapse, and a sewer backup. Since that time, we've had 12 water main breaks, six more. We have equipment issues. In that storm, we had vehicles breaking down. We had a plow that caught on fire. So when things like that happen, we have to pull resources from other places to try to make up for that. Some of the impacts we have is when residents throw the snow back out onto a plowed street, it makes it difficult for us. And once again, a legally parked cars. we're limited by the approved tow companies in the city. We can only tow so many cars and we don't have that many places to put those cars. Weather changes. Again, the first night we sent the crews home to sleep after a 40-hour ship, then we got another three or four inches and we had to call them back.

National grid power outages. Sub-zero wind chills throughout the week, working conditions during plowing and hauling, water main breaks. All of this have an impact on our operations. But with that, I know it's been long, but we're open to any questions.

Councilor Jacobs?

Thank you, Mr. Graziazzo. I really appreciate it. And to everybody who works in the DPW and was involved in both of these snow operations, you know, I don't know everybody involved just yet, but I know a lot of people. Larry Prendeville was great. We had an issue down on Wall Street and on Bayview Ave and he was in his truck and down Homestead Street and he knew exactly what I was talking about. It was almost like he was there with me when he was talking to me on the phone. So there's nobody who knows our streets better than Larry Prendeville. And he proved that to me. That was the first time I think we ever spoke. and he immediately came down and addressed it. There were two issues, one much more serious than the other, but it was immediately addressed. and, you know, again, everybody, you know, just did a great job. I live across the street from Atherton House School for 40 years.

Every snowstorm that, you know, they clear all the snow out of there and it was, you know, again, everyone just did a great job. But one of the things that I do have a concern about is there were a few streets that were continuously missed. over and over again, like Homestead Street. It's C Street, but it's like a portion of Homestead Street. and, you know, Mr. Prenneville, when he came down, he was like, oh, yeah, you know, they really need to plow this street out, like from the inside out. He knew that he was like, it needs to be hit multiple times. But, you know, two days later. And I know it happened again in the second storm. And we conversed about that. So it's continuously happening. over and over again. And there's like a few kind of dead end streets, like Riverside Street in Adam Shua, like the little dead end where there's like, you know, there's like two houses on it, like continuously, same thing on Riverbank Road.

you know, same thing on Doane Street. And these these folks were calling it into the snowplow hotline, myself included. I was calling it in as well. But, you know, it didn't seem like it was getting done because I know there's a timetable and I don't know what the timetable is. But I call it in and then I call back like three or four hours later. And the residents there are still saying it's not done. And you call into the snowplow hotline and the lady who answers the phone is very kind. She's like, well, they told me it was done. So I just feel like there might be some type of disconnect. And I was hoping you could maybe explain a little bit more the operations of how the communication between the telephone operator in the DPW gets that information to the plow driver. Does it go to the plow driver? Does it go to the snow chaser?

If it's in the middle of a storm, it will go to the snow chaser who would get in touch with the snow driver. and after the storm, it would come up to us and we would, if it was a day after and something hadn't been done, we would send out a city crew to take care of that. Keep in mind and you know, in the middle of a storm, we are concentrating on our main roads, you know, Main arteries first, you know, neighborhood road secondly. But yeah, I mean, we're not perfect. We make mistakes. We take note of those. I know one of those streets we did get on. I know we plowed it. We did have an issue with and I forget which road it was. But yeah, your points are well taken.

We always try to learn from our mistakes and each storm is different.

I really liked your opening statement there. You said that the general overview of S&O operations is reasonable management. And I think that's a good term. but it leaves a lot to be interpreted. So one of the things we did during this last storm was we I thought for the first time in a long time, really mobilized with the fake tickets. I was getting phone calls from people like, this is great, we're being proactive. and we were. And then I feel like people kind of got let down a little bit because they thought, OK, everyone's moved their car to one side of the street. Like, I drove around House Neck. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen so few cars on the street. You know what I mean? It was kind of impressive. But then at the end of the storm, they were... kind of let down because I felt like everyone thought, we're doing it. We're going to do this right. But then the snow banks were still four feet

off the curb. Now, I don't think, you know, curb to curb is an actual thing because you have to be driving a snowplow at like 60 miles an hour to do that on a side street. But, you know, what what what are we working towards? Are we hoping to get within two feet of the... How close can we get?

Well, our goal is always curb to curb, but when you have 26 inches of snow or 21 inches of snow, and I can let Larry explain some of this, he can technically

The goal would be to get as close to the curb as we possibly can. In this last storm that we just had, the conditions that we were working under, we were lucky to keep the roads open at all. Other towns stopped piling from like 11 o'clock on. we continued to plow. So yes, we kept the roads open. Once you You have a couple of feet behind you. The gear that we have in the neighborhoods will not push four feet to the curb. It's just not going to happen. on a main road, you will get that. We have larger gear, you know, but you're just not going to get it on a flat side street in Wollaston or and I know people don't want to hear that, but it's the truth.

We do, especially down on Ward 1, We had some issues. We did have Feeney down there, so we had to bring in other contractors. We have two chasers down there. Well, we used to have one chaser. the contractors that we have down there, local guys, and can we do better? Absolutely. Can we do better up in West Quincy? Absolutely. were not perfect by no means. But I will tell you this, the men and women behind us, they did not let the city of Quincy down.

No, they did not.

So you talk to anybody, any other town, I mean, maybe it's a little unrealistic, this Black Street policy, but we were very fortunate to have what we had at the end of the storm.

So you answered that question. So how many total plow operators, you said, I mean, how many, like, Like the people just plowing the streets, right? How many, you know, they said there was 190 pieces of equipment, but how many plows are like actually on the road, you think, during, you know, that storm?

I would say there was probably 160 pieces between city-owned and the outside contractors.

And how many of them are city-owned versus the outside contractors?

I would say between 15 and 18 total. What do you mean? For the city-owned pieces that we... There's probably more, but for the large plows, we have a certain amount.

Okay.

not including the sidewalk plows, not including Kubota's and every other thing.

Do we have one of those attachments that's like a snowblower? Yes, we do. Where do we utilize those?

We use those on sidewalks. We have two of them.

Yeah, like in the square mostly?

No, they will run Hancock Street. Anyway, you have to be careful with the snowblower because if we went up, say, Billings Road, for instance, and the 300 block, those people may not like the snow being thrown onto their property. So we have to be careful with the snow block. Then we have a lot of snowblowers, you know, the walk-behind type that we, Fenno Street and all those kind of places that were restricted with access.

So I know one of the questions I'm asking is can we create a GIS map? I mean, I know you guys have.

They have.

It just needs to be updated.

Yeah, it's updated. through the engineering department. Paul Casello heads that up and does an unbelievable job at that.

Okay. Does anyone else want to ask any questions?

Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank the entire DPW department for coming in, a lot of the other collaborations with the other departments in here. Al Gracioso has done a great job out there. It's a very difficult undertaking. Larry Prendeville, the both of you. I've called you a few times after hours. I've called you on the weekends. So I just want to thank you for all your work. I see the collaboration in your PowerPoint amongst the other departments, which are huge, with the mayor's office, Chris Walker. I think over the years, I think back to 2015 with the 111 inches, Al. and go with extra inch on you. It's always an inch short. Yeah. I was on the school committee at the time, came on to the council the next year in 2016, had to figure out a way to pay for the $13.5 million. We did it over a course of three years. a little different funding back then. I know Al, you were up at the mayor's office at the time.

just looking at this storm, this particular 27 inches, just thinking about it and thinking back is the snow's gotta go somewhere. I mean, there's only so much you can plow at some point. there's private property out there you can't put it on there all the time at some point it has to be hauled away and the rate of acceleration of snow that was out there I mean, we're getting a couple inches an hour on some of the time, the duration. And just getting out there to try to do the snow with the snow drifts, it's very difficult. It's a very difficult undertaking that you guys have been doing. and then to top it all off a couple weeks later you get hit with another 21 inches. It's just the protocols that you had in place prior to coming into this winter season, we really haven't had a major, major storm in a couple years. So we really, a lot of the plow drivers out there saying, I'm not making any money.

