Quincy City Council: October 19, 2026

Thank you.

I'd like to call to order the October 19th Municipal Technology Committee meeting at 6.30 p.m. Madam Clerk, please call the roll

Ash, DiBona, Ryan, Riley, Hubley. Also in attendance is President Mahoney.

All right, thank you very much. Now the open meeting law. Can everyone hear me back there? 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 acknowledgeable and permissible. All right, well good evening folks. The one and only item that we have on this agenda is a resolve that I put forward requesting a comprehensive update on the municipal broadband project and a consideration for the path forward in light of emerging private competitions. So I introduced this resolve because market conditions that initially prompted the concept of a municipal broadband network City-owned, it was substantially different.

And before I ask Chief of Staff Walker to present an update. I want to put a few facts on the record and just kind of level set and give us all a baseline for what we're talking about. So when this effort began in around 2018-ish, I believe, Quincy had limited competitive offerings for internet service. It was pretty much Comcast Broadband and Verizon DSL which really wasn't much of an option competitively. A municipally owned open access fiber network was a reasonable and innovative response at the time, I've spent about 25 years in the broadband industry, including 10 years as Vice President of Strategic Technology for a major broadband provider. So I have a decent understanding of both the problems created by the limitations of competition and the practical realities of take rates, construction timelines and network build outs. Today the picture is very different. There's a lot of fixed wireless services from say AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon that are already available

and they are quite suitable for many people with modest bandwidth needs. Verizon Fios is now present in parts of our city, I met with them a couple months back and they informed me that their plan was to build out their network through the entire city over the next two years. Friends of mine down in Howes Neck, they started down towards the peninsula there are now signing up for FIOS at $65 a year and $75 for two years thereafter. and also in June 2026, GoNet Speed announced a fully funded $34 million private investment to build 100% fiber delivered network with speeds up to six gigs across the city. So in summary, within the next few years we can reasonably expect two private fiber competitors plus existing wireless options. The original near monopoly condition is being addressed by private investment.

After years of planning and legal authorizations, and a fair amount of money spent on studies in engineering No physical infrastructure on Quincy's build-out is in place yet. The trials that were proposed haven't started, so even if we were to move forward and continue this roll out it would be a few years before we would have anything in place. From reading through the materials on the report you'll hear more about in a little while, there's approximately $50 million for the pilot roughly a $200 million citywide investment, and the model required 40% take rate which with several competitors in the market might be difficult to achieve. Subscriptions were voluntary opt-in, which property owners effectively financed the fiber drop over the course of 20 years. which doesn't work as well for renters because they can't take and move that asset as they move about the city or outside the city, so that's a complication.

But it was Very important effort when we first initiated it here in the city and its progressed, but I think we are in different times right now. So the other thing is continuing the path also has some opportunity costs. So staff time, resources, the attention that could be put in different directions if we decide that it's something that we wouldn't be moving forward on. but that's sort of the level set. The scenes have changed since the idea first initiated, the environment is very different people are experiencing real savings right now through competitive offerings and so we'll learn a little bit more about what the city has been doing and what they've got ahead. And with that, you have Mr. Walker.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about the work that's been done over the last several years and to not get overly repetitive in some of the things that you've said, Councilor. and I, and the administration have had a number of conversations since you took office. And you've certainly relayed some of these concerns. We've put a little pen to paper on some of those issues but at this point in time, I think it's fair to say based upon the discussions we've had and some of the very reasons you mentioned Councilor. We will not be moving forward anytime in the near future on this, we will put a pin in it. It's not to say that the work was done was not worthwhile and produce some value again as you had mentioned One of the driving forces, at least from the Mayor's perspective, I don't want to speak for Councilor Kaine and his work on this.

He was coming at it from a number of different perspectives but from the Mayor's perspective, it was very much that competition piece. That was the driving force behind his motivation to work with Councilor Kahn and take this down a path but as you note, there are a number of issues that will avail themselves or wouldn't avail themselves as we get clearer and At this point in time, the city has no plan based upon our conversations. Councilor moving forward with this presenting the body with any further material on it?

All right, thank you Mr. Walker. I guess I'd like to open it up to my colleagues who might have some questions about the status of things and so forth. Anyone? Any takers? All right, Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to elaborate a little bit about basically it's probably been about nine to 10 years that Councillor Kane introduced us into the City Council. It's been a long road. The administration has been very open-minded and they've been open to all different type of situations, I guess I could say. As time's gone along, I think the technological upgrades in the city have gotten better. I know just recently Fios Verizon has definitely had some fiber optics and the proper, I guess I could call it equipment slash materials out in the city. I just switched over in the last few months from the Comcast Xfinity for Internet Services, and it's driven the price down dramatically. They basically had pretty much a good monopoly here in the city of Quincy

and I know you're working real hard at this chair, Hubley. And I give you a lot of props to continue to do what Councilor Cain had done up here for many, many years. It's a long road it's gonna take some time, but at least folks know out there people who are listening there is other avenues of not just doing Comcast, Xfinity and then you have your other providers of AT&T, T-Mobile as well with the 5G network. I know a lot of folks were in a position where they like Nesson, I guess I could say. And they're like okay women, I wanna keep Ness and I also want to keep our QATV channel eight or nine. Now we have it on live stream, you can do it on your phone as technological upgrades have gotten better

and Fios jumping into the city has really helped out a lot with driving the price down for folks in consumers in the area. I also like to consider the fact that, you know other people have gone to a YouTube TV type of thing where they'll get their internet services that way. They'll get there cable that way, I guess DirectTV does it too. There's a lot of different providers will drive that price down. Because I know for many, many years folks were stuck with Comcast slash Xfinity and the price could be up to $200 your internet services and all your cable, your HBOs and all those other things. And now you have Netflix but just a little bit about what I'm seeing over the last A few years and the Fios coming in here has really opened up the doorway to help consumers out there with the price coming down a little bit, especially with everything going up.

I mean, grocery shopping and the price went up again. The gas prices, the fuel, the diesel is still pretty high. Interest rates, we'll throw those in there too because it does relate to all this as well, is pretty high So at least something, something out there for folks if you're still stuck at Comcast Xfinity. There are other options out there feel free to reach out to myself. I mean, I've looked at different providers for different things. I know we want something across the city. and I don't know if Mr. Walker could talk a little bit about, we've opt into a system where we kind of did a little with the electric city, a little but with the city, I believe I stayed in it, I didn't opt out of it and it actually helped out the bills. So I don't know if it also relates to this particular item that you have in front of us tonight

but I think at the end of the day, folks out there want to save money and they're trying to provide a service that has value. But at the same time driving the price down because we don't want any provider to monopolize and not allow consumers the right to find other services that can drive the price down. Because at the end of the day, you're adding your cell phone bill your electricity bill, your gas bill. I mean your mortgage, your taxes you add all these up and then at the end of day you got groceries so if there's an area with the broadband with having other providers allow us to drive the price down. It's always the best. So I think it's, I give you kudos bringing this into this City Council arena

to allow the consumers out there, the constituency in the city of Quincy to know that there's other avenues to save money and that the City Council cares that we want to help out consumers out their especially city of quincy residents. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor DiBona.

Anybody else? Oh, okay. Ms. McKee.

Thank you so much. So I didn't get a chance to look at all of this and I just wondered if you could give a little summary for those of us who haven't been following along too closely, just the little thumbnail It sounds like we're going to pause this project because there are now more options and alternatives than competition. but I guess what has been done to date on the project so far and how much have we spent on it?

Sure. Mr. Walker, if you'd like Through you, Mr. Chairman, Councilor, thank you. This process started as the chairman mentioned right around 2019-2020 in that range with a proposal from Councillor Kane. quickly gained a good deal of momentum. In and around that time after 2020, the city issued a survey to residents asking if they'd be interested in signing up for something along these lines. If the city was to move in that direction, the response during that period was overwhelming and support again in the context of there was no other competition at that time and that was a good piece of the driving motivation. At that point we contracted with

a firm that has appeared before this body, a number of times Entry Point Communications which has experience in developing municipal broadband networks in the number of parts of the country they were brought on. to assist us sort of setting the process and getting us from point A to point B, project management some engineering. a lot of that work, the 30,000 footwork we needed to have some folks with real experience in that world. As that process moved forward, a second contract was issued to Tilson Technologies. and a relatively local, I think North Shore firm to design the actual infrastructure that would need to be installed should the city move forward with the municipal broadband

Taken together, those two contracts over the course of seven or eight years totaled $500,000. The last item that was done was an RFQ for the full design build of the two pilot areas that we had anticipated starting this project and one area would have included a Quincy Point neighborhood, and then there was another area that was going to include a Marymount neighborhood. That RFQ was originally issued and then paused. Because this is a lot of the stuff, in a lot process that went on here relative to some of the state feedback is that nothing like this has been done in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. So when folks at various agencies saw this sort of proposal, it was brand new. It was different.

there were some questions from the state relative to the RFQ and how that process would move forward, again because nothing like this really had been done before. This body did approve at that time going into the design build the state program for design, build the CM at risk. And there was some semantic differences between what we had originally written and what the states saw Long story short, that's sort of the last tangible thing that has happened. There's been no subsequent RFQ issued based upon the conversations that we started to have with Councilor Hubley shortly after he took office, the concerns that he raised about going forward and some of the issues we knew would be present. I think the next had we gone forward and yes, we are putting a pin in it indefinitely.

had we gone forward, the next step would have been a more tangible outreach and formal signups within those two pilot programs. Again based off of the present, the premise that this was going to be entirely subscriber-oriented, that there was not going to any outside capital involved. We actually got state approval to create or this body approved an enterprise fund and the state gave us the authority to issue what are called revenue bonds. So everything, if we had gone forward would have tied directly to that this would've been something akin to what we have in our water and sewer department where all the money related to this utility, essentially. would have been derived from that enterprise fund. That was the goal at that time, but we have not obviously moved it forward and that's essentially where we are right now.

basically planning work and engineering design, so getting everything ready for sign-ups and actually installing things but nothing nothing physical, right? Correct. And what departments were mainly doing this in the city?

there was involvement from a number of departments. Had the rubber gotten closer to the road, we would have definitely seen more involvement from the Department of Public Works, TPAL obviously. The folks at DPW were were very helpful using the GPS technology that we have with the team that was helping design a network. Obviously, IT was involved to a great degree and their role would've been dramatically increased had we decided to move forward. A large piece of that is coordinating would have been coordinating the existing City Hazards Fiber Network. It's not... in every street and every neighborhood, but the city does have a nucleus and branches of fiber that run our information technology, that run on our fire alarm system,

and others, info systems for the city. And coordinating the new fiber with the existing fiber and making sure that there was always a pathway for the two things to coexist a big piece of IT's job responsibility in this scenario, there quite frankly probably would have been an entirely different new department as we move forward. Maybe not necessarily with the two pilot programs. Some of the analysis suggested that we could have stood that up, we could stand that up without a ton of additional overhead but had we decided to pull the trigger on a full city-wide buildup, you're essentially talking about a municipal light department type of scenario where you would have a fully staffed team, trucks, offices those sorts of things where we would be running what would be essentially a separate utility.

Thank you

Anybody else? Any other colleagues, please. Councilor Riley.

Thank you. Thank You, Councilor Hubley. I really want to thank you for bringing this forward. When this was first launched, I was curious you know, what was behind it and how it was gonna go about. You know I can't remember the exact timing of when Braintree wound there and municipal broadband down, but I think there was kind of a little bit of overlap there. There's no doubt there wasn't any competition which was certainly a justification for exploring this Love or hate Comcast, Xfinity, whatever we want to call them. They were very reliable during COVID and they stepped up and ramped up their bandwidth to support all the remote stuff. You know, I think that we were a little late to the party on this one and I'm glad to see that we're not going to move it forward. From what I can see, it seems we've expended half a million dollars with little progress towards the ultimate goal. We were still billing through November of 2025.

Can we confirm that we won't be expending any more money from any of this? Bonding or whatever, I mean?