I might as well hang it up I don't know if the Feeney brothers were doing that as well but there's a lot of there wasn't much snow over the last few years so plow drivers were saying I'm not making any money am I going to continue to plow outside contractor wise um Your operations seem to be the best you can do. You were working overnight. Can you elaborate a little bit of what you were doing overnight with the hauling? Were you doing any, call it relocation of snow, finding areas of, public property that you could put some snow in the areas to kind of buy time to haul that away? Were you doing either of the two and what was kind of your operation?

The hauling operation is difficult because generally we have to do it late at night because it's primarily on major roadways. We have to close those down. So they basically haul the snow, they put it in the middle of the road, and they just keep moving it into big trucks and going to the snow farm. The other part is you really need to cycle those trucks very quickly. If it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, those trucks aren't going to get to the snow farm on time. And so trucks are waiting. You don't want trucks waiting. You want to fill those trucks. So that's pretty much the operation, why we have to do it in nighttime. You need police details. You need a lot of police involved. We have our chases doing the same thing during hauling. They're helping to block streets. They're making sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing. So it's a major operation.

There's some tight streets out there. I'm gonna be very honest with you. I'm gonna walk the streets all the time. There's some hills, ones from Wallace and Hill area in Ward 3. There's just difficult areas to plow in general. And then the snow gets so high on the corners, It gets so high, it has to be removed at some point. It's a tough undertaking. Then we had the 21 inches just recently. It's made it really, really difficult out there. I feel for you. and previous councils, we talk about how much work we really need to dedicate ourselves as counselors is we gotta work with the administration. We gotta work with the DPW department. which these guys do a really good job. Al is a very meticulous person. If I call about something, he's going out to take a look at it right away. I've called them at night for certain areas and thank you for all your work you did out there for some of the constituent request that they had in the city. But it's an ongoing, are you still doing the operation now? Are you still doing?

Yesterday we did some hauling, but I believe right now we're pretty much I mean, in-house will go out, but we're not using any outside contractors now to do any more.

Just to take it a step further, I want to thank every department. I see Al Granahan out there with the TPAL and everybody else that's worked. Policeman Fire, everybody in the DPW department. You've done a fantastic job. Just moving forward as we look forward to the weather getting warmer. There's another area, you talk about flooding, sewer backup. About potholes. Potholes, that's another thing. But it looks like March 8th, which is Sunday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, is going to get up into the 50s and 60s. can you talk a little bit about mitigation of this snow melting and if there's any precautions or anything that you want to put moving forward for recommendations for people this could this could melt pretty fast.

We always, I mean, obviously we have over 9,000 catch basins in the city. Just ask people if they go out and if there's a catch basin that still has snow on it in front of the house, if they could help out. Just shovel out that catch basin. That will help tremendously. I think if it melts slowly, fine. If we get heavy rain, that's when you run into some problems. but I don't see any, we are getting some rain in the forecast the next few days but I don't think it's heavy. So hopefully it will melt slow. Going back to the blizzard of 78, it was, It melted over a couple of months and it was great the way it melted. So hopefully that's going to happen. We're due for some decent weather for a change.

We all are. I thank everybody that was involved with this, the last two storms, to be honest with you, and moving forward. Thank you for everything you've done. We'll keep on getting on the floor with you, Al. I'm not going to stop doing that. So thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. Moving on to Councilor Hubley and then we'll go over to Councilor Esch.

Thank you, President Mahoney. I want to echo, of course, the sentiments of my colleagues. This was a pretty impressive display of resources and coordination and it was quite frankly a really important learning experience for myself and I imagine my fellow colleagues in terms of how this all works and the things that prior to our joining the council, we kind of took for granted. And so I want to make sure that I express my appreciation and gratitude for your staff, the whole team, everyone involved in all the other departments. I really appreciate it and the patience with me while explaining what we can and can't do. So I definitely appreciate that. I have a few questions and I was hoping I want to be respectful with the time because people have been here a long time. So maybe we can do a quick little rapid fire on things. So it's my understanding I heard earlier and I've learned prior that we clear 90 miles of sidewalks.

That's correct. Now that work, if I heard correctly, is done by DPW staff, and it's the same staff that also gets called upon with a water main break and other types of incidents that happens. Let's see. Is there a reason that it's my understanding that we don't contract that work? I mean, if you could help us understand like why we don't contract.

I think we have one contractor, right, Larry? outside, but it's just you can't get outside contractors that want to do... It's a specialized...

The sidewalk's 48 inches. It's a specialized piece of equipment. So not a whole lot of people have that piece of equipment.

Okay, so we're mainly limited to in-house resources.

And we have a couple of outside people that... And a few, okay. Right.

Great. So if money were no object, I'm sure we would all love every single sidewalk cleared. But there is a prioritized list or map of sidewalks, as was displayed earlier on the screen above. I think that was very helpful. I would make one suggestion if it's not already, if that could be made available on the website for people to quickly reference, that would be a really helpful thing, I think. So let's see. To your knowledge, I took a look at other municipalities and I found Cambridge, for example, also publishes their map. it didn't look like they had a much more extensive coverage than we did. It doesn't appear so at all. They focus mainly on main arteries and then a few channels into some neighborhoods. So I think what we're doing today in Quincy is quite extensive for the resources that we have.

So I appreciate that.

just a comment too, we have outside of that map, if we can get to additional streets, we try to, like if it's a week later, it's a heavy snow, we'll send our teams out in other areas that aren't on our list, are somewhat important. So it just all depends on resources and time.

one thing about the sidewalk group that goes out they're going out as the commissioner said at least halfway or three quarters of the way through the storm so a lot of times they're out at night a lot of times they have 12 inches or more that they have to push. They don't really know where the sidewalk is. So they're pushing, they have private property issues, feds, all kinds of things, and it's very expensive. the damage that we do every time we go up. There is a very big cost all these sidewalks.

Yeah, and there's intricacies as well. You have different plantings and so forth that are landscaping things that are in different places. And it's really, yeah, it's difficult to know under two feet of snow what's been, what is sidewalk and what is not. And so I was very happy to learn that the city has sort of a hierarchy of priority and it's something that I truly appreciate. A lot of thought went into it. It seems like we start in a sort of student, much like the school budget, student-centered focus, because students have to go to school. And so it seems like we prioritize around schools, essential services, and business districts. and then try to work our way out for coverage. And I also learned that the custodial staff also does help out a bit in the parks on the grounds of the schools, but then the DPW does sort of the surrounding areas. I appreciate that prioritization. Let's see.

Now I imagine this is something you probably routinely revisit over time as the city changes and as the population centers start to change, you probably revisit these maps and they kind of evolve as necessary over time. The other thing, I reached out to Superintendent Mulvey and I asked him, I said, you know, how are things going and have you had any feedback from families and so forth? and that was very helpful. He basically said that you guys have a great communication with your department, very happy with the way things work. you're very responsive to all the reports from families that come in through the schools, which I think is the appropriate place for them to come in through, though people should be able to reach out directly as well if they'd like to. Let's see. Okay.

You also have four train stations here.

Right.

So that's another issue that we have to deal with and try to make sure that we have the sidewalks and crosswalks to those stations taken care of.

Yeah, I think if the viewers at home or people get a chance to look at the map, you will see it's quite intentional where they clear. Let's see. And So I had a conversation with one of my neighbors who reached out to me during the storm and asked me about a certain sidewalk, a pathway him and his children take to go to school. and once I explained it to them, once I kind of laid out what I learned from both of you and explained how there are sort of major pathways to and from each neighborhood and its neighborhood school, and explained how these were actually the same routes that I took with my kids and that I took as a kid because I've been in the same neighborhood my entire life. And so these are very commonly known. They're not necessarily advertised, but people kind of know where the city clears things and they kind of know how to get there. He was fairly new to the neighborhood. I want to say maybe just a couple of years.

and the minute I laid it out for him, he responded with great appreciation. He appreciated how thoughtful that we were in the selection of our pathways going from different neighborhoods to different schools. and I went out a couple of mornings just to watch where people were walking and to see if people were walking down different pathways. and I did talk to a few of them and and they just said oh I just kind of like to walk this way and I said well do you realize there's a you know cleared sidewalk two blocks away and he's like well it's kind of the way I've always walked this is just the way I like to walk and they were walking in the street so I kind of pointed out that there was another pathway that they could have taken, but they were fine with it. Now, when it comes to areas around parks and some, like parks, I guess I'll say, are those I imagine our parks aren't necessarily designed for winter use. Like we can't clear the snow from playgrounds because the surface of the playgrounds isn't conducive to snow removal. Those are probably things that get kind of dealt with a little bit later.

They're not necessarily included in, yeah. Okay, that's what I thought. Let's see. Now, I imagine we get occasional requests to clear additional sidewalks. I've gotten a bunch and I've kept track of them and written them all down. If there was an opportunity to provide some feedback from people, I imagine sort of after the storm season might be the are the optimal time to do that, to just explain what people, and then that way that can factor in. But I do feel like it's really through the schools that is sort of the best, the feedback from the principals which comes from the parents is probably the best avenue. So, you know, I'd love to be able to provide a list of sort of pathways. But in my mind, I think it's a priority one to make sure that if we are able to potentially expand any sidewalks, that'd be very student-centered. So I'd love the opportunity to continue and talk further about that afterwards.

And let's see. And one of my closing remarks, and that is, so I took a drive around after one of the storms. I think it was the first one. and it's more just to illustrate a point. So I went, I think it might have been Willow, I can't remember, it was somewhere on the border of Ward 5 and Ward 3. I drove down a street and I pulled over because I saw someone shoveling out there and I asked him, I rolled down the window and said, introduce myself and he remembered me from knocking on his door and I said, hey, how's it going here? How's the snow removal? And he's like, oh, beautiful. It was just, this is great. I'm very happy with the way this this worked out. I'm like, oh, that's good to hear. And I, no kidding, drove one block down, same exact street, same exact conditions, no discernible difference from my perspective. and I asked another gentleman who was out shoveling, I said, you know, what do you think? How'd they do? And he's like, oh my God, will you look at this? This is terrible, right?

So it's sort of sometimes in the eye of the beholder, and it's sometimes about where your expectations are. So if you're expecting to see cleared ground and everything completely cleared and so forth, I think you'd be disappointed, but I think if you have an expectation of being able to successfully navigate a sidewalk, I think then your needs are probably satisfied. So anyway, I just wanted to share that experience. Thank you very much.

Ash.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. I'm going to try to be brief because I know everyone's tired. We've all been working very hard. Gentlemen, you're consummate professionals, and I think that the snowstorm for a ward councillor, I've got to go get bread and milk and eggs and also... usually increase my data on my cell phone because that's the amount of communication and requests all legitimate, rightfully so. They come through constituent concerns to me. Just so folks at home and in the audience, many, who are working the storm and know that, but these types of issues are residents that had surgery and they can't shovel outside. Handicap individuals that need to get on the ride or need to go to a day school or individuals that have an appointment at a certain time.

I represent Quincy Point in Penns Hill. Quincy Point is narrow side streets. They are just wide enough to warrant parking on both sides. which creates that issue in the storm and Penns Hill which obviously is a hill and a slope and presents its own issues with topography, right? I have an event at a school. What do I do? There's an event at a school. It's Ramadan. I have two mosques in Ward 2 and they're in neighborhoods. And so we have very well attended, great events. A snowstorm comes, 911 help. And every request, whether it affect hundreds of people or affect two people. Every request was... met with, we'll see what we can do, and it was handled. It may not have been done that day. Maybe it was the next day. Things need to be prioritized.

But the level of professionalism and communication, I don't know how you do it. It's I'm sure you have to grin and bear it sometimes. But that first storm in January, it had been a long time since we had a lot of snow. and I think everybody, you forget what you don't know. It's been 10 winters since presumably we've had that amount. and the very few minor issues that were experienced, at least from where I was sitting. they weren't repeated the next storm, which was even better. So I really do, it can be daunting when you know that there's a storm coming and you're representing a neighborhood of people that pay taxes and work hard and want city services.

But what I know that I can constantly and continuously call and make sure that whether it is an issue or A request that affects two people or 200, it will be addressed and taken care of. That doesn't just include, of course, Commissioner Grazioso, Superintendent Prendevil, but also Mr. Walker, Director Grennan I see here as well as both Chiefs Smith and Kennedy. and the list goes on. You know, I have the joy of working with Tom Pecoraro and Quincy Point, who lets me put my hazards on and ski down the streets with them and address some of these issues. But all a really an extension of the administration and of how hard you both work. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor.

My question is whether from a legislative standpoint or whether with respect to city ordinances, if you see or could recommend any areas for improvement for us to maybe look at or or spend some time going through kind of how we're able to do things with the city charter and the city code, whether it be fines or exploring other avenues for people that aren't in compliance with moving their cars or shoveling their sidewalks. And it's not necessarily something that needs to be answered tonight. But if there are any things that come to your mind that you think can be addressed from a legislative standpoint that would assist the city in responding to these storms in the future?

I think the biggest thing, the biggest issue is cars. And I think you'd probably notice from the first storm to the second storm, a lot more people move their cars. We found out we were towing and we were asking people to move their cars. We actually towed less cars in the second storm. but people moved their cars. They got the message from the first storm. So that's critical if we can instill that. Another issue is sometimes you get some of these private plow companies that, will go out and plow out there, whatever, a driveway or something, and move that snow right back into someone else's property or block the street. Those are issues we have. And if we don't catch them, and Larry and myself have caught a few in the middle of a swamp, but if we don't find that out, we miss it. And it creates a huge issue.

Things like that. problems we run into. So look at that and just trying to get people to everyone to help each other. You know, neighbors helping each other. That's it's huge.

Yes, it is. Well, thank you again. And hopefully we got 10 more years without a storm. How's that?

Awesome.

Councilor Ryan. Thank you very much, Commissioner Graziosa, for coming here tonight. I had a chance to meet with your whole team, and I was very impressed, as I am with the job that you did in both snowstorms. I did have a couple of questions with regards to the first one. I do see that Ward 4 wasn't on that list of critical catch basins that you had to clear. and was there any specific reason for that? Were they cleared out already?

No. We addressed, because of the flooding, the coastal flooding, it was a coastal flooding issue, Severe high tide. So those were the areas in those tidal areas that flood during those storms. And that's why we concentrated on those.

Okay.

Well, that's good to know.

Yep. Glad that we weren't on the list anyways. The other item is in Chapter 3-0 in the charter, the Quincy City Charter. Chapter 305, Article 2, Section 305-24 states that we give a fine to businesses if they don't clear their sidewalks. Do we do that? Do we enforce it?

Through you, Madam President. Yes, we do.

You do. Okay. All right. So was there a fine given to Home Depot for not shoveling their sidewalk on Wallet Street?

Through you, Madam President, I can certainly track back to ISD and figure out who was fined during these past couple storms.

I would definitely like to see that. And in regards to the suggestion made by Councilor Ash, I definitely think that maybe we could small, maybe like small form a small task force just to take a look to see what improvements we can make with regards to people shoveling their sidewalk. One of the biggest concerns that I had this past storm were that children had to walk in the street because people were not shoveling their sidewalks, going down Center Street to Southwest Middle School. I took a ride down and I could see that there were a lot of apartment buildings, small ones, and some homes where their sidewalks were not shoveled. So I really think that we need to take a look in the future, a small find to make sure that children can have a safe route to school.

I think one of the issues, again, it gets back to neighbors helping neighbors, but we do have a lot of elderly in the city who own homes that can't get out and shovel. It doesn't seem like, you know, When I was a kid, we all went out and shoveled and made money doing that. I don't know if we see that anymore. and it's a shame, I don't know who can go out and help these people, but some of them just aren't capable of shoveling their sidewalk.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly. Maybe we have to take a look at using social media in the future for help with that because I did see a few ads on social media saying, hey, we can help you with your sidewalks. So other than that, that's all I have for questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council. So moving on to Councilor McKee, and then we'll come back to you.

So I'll try to gather these together, but thank you very much. It's really wonderful to see this presentation. It's very clear. Thank you for taking the time to get all this information together for us. It's really helpful for a new Councillor, especially to understand how things work. I also do want to thank Chris Walker for responding very quickly. That was really helpful and throughout the day and night. A few things that may not be directly for you, but just sort of an issue that I noticed. Sometimes it seems like not everyone is on the same page, so maybe we could think about how departments can communicate with each other to make sure everyone knows

rules about businesses needing to shovel and whether people are responsible for their own shoveling their own sidewalks. I've had some residents call different departments and get different answers and then just be very confused. One thing that maybe the DPW newsletter could do, if it doesn't already, I always have mine up on my fridge, but apologies if this is already done. maybe put some of those rules for what people are responsible for in that so that something that goes out to everyone is, you know, people will know, okay, this is my duty. So just kind of Communications.