Okay. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. What is CIP? I noticed that in some of the... Capital Improvement Plan. Okay, I didn't think we had one. And how much is in the enterprise fund now? Anything? Nothing. So I guess I would like to just see that we, instead of putting a pin in it, I would really say prefer that we just closed this down. Anything that had been approved, any bonds that had authorized that we really close this out completely because it seems as though if we were to revisit some similar solution down the line, we would wanna really start from scratch. So I would prefer to see that there be a more finite end to this project, and certainly that we take a link off the city's home page because this is not worthy of homepage real estate. Thank you.

Okay, anyone, any of my other colleagues? Councilor Yuan.

Thank you, Chair. So I have a question. Is there any authorized bond but haven't issued about this project?

the two appropriations from there were, that money was drawn from for this request. One was actually a transfer from surplus, one of these years might've been 2022-2023, surplus in our snow and ice deficit, and that was presented. to the Council and approved those $250,000. And there was a line in a previous capital plan that included as we've done in the past you know, a laundry list of capital items that did include money for this. I don't know exactly what year that was approved but everything comes out of either that. It was 250 out of the Snow and Ice deficit, Snow and ice surplus and $250,000 from existing capital plans

just follow up. So we don't have any more authorized but non-issued bond? That is correct, that's correct. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else? Mr. Ash, Councilor Ash.

Through you, Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Hubley for bringing this forward of course with Quincy Point being one of the pilot neighborhoods I am asked about it often there was a third party contractor on in my neighborhood looking at utilities, I want to say that was beginning of or maybe the spring of 2025. I discussed what they were up to and and admittedly know that there are a lot of layers to an endeavor this large, so that company was looking at the utility poles. It's my understanding the viability of what could be used in the neighborhood and what couldn't but all all things considered, I think that if at this point we do see our neighbors moving towards a YouTube TV or third party subscription service. I know GoNetSpeed just announced their endeavor to come into the city So before spending any more money, I think it's a warranted place to kind of have a recap.

it sounds like stop and revisit in some years if necessary. But given, I know the state aid coming toward certainly diversifying the broadband and the cable area and economy. I think it's good to not see any more money spent on this, although I am selfishly disappointed and missing out on the pilot neighborhood. But thank you for having this recap, and certainly for the documentation to review up to this point.

Thank you, Councilor Ash. Any of my other colleagues? Council McKee.

I guess this is just a question, thinking hindsight is 20-20. Are there any lessons that we can take from this experience where we might have Should we possibly have revisited this in a more critical way earlier on if this wasn't going to go forward? What can we learn from this?

Through you, Mr. Chairman. That's a good question, Councilor. I think off the top of my head understanding the scope of what we were considering and just how bold it potentially was in the end, and some of the intricacies when you get into the weeds on how complicated this was going to be. you get into detail of how much stuff is on our poles, what's allowed in our poles. We have rights to wire poles in the city. How much of it could be done underground the difference between micro drilling and regular drilling. You know, I don't even wanna go so far as to say those things were unanticipated but certainly there was a lot on the table here that needed to be considered.

And even though I think maybe as I'm talking and thinking out loud, the assumptions of the enthusiasm that folks would have for this was maybe something we would need to reevaluate because I think we went in based upon those survey results and based upon years of people talking about trying to get another provider in here, we certainly thought that getting 40% or even up to 60%, they call it a take rate the people that would actually buy into it, would be no problem at all. But as you look at some of the analyses that were done further that still, even in the environment with no other competitor getting to that level was certainly going to be a challenge.

to that point, you know, that would have been the yellow or the red light or the green light in the end to begin with because we were pretty clear from the beginning that this was gonna have to be the subscriber base So if we'd gotten to the point, had we gone out to those pilot neighborhoods, saw that the facts on the ground that we weren't getting were at 30-35%, that would have been another step in the process for us to take a step back and say maybe this isn't gonna work.

Thank you.

Okay, any other colleagues? Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Councilor Hubley. Just one other comment that I forgot when I commented earlier, that this is just for internet service providers. It does not affect our cable TV, it does not effect our electricity and streaming services like YouTube TV and Nessun and stuff are totally separate. This just allows you the gateway to access those services, so I think it's the right move Thank you very much. shut down their municipal broadband. They just couldn't keep up with it, so again I want to thank you for bringing this forward.

Anyone else? Okay. All right, so just some wrap-up comments and to catch people up who are maybe just tuning in or who might have just arrived. A while back, the city endeavored on creating a municipal-based broadband service using an open access network. which was a great idea at the time back when we did not have as much of a competitive environment as we do today with broadband services. Comcast, now Xfinity has pretty much had a lock on the community. And the reason why that was the case which is why you didn't see that in Boston and you also didn't it some of the surrounding or adjacent cities and towns in Massachusetts is that when Verizon Fios started to offer a competitive broadband service, they did a two-pronged approach. They went for some of the more affluent communities throughout the county and throughout

and then they went into some of the inner cities as well to have a balanced approach, and they started working their way in towards those sort of jump ball cities if you will. and Quincy so happened to be one of those jump ball cities where they started to get, have trouble raising capital to expand their broadband networks. And as a result we didn't end up with a competitive offering from Verizon. Similar economics, and this is just from my experience being in this industry for about 25 years building broadband networks all over North America and a little bit over in Europe. Nine countries in Europe the economics changed as things do ebb and flow, and then the technology changes. So what happened after the economic slowdown Broadband Buildouts is wireless options, more robust wireless options came about. Those far and beyond the average speed of your cell phone data plan which are now referred to as fixed wireless options.

So you can go to T-Mobile, you can Go to Verizon, you could AT&T and you can get a device in your house that's wireless that will then offer broadband services within your home and that service is reasonably good for someone who has just modest needs. They just want to send emails, surf the web and check the news but for people who have more will say intensive bandwidth needs. They work from home, they've got several people in the house all kinds of different situations those weren't really good But now in response to changing economic situations, Verizon is now building into Quincy. When I met with them several months ago they were starting in Ward 1. They didn't refer to it as that but that's where they started and of course I had to look across the table at them and say, you're doing my neighborhood last? Really? But yeah so they laid out their plans. And now people I know are signing up for a competitive offering and that's the exact same goal that we were shooting for when the city started this endeavor.

The idea was to have a competitive offering to the one incumbent which was Comcast at the time and now there are multiple providers that will be eventually, I'd say within the next two, 2 1⁄2 years maybe three years at least two broadband providers, maybe three in each area and three different wireless providers that you can go to. So the competitive environment has seriously changed and that makes the need for this, which I really appreciate. I appreciate the administration and I appreciate council at the time responding to the request of residents saying there really isn't any competition we need to do something I know the city tried to encourage providers to come in, but it was simply a matter of economics. at the time, the cost of fiber build-outs. You're looking at anywhere between $3,000 to $3500 per homes passed which means home on the street that they would run their network past

and then looking at the environment, they knew going in they'd get about 30% initially. And then they would start to grow their business and the economics just didn't work out especially with emerging wireless investments. So I think it was a really well There are a few things that we do need to consider, and actually just this week I've been working with a constituent on this issue. As Verizon starts to roll out their fiber optic network through the city, one of the incentives for them in doing so is to turn down the old copper, old phone line network and switch people over to fiber-based services. Now, I just spent some time at a neighbor's house recently who just has a regular phone line from Verizon that she's had for probably 40 years. and now she's faced with this mountain of options where she should go, and everyone is trying to upsell her into all kinds of broadband packages that she has no interest in. And also can't afford to get into that

And so I'm trying to help her work her way and sift her way through the new competitive environment. So one proposal I'll make to the administration is instead of hosting information about the project that we had contemplated, maybe there's a page just to educate consumers about the options and where to go to search, to find them. Especially those consumers who are really struggling through all the different sales pitches when they call Verizon or anybody else trying to just sign up for a phone line. That's all they want. They just wanna be able to make calls in the middle of a storm and have it work and feel comfortable with it. And of course, every time you call a cable operator or telephone company they always want to upsell you on 11 different things I think as Councilors we should be ready to receive calls and emails from people who are a little bit confused about this transition as Verizon moves into the city, and starts to shut down their copper network. Which is kind of happening all over the country in a matter of time. So I will close with that.

All right, anything for anyone else? All right. I'd like to adjourn this meeting of the Municipal Technology Committee

Good evening, we're going to call the Monday October 19th City Council meeting to order. Could you call that could you call the roll please Madam Clerk?

Councillor Asch, Councillor DiBona, Councillor Hubley, Councillor Jacobs McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney. If we could stand for a moment of silence.

And if we could turn and pledge allegiance to the flag.

I pledge allegiance Isabel, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, could you 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 me transmit the meeting through any medium Hubley. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made, whether perceived to unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged impermissible. Thank you very much.

So the first item we have on the agenda this evening I'm going to turn over to Councilor

Thanks. All right, thank you President Mahoney. Can everyone hear me okay? Okay great. All right, if I could have the members of the Moncler-Wallace and Neighborhood Association both past and present come up and please join me in front, if you will. Whilst you do, I will start. Good evening. 35 years ago, last month on a Thursday night, a group of people from Wollaston and Montclair walked into the hall of the Lutheran Church of The Good Shepherd at Harvard and West Guantanamo, and decided that Montclair and Wollaston ought to have a voice of their own. The minutes of that meeting, September 12th, 1991 are still in the association's papers. Probably in Kevin's living room. They're in his hands, okay.

are, yeah. So 36 residents a few guests including Bob Gull from WJDA so that Joe Catalano yes that same Joe Catalana could tell the rest of Quincy the next morning. They came to order at 745, they settled the ground the new association would cover. Ward three, Newport Ave., to the Milton line, Beale Street up to President's Golf Course. they gave it a name, Montclair-Wallston Neighborhood Association and they adjourned at 8.45 that's incredibly fast which for our first meeting of the neighbor association is almost a miracle I know I've run many of them The people who called the meeting deserve to be named. Howard and Janet Crowley, who unfortunately can't be with us. Jeff and Tricia Graber. Jeff became the first president. I didn't know that. Everett and Denise Goodrich, Bob and Karen Petit.

The Reverend Ross Goodman who opened his hall church and Larry Cretion who was the Councillor for the ward who understood that a council is even stronger when the neighborhood is organized. What they wrote into the bylaws is still the job. Speak for the community before the city and commonwealth, keep a forum where neighbors can say what's on their minds, promote unity, respect for the law, respect from one another's peace Privacy, Person and Property. And stay out of campaigns. No endorsements. An officer who runs for office steps down that's the rule. That's why the association has persisted for so long has been a neighborhood voice, not a faction. And it used that voice when the super stop and shop was proposed on Newport Ave in the old pneumatic scale site, the association was at the table with Councilor Cretion

When there was talk of closing the Wollaston Fire Station, it gathered more than 1,200 signatures and helped push that idea back. When development pressed at the Zero Harriet Ave property an area of critical environmental concern, it hired an environmental lawyer partnered with the Neponset River Watershed Association and helped put the city in a position to acquire the land with community preservation funds. and when the development more recently that could have impacted the neighborhood proposing something at the stop-and-shop parking area, once again in this past year the association was there. The other half of the record is a little bit quieter. They do scholarships for musician instruments, camperships for elementary school children

academic scholarships for graduates of North Quincy High School, and days like the Pumpkin Spice Festival which we just had this past weekend back at Bishop's Field. which was one of the places named at the first meeting as something in the neighborhood that meant, that was meant to be looked after. 35 years is a long time for a volunteer organization to stay standing. Most of them don't This one did because people in the neighborhood decided over and over that showing up was worth it. So on behalf of Ward 3, and on behalf to the City of Quincy I'm pleased to present this commendation for the Montclair-Wallace-Denavid Association its founders, its officers its members past and present. In attendance tonight, unless someone else showed up that I didn't see We have Kevin Coughlin, Christine LeBlanc, Marilyn McConville, Jeff Graber, Patricia Graber Lawrence Cretien Mike Coveas and Patrick McDermott, and Marianne Mo Palmer.