Sometimes the fake tickets I heard from someone were going on non-emergency arteries. And so when someone called the different departments, they were told to ignore them, but then they were getting visited again by the people. So these things are going to happen sometimes.

Well, we do the fake tickets thing. on non-emergency arteries if they were parked on the even side of the street.

I think it was sometimes You know, not that situation, but these things are going to happen. And I agree with Councilor Ryan that it would probably be helpful to think about possibly instituting Vines for residents. I don't know if anyone is here from code enforcement. Is there someone? No.

Through you, Madam President, I know the director suffered a little bit of an injury last week, was not going to be able to be here tonight. I don't know. We do have the assistant commissioner here, Charlie Dong.

Oh, great. Thank you so much. So I just wanted to ask, how many people are out doing code enforcement specifically for snow during storms?

We have one co-enforcement officer in the whole city, yes.

One, okay.

One. We try to help each other out with the building inspectors and myself especially, but as just one co-enforcement officer, yes.

Okay, do you have a sense of how many tickets were,

I do. To answer Councilor Ryan's question, Home Depot was fined. They was fined, yes. I have a list over here. They were February 12th that they were fined. and for the businesses, I have a list over here. If you're interested, I can give it to you. But total, we issued $13,000 for snow removal fines on the sidewalk this year.

and how much per ticket? Is there like a standard?

By the ordinance that Councilor Ryan said, 305-24 is $50 per day, but every day is a separate violation. So total up to be between, this is 20 something, 30 businesses that did not shovel their sidewalk, add up to be a little bit over $13,000 in violation fines.

Sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. Oh, is there a way for, is there a form at all on the city website where people could report violations?

Most reports, the violations, or it could come from the counselors yourself, or you can send an email directly to a co-enforcement officer, or you can give ISD a call, many different ways. We have been to every single one of the complaints that came in to take a look at it or have them aware to remove the snows or if they ignore us, we issue violations.

I'm wondering if it would be possible for a later discussion or for you to just think about in-house having some form like that just because It seems like it would be a good way to just, you guys, if there's one code enforcement officer, you can't be, that person cannot be everywhere, right? This is a huge city.

It's a team, it's a department effort. We go to multiple places, depends on who's available. Yeah.

If there was like a centralized, I'm sort of thinking like a systems, what system can we put in place to sort of make this easier? We could just think about having like a forum where people could say, oh, this business on this Hancock Street on the way to the out going on to and from the T is not clearing their street, you know. We're looking to that, yeah. That would be great. Oh, and then I separately wanted to ask Michelle Hanley if you would, I don't know if you had a separate thing, but I just was, I understood that I learned about this program through, thank you so much, through social media actually. So if you could tell everybody just so we all can hear.

a little bit about this great program that is fairly recent, I guess, that pairs up high school students with folks who need it.

Thank you. Yes, thank you for this opportunity. Of course, we always thank Mayor Koch for his ongoing support for all of the programs at the Council on Aging. and thank you, Councilors and Councilor McKee for this opportunity to publicly recognize the dedicated staff of the Council on Aging, but also the student athletes, their coaches, their parents, who took part in this wonderful program this winter. It is not necessarily a new program. We just have not had snow to implement this program. In fact, I might have to apologize to Al Grazioso and the whole team here because I think I jinxed us in the first week of tryouts for the varsity teams when we met with the student athletes, Outreach Coordinator and myself met with the kids and said to them, we haven't had snow in years. We probably won't have to call on you. Here, sign up, sign up.

Well, we did call on them many days with many people across all six wards in the city. We receive phone calls for snow removal at the Council on Aging beginning after Labor Day. The seniors are worried in September about the snow removal that winter. They want to make sure they have everybody lined up. Most seniors in the city have the means to pay for removal and we have a list of resources that we hand out and we do our research to find out who can give senior discounts, veteran discounts, disabled vote discounts. Next, of course, in our wonderful city, as Al mentioned, are terrific neighbors and neighborhoods. Many of the seniors, we have 25,000 seniors in this city, which are adults age 60 and over, that number's growing by the year.

but many live in wonderful neighborhoods and have family and neighbors who shovel them out. They don't need the extra resource. The folks who end up on the list with us in the student athletes are folks who don't have anybody else. And that's where we come in with the coaches and the students. and their parents. We actually had some moms helping shovel this past storm because they were quite excited about it. And so what we did was just walkways and sidewalks. for folks so that if they needed to call for emergency response, they would be able to get in.

are you, I guess, how many people are signed up for the program?

The first storm we took care of over 30 properties in the city and the second storm was over 40 because once word was out that we had able-bodied youth to help. They were called upon, even some that very day. We had one case where a grandparent was coming home from the hospital. unexpectedly released early and they asked if we could go and within two hours we had the property clear. We had many, many seniors coming in to thank us and thank the kids. We actually had two different appreciation pizza parties for them. and that's when I was reminded of the story today at the hockey rink that I jinxed us. Sorry.

And How do you make sure that the kids have gone to, or how do you know that someone's been sort of do they let you know that they've cleared the?

Yeah, so the logistics, the actual logistics, our outreach coordinator had the list of the students names and addresses who we met with, as I said, right after Thanksgiving. We also then used a city map and paired them up with folks from our list of seniors who needed help and got people in the same neighborhood so that in most cases the kids could just walk over. she then followed up with the seniors. We didn't work directly with the students. We let their coaches do that because they're all minors, of course, so their coach was the liaison for us with the students, but we did confirm with the seniors.

Okay, great. Thank you. I don't want to stay on this too long, but sort of similar to my previous point, I wonder if it would be helpful to put a Google form or something on the website so that people could apply. It doesn't mean that they would necessarily get paired up because there's probably more

That's a wonderful idea. And I'll talk to my computer science, my computer teacher at the center to teach the seniors how to use Google.

That's true. But I mean, maybe some people use it.

We love Google Forms.

Okay. Thank you so much. This is an exciting program.

Thank you.

Yuen. Hello. I try to be quick. So I have a couple questions the resident reported. So first about the sidewalk snow clearing. I understand that some residents such as seniors or people with disabilities may not be able to shop snow themselves. However, residents reported that in some cases, younger residents did not clear snow at all, while elderly neighbors did. So they are asking whether the city could consider enforcement with clear exemptions for seniors and the people with disability.

Through you, Madam President, I'll take that one because that's sort of a policy legislative issue, not a boots on the grounds Department of Public Works issue, Councilor. This discussion has been had over the course of a number of years. It's come up from time to time, most frequently when we've had winters like this, about enforcement on residential sidewalks and how we would do that. Traditionally, our administration has not been supportive of that based upon some of the reasons that Commissioner Grazioso mentioned and the amount of Logistics that would be involved in that but if that is a legislative priority of this body that is a legislative right of this body as well to delve into that issue in greater detail and perhaps develop some sort of language that may work.

Okay, thank you. My second question is, so some neighbors reported if they have disputes related to snow plowing with their neighbor, which department they should contact. So they reported their neighbors push snow onto their properties. and blocked their carbon oxide channel. So that's dangerous. And they want to they did made a call and then their calls were transferred between departments and led nowhere. So they are asking which exactly they want to have a one clear point of contact in this situation which department which because then they can contact in this situation. Do they call police, DPW, health, or code enforcement? Mr. Walker.

Through you, Madam President, code enforcement would be the first step, Councilor.

Okay, thank you. I have one last question. So language access during snow emergence. So after I shared the snowstorm notice with the Asian community, residents asked whether multilingual services are available on the snow hotline in the emergency management numbers. So I called both numbers myself on Saturday, February 7th, just to give a try. No one answered, and both voicemail messages were in English only. The Snow Hotline never returned my call. The Director of Emergency Management, Dave McCarthy, later called me back and said,

he would consider adding multilingual information to their voicemail, which currently directs residents to call 911 outside of their office hours. He informed me that the emergency management department's working hours are Monday through Friday, 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 a.m. So that means after their working hours, people can only call 911. So I assume 911 has the multi-language service, right?

9-1-1 is police and fire. That has nothing to do with DPW, but I would assume...