Did I miss anybody? I hope not, okay. All right, well thank you very much and congratulations to you all. as the current president of the association. Mr. Coughlin, if you'd like to say a few words? I said a few words.

Anybody who watched me for 14 years sitting in this well, and by the way it's wonderful to be back in here Congratulations to all of you and good luck. Thank you very much, Walter. Yeah, I'm going to put this down. It's been a labor of life. Like everyone here who is here tonight loves the city, loves the community that maybe like me they were born in. I've been in that area for almost 72 years. Raised my kids there, helping raise my grandchildren there and we just wanted what was best. And when there were things that needed a response from of the Community, or sometimes when it was an initiative that we felt was good for the benefit of all in the community. We brought it forward and we've always had good representation. There was that 14 year period on that guy I don't know

He was OK, but we've always had good representation. And I'll tell you, Councilor Creason please come up here. I know I had to beg Larry to come because he said, you know what? You guys did it all. were it not for Howard and Janet Crowley, and Larry, and the other folks that you mentioned coming together this association wouldn't exist. We lost Janet in 2017. Howie's still with us, he's 93 years old. I hope he's watching tonight. I wanted desperately to have him here tonight. He still has a lot of, I have some of the data but he has our treasure trove of the date from our history and our accomplishments over the years.

and it's never been about any one individual, it's always been about all of us. In fact, our t-shirts say in the front of it we are one community and that's the way we look at it. But yeah, we've accomplished a lot over the years were proud of what we've done. And for those of us who still live in the community, you know, we're always there to offer advice If anyone needs advice, give us a call. We're happy to offer our opinions. We are not shy. Oh, good lord. But I'm just grateful to be part of this wonderful group and I have to acknowledge my wife because for the 14 years that I was on the council, she was the one who took the phone calls at home and then let me know what was going on. And she still continues now doing

County, accounting work and secretarial work for the neighborhood association. So we'll never replace Howie and Janet Crowley as the power couple but we're okay. and Jeff Graber was our first president, and started that and the officers that worked with him that first year and followed him afterwards really set a high bar. in terms of what it took to get things done and to keep the organization on track you know, address all of the multiplicity of issues. Both things that confronted the community but also being, I mean we did things like we offered lessons for Young people who wanted to learn how to play golf, we paid for those.

We provided for those at the President's Golf Course. Young folks that wanted to babysit? There were babysitting courses back then. We paid for them. We've always looked at the totality of what it takes to make a community, and we've tried to just be a part of making it a better community. So thank you so much for welcoming us here tonight.

Thank you all so much for coming tonight. One last thing I'll say and then I'd like to get a picture in the well here if that's okay with everyone is that really we modeled, The Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association kind of modeled itself by looking at organizations like the Montclair-Walliston Neighbor Association, particularly your advocacy for community and preserving what's beautiful about the neighborhoods. And then of course we can't leave out the Neckers who really know how to throw a celebration We learned a lot and we really appreciate it. And so on behalf of the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association, I also extend a thank you. So maybe we can take a brief recess

To ask a suggestion, just because we have several of these. So maybe we can do the recognitions then we can all do the photographs afterwards.

Does that work? OK. Sounds great. OK. All right. Keep it moving. Maybe if you could help me hand these out while I get the other one ready. Thank you. All right, if you guys maybe want to take your seats until after the next one.

So don't leave everybody because you're going to get your pitches taken.

I got one more. Yeah, sorry. All right, could I have the members of the Rudder Crew please come up? And while they come up here, I'll get started. So good evening. It's my distinct honor and genuine pleasure to stand before you and offer this official commendation on behalf of the Residence Award III in the City of Quincy. Tonight we celebrate a group of musicians who have given so much of their time, talent, to our neighborhoods and our city, the members of the Rudder Crew. They were recently honored by what was the name of the award at the Ruth Gordon?

Spyglass Award, which I was pleased to be able to be present and a part of for their contributions to the Ruth Golden Amphitheater in local music. Some of you might know them by their earlier name, the Rudder Kings. But they've kind of changed that name over time I imagine as members evolved. and whether it's under the banner of The Rudder Crew or The Ruder Kings, these artists have been a fixture in Quincy's local music scene for years. They play high energy covers, rock n' roll, country soul songs that get people moving, singing along and feeling at home together The original members, not a lot of people know this. All from Ward 3. So Kevin Coughlin, Matt Coughlan, Matt Valensis Janet O'Donohue, Patrick Noe. Did I say that right? All right, thank you. I've mispronounced it for a long time. As well as Conoveri Valensis. There are neighbors, they are friends.

And through countless performances at community events and neighborhood celebrations, they've helped strengthen the fabric of Ward 3 in Quincy as a whole Music like theirs just doesn't entertain, it builds community because they're from our community. It creates shared memories, shared experiences and it turns strangers into friends, it turns parks into gathering places. I have a few short personal stories that I will share. One of them was, so Matt Valensis and I go back a little bit of ways back during our PTO days when both of our families had kids in Wollaston At the time, Matt and I were voluntold that we would be playing bluegrass on the back of a hayride at the Wollaston Elementary Harvest Festival. That was back when I wasn't sure if that was one word or two. So I had a bit of anxiety going into it, but Matt and Conoveri invited me over to their house to practice ad nauseum the songs that I needed to learn.

And I got through it okay until this day, Matt plays... You still play down at Daddy's or was it though down in Hull? Yeah. Nice. and another memory I would say from members of the rudder crew, I know Kevin and his son Matt and I when we had Wallace Neighborhood Association had their first park celebration The three of us were the band that we're performing. And then, we also played the block party up on Highland Ave and then we had a rare appearance down in Howes Neck, the three of us at the La Forest on the 3rd of July. So just a lot of great things. And the last thing I'll leave us with is there was also one of the Saturdays in the Park events. And this was an outdoor event that we hold at the park on Bale Street, and the weather didn't cooperate that, but none of the neighbors wanted to leave. We had about 80 people there or so and no one wanted to believe we're all having a great time

and so the rudder crew quickly loaded up all their electronic equipment into their vehicles, and then came back and did an acoustic set under one tent while a bunch of neighbors were in neighboring tents and we were there for a while. So, so for that I personally thank them because they saved my event in that whole day. So I truly appreciate it. Also, they have a new bass player who isn't from Ward 3. But because of all of his time holding down the low end of this crew, I did exercise my full authority as city council to grant him honorary Ward 3 resident status This honorary status does not come with a parking spot, because those are hard to find. But it also doesn't come with any of the taxes. And then finally we pause to remember and honor a beloved former member of the band Leo Sullivan. Leo, who passed away in March of 2025 after a courageous battle with cancer.

He was a gifted musician, a dedicated teacher in the Quincy and Hull school system, a guitar instructor, a DJ and a mainstay in the local scene for decades. He shared his passion freely, and left a lasting mark on the Quincy community. To Leo's wife Karen and the entire family thank you We are grateful for the years of music, laughter and friendship he brought to our stage in our neighborhood. His contribution to music education and the local scene will not be forgotten. on behalf of the Residence Award III in the City of Quincy, I offer this formal commendation and recognition for your longstanding commitment to our community. Generosity and spirit keep bringing us together. Thank you.

Jacobs has a couple of things. Thank you, President Mahoney.

For those of you who don't know, October is National Bully Prevention Month. which is a time to reflect on the importance of kindness, respect and inclusion. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services bullying as an unwanted aggressive behavior involving real or perceived power imbalance that is repeated, or potential to be repeated. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that approximately 19% of students ages 12-18 experienced bullying during the school year. That's about one in five students. As an educator, I believe in preventing bullying begins with the example that we set as adults. Children learn from what they see When adults engage in name calling, intimidation, ridicule or disrespectful behavior particularly in front of children, adults send the message that such conduct is acceptable. We cannot expect children to treat one another with kindness if we fail to demonstrate that kindness ourselves.

Tonight, I want to recognize a young Ward 1 resident who has demonstrated what kindness and inclusion truly mean. Cleo Truesdale, right here. I won't stand over this way. A student at Athlin Howe Elementary School began an initiative in May of 2024 while still in first grade to bring a buddy bench to the school playground Inspired by Sammy's buddy bench project, Cleo spent nearly two years collecting and separating plastic bottle caps recruiting classmates and family members and school staff. and community members to help. Despite delays, and there were challenges she persevered on April 30th, 2026 the Buddy Bench was officially dedicated It was raining that day. I actually remember it was raining, it was quite a day. A buddy bench provides children who may feel lonely or excluded with the place to sit signaling to classmates that they would welcome a friend, and encourages students to reach out and build relationships and include others.

These simple acts of friendship can help create a school environment where bullying is less likely to thrive. I want to thank everyone who supported Cleo's efforts in this endeavor. Her mother was a big part, and I think that the Daughters of the American Revolution were involved. I know the school was involved. Dave DiBona Jr., who we recognize here, was also involved. in that, and it really was a community effort. The principal of the school, Robert Marrera, and the secretary Mrs. Lowell was also involved. So Cleo, you've shown us that you don't need to be an adult to make a difference in your community. Your compassion and determination and leadership will benefit students at Atherton Howe for years to come and I have to say, as a neighbor of Athenau, I do like that when the sun sets, that bench is still in the sun. After it goes behind... So it's warm there longer

So on behalf of the residents of Ward 1, the City of Quincy, congratulations Cleo and thank you for making our community a kinder and more welcoming place. And I know we're going to go to a recess if we can take the picture.

So now, we're gonna recess for everybody's pictures for today.

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and a few more.

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and others.

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All right, we're going to go back.

Is that okay? So we're going to bring back the City Council meeting, and we're gonna open it up to Open Forum. So the first one we have on the Open Forum tonight is Hank Dondero. So if you could come up, tell us your address. I see you're from Ward 1, and you will have three minutes.

Good evening. Hank Dondero, 65 minute ad, The Neck. There's a saying, how do you know if you've gone too far or if you haven't gone far enough? It's the same that an outgrowth of product engineering It's an outgrowth of auto racing and vehicle design. It's also an outgrowth of laws, checks and balances. You don't find out how effective, whatever it is you're doing is unless you push it to the limit and then beyond it. Well how's that relates to the city in the government here? Talk about mass surveillance first If you don't think that mass surveillance is taking place now, then you've probably been living under a rock somewhere. The MBTA is an example. You get on a bus, you're being surveilled. You go through the station, you are being surveillled.

You got on a train, you'll be surveilled You go in a bank, you've been surveilled you go to an ATM machine, you're being surveilled. So therefore there's a lot of it around but there are checks and balances on that and they've got fences put around that to prevent will say prevent abuses. Regarding Flock, even though it's not in its infancy It certainly is as far as legislation is concerned. At the previous meeting two weeks ago, a gentleman from the ACLU was very specific about one thing, and that is the legislature has to start working on putting fences around what can or can't be done. I'm going to address another thing also, budgets, cuts in spending. what do you plan on doing? What's the purpose of it?

Are you gonna push it to the limit and then beyond it, and who's gonna suffer? The residents or the city Services, some of the nice things that the city pays for that may or may not be in the taxes but it's available and it's there. Last, ENC. very sensitive subject with a lot of you folks. it's been resolved, at least as far as the overall property is concerned. It's out of the city's hands directly. Indirectly? Who knows? We'll soon find out but bottom line is trying to control issues in the city that perhaps the mayor has and should have control over. The results? of going too far, it's gonna be an issue that's gonna resolved on November 2nd, 2027. So just keep that in mind.

You folks are checking a lot of boxes that aren't necessarily the correct boxes for the citizens of the city of Quincy and for growth and continued growth also.

Thank you. Mary Travers, if you could come up, Mary, and state your address? I know you're from Ward 5.

Hi, I'm Mary Travers, 148 President's Lane. Good evening. I am so honored and humbled to be in the presence of Chief Ferry Gray. And happy birthday, Councilor Ryan. I want to speak about a topic from earlier recognizing National Bully Awareness Month. I'm very happy this topic has come up, because often bullying continues into adulthood. You see the t-shirt I'm wearing? Sophie Cunningham of Indiana Fever's basketball team pointed out a player on the opposition who committed a rather serious foul on Caitlin Clark. The foul was not against Sophie, but she pointed out the person who had behaved badly and refused to let this person get away with it. One thing about bullies. They don't like it when you turn the spotlight on their behavior. This is why this meme resonates so much with people,

but it also tells us you should not paint yourself as the victim of bullying when you were the aggressor that started it and also keep doubling down on that behavior. It seems like a few members here think they can do or say just about anything out in public and in chambers simply because you were elected, and not to be held responsible for it. That is not the case. You were elected, you are not coronated. If you feel you're being bullied because of your council position it's more likely the result of the way you treat people both city employees and citizens as adults Your actions have repercussions. Each of you chose to have a higher profile when you ran for office, so your behavior is under more scrutiny than a private citizen. But now like Sophie Cunningham citizens are simply pointing out the sub-bar behavior. Look, I am no shrinking innocent violent here.

I'm the first to admit I have shared sometimes colorful observations about each one of you even Mr. Walker. I throw so much shade, I could solve global warming. There are a few things I absolutely wish I never said but at least I'm honest about both my contempt and identity. I'm not one of those cowardly Reddit keyboard warriors who threaten bodily harm to people and send it through the mail or have a hit list of local businesses to boycott simply because they support Mayor Koch. President Mahoney, please show the city of Quincy your unbiased leadership and use your gavel in chambers to stop these situations from getting out of control. please gavel the behavior before it goes off the rails. And maybe some councilors need to admit they're not always right and they, and definitely myself, need to be kinder as well. Thank you.

Gail Callahan. Gail, if you could just say your address please? Thank you.

Hello. Gale Callahan 437 Quarry Street. Happy birthday Ginny! First and foremost, I want to congratulate Mayor Koch and the Quincy Housing Development Corp., which is a 501 non-profit for coming up with a way to handle ANSI. I thought that was wonderful, I really liked the part that is addressing the over 55 community which we all know I'm part of so that was good and I do like that they're gonna have first home buyers for those homes, I think that's great. And also they're going to try to work with you to figure out how to get some of the open space which would be wonderful to have. I would love it if this chamber could somehow or other work together to find money to come up to buy the library and the gymnasium. I think that both of those would be magnificent for the city of Quincy, I don't know if that's possible but There would be something you could work on together. Maybe that would be great.

I also want to bring up the flaw cameras. I know it's not overly popular, this is a hard decision for all of you and I really appreciate that. I listened to those people last week some of them were very, very upsetting and all of that type of thing but they felt what they felt. I just listened to Chief Kennedy and I have to say that I really feel that he's put up a lot of borders and boundaries to try to protect the citizens of this community, I have to support it because he's the person that's out there protecting me and my family, and people who live around us. I'm in favor of them, in that I feel he has done a lot of work. On the other hand, I also understand you've listened to lots of people The other thing I say, welcome to the tribe. We're happy to have you here. I'm looking forward to seeing what's created down in Squanam. I can't wait to bring my grandsons down there and check it out. so that will be great.

And now for the parades, for the Christmas facility, the Christmas festivals. I just wanna say that I really think as far as a Christmas facility You have to remember, this is bringing in a lot of money to the city. You have Wednesday when people come back to celebrate having been here You have Thursday that we have the Thanksgiving Day game. You have Friday where we have tree lighting, you have Saturday when Santa Claus comes and you have Sunday with the parade. All of these things fill our restaurants, Coffeeshops, our bars, even our hotels. And this brings a lot of money taxes into our community. The other thing is, I really wish you weren't going back 10 years again. It seems this committee likes to go back ten years, 20 years and it's just, it's getting very, very old.

Deal with today, deal with now, go back five years by all means create a five year capital improvement plan I think that's a wonderful idea to do and something that's relevant and current and something you could all work in together Okay, thank you very much.

We have Jay Tarantino. Jay is from Ward 5 and he's gonna give us his address.

Thanks, Jay. 87 Princess Eve Drive? Hello. I'm against flock. I know it's a complex issue. the system has not really proven to prevent crime. And you're collecting our data and we're paying for it, and it goes out goes out in the wild, and that's really unfair. Oh, yeah. So basically, you know, Flock has proven to be a garbage company. Absolute horrible. And I think in Quincy we have to put the garbage in the trash. So bag those cameras please. Thank you.

We have, and I'm going to apologize because I'm not sure if I can say this person's name. Mia Cabrera? Mia? She has no word. Up here comes Mia. OK. Can you just tell us your address, please?

I would like to keep that off the record.

OK. So you're from Quincy though? How about Ward? What ward are you from?

Dunno.

OK, thanks.

So my name's Mia. As a sexual assault survivor, hearing my experience used to justify another violation such as Flock and nonconsensual AI is sickening. The citizens here who have said no mean no. No is not just a little bit, no is not with guardrails, no means no. not understanding that demonstrates the mindset and behavior you claim intention to protect others from. Thank you.

Maria Mulligan

Good evening, Maria Mulligan 21 Winthrop Ave. Bear with me while I share another idea of how we might continue to recognize the Massachusetts tribe at the Nickerson Squaw Rock Park. Thank you for being here today. At the community meeting, we learned a fascinating story about the park's value to the tribe. They mentioned returning to the ocean and making an outdoor classroom. I have since visited the park several times and observed the incredible variety of habitat and its unique nooks and crannies. It seems to me that place has lots of stories to tell over its 400 years of history. Not only tribal but colonial, military park, bird sanctuary, colonial wetlands some history good, some not so good. So with this renewed focus on the park

I suggest we consider undertaking a research project with them to tell the stories of this place through the eyes of the tribe, to understand their perspective and their worldview. This could be a cathartic exercise to heal both our relationship with them and heal the scars that we have left on their land, thoughtfully through restoration and environmental stewardship guided by their wisdom. perhaps could be a book or video published that informs an interpretive display at the site to fulfill the outdoor classroom concept. This research project could be funded by CPC funds, and we should also look into getting the park recognized by the National Register of Historic Places to amplify its importance into perpetuity. Thank you so much.

Tyler Anderson, Tyler Anderson?

Three minutes? Three minutes, yeah. Let me address them all. Tyler Anderson, Ward 4, RISC-UD Drive. Happy birthday, Councilman Ryan. I want to start off this meeting by talking about some numbers. Those numbers are very clear, 583, 552 483, 103 and 45. What do those numbers mean? That is the number of votes that five of you won your last election by. Largely, you won on promises of bold leadership for Quincy

Listening to your electorate, and I've been at many of these meetings regarding flock safety. And I have to say I am disappointed that I have seen largely a lack of it. I spoke last time about the history of America, the fundamental rights of our democracy. And that didn't seem to sink in for a bunch of you. So let's try something else Let's try the fundamentals of winning an election. Elections, every election in America is decided by one single demographic every time voters who show up. Quincy had turnout of 23% in 2025,

Based on those numbers, those are some vanishingly narrow margins. So think about the meetings that we've had. Think about How many people have spoken against flock cameras and how many have spoken for? One versus everyone else. Ask yourself this, who are the people speaking against flock cameras? It is very simple. We are the People Who Show Up. It is Monday night, it's cold. I don't wanna be here. I want to be at home on my couch under a blanket but I'm here

Do you think I am going to forget how you voted tonight come next election? You are our elected officials. Do your job and listen.

Helen Shiner.

Good evening, my name is Helen Shiner. I live at 23 Copley Street. Two quick topics. I hope to stay within my time. I struggle to understand the ordinance that was recently put out about auditing 501c organizations such as the Quincy Christmas Festival, Quincy Cares, The Quincy Relief Fund and The Quinzy Foundation. For most of these organizations citizens and organizations have been provided assistance and donors have donated I'm sure neither of these groups ever expected this information to become public. With regard to the Quincy Christmas Festival, the annual Christmas parade is the largest in the state and it's a much loved event throughout the city and well beyond. We bring in visitors from cities and towns all over the state. It also brings substantial revenue to our small businesses, Some statistics, if you took about 10% of the total visitors over the last eight years which I believe is the audit period you're looking at, averaging 100,000 people a year.

you're bringing in about $400,000 annually to these small businesses. Any reduction in that, any reduction in the prominence of us being the largest in the state impacts all the attendance and all of our small businesses The last thing I'd like to speak about, and very quickly. I think most of you know I live in the Beechwood Knoll neighborhood. I want to begin by saying thank you to Mayor Koch for not giving up. In my opinion, the purchase of parts of the ENC property is a huge win for our neighborhood, cities and residents. That said I believe the council if the council had been willing to continue discussions with the administration months ago we may have been able to purchase the entire property without causing a financial hardship a serious effort is needed to work together in the best interest of our city. I have never, in over 50 years that I've lived in this city seen it so divided other than a turkey day game between Quincy and North Quincy but this is far more serious.

So I ask you to take into consideration anything that may be coming forward about ENC and seriously open yourselves up to some deep discussion, thank you.

John Fitzmaurice.

Hi, John Fitzmaurice, 9 Calvin Road, Ward 1. I just wanted to bring up two points about flock safety. And I use safety that term loosely because it's not safe FLOG Safety is currently offering a voluntary separation to its staff amounting to an 18% workforce reduction impacting roughly 270 employees. Why? Because Flock is losing its clients every week. It looks like Flock may be sinking. And then the second one, this is directly from Flock's terms and conditions Section 1.12 of FLOC's terms and conditions clarifies that FLOCC property broadly includes not just their core technology or systems, but also any derivative works, intermediate outputs, analyses, reports, models or results generated through the use of flock services.

In short, the company claims ownership over virtually everything produced using their tools or data. This means that Quincy's data, as I brought up at the last hearing is not private and it's not closed. It means Flock owns the data. That's it.

Thank you.

Nina West.

Hi, good evening. Nina West, 200 Falls Boulevard, Ward 2. Good evening, Councillors and residents. I'm here to ask for your support on tonight's resolution on the City's use of flock safety technology and ordinance regulating intrusive surveillance technology. 42 Massachusetts municipalities have already taken the step to reject mass surveillance and Quincy should join them. Before I explain why, here, where has already made this choice Boston, Cambridge, Watertown, Natick, Greenfield, Attleboro, Sharon, Framingham, East Hampton, Salem, New Bedford, Littleton, Wellesley, Stowe. Hopkington, Grafton, East Bridgewater, Douglas, Auburn, Bellingham, Easton, Southbridge, Groton, Abington, Ayer, Dartmouth, Akushnet, Barnstable, Berry, Stoughton, Waltham, Boylston, Wilmington,

Nantucket, Lowell, Methuen, Tewksbury, North Attleboro, Westwood, Norwell, Rochester and Milton. These communities canceled, terminated or paused their automated license plate reader programs because both the technology and the vendor present serious risks. ALPR vendors are rapidly expanding their capabilities adding gunshot and audio detection, facial and gait recognition, and AI data integration among others. We're already seeing ALPR expansion to MBTA bus stops and city school buses through Bus Patrol We have a choice now to stop this before it becomes who we are as a community, where, as the speaker said a couple of weeks ago, privacy becomes a luxury. The longer Quincy delays, the more entrenched and normalized mass surveillance becomes. And it should never feel normal to be perpetually watched

The FLOC ALPR system was introduced and expanded without meaningful public input. And once terminated, the vendor still has a license to use the data. it still could share with or sell that data to federal agencies and other municipalities across the country. Tonight's resolution and ordinance are about protecting resident data and movements while we still can when you vote for oversight tonight, you're voting to protect privacy and community trust. I mean, as I read them the resolution will stop it from happening now. The ordinance will prevent this from happening again before any new surveillance technology comes to Quincy. The public gets a voice. You get a vote. Councilors, you have two clear paths. I mean 42 Massachusetts communities have already chosen. Will Quincy protect its residents or will Quincy be the community that waited too long? I urge you to vote for both of these orders, thank you.