Yes, Councilor, I think I know Director McCarthy is working on some multilingual options within the Department of Emergency Management. and those things are sort of a progression. There's been improvement in that area over the last number of years. The police department generally has, whether it's the business line or 911, generally has officers and civilian staff available for translation. So that is not, the business line in particular, the police department is always a good place to start. And by after hours, if, someone happens to not be in the office in the Department of Emergency Management, it's because there's nothing operational that's going on at that point in time. They work a regular business day during times of non-emergency, but the folks at

Okay, thank you. That's it.

I did not have any prepared remarks, and I know it's a late night, but I happened to be able to meet with Commissioner Grazioso and his team between the two storms. I did not plan to spend the first... four weeks of our tenure here dealing with this stuff. And I just tried to encourage people to be patient, to be respectful of their neighbors. And if someone had an emergency, I reached out either to you directly or through the hotline. And I mean, it seems to me that we did a pretty good job considering how much snow fell in such a short period of time and how long it's been since we've had to deploy this. So I have no complaints. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Ryan, did you want to call again? Okay, awesome. So I think we've covered everybody. Is everybody all set? So I didn't get to speak, so I just want to say thank you. And I think I've made it very clear to Mr. Walker, nobody ever gets an A in snow removal, no matter how hard you try as Mr., as Councilor Hubley had mentioned, you know, you talk to one person at the beginning of the street and they're very happy and the next person's not. It is a very difficult thing to, in a city, in a dense city that we have, or any community, to be able to move the volume of snow that you had, especially after the first storm and then the second storm, it was heavy. I'm not sure how big your equipment was, but moving them on small streets, that amount of snow can be very difficult. And it was also whiteout conditions. There was a state of emergency, but that still doesn't matter because you still have to be out there. And it's a lot. And it's a lot for people that have to do their own yards and just everything that everybody has to do. It's a lot. And people get very stressed during snow. but it does take a while to clean things out. And I do know walking routes.

So does the school committee give you walking routes for the schools so that you know what streets to have cleared sidewalks? I'm just curious about that.

I don't know if we get them from the school committee, but we just try to use common sense. We work with T-PAL, who's phenomenal, giving us direction on what needs to be done.

and then the buses when they're picking up the kids. I only ask this because this is where the collaboration happens with the city, right? So when we have a big snowstorm, you're not only just taking care of our streets and taking care of our communities and our sidewalks, but you're also getting the kids back to school. and that is terrifying for parents to put their kids back into school. But some people are just rushing their kids back to school too. So again, it's the same thing. When school's out, people want their kids back in school. Some people don't want to run the risk. I just remember bus stops getting cleared out. It was really tough getting those bus stops.

The school department does give us a list of bus stops for the students.

and I know I got, you know, as we all do, and whenever I get any information, whether it's because I'm at large, I'll make sure I include any board council that I'm dealing with. I tried to share it with board four, just letting you know what we hear. I know you're very responsive to those things. It's just, again, I'd say we could give everybody an A and snow. You guys all work really hard. You're up all night, sleep deprived. Hungry, Exhausted. And it's a lot of work. And it's also a lot of communication coming from the mayor's office. People don't understand that that's part of what's happening. Then, of course, equipment breaking down. Was that our equipment or was that contractors' equipment?

We had some sidewalk plows break down. It's mostly contractors. I mean, we have if it breaks down, our own equipment, we have mechanics working 24 seven.

But still when your equipment breaks down, that's a whole other issue. And your sidewalk machines, what people don't realize is you're out clearing those sidewalks and the next thing you know you're sucking up fancy stone that's telling people that this is a marker stone that's breaking your sidewalk machine. And when the sidewalk machines are down, it's really hard to get those parts too. Especially if you can fix them in house, you don't always get the parts. I know I got, I think this was something in Ward 4 a lot of people were getting in touch with. This is all over the city when you have walking roads. Quarry Hill down by the, on one side it was completely plowed but on the side where I think what field we call this now, it's by the Terrell room, but it's the field along that side.

Yes, we, I think, brought that up to our attention.

Yeah, and what I say to people, too, is that sometimes these sidewalks aren't going to get cleared. But a lot of people that live in the apartments or condominiums in that area that we've encouraged not to have cars do do a lot of walking down towards the Star Market. And you see a lot of people walking at nighttime. So those are concerns. I just didn't know what specific streets in particular are walking routes that we do clear. that's something that's tricky too but I will say that you know it is nobody nobody gets excited for snow but the kids when they and even then I don't think they get excited for the days off but We don't get snow like we used to, and we're not used to it. And although, you know, thank you very much, Mr. Prenderbilt, for being as good at it as you are, it's like a memory muscle. We have to go back to remembering how to do these things. and that first storm was memory muscle. And also you had 60 plows that weren't coming back for you. So now you had to train all those people to be able to go out and do that. but it was amazing how quick the second storm and that wasn't just here, it was everywhere. You saw everybody improve through every town surrounding.

It's a lot of work every town's doing and we're all working together and the kids all got back to school safe and we'll continue to work to make things better as we go forward. I hope we don't have another snowstorm, to tell you the truth, though, because as much as it looks pretty for the moment, it's a lot of work. So I just wanna thank you very much and thank everybody. And your work didn't go unrecognized. And as much as sometimes we're looking to how we can do things better, We got through this one, and as we always do, they're going to be really good, and then probably we won't have it for hopefully another five years. Right, Al?

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you very much. and thanks to all the other city departments that help us. It's a great team.

Yeah. Well, it's definitely a team that has to work together to get this stuff done from the schools to the police to the fire to the emergency management to all of you guys in DBW. because you're not just taking care of the streets, you're taking care of the water main breaks. It's not glamorous, but you do keep everything moving for the City of Quincy and I want to make sure you all know how much we appreciate that. I appreciate that, so thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So with that, we conclude the snow operations. Moving on to item number three, which is the appropriation of $2.6 million for the fire department new firefighter turnout gear. Who wants to speak? Do you want to speak? I can speak whatever I want.

Do you want to read it? You can read it. 20-26-038, an appropriation for $2,646,730 for the fire department new firefighter turnout gap.

if you want, you know, as a council, I'm just gonna start this. As a council president, I just wanna clarify that the process regarding the proposed $2.6 million safety bond, This matter has been publicly discussed for more than six months prior to the current Council taking office. Given that timeline, it's reasonable to ensure we'll follow the proper statutory process rather than bypass it now. By law, any bond must be publicly advertised for 10 days before any action can be taken. I'm going to ask... Clerk, when is it getting advertised? March 4th? It's going to be advertised on March 4th, so it'll be ready to come out for the first meeting on the 16th, correct? So I just wanted the public to know that. As well as that, That advertisement, it's not optional. After the advertisement referral to committee is standard next steps to review the final approval in committee. firefighter safety is not the question. Just want to make sure that people know that that is not what the question is. It's following the proper procedures.

Urgency cannot be created retroactively. We will move this forward promptly. in a full compliance with legal requirements and also by making sure we are doing our due diligence and asking the questions that my fellow colleagues need to have answered for them to be able to make their proper votes. And I know I've worked with Mr. Walker about this. We all want to work together on this. This isn't something that... anybody's trying to prevent from happening. But we can't do it without putting into committee and we can't do it without advertising. So the earliest that any of this could be done would be the 16th of March. Responsible leadership means protecting our firefighters and respecting the law at the same time. So I just want to make sure people understand that. I know there's been a lot of communication to everybody here up here on the council we've heard you and we recognize it and we're going to do our jobs and we're going to do it as efficiently as we possibly can with collaboration with the administration. I don't think anybody is trying to do anything different than that.

So with that, I'd like to see if there's anybody else who has any comments or questions that they'd like to make. Councilor McGee.

So I just wrote something earlier. I support moving this proposal to committee for discussion for several reasons. The first is that we legally cannot vote on it tonight. as you mentioned, according to section 23 of our city charter, as well as chapter 43, section 23 of state law, any proposed ordinance or loan owner must be advertised in the newspaper for at least 10 days before it can be voted on. That hasn't happened yet. Second, I have questions about the procurement of the previous gear which was advertised as being PFAS-free, the testing of that gear for signs of PFAS, and the procurement process for the newly requested replacement gear. that I need answers to before I can consider voting to approve this purchase. Through you, Madam President, I will send these questions to Mr. Walker so that we can have a productive discussion when this is taken up in committee. I request a full and rigorous discussion in closed executive session if necessary, given the discussion of potential lawsuits.

Finally, the Mayor held a press conference back in August of last year about how gear that was supposed to be PFAS-free had in fact tested positive for PFAS chemicals. The City Council has just now, six months later, received a request from him to take out a loan to pay for replacement gear. Given the possibility that a rushed approval process led to the purchase of faulty gear the first time around, I believe it is in everyone's best interest, the firefighters especially, for the Council to take a few weeks to make sure we do our due diligence in considering the bonded purchase of replacement gear.

So looking for a motion? Did she motion?

No, there's no motion. I'd like to motion that we move this to Finance and Oversight Committee.

Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Jacobs. Can we have a roll call vote on that? Sorry, Councilor Ash.

would the expectation, Madam President, be to move this into finance and then have a finance committee on the 16th? Okay, all right. Again, it would be great if this was something that we could support tonight, but I understand that we need to have a committee meeting on it.

Those are the laws.

No, I appreciate that. If we are moving it into committee, then we can, I would think, refrain from the deliberation on the movement into committee. So I would just say that I look forward to the discussion in committee in two weeks. Thank you.

So we have a motion on the table second and it's going to go into finance and I'd like to take a roll call.

Yes.

DiBona, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes, nine members. All right.

So now we're gonna be moving on to item number four.

2026039, an appropriation for community preservation, 325,000 for National Society, of Colonial Names of Massachusetts Quincy Homestead Exterior Painting in Rapier 2026.

I recognize Councilor Jacobs.

Yes, thank you. I've been, I looked into this CPC application. Even in the application they sent us, it clearly states that the state has some control over the actual physical structure of the building and the maintenance of the building and the leasee is the Colonial Dames which they're leasing the building back from the state. And they're responsible for the interior of the building. And all the money they're seeking is for, most of the money, I should say, most of the money they're seeking is for the exterior I've been trying to get in contact with the Deputy Commissioner of the DCR who's on here, but you can't actually get in contact with them. So I've been in contact with Representative Chan, who's working to get in contact with the DCR commissioner just to find out, you know,

Why are we trying to use our limited CPC funds on something that the state should be required to or should have a part in? So I just ask that we table this to... the next meeting so we can get some communication from the DCR. Is that in the form of a motion? Yes, that's a motion, yeah.

Do we have a second? Seconded by Councilor Ryan. Can we have a roll call vote on the tabling of this issue for this evening?

Do you want to say something? Did you want to say something?

Sorry, Councilor Ryan. Request for CPC money. I would also like at the same time to request to resubmit the documentation because of the fact that the variance in what they're requesting as opposed to what they provided the backup documentation. Also in the... application. There's no mention of whether or not labor is to be included in that, and I would really like for it to be clear.

Ryan. If it's okay with Councilor Ryan, we're going to have Councilor Riley speak.

If I could just provide a little bit of background here. The Community Preservation Committee, which I sit on, met on February 20th to review four applications for the 2026-2027 CPA cycle. Two were requests from the Colonial Dames for the Quincy homestead located at 34 Butler Road. The committee voted to approve one of the requests in the amount of $325,000 for the exterior restoration work earlier than the typical May-June timeframe. so that the appropriate contractors could be secured and the work performed under the most optimal weather conditions. The committee has not yet received a full accounting of the funds available or been through all of the applications. but we did agree to move this forward. What I can do is I can bring it back to the CPC for maybe a little bit more clarification but it really was more of a timing issue. All of these will come to the Council for approval in the May-June timeframe as a package. But this one was asked to be taken out a little bit earlier.

So if you want, I can try to get a little more clarification a little more vetting. But they would like to have earlier approval so that they can take advantage of the weather.

So recognizing that we want an earlier approval, but that we have a motion on the table to table the motion by Councilor Jacobs, seconded by Ryan.

When is the next CPC meeting?

That is a good question. I'm sure it's on my calendar somewhere, but I don't want to hold people up while I search for it.

We can certainly look into that and we can determine whether we come back on the 16th or the next meeting.

Yeah, I mean, I think if there's no meeting between now and the 16th, it may make more sense, I think, Councilor Riley, if this could be, maybe there's more information to bring back on the 16th

We can't all talk.

Yes. Yeah. So if there's no community preservation meeting between now and the 16th, maybe we'll get some answers either from the state or from Councilor Riley as the as the Councilor that sits on the CPC.

So the way the motion works for tabling, it was tabling this evening. They'll have a roll call vote on it. And when it comes off the table, whether it's the 16th or after the 16th, that's when we'll take it off. So I think we'd like to move this to a vote because we're just tabling at this time. So if we could do a roll call vote for the vote. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. So just to elaborate a little bit about this. So the Community Preservation Committee voted 8-0 to vote for this, to move this forward, is that correct? Through you too, Mrs. Ryan? Okay. You know, previously being on the Community Preservation Committee for the last 10 years, whenever this does happen, it's just a time consuming. you've got to get these bids in.

They're trying to, like, so does every- So recognizing that, and I've already let this go outside of a table, and a second means to go right to a vote. So we've tabled it and this is going to go to a vote at this point. It will come back, but it's been requested to table for more information at the state level. whether we have it on the 16th. If David, if Councilor Jacobs has it by the 16th, we'll work with Mr. Walker and Councilor Riley to bring it back on the 16th. It's just a matter of- 16th will be good.

Yeah. Okay.

So we have a table, seconded by Councilor Ryan. If we could do a roll call vote, please. Councilor Ash.

DiBona, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, nine members.

Okay, moving on to item number five.

2026-040, Confirmation of Quincy Housing Authority Board Mayor's At-Large Appointment. Tim Baker.

Okay, did you want to speak? Okay.

Councilor Jacobs. You know, both of these appointments are 2026040 and 2026. 041, just in the nature that we didn't get much information about these candidates, so hoping we can get some more information, like maybe how long they've have been on, they're both being reappointed. I don't know how many terms they've been on. We don't know anything about them. So I was hoping we could get some more information.

So do we have a second for the tabling of this? Seconded by Councilor Yuen. Anybody on the motion?

So the To ask City Council to confirm this reappointment, we need some key information to review, such as for reappointment of the board member. We need a performance metrics review of the members' contributions during their previous term. specifically regarding the financial and operational health of the Housing Authority. We need attendance and participation, a record of attendance at board meetings, workshops, and relevant committee meetings. Third, conflicts of interest. Documentation ensuring the appointee has no conflicts of interest that could prevent them from serving in a fiduciary capacity. Fourth, expertise and qualifications.

Evaluation of whether the member's skill set, finance, nor community advocacy, is still relevant to the authority's needs. Fifth, background in the qualifications. updated the resume and the statement of interest for the new term. Sixth, compliance with the North, confirmation that the appointment adheres to the State General North, such as for instance. for instance in Massachusetts requirement for five-member boards. and for appointment of the tenant representative, we need a tenant eligibility verification. Confirmation that the nominee is a resident in a unit owned, operated by the housing authority, or a participant in a rental assistant program.

in the proof of nomination process.

Oh, okay, that's it. Can we talk about the second one? So we have to have two motions for the table. So we're focusing right now on item number, 040, so we have a table in a second. And I think what we can do, because this is gonna get tabled and it seems like there's gonna be a lot of information, maybe we can email Mr. Walker in regards to what we're hoping to have when it comes off the table so we can be a little bit tighter in what we're bringing forward. in this work, if it's possible, maybe even bringing the director forward just to kind of give us a highlight of what's happening at the Quincy Housing Authority that might be helpful to with all the new counselors. Does that work? You can certainly. It always can work if we ask, right? So we have a table in a second. So can we have a roll call vote on 040?

Councilor Ash.

I do have a question.

OK.

Both of these ordinances say that the appointments are effective February 2nd, 2026. Is the appointment being extended or is there a full board without these appointees? just to make sure that if there's anything substantive that goes to Quincy Housing and they don't have a full board, I don't want to hold that up.

three, Madam President, you serve until your successor is appointed. So regardless of the date on that, you are still a member of the board as long as your successor has not been appointed.

and are the, no, that's fine. All right, thank you.

So we have a motion to table for 040, seconded by Councilor Ryan, if we could have a roll call vote.

Rash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members.

Moving on to order 041, Councilor Jacobs.