So before we go forward, we're at 21 minutes. I just need to see if anybody will take a motion to extend. So motion by Maggie McKee and seconded by Council Jacobs. All those in favor? OK. So Sal Bassimo. Thank you.

Good evening. Sal Balsamo, 27 Post Island Road, Quincy. I'd like to take the three minutes that I have here to address the administration the meeting, the ENC deal that was struck sounds like a great deal on paper. I'm looking forward to hearing the details when it becomes clearer The thing I'd like to, which I don't quite understand is a deal like that must have been in the process for awhile. Why is it that our city council did not discover that deal until it was announced to the community? I don't understand that. Doesn't the administration understand whether it's intentional or unintentional, this undermines our counsel.

after all, if it weren't for the fact that this council did their due diligence and questioned the city buying that property we wouldn't come to this deal. That was applauded by almost everybody in that tent. It's probably a good deal. And it was a job well done, applauded as a job done by the administration without a damn bit of knowledge on the part of our own council as to whether or not that was going to occur. Is that any way to run a city? that we've got a bunch of very bright, very hardworking, very knowledgeable individuals up here on this council. Why not utilize their knowledge their experience to work collaboratively. Maybe something could be, maybe we should take a deal from the buddy bench.

We need something here, we need a more collaborative approach My hope is that with this council and this administration, we can get rid of the division that occurs here. The anger and the accusations of bullying, and move on. Move on.

Bill Zanzo. Bill, I'm being asked that we talk into the microphone. They're not getting everybody upstairs.

It's sort of in a funny spot. I'll do the best I can. Thank you. Mills-Amzow, 46 Stilton Circle, Quincy. Good evening, Councillors. I'm here to again speak to a potential mayoral pay raise come the start of 2028. has noticed previously there's a ballot question with sufficient certified signatures calling for a raise to $183,000 and what reflects what City rank-and-file employees have seen in the way of raises since their last mayoral raise. You are thus obligated to go with 183 or at least, at a minimum, see the ballot petition put up for vote by the locals. Granted, the Mayor has posed a counter of a raise to $225,000 however such poses various problems. Speaking of problems there's the matter Section 17A of the City Charter which calls for Mayoral and Councilor raises to be subject to voter approval.

Granted, the City Solicitor says that Mass General Law void 17A however straightly read of the applicable task poses no such thing plus the solicitor has a woeful record when it comes to advising the current counsel on legal matters. So woefully that calling for a vote of no confidence in him should be considered as such, as well as again, the easiest as well is very expensive way to solve this dilemma is to reach out to the Superior Court for declaratory relief to rule on the text. And as for, excuse me, and as for your pondering comparables, the ballot question trumps doing so in regards to race in 2028. However feel free to look to comps and such to work up guidelines for a possible mayoral race in 2030 too At the same time, one of you posing to include Cambridge as a comp is abjectly not viable as it operates under strong city council and city manager model and thus is nothing like Quincy.

In short, apples to artichokes. Next up, any beggarly calls for a mayoral raise? are twaddles. Per state law, the mayor is the one who's supposed to start the process by proposing a raise for the city council's consideration. However, for a decade he did not do so and then posed one incorrectly such that the State Ethics Commission undercut it Further, any pleading on how hard the mayor works is irrelevant especially if such an approach Bates concurrent consideration of how the mayor has made a mess of the city's financial condition, as well as how his actions have seen the city face all matter of litigation lost or looking to lose in court. at considerable cost to local taxpayers, sure to run into at least seven figures. In short the determination should be set to set a mayoral raise buyer by or before the end of 2027 at an amount that reflects the known will of local taxpayers per ballot question petition and which, at the end

we the taxpayers fund. In closing, I must at the same time congratulate the council for already cutting their pay as soon as possible and is allowed by law to a figure comparable to peer communities. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank You. Mark Koch?

Hi, my name is Mark Koch. I live at 115 Colby Road. When I spoke last week, I shouted out my dad who's a former city councilor. I also wanted to say my mom taught third grade for 30 years and she was usually around when I came home from school and had a lot of questions, and was always worked up. And did her best to prepare dinner for three sons while also dealing with me asking a million questions. We should be careful how we frame this issue this constant warrantless surveillance of citizens, this evil AI company owning data that equates to tracking our every move. This is also about changing the way politics is done in Quincy. Behind closed door politics, away from prying eyes has led to mess after mess. We have million dollar religious statues sitting in storage all funded by the taxpayer's dime. We have hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars spent on outside counsel,

That's fancy private attorneys who in part argue that our printed names on a petition objecting to politicians voting for their own raises shouldn't count. And we have a city council that regularly seems to find out about these things after these behind closed doors discussions and decisions seem to have been made. This isn't about taking a tool out of the toolbox of the Quincy Police Department. This is instead, a demand for accounting of how the hell 50 cameras went up in the first place naming ALPR for what it is, constant warrantless surveillance of citizens and banning them immediately. Get the trash bags ready. Quincy Police Chief Kennedy said that 50 flock cameras do not amount to surveillance of Quincy citizens. I heard him on the news today, on Fox 25 saying the same thing.

I find that utterly ridiculous. I find it dishonest and disingenuine, and quite frankly discredits the rest of what he has to say about the topic. We are living in a city where police officers do not have body worn cameras by choice, by negotiation. Yet they want 50 cameras, a tool in their toolbox pointed at us. Norwood, Milton, Stoughton and upwards of 40 other Massachusetts communities have banned or rescinded their ALPR contracts. Randolph, Boston, Massachusetts State Police all have body worn cameras yet we don't. Meanwhile, here we are. And with a little bit left in my time I want to thank everybody else who spoke today. I wanna thank the council for letting us speak which didn't happen in the past when I came to these meetings I want to thank everybody who sat through the four hours last week and the four hour the night before that, and all of the work that the Councilors do. This shouldn't be about what happens behind closed doors

this shouldn't be reactionary. This should be a collaborative effort, thank you.

Next up we have Maxwell Capron.

Hello, my name is Maxfield Capron. I am of Ward 1, 118 Greenleaf Street. Good evening. And first of all, happy birthday. I just wanted to start by stating a thank you for allowing me to be guest speaker last hearing. Further, I've had some wonderful conversations with some of you in the last week and I hope to keep that discussion going with the rest of you. I'm here tonight to talk about how hard it has been to get clear facts about the surveillance technology in our city, including Flock, other ALPRs and related systems. Since the beginning of September, I and others have spent a lot of time reviewing what came back from requests we made since as far back as this spring. I'm here to share with you what the process itself has shown us. Even now we can't say with confidence how many cameras were actually installed and when, how much the city has actually paid for the system, what the receipts show regard to the Metro Boston Department of Homeland Security or what the grant contracts say. Here are only a couple examples of the things omitted regarding ALPRs.

The records request that we made and was fulfilled on April 22nd counted 62 flock cameras per QPD, not the 49 previously reported. Number two Bus Patrol cameras are supplied and run through Axon, a flock competitor. While one of these cameras activates with the stop sign, seven others constantly record with AI enabled features on every K-12 bus we currently operate. and in October 1st, we requested records on the Metro Boston Department Homeland Security Grants which pay for a portion of the flock cameras. When they were paid? In what capacity? Where they went? and the part of that request has not been supplied along with the rest of the requests, and it has been appealed. And as early as September 2025, ALPRs from another vendor Vigilant Solutions, now a part of Motorola were installed on Southern Artery, Newport Ave and Washington Street.

That didn't appear in our response to request, which asked for Flock and any other applicable vendors. We counted at least four but there may be more. We do not know who operates these. I want to be clear. I don't know whether these gaps come from the complexity of these systems, from how procurement was handled across departments and vendors or something else. whatever the cause, the result is the same. If residents spending this much time can't get a clear picture then we as a body cannot trust that continuing our system is beneficial or not in any capacity So far, we haven't seen any evidence that Flock works beyond anecdotes or if the company can even be trusted. So my request is this. However the council votes tonight, we need to be proactive rather than reactive. And when concerns are raised work with us Transparency is how we build trust, and so far I cannot trust that our systems work. I request that we cancel our contract and put a pause to collection until we can make an informed decision. Thank you.

Zachary Christopher. Zachary's got a new hair color

Hi Zachary, Christopher, 67 Montclair Ave Ward 3 love you Hubley and all of the other wonderful residents of ward three who were showcased tonight. So There's a lot on the docket tonight, from flock to raises to transparency and whatnot. And everybody has spoken wonderfully. I want to apologize. I've been awake for like 36 hours. I have been doing way too much for my own good, such as being 21, I guess. I would like to speak on the structure of the government. I know everybody's favorite topic,

So, a lot of people I feel have been getting very close to a core idea that we should be focusing on and that is Why is everything happening so gosh darn fast and none of us know what the heck is going on? Why is the mayor able to make the decisions, set the plans, set a budget, execute the decisions and then let everybody know what he did? Isn't he such a great guy? but this is bigger than the man who sits in the seat. As I've said before, the issue is the very seat of the mayor A seat that affords one man the power to do everything in the city.

that is not a power that should ever be afforded to any one man, much less a man that we cannot impeach by the will of the people. He's gotten into controversy after controversy, and we're all just sitting here being like, hey do you think you can slow down and let us in on the conversation? That is reactionary. It doesn't matter how proactive we are about our reactionary measures, abolish the mayor, the seat of the mayor that forces us into a reactionary position. The mayor's job is to do things quickly, efficiently. And I don't know.

It's not how democracy is supposed to work. Democracy should be slow, proactive and talked about by the people. The mayor, the very seat is the rot at the foundations of democracy. Thank you.

Next up is Chuck Tryon.

Hi, my name is Chuck Tryon. I'm a resident of Ward 4, 21 Buckley Street. I am here today as a proud resident of Quincy to speak against flock cameras in our community I moved here three years ago because of the city's hospitality, its amazing schools and it's record as a safe place to raise my granddaughter. I've worked in the schools as a long-term substitute teacher, I volunteered as a soccer coach and I've done what I can to give back to a great community. But one thing about Quincy makes me feel less safe and that's the presence of flock cameras all over our city Quincy has according to many estimates around 50 cameras tracking our movements on a daily basis. A camera likely captures my plate as I drive to work, as I go home from work, As I drive my granddaughter to volleyball cameras likely record my plates when I go to the Y or go to grocery store. This information is stored in a database

and that data is held right now for 30 days. I know there's a proposal to cut it down to 14, either way it's a privacy violation and it in fact may well be a violation of Commonwealth versus McCarthy, a state Supreme Court case that ruled that the data recorded by devices like ALPRs that create a mosaic of a person's life invade a person's privacy and should require a warrant. We know this data is frequently misused, officers in other municipalities have been fired or suspended for accessing flocked data to stalk ex-romantic partners. that one case in Braintree, I think the guys checked flock data like a thousand times. It's also been used by law enforcement in Texas to track and arrest people seeking reproductive or gender affirming healthcare potentially putting Quincy at risk of violating the Commonwealth's shield law. These protections are not trivial, they matter a great deal. They're at the core of our constitutionally protected rights

and Massachusetts' attention to freedom is one of the reasons I moved here from North Carolina, where many of the rights of myself and my family members were not as well protected. There's also no strong evidence that these cameras deter crime. There are a few cherry-picked anecdotes, but no real data showing that ALPRs significantly help preventing or solving crime. We all want to live in a safe community, but we also wanna live in one that protects our rights to privacy. Flock cameras do very little if anything to increase safety, but they do endanger many vulnerable people in our communities or who have come to our community seek healthcare. We know that many other municipalities in Massachusetts and across the country have ended flock contracts or banned ALPRs. I want Quincy to take the lead and end the flock contract now. As a useful first step, I'd like to invite the full council to support the resolution sponsored by Yuan and Ryan

At a minimum, we need greater transparency about how these cameras are being used. But what we really need is not to be subject to mass surveillance. It's time to block flock.

Thank you. Paolo Carrero.

Paul O'Korea, 49 Home Street. Good evening Councilmembers. I don't think any of you are old enough but perhaps there are some people here who remember the pre-internet days You know, there might be a few Polaroids or 4x6s of me doing things I don't want everyone to see but People today grew up in a digital world, and the internet never forgets. Digital files have a funny way of getting everywhere. and no matter how well intentioned our police chiefs and police force are about how the ALPR systems data is collected, and or destroyed after a certain amount of time, the reality is there are

unhinged billionaire tech guys out there who are just trying to make a buck, selling our information with no regard for our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights. not just flock systems, all ALPR systems are truly unconstitutional searches which violate our Fourth Amendment rights. And the last time I spoke here I quoted Benjamin Franklin, and I'll say it again. Those who will give up a little liberty to get security deserve neither No, I have to go home and finish grading AP papers. You know, make sure the next generation can make complex decisions and hold lots of ideas in their head at the same time.

So I'll be going home now but I will definitely be keeping an eye on how you all vote and we will keep the receipts. Thank you.

and after we have Darlene Jones just to know who's up next.

Good evening, my name is Elin Nelson I live at 28 Village Drive in Quincy Thank you Quincy City Council for working so hard to do your due diligence and make positive change in our city. it's really making a difference and I urge you to vote yes on 2026-142 ordinance regulating intrusive surveillance technology and Resolution 2026-143, resolution to terminate Quincy's flock safety contracts. This mass surveillance technology hurts all Quincy residents, especially our most vulnerable like our children. I want my daughter to grow up in Quincy without worrying that her every step is recorded and used by corporations like Flock. who aren't held accountable.

This ordinance and resolution are great steps to protecting our right to privacy as ordinary citizens going about our lives, and City Council, please take this brave move to protect us all from this intrusive AI technology. And vote yes on this ordinance and resolution. Thank you.

Darlene Johnson.

Hello. Good evening, City Council. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak tonight. I am a Quincy resident, a mother, an educator and a Massachusetts resident my entire life. My grandparents lived in Massachusetts for over 97 years. I am here tonight because of a situation involving Quincy Public Schools that has created a barrier between my family and our community. After raising concerns regarding my daughter's safety and her being bullied by other children, I was issued a no trespass order prohibiting me from entering all Quincy Public Schools properties. I am not even able to attend a school committee meeting. This is the second time this has happened to me. What concerns me the most, is how both situations have been handled. In September, I was approached by four police officers

and a city official when I stepped onto school property who presented me with a no trespass order. I had not been criminally charged and I was never given an opportunity to explain my side of the situation before this decision was made. As a parent, this was an extremely upsetting experience This order has affected my ability to pick up my daughter from her after school program and participate in activities within her school committee. Since then, I have made repeated efforts to communicate with the superintendent's office and seek a reasonable resolution but he has not taken my calls or emails. I have never experienced this type of situation before coming to Quincy's. As an educator, a mother I believe schools and families should work together to build relationships, encourage communication and create a welcoming environment for children and their parents.

Instead, I have experienced barriers to communication and a sense of separation from the very community my daughter and I are apart of. I am not here to create conflict. I am simply asking for fairness, communication and an opportunity to be heard. I respectfully ask whether a member of the city council would be willing to help facilitate a meeting with the superintendent so that my concerns can be heard. the no trespass order can be reviewed and we can work toward a reasonable resolution. I believe this situation can be resolved through respectful dialogue and mutual understanding. My goal is to simply move forward positively and continue being an involved, supportive parent in my daughter's life. Thank you for your time and consideration and your service to the Quincy community.

Dominic A. That's the name I have, Dominic a if you could provide your address

Yes, I live on 55 Channing Street, Ward 5, I believe. Good evening Council, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dominic Altschringer I'd like to start off by saying, this is America and we have freedom. And you and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve this for our children. This the last best hope of man on earth or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. the landmark ruling from Supreme Court set to standard, unchecked widespread use of ALR network violates Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. That's state's equivalent of the Fourth Amendment in case you guys didn't know. Okay, so with that I'm gonna go into my actual what I really wanted to say. Fourth Doctrine Amendment violations, warrantless track and carpenter doctrine.

The core constitutional argument against flock safety network relies on the fourth amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures. 14th Amendment violation of due process and due prosperity. I can go into citing cases specifically in the Commonwealth Commonwealth versus McCarthy, one of my constituents stated. I'll build off of that. Commonwealth versus Perry 489 Mass 275 building directly on the McCarthy case further solidified privacy protections by holding that individuals maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy and aggregated of their public movements. This makes long-term digital tracking vehicles unconstitutional without judicial administration on authorization, Furthermore, the ACLU of Massachusetts versus Massachusetts State Police

a state superior court judge ruled directly against law enforcement agencies secretly recording regarding the ALRP tracking system. The judge ordered the State Police release the records of the camera locations and detailed audit logs, which they did not. The federal court rulings would go into United States versus Kyle. Okay so the federal should supersede the city council and the state courts I'm not a lawyer yet, but I believe that the federal law supersedes anything in this state and the federal judges they issued the ruling that indiscriminate mass surveillance, to bypass the Fourth Amendment protections. Carpenter versus United States of America to argue against Bob Carpinter held that the warrantless accusations of a person's historical location data via third party violates the Fourth Amendment when it comes to construct a comprehensive chronicle of their physical presence

and it's not only the flock, but it's also the axiom. Why do we have flock cameras? but not body cameras. That clearly tells me they're trying to hide something, they're tryna keep something covered up. They wanna track our movements of innocent citizens but not actual criminals in a criminal investigation that can be used in a trial. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I yield back.

And our last speaker this evening will be Yvonne Fu.

Hi, good evening everyone. My name is Yvonne and I'm in from Ward 5 on 25 Newton Avenue. I wanted to come up today and really urge our councilors to pass the ordinance regulating intrusive surveillance technology and also passed a resolution regarding the use of flock cameras, and also proposed another resolution expanding that to other surveillance technologies such as Axon that is being used. on the buses for the K-12 students. And as you all have heard from our residents tonight that we cannot trust these big tech corporations.

And I would also like to remind everyone in the room today that history has time and time again has proven that if people have a chance to take advantage of people, they will take it until people raise their voice and say that this is wrong. If we remember in Lowell, Massachusetts when those women were working in the Fabric Industry, the Milling Industry. And they were worked to death and they were in horrible conditions. They were actually the reasons why we even have Fire alarms in every building because they died from being trapped in a fire, from their work. So how is this related to surveillance technology? This is related to Surveillance Technology because this is a pattern.

This is a pattern of how people will take advantage of your vulnerability and for profit. and I want to also say that this is connected because in this new age of technology where we are so new to it, I was born in a time where we didn't have the touch screen phones. And, you know, I might seem young but I do remember life without so many screens, and how in school they always taught us to protect our information because we don't know how people will use that information against us.

So I don't understand why this narrative has been flipped to say, no we should give all of our information to these people that we don't really know what they're doing with. Sorry, excuse me. But please take that into consideration.

Thank you. We're not going to have any comments here because the open forum is closed, but thank you very much for everybody coming up. So we're moving on now to welcoming the Massachusetts tribe leaders. I'm going turn this over to Councilor Riley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. And thank you to our honored guests for your patience. As you can see we've implemented open forum and we really try to let everyone be heard so I really thank you for hanging in here with us tonight. Tonight we have with us tribal leaders and others from the Massachusetts tribe. They are invited here tonight to share with us the history of their connection to their ancestral land, now known as Quincy, their present day efforts to keep their traditions and Storytelling Alive, and they have vision and hope for the new cultural center that will soon be located at Squaw Rock in Squantum. I wanna welcome you home. Allow me to introduce our guests. Elizabeth Solomon, Elizabeth is a tribal elder. She is the treasurer and board member for the Massachusetts Ponca Pog Tribal Council. She has also retired from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as the Director of Admissions. Ferris Gray is the Sagamore, a war chief of the Massachusetts tribe and serves as a director of the Tribal Council Board of Directors.

I have had the honor to hear him speak a couple of times recently and I find his passion and emotion in telling the story of his tribal ancestors to be very moving. I look forward to having him share some of that with the council and the public here tonight. and David Allen Lambert is a professional genealogist for over 20 years. He is an internationally recognized speaker on the topic of genealogy in history. So please join me in extending a heartfelt welcome to the Quincy City Council Chamber, perhaps a historic first. and to tell us what we can do to support you in this next chapter of the Tribe's long history with this region. Mr. Lambert, I believe you're going to start us off. Thank you.

Good evening. Madam President, members of the council and to Councilmember Ryan happy birthday I am not a resident of Quincy. I'm a resident Stoughton, but my family has not moved far in many years. For 33 years worked as the Chief Genealogist for American Ancestors of New England Historic Genealogical Society founded in 1845. Genealogy has been part of my story, and I've had the honor to be the tribal genealogists with the Massachusetts Ponkapok for over a quarter century now. I am fortunate enough also to have worked with your late town historian, the late Hobart Hawley for many years back in the past. I'm sure if he was still here, he'd be with me today is an honor to address the successors of the colonial town government, of my own ancestors of the 17th century. My ninth great grandfather was the first clergyman at Braintree, Reverend William Thompson.

His mortal remains lie in the Hancock Cemetery with the oldest gravestone dated to 1666. My eighth-grade grandfather, his son Samuel Thompson was one of the first town clerks in the original town which became Quincy. We did not really move very far. This evening, I do not speak for my ancestors but for their ancestors the descendants of the first families of what is now Quincy They are the same families that originally lived at Massachusett Hummock, Squantum and fished in the Neponset Rivers and Manatee River. they lived in places where many place names were forgotten to time and sadly erased by people like my own ancestors, and early European settlers from this community. In fact, some of their ancestral remains were discovered over the years in separate parts of Quincy particularly at the construction at the Atherton Hose School where skeletons and arrowheads were found some years ago in a recent history book I had read.

At the time of the contact with the Europeans, the Sagamore of the Massachusetts was the great Chickatawbit. He would lose his own mother and many of his people to the great plague that occurred in the Bay Area in 1617. Though his people survived, and Endured, including the treatment by Thomas Morton and his men at Marymount and the slaying of his own warriors by Plymouth Colony's Miles Standish on Quincy Shores. Chikatabit would perish due to smallpox in 1633. His son, the Sagamore-Jesias Chikatabet known as Wampatuck deeded all of what is now Quincy then Braintree on August 10th, 1665. This record is recorded in Dr. William Paddy's History of Old Braintree and Quincy written in 1878. Mentioning the copy was well preserved with the words inscribed on the back, take care of it.

This refers to the document but in a greater sense it refers to actions Quincy has done to preserve the heritage. This is no longer 1665, but in 360 years we can all agree that Quincy and Braintree's grown quite a bit. The original document still survives and I'll read just a passage of it. To all Indian people to whom peace present shall come, Wampatoq alias Josiah Sagamore of the Massachusetts in New England son of Chickatawbit deceased sendeth greetings Know you that Wampatuck being with the consent of his wise men, Squamag, his brother Daniel, Old O'Horton, William Mannerman, Job O'horton, Momintog, William Nohoton. the above Wampatuck Sagamore for diverse and valuable goods has reasoned, and therefore unto for a special in consideration of 21 pounds 10 shillings in hand paid by Samuel Bass Thomas Faxon, Francis Elliott, William Needham and William Sable.

Henry Neal, Richard Thayer, Christopher Webb all of Braintree this land That equals to £21.10, about 4200 pounds today. On December 7th, 1657 through the efforts of Reverend John Elliot a friend of my own ancestor, Reverend William Thompson of Braintree. The Massachusetts were relocated to what is now Ponkapog Plantation in modern day Canton and Stoughton on 6,000 acres of land. Think of this like a modern day Indian reservation of the 19th or 20th century. They were taught English and not allowed to speak Massachusetts, their Algonquin dialect They were not allowed to pray to their god, but converted to Christianity and were preached to people like John Eliot and others. Their hunting and fishing was now a thing of the past, and they were trained now to be farmers, not hunters.