Motion to table this to the next meeting until we can get some additional information from the administration about the nominees. that are being selected or nominated for this year.

Do we have a table? Do we have a second? Councilor Ryan, second it. Can we have a roll call vote for that?

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Councilor Hubley. Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, nine members.

So I'm going to encourage my fellow Councilors that had questions in regards to this, if we could email Mr. Walker and we can work to get those back on the agenda as soon as possible to be able to have answers. Okay, great. Moving on to the next item on the agenda.

No. 72026042 will resolve American Rescue Plan spending transparency. Chair recognizes Councilor Riley.

I'd like to read this into the record. Order Number 2026-042, American Rescue Plan Spending Transparency, whereas the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, otherwise known as ARPA, was signed into law on March 11th, 2021. And whereas it was reported by various media outlets that the city of Quincy was projected to receive $46.3 million through ARPA, and whereas the four categories of eligible uses for these ARPA funds include responding to the public health emergency, providing premium pay to employees, conducting essential work, providing government services to the extent of the government's reduction in revenue due to COVID-19, and investing in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure. and whereas all ARPA funding delivered to municipalities was to be spent on projects and programs through December 2024 and whereas the administration used 15 million of the city's allocated ARPA funds to purchase the Monroe Building on Hancock Street.

Therefore, let it be resolved that the Quincy City Council formally request that the administration provide a full public accounting to the Council regarding the funding the City received through ARPA and a full and final accounting of ARPA expenditures. So this order was actually previously introduced by Councilor Anthony Andronico on February 14, 2022, and referred to the Finance and Oversight Committees by unanimous vote. There is no record of it being deliberated in either committee when that council term ended in December 2023. I would like to make a motion to approve the resolve and assign to the finance and oversight committees for further deliberation.

We don't have to do it. It's resolving. We can do. So we have a motion seconded by Councilor McKee and on that we just have a, do we need a roll call vote for that? We need a roll call vote for that.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members.

Moving on to the next order.

Number 8, 20-26-043, a Resolve Quincy Retirement Pension Theft Update. Councilor Ryan.

I'd like to read this one into the record as well, please. Whereas the Quincy Retirement Board lost $3.5 million in February 2021 attributed to a fishing scheme, and whereas the loss of funds was not discovered until October 2021, and whereas the city was in the process of issuing bonds for nearly half a billion dollars for the purpose of unfunded pension liabilities in the Quincy retirement systems and whereas the responsibility for the funding of the retirement system falls on the city of Quincy, and whereas the Pension Board undertook a forensic audit and hired outside legal counsel to assist in responding to the theft and whereas the work of that legal counsel has concluded and the forensic audit is publicly available, and whereas the Quincy Retirement Board has not appeared before or provided any update to the Quincy City Council, the citizens of Quincy or the participants of the pension system.

Therefore, let it be resolved that the Quincy Retirement Board appear before the City Council to discuss the loss of the $3.5 million in funds under its control, the delay in discovering the loss, what funds, if any, have been recovered or reimbursed, and communicate the specific policies, procedures and safeguards that have been implemented since this incident. This order was previously introduced by Councilors Palmucci, Andronico, Phelan, Harris, DiBona, and Mahoney on March 7th, 2022, and referred to the Oversight Committee by unanimous vote. There is no record of it being deliberated in committee when the Council term ended in December 2023. I'd like to make a motion to approve the resolve and assign to the Finance and Oversight Committee for further committees for further deliberation.

Motion on the table. Do we have a second? Ryan, seconded by Councilor Yuan, on the motion. Anybody? Councilor Ryan? Did you wanna speak? Okay, so we have a motion and we have a second. And this one needs a roll call vote as well.

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

Moving on to item number nine.

2026044, a gift for $2,000 from Manic Construction to Dia.

Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion to approve from Councilor DiBona. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Jacobs. And please send a letter. And all those in favor. And this is a roll call vote. Sorry. Roll call vote.

Councilor Ash. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Eight members.

Okay, so now we're moving on to the approval of previous minutes from February 2nd, 2026. Do I have a motion? Motion approved. Motion provided by Councilor DiBona, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. All those in favor? Any opposed? The ayes have it. Communications and reports from the Mayor, other City Officers and City Boards? None.

I do have some traffic requests to refer to Ordinance Committee for advertising. Ward 5, Council McKee, add no left turn on Hancock Street northbound at 839 Hancock Street. Power Wash driveway, add no left turn from 839 Hancock Street driveway eastbound at Hancock Street and the utility requests that were scheduled for February 23rd meeting to go to the next council meeting of 316 from 6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., grant a location, Mass Electric, 100 Coddington Street. Grant a location, Mass Electric, Verizon, 587 C Street.

Mass Electric Verizon 10 Independence Ave, Mass Electric Verizon 58 Tyler Street, Mass Electric Verizon Willett Street, Mass Electric Verizon 137 Sagamore Street. Thank you. You're welcome.

So moving on to unfinished business proceeding meetings. None is what we have. And then reports of committee. Hubley had his hand up first, so hold on. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilor Hubley.

Is it up? Okay, it's on? All right. Yep. This is an update from the Municipal Tech Committee and It appears that in the previous vote that we did on the resolution to provide potentially expanded online access for city services, the one we voted to refer to committee not last meeting, but I think the meeting prior if I'm remembering correctly. I believe we only voted to refer it to committee, not to approve it. and what I'd like to do is instead of convening a Munitech committee meeting just to say, yes, we all agree we want information to talk about, I'd prefer to have a vote to approve also in addition to the referral so that we can have a more productive meeting when we convene the Municipal Tech Committee meeting. So I'm looking for, I'm making a motion to vote to approve the resolution.

I don't have the resolution number handy at the moment, but

O36, yeah. Motion made by Councilor Hubley, seconded by Councilor DiBona. On the motions, any questions?

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Walker, Yen, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Moving on to Councilor McKee.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that we had a positive recommendation for 2026-008, the order amending the council rules from earlier tonight made by the committee. Oh, yes, motion to approve 2026-008.

By Councilor Jacobs. Any questions on the motion? Is this recorded?

Esch, Councilor DiBona, Councilor Hubley, Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney, nine members as amended. And Councilor McKee.

and I just wanted to say that there were also positive recommendations made by the ordinance committee. for 2026, 026, 2026, 027, and 2025, 028. These are all part.

One at a time.

Oh, I'm so sorry. 2026-026, Add Handicap Parking 257 Grafton Street. I motion to approve 2026-026.

Do we have all those in favor? Second. Who's going to second for that? She's doing traffic. She's doing traffic. So these are traffic requests. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Ash. Roll call vote.

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

So the next one, 20-26-027, there was a positive recommendation from the Ordinance Committee. Motion to approve.

Motion to approve, seconded by Councilor DiBona. Roll call vote.

Ash, Councilor DiBona, Councilor Hubley, Councilor Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Councilor Riley, Councilor Ryan, President Mahoney, yes, nine members.

and final one, this is 2025-028 to remove the no parking June through September on Mullen Avenue from O'Connell to the accepted portion of Mullen Avenue. There was a positive recommendation by Ordinance Committee, motion to approve.

Motion made by Councilor McKee, seconded by Councilor DiBona. Any questions? What street?

This was Mullen Avenue from O'Connell. This is in Ward 4 to the accepted portion of Mullen Avenue. Thank you.

So we have a motion. Second by Councilor DiBona. Roll call vote.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Hubley. Yes. Councilor Jacobs. Yes. Councilor McKee. Yes. Councilor Riley. Ryan, Councilor Yen, President Mahoney. Yes, nine members.

Does that finish it? Yes. Okay. So anybody else for committees that don't think so? So we're going to be moving on to presentations of petitions, memorials, and remonstrances. Councilor Jacobs.

who, sad news report, that Philip Leth of House, well, he lived in House Neck, but I believe he grew up in West Quincy, was a lifelong resident of Quincy, died on February 25th. 2026. He attended Quincy Public Schools. He graduated from Quincy Vocational School in class of 1972. He served in the United States military during the Vietnam era, and he carried that with him quietly in dignity throughout his life. He went on and worked in the Quincy shipyard, as many people did, and then when that job was no longer there, he went on and worked for the US Postal Service and was a maintenance mechanic. He was a very quiet man. I knew him personally my entire life. but he was a worker. He had three wonderful children who when I was growing up was proud to call all of them my friends.