In the 1720s, a guardian was appointed to govern the affairs of the Massachusetts. This one self-governing people by their leaders answered to another chief now, the governor in his council. Deeds of land once given as rental for decades to the local Europeans were now forced to be sold to their English tenants. The tribal people of the Massachusetts yet endured. In 1859 to 1860, John Milton Earle the appointed commissioner of Indian affairs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conducted a survey of the surviving native families of the commonwealth. Publishing a census in the Senate Report of 1861, of these many families were included Daniel Crowd of Canton born in the latter half of the 18th century. was born in Kenton, Massachusetts. Daniel's lineage traces back to the early proprietors of Ponkapog through his own great-grandfather Samuel Moho

The Moho and the Momontog family of his lineage date to the 17th and 18th century, and are mentioned on many of the deeds of the Massachusetts. The personal counsel of Chickataw but their war chief was part of their family lineage. the original council of this community and elsewhere in the Boston region. Daniel's family still endures through his son Alfred who served in the Civil War, now his own great grandson and second great granddaughter still live in Stoughton Through Daniel's youngest son, John S. Crowd and his wife, Beauty Jeanette Burrell Many descendants live in Massachusetts and abroad Of Daniel's descendants many are with you today The Massachusetts Ponca Paga were people, a family of the survivors of 400 years of European and American domination, disease and hostilities brought on by my own ancestors. Yet they endure. How fortunate we are in Massachusetts to have these original families with us.

we can look forward and learn to grow with a better understanding of our collective past, but the combined outlook for the future. Together with those ancestors whose ancestors who were the first people of this area, we can learn. In Stoughton last week, we shared a community land acknowledgement at Glen Echo remembering and acknowledging Massachusetts as part of our community our first community, and may their story not be forgotten. Thank you for your time and to be the first member of my family to address the council of this town in over 300 years. and to this I also want to say, I offer my support in friendship. And a chance with you now to do something my ancestors did not and to work with the Massachusetts. Thank you very much.

Good evening. Thank you to the city council for inviting us. My name's Elizabeth Solomon, I'm an elder of the Massachusetts tribe at Poncapog. 10,000 years ago Boston Harbor was dry land with rivers freely flowing within it and we were here. Six thousand years ago, the ocean waters began to rise and cover the dry land. And we were here. 3,000 years ago the rising waters had formed what we now know as Boston Harbor and the land we know today. And we were here. 400 years ago, English colonists came to occupy our land and we were here.

Today, this place is a major urban area occupied by others. And still we are here. We remember what is now dry land when it was water and we remember what is now water when it was dry land. we also remember those who came before us. Here is where we laughed, cried, loved made music practiced our beliefs shared both food and knowledge and made both useful and sacred things Here is where we raised our children and honored and buried are dead. Here's where we interacted with people who came from across oceans These interactions brought new things, new tensions, new ideas, new challenges.

Here is where some of the visitors brought diseases that killed most of our people leaving those of us who were left bereft Here is where those of us who survived, maintained and continued to make our lives. Here's where English colonists began their conquest of this continent. Here is where our relationships with the colonists were built, destroyed and built again. Some of these relationships were friendly and beneficial others were fraught with conflict, sadness and loss. Here's where we used our newly acquired literacy and knowledge to advocate for our people, and here is where the language of our ancestors was forcibly taken from us.

here is where those who came to live among us saw land, resources and sometimes people as commodities to be bought and sold. Here is where we maintained, sometimes in secret, our commitment to our own values and beliefs about the nature of the world, the land, and people. Here is where we made alliances, intermarried and made new communities with people from other Native communities and with those from other cultures. Here is were we continue to make our lives. here is where we laugh, cry, love make music practice our beliefs share both food and knowledge and make both useful and sacred things. Here is where we raise our children in honor and bury our dead. And here is where prepare the way for those to come.

So again, thank you for having us. I think I can speak for the entire tribal community in that We are thrilled to be here and very excited to come home. We have, as evidenced in terms of talking about my repeating and we were here. We have an incredibly strong relationship with this place This was our summer home. We moved seasonally, So in the summers, we would be by the ocean.

We had planting fields of corn which I suspect Ferris might talk about . and we prepared for the winter by processing fish. We were both an ocean and an inland people. But when the colonists came, The first colonist says, I'm sure everybody knows who went to elementary school came in 1620 to Plymouth. But the major colonization has happened starting in 1630 with the Massachusetts Bay Colony As I said, we move seasonally. But between 1630 and about 1642 the entire coast

of Massachusetts, from the North Shore down to Plymouth had been settled by colonists. This cut us off from our seasonal migration and it disrupted our native lifeways. One of the things that did happen is, Dave Lambert spoke about we were eventually removed from this area and moved to our winter home which was around Canton and Stoughton. and unfortunately, we're neither allowed or able to practice our traditional ways nor were we able to assimilate into colonial society. we and other praying towns were essentially the first reservations.

As I said, we're very excited at the prospect of coming home Our traditional belief systems are around relationship, reciprocity and responsibility. We see ourselves as part of a bigger whole we are not the most important part of the role, the bigger whole neither are we the least important. We are equally important with everything else Some people talk about this as the common pot or the idea of one bowl with many spoons. that we are just one part of a huge interconnected relationship

of people and living things, and systems, and things that are seen and unseen. And we see you as part of that common pot and we're excited to build relationship, reciprocity and responsibility with you. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for having us here. My name is Farris Gray. I am the Sagamore or the Warchief of the Massachusetts Tribe at Pocopog. Thank You Dave and thank you Elizabeth You know, I can talk a lot and kind of got to pull myself back some because I love to talk about my people. Let's see, what time is it? 10 minutes. All right. And so as you know we're the Massachusetts tribe and how wonderful is it I know growing up for me to know that I'm from the Massachusetts tribe, it's like we knew that before we knew what the Commonwealth was. And then to find out that it was named after us as a child, it just had such an impact but then to find out that nobody else really knew that.

And so it's been a really long journey for us just to have people remember that we're here and Quincy. And I just want to admit, you know we started a relationship with the mayor about a decade ago but as that relationship grew, I got to meet people from Quincy and it's like, honestly, I haven't met anybody from Quincey that wasn't awesome. And I'm being honest. That wasn't friendly to us, respectful to us and welcoming to us and that's rare, just so you know. That is so rare because I go into a lot of different communities and you always meet allies in these communities but then you meet people that just want you to go away that don't wanna stand with you have no empathy I haven't experienced that here from anybody. and that's really rare.

So Quincy, as Elizabeth was saying has a special place in our spirit but as I get to know more and more people in Quincy It's like, I see why this place is so special. I see it's known as the city of presidents. I seen even before the City of Presidents, it was a place of leadership and there's something in the ground here. And it just produces awesome people. So we're so honored to be welcomed back to this place, and to stand with people that I mean, I gotta figure it out. I'm somebody that has to figure things out. So I really have to figure out what is it that is different about Quincy Even I'm sitting here watching, listening. I know there's a lot of disagreement here but for us no matter what side people are on politically they still treat us with respect and that's really rare

and this makes me excited to get to know people here. So, you know I really love talking about our history but I don't have a lot of time so I just want to share with everyone what it means for us to return to this place. haven't been removed so long ago and haven't be returned. We're actually forbidden to come this way, forbidden. We'd have been killed to come in this way. We weren't allowed. on the opposite side of the Blue Hills. And so what it means for us to return to this place in the ocean, I can't really put into words because there's something that honestly, a lot of our elders passed away without experiencing. And it's like we carry that with ourselves and we're teaching our youth how special it is that they can return to this place because we have generations that wanted to return, that couldn't.

Weren't welcomed And so it's just this time frame that we live in is so special because I feel like people have grown. The colonists really aren't the colonists like they were in the past, because it's like they've learned They've learned empathy and these really important human feelings. And it's not like it was in the past, even my grandmother, my mother was younger. It's different now. We have non-Indigenous helping, standing with us. And that's really important not just for us but for you also. And so this community center up at Squaw Rock It's really military-like when I go up into the building, it's really like squared off and boxy and not really indigenous. But it's a home. When our home was taken away here

We had no home anywhere. And so it's a place to be, It's a Place for our people to be. We have no place for our People to be and this is a place for Our people to This is a place where we can explore the harbor again, and that's huge. Because we're ocean people as well. And we have machines. If you don't know what a machine is, it's a dugout or burnt out log Kind of makes it sound like it's not cool, but it's really cool. In the work in the community, it takes to burn one of these out. We have machines that have no home because we have no place for it, but we do now. and so you'll see us on the harbor. We'll be in our machines, I mean, maybe we have to talk with the council but I'd love to take people out in my shoes

because we have to share our knowledge. Our ancestors tried to share on knowledge with the colonists, and they didn't want to hear it. And we have knowledge, ancestral knowledge And I don't want anyone in this room to feel like you're different from us, because there's something I'd like to remind people of that they might forget. No matter where you're from on this planet, no matter where your ancestry lies. At one time in history, your ancestors were indigenous They honored the land, they walked with the land. When they hunted and fished, they were thankful for it. They could feel the changes in their atmosphere. They were so deeply connected

and somewhere along the line, your ancestors were colonized too. And so I always like to remind people that we're really not different. We might be different colors have different hair, different sizes. This one commonality we have is we all originate from indigenous ancestors So I like to remind people of that, because it's not something you always think about. And so sometime in the future if you don't know your indigenous ancestry what they believe, because that's really important knowledge that's knowledge that goes back tens of thousands of years. And so if you don't know what your indigenous, the knowledge that your indigenous ancestors had through the research, that is an awesome journey.

I'm getting chills, I'm telling you it's awesome journey because their knowledge is invaluable especially now and so we're not too different and I have to remind people of that because colonization try to make everyone different. We're different from you, and it's kind of like we're indoctrinated into this way of thinking. And we need to fix these things And so this community center, it's our way of being together. But it's also our way sharing our knowledge which is important for us. It's like our responsibility especially for people in Quincy, because that's our community. And so You know, we're not there yet. We're not in there yet and I've been talking to Deborah. She wants us in there really bad.

Believe me, there's nobody that wants to be in this community center more than us. And once we're in there It's like we want to welcome people. We wanna welcome our people, we wanna welcome community. We want to share the experiences we have in this journey that we have because it's been so long that we've been separated and we'd be kind of told that we can't stand together on things. We have to get rid of that way of thinking and you know, we have stuff to learn too about Quincy. Obviously I'm sitting here listening to all this stuff. I'm like wow my head's going . So we have something to learn but we're honored to be on this journey with all of you. And we're really thankful to everybody for being so welcoming and be awesome like towards us, it's so friendly towards us I mean from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

It shows a lot about the character of Quincy and the character his people all of the people not just some of them and so I wanna thank you for not only me, in us to hear that our greater tribal body who wish that they all can be here. And so thank you and we look forward to the future, thank you.

I know it's late, President Mahoney. But I was hoping that if my fellow councillors had any questions that we would give them the opportunity since they're here. I'd also like to mention to people TheMassachusettsTribe.org is the website and there is a lot of great information about the history, some pictures, some things like that so I encourage people to check that out but if it's possible to indulge in just a couple questions from my fellow councillors.

So would it up to questions? Does anybody have any questions, anyone?

Maybe not. Okay. All right. We will have you back then.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Moving on to item number, I guess it's just two, three.

2026-139 Confirmation Quincy Housing Authority Board Mayor at Large Appointment

Is that you? Mr. Walker.

Through you, Madam President, the body has before it the reappointments of Timothy Baker to the Quincy Housing Authority Board. There's some backup material in your package tonight. and I believe Mr. Baker is here this evening if members have any questions.

Thank you Madam President, So Mr. Baker is here, and I'm glad to meet you in person today. I was impressed by your leadership profile and the letter of interest for reappointment Back in February, the administration asked the city council to confirm your reappointment without providing a resume or any other background information. The Council declined to do so because without information to review, confirmation would be no different from rubber stamping. This time, at least we have some information about your background and experience. And now we have the opportunity to learn more about you, including meet you in person. I really appreciate that. So I have a few questions for you.