Phillip Leth Jr., Aaron Leth, and Jill Sabin, who some people may be familiar. She was the head of the citywide PTO recently. But he also had two grandchildren, Pierce and Peyton. Payton, his granddaughter, and my daughter played soccer together. And Jill, his daughter, was actually the coach of the team, and I grew up with Jill. but he was a great man. One of the things he used, I remember as a kid, We would go over to the house and they would make grilled cheese sandwiches. And somehow it made it into this obituary. So it was a big thing. You didn't know about it, but I remember eating grilled cheese sandwiches there. He's the best grilled cheese maker. So I'm very sad to report that he's passed away. And we just hope that we know that everyone's supporting their family at this time.

Councilor Ash.

Thank you. I would like to mention and pay respects to the family of Craig Jackson. Craig passed away at the age of 35 on February 1st, 2026. I grew up with Craig Quincy Point family strangely and Serendipitously enough, looking at his brother Scott right now in the audience, Craig had a larger than life personality. Loved football, loved sports, loved music. As these things happen, you don't see people that you grew up with very often after a certain point in life. I recently saw Craig last year working at the craft fair with his mother and certainly 35 far, far too young There was a beautiful celebration of life this weekend for Craig.

Certainly, my condolences to Scott and Teresa and Donald and the Jackson family. and I'm sure that the family will continue on his legacy of comedy, music, sports and a very large personality. So thank you.

Anybody else? Councilor DiBona?

Thank you, Madam President. It's a sad, heavy heart that Timothy Zamboni passed away just on February 11th. He was just 47 years old. He grew up in the South Boston area, but he had a long-legging You know, advocacy to help out the city of Quincy. He graduated from North Quincy High School, was a captain of the baseball, football, and hockey teams. He was inducted to the Hall of Fame in baseball and football. He played American Legion for the Quincy-Morissette Legion. He was a graduate of Mass Maritime Academy, was captain of the baseball and football teams, inducted their Athletics Hall of Fames. He was really, really good with, he coached, umpired, and refereed youth football and baseball, including the Braintree Baseball Club. I mean, he made a huge difference on a lot of athletes' lives over the years and a continued passion towards sports through coaching. He was a proud member of the Verizon Communications for 20 years, and he joined a lot of the time on Cape Cod and Rollerblade and Castle Hill and Wollaston Beach.

You know, heavy heart to his family. You know, son of Arthur and Dolores Zamboni of Weymouth, beloved husband, Dara Zamboni of Quincy, and stepfather, Beverly Nugent of Quincy. and a lot of other sisters and brothers. Just keep them in your thoughts and prayers. The entire family, dying at that age, 47 years old. The visiting hours is this week on Wednesday the 4th at the Cohanes on 48 and the Celebration of Life. will be held at Funeral Home and the Mass will be at St. Agatha's. So please keep your thoughts and prayers with the Zamboni family. Thank you.

Councilor Hubley.

Yeah, so just a day before our previous meeting, we had a loss. Former Montclair resident and Quincy police officer, Michael Howey, He grew up in Montclair, graduated North Quincy High School, class of 92, immediately went in to serve in the armed services, and then subsequently 20 years as a Quincy police officer. I didn't know Michael but the response at his services was truly heartwarming to see how many people in the community in the city and just showed up to pay their respects. He clearly made an impact on those around him, and I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Does anybody else have any? So I'd like to take a moment just to remember Louise Salvaggi-Laurier. She was 83 years, and she was a brain trooper formerly of Quincy. She died peacefully on February 21st, 2026 in the comfort of her home, surrounded by her family. Louise was married to Joseph LaRere. She was the former mayor of Quincy for 59 wonderful years. She was very proud to have served as the first lady of her hometown and was were supportive of his 22 years of elective service. Louise spent most of her years raising her children, but in the late 1980s, she went back to college and she became a registered nurse. She began her career working at Quincy City Hospital and she moved on to working at Eventide Home in Quincy where she made many lasting friends and later returned to Quincy City Hospital and retired in 2013.

She was the beloved wife of the late Joseph LaRere, devoted mother of Joseph LaRere and his wife Deborah of Plymouth, Lisa Stevens and her husband Mark of Braintree, and Robin LaRere of Weymouth. I did also want to mention that the LaRires were very special because they actually created the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater, which became obsolete for some time and then had a rebirth with the Friends of the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater. and she really didn't miss time at the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater. I saw her at every event there. I know she's gonna be greatly missed. but I will say that she was extremely proud to see that come back to life and I know that was a big part of her and her family coming to Quincy and seeing that and it made the world of difference to her. We had a lot of people we spoke about tonight, so I just want to keep everybody in their thoughts and prayers because it's hard to lose somebody. But again, this is kind of the end of an era when you think of it. There's really not a lot of people left in the

I think she's the last one of the wives that has passed away now. So let's keep everybody else healthy in Quincy, I guess. So there's anybody for any other remonstrances or anything? No. So moving on for motions and orders and resolutions. Okay, scheduling of committee meetings and public hearings. Okay, Councilor McKee.

Sorry, I would like to schedule a community engagement committee meeting for March 16th. I would also like to schedule an ordinance committee meeting for March 16th as well.

Okay. Councilor DiBona?

Yes, Madam President. If I could, through you to Finance Chair Riley, if we were looking to, if we could have, move out of the appropriation for the firefighter gear out of committee for the meeting on May 16th?

on March 16th. I think she was about to do that. So, Councilor Riley had her hand up too. So, Councilor Ryan. I'm sorry.

Yes, I'd like to, with Councilor Jacobs, schedule a combined oversight and finance committee meeting for March 16th. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else for committee meetings?

Yeah.

So we have a six, it looks like we have a six.

And we have utilities, right? Six to 630.

6 to 6.30, okay, so I think we could do 6.30 to 6.45. I don't think it'll take too long for community engagement. and then I'm happy to do 645. I don't know if you want to do finance oversight after that or it doesn't really matter.

Yeah, I say let's squeeze them together a little bit because we obviously ended up with some free time here tonight. So we can always come out of and reconvene, right? Is that how it works?

So we can come out of, we need some time so we can come out of committee. and reconvene the council meeting and then go back into committee if we need be. so we can go past 7.30. So 7.30 we'd open up the regular council meeting and we can then pause the regular council meeting back into finance or whatever committee meeting happens to be at 6.45.

So we could use... Community engagement. We could just do 15 minutes or something. And then we could do 6.45 to... 730 for ordinance or oversight and finance, whichever ones.

What are you moving out of there?

Do you know what we're moving out? Do you know you're moving out?

Yeah. So I think for community engagement, we were going to just move the Dignity Index. And I just wanted to also move the ability for people to sign up for a general city council newsletter perhaps so we can just talk about that a little bit but it won't take long I think and then how about for ordinance

what are you doing for ordinance?

For ordinance, I want to do at least our raises and have Solicitor Timmons

too much on the agenda, a little bit too much. Let's move that another time.

So Councilor McKee, you have to make the decision. What I would suggest is maybe rather than move the Dignity Index, maybe hold on that and work on the ordinance. starting at 6 30 with ordinance and maybe go to maybe just have a half an hour with having a presentation from from the city solicitor in regards to kicking that off. And then from 7 to 7.30, we can do the finance slash, okay. And then we'll move into the regular meeting. Does that work? That works, yeah. Okay. So we'll take the Dignity Index off, the Community Engagement piece off. We'll leave it at 6.30 to 7 for Ordinance and 7 to 7.30 for Finance. okay and then we'll move on to the regular meeting at 7 30. okay so what's going on So Councilor DiBona is asking what's going on.

So 6 o'clock, we'll have the utilities that were moved. At 6.30, we will have the ordinance, which will be the beginning conversations with city solicitor. Pardon?

I'm confused too. What orders?

What order? Can you tell me what the orders are? Do you know what the orders that you're pulling out? So we'll give you a little book.

Can I? Everybody's handing them to you.

Okay. I know.

We can do this offline.

We can figure this off offline. So what we're going to have is from 6 to 6.30 will be the utilities. 630 to 7 will be ordinance and we will let you know what the ordinance she's pulling out and and 630 and 7 to 7 30 will be finance sorry and then we'll move into regular meeting All right. So do we have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

All those in favor? Second? Second? All in favor? Thank you very much, everybody.