So first, how long have you served on the Quincy Housing Authority Board and how many terms have your served? I understand that each term is five years.

I've served for two and a half years approximately. I was nominated or appointed two and half years ago because one of the seats were vacated

Okay, the second question is since you have some years of experience on the board could you briefly explain to the city council and their residents How many properties the Quincy Housing Authority currently manages and what's the funding sources are?

Yeah, currently the Housing Authority we have 1,557 units in Quincy based on being a mix of single two, three, four bedroom units and 200 of our own Section 8 vouchers. We serve over 6,500 residents including families, elderlies, disabled Section 8 residents. We provide a tailored approach to manage a safe, quality affordable housing while working within the constraints of governing agencies and regulations.

Okay, thank you. The third question is the Quincy Housing Authority also has a nonprofit corporation called the Quinces Housing Authority Development Corporation so when was this corporation established? and how many properties does it currently manage? And what's the funding sources?

This was established years ago before me. We currently own four properties. We own Riverview, Pagnano O'Brien and drone apartments

for properties and this corporation?

Correct.

and fourth, the Mayor announced this past Saturday that Quincy Housing Authority Development Corporation had reached an agreement with ENC to purchase the ENC campus. As a board member, you may be familiar with this transaction. Could you clarify its current status? Has the purchase been finalized or is it still pending? I have some understanding of this situation, but I would like the public to hear directly from a board member about where things stand.

Sure, the ink's barely dry. I can tell you that but with it being a private nonprofit organization We're just getting ready to start to roll up our sleeves. We have to dot all our I's cross our T's so During this, I'm here for the Quincy Housing Authority and I'm not at liberty to speak regarding development costs.

Yeah, I'm just asking general information. And finally based on your service under Quincy Housing Authority Board what areas do you think could be improved to help the authority to do an even better job serving its residents and the community?

there's always room for improvement. I'm never shy to try and help out the programs that we've established are phenomenal, and we're always hunting down grants in more money to begin new programs and new things to help out the residents of Quincy. So we're always chasing money, always.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Jacobs.

Hi, Mr. Baker, how are you? Good evening. I was the one who tabled this back in February. I really appreciate you submitting us information. It was really great to have it. Would've been nice to have in February, just kind of thinking about the board. I know you're an at-large member of the board how would you feel about, the makeup of the board there has to be one resident council member. How would you fell about and at-large member also being like a secondary, just someone who is also a resident from housing.

Right now it's based on state guidelines?

Yeah.

And they're the ones that decide it.

Okay. Thinking about, because one of the concerns that I have is is, it focuses mostly on Germantown down at Snug Harbor there. A lot of the family folks live down there and they feel that they are kind of underrepresented on the board that's the only reason I asked. Another thing I want to ask you about is parking, and again, I know you're on the board one of the things I hear a lot about from constituents down there is that, you know, there's a lot of parking restrictions and the people who live down there feel somewhat targeted. and they feel that the, I don't want to say it. The program or the avenue they have to get like overnight passes and whatnot is a little

and so I'm just hoping that going forward, maybe you can bring that back to the board. Maybe that's something that can be looked at. I see it online all the time people are chasing down tow trucks, and these are already some of our most vulnerable citizens. they're getting their cars towed and paying hundreds of dollars. And I just wonder sometimes if maybe the board could reassess this, and maybe come up with some type and so on. and so forth. That is something I would like to speak with the housing board about. I know a lot of street parking basically no overnight resident parking on every single street.

So that's like Taff Rail, that's QuotaDex, all of those streets. That is something I've been working with TPAL to get some of those restrictions lifted because it's really kind of productive for the people who live there. I understand what housing is trying to do, but it's not working out for the residents who live there. So again, I hope this is just a conversation that we can continue. You know you can bring this back to the board and hopefully we can work with TPAL and try to make this a better situation for everybody involved.

Definitely. And that's part of being part of the community is TPAL and us and everyone getting along and building the relationships with everybody. Excellent.

Thank you.

We're going to be looking for a motion to approve and a second in the roll call vote. So do we have a motion?

I'd like to make a motion, to approve his appointment, Mr. Baker's appointment sorry, to the Housing Board for a five-year term that starts back, was it February 1st? Excellent.

So does the motion be by Councilor Jacobs, seconded by Council UN and then we'll need a roll call vote.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan. President Mahoney, nine members. Thank you very much. Thanks for answering the questions too.

I don't remember anybody getting grilled like that before.

So moving on to number four, 2026105. approval of location and lease for solar energy implementation on the General McConville Way parking garages. Welcome back, Mr. Hines.

Thank you. Good evening, Council, and happy birthday.

Ryan.

I can't wait, nobody has started singing yet and I can believe it.

We'll do that at the end.

So I am here obviously again on the solar rooftop arrays on the two new parking garages as part of our downtown redevelopment effort you've had the information some time now. I would like to say that the array that we installed on the parking garage of the public safety complex went live starting today, coincidentally. And the better news is if you look at agreements and you read them there's a maximum PPA rate stated in them but by the time it gets up and running, there's a true-up. So that PPA rate can actually be lower than that worst case scenario maximum rate. The rate that we got settled in on on the parking garage at the police station and the Public Safety Headquarters is 0.07 cents, less than half of what our worst case scenario 15 cents was so again it's just an amazing result The Commonwealth has really upped their games, the utilities have upped there games with the incentives and it's amazing.

And we're gonna enjoy those same benefits with these two deals for the two parking garages

All right, so with that we need a passage tonight. So we'll need a motion and the second overall call vote. Once we do the motion in a second we can ask some questions. Do we have a motion for this? Councilor Ash. did you make a motion?

Okay, yes. Motion to approve 2026-105, order approval of location and lease for solar energy implementation on General McConville Way parking garages.

Thank you, Councilor Ashton. We have a second by Councilor Riley. On the motion statement, do we have any questions?

I have a question. Has the city solicitor or another qualified attorney reviewed the lease and power purchase agreement?

They have, yes.

Okay. Has anyone independently reviewed the engineering and the financial assumptions?

Yes, they have. We've got consultants that do both, third party in addition to those of the solo company.

Okay, I have a question. The solar system includes a steel canopy framework and other equipment installed above the top level parking decks has an independent structure engineer reviewed the garage capacity to support this system?

Yes, we brought solar select early in the design process because we anticipated the canopies. and so the garages and the engineering for the solar canopy met together, and there was a common design. So that the garage would be structurally sound for both wind and seismic and all the other concerns to allow it to support the canopy owned by Select.

And who is responsible if installation and operation damages the garage roof structure or waterproofing?

The canopy itself is not a roof, so it will not be waterproof. So the top of the garage is the top and the garage will still get rained and snowed on but if the system itself goes down, then selectors who they contract with is responsible for maintaining repairing or even replacing the system. including the lighting that's under the canopy, that will illuminate the top level of the garage.

That's a company responsible for? Yes. Okay and so at end of 25 year terms Does the company remove only the solar panels and electrical equipment, or must it also remove the steel canopy structure that supports them?

the way it's written, it's optional. So whoever is sitting here at that time in the mayor's office can make that determination. It's heavy gauge galvanized steel. I'm sure it will be structurally sound if they want to put up new panels and continue the savings in the green benefits, they're welcome to do so. But the agreement is written in the alternative at the election of the city whether the structure stays or goes.

You answered my next question because I was going to ask if the city wants to keep using the solar system, what would it be cost to purchase the equipment?

there is actually no cost at the end of the 25 years. It would be deeded over to the city, not deed it's personal property. It will be conveyed to the City that they can either then replace the panels with then more current technology, or if the existing ones haven't degraded to that point and there's still a positive effect then they can keep those same panels and operate under the existing equipment for as long as they should choose to do so.

So in that case, I wish the steel canopy will be stained not being removed.

Yes. It would not make sense to have no system.

and another question. What financial protection does the city have if the project end performance or the company defaults, all the equipment needs major repairs?

there is a bond, there's a performance bond on this contract. So at the end of its term and the bond is with AAA certified bonding company insurance company AAG type thing running to the benefit of the city so that third party financial institution would be obligated to pay the city of Quincy. The cost I haven't to take it down, should we have to self-help do that?

You mean is a kind of insurance if...

Yes.

Okay. And what's the city's total expected cost in the net financial benefit over 25 years, including or excluded any potential additional costs?

Okay, so the cost of acquisition, construction, setting it up for operation, the city pays nothing. Select pays at all. The city's financial obligation is to pay for the electricity that the systems generate and we do that at a discounted rate over the other generation rates that we have available to us. As I said last time was here, these two deals on paper today are not nearly as lucrative now the Public Safety or Squamish School. These two ones right now, the taller of the two garages it's 22 cents per kilowatt hour for the electric that's generated and for the short of the two garages, it's 16 cents per kilowatt hour. But again that's the worst case scenario today but you have to remember There's no delivery charge, there's no tariffs. There's none of the other add-ons that you see drive your electric bill through the roof. 16 cents is 16 cents.

The add-ons, the delivery charge, the demand charges, the solar fee this, the green card fee all the things on your electric bill at nine to 10 cents per kilowatt hour we're not paying any of them on this generation. So the 16 cents is 16 cents or whatever lower number it becomes, and that's fixed for a full 25 year term. The electric generation you're getting from natural grid or any other deal that happens down the road you know is gonna go up. You're going to be paying more per kilowatt hour, these are locked in.

Okay thank you that's all my questions.

Move the question?

We're going to go to the votes. We have a motion by Councilor Ash, seconded by Councilor Riley if we could take a roll call vote. Councilor Ash? Yes.

Councilor DiBona? Yes! Council Hubley? Yes Council Jacobs? Yes Counsel McKee? Yes Ryan, Council Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members.

Thank you, Paul.

Moving on to item number five. 2026-123, an ordered discussion of fair data driven pay raises for politicians.

Thank you. So I guess technically we should probably, I'll make a motion to take this briefly out of committee. Okay, so now basically the reason that we have this on the agenda tonight is just so that we can share what we've done so far with each other and with the public. to comply with open meeting law. So what I'd like to do is we have the next council meeting, the next regular council meeting I think is November 9th So I'd like to also keep this Google form running because I know that some of us have requested some information that hasn't yet come in yet. So we can continue to put that in. But what's in so far can be shared with each other and with the public. I believe, I haven't seen any latest emails but

When I get it from the Council Clerk, I will try to upload the actual spreadsheet form and share that version on my next newsletter. Anyway, so we'll keep this open. People can keep contributing to the form through November 9th. But thank you. So that's it. We can put it back into committee.

You're also right, Councilor McKay. Okay, moving on. Number six, 2026-140, order disclosure of the City of Quincy's Quincy Festival Committee Quincey Foundation, Quincy Relief Fund, Quincey Mayors Cup Finances and Oversight Review. Councilor Riley?

Thank you, thank you President Mahoney. I introduced this as a result of well couple things first of all it was something that I had already been somewhat aware of when I was running for the council seat and what it was, was the... What was being referred to as The Quincy Foundation. And previously the Quincy Relief Fund during COVID that seemed to be unclear of what that charitable organization was or was it a charity. So I've introduced this, since then we found during our budget hearings there was money transferred from the celebrations line to this charitable organization or nonprofit, I guess. And we also found In addition to the budget that there was, it seems, the Mayor's Cup golf tournament proceeds have been going there as well. As of... I can't remember which date.

The celebrations line, it was $75,000 that was transferred in fiscal year 2026. And in fiscal years 2025 it was a hundred thousand dollars that was transfered from the city's general fund budget to this private nonprofit entity. The golf course, the golf tournament rather according to the 2020, 2002 amended and restated Corey Hill's lease that the mayors of the city could have a charitable golf tournament there. And up until 2018 through 2017, those funds were received into the city and disbursements were made from the city. Since then that money has not been accounted for So this order is asking for an accounting of that, that we clarify all of these different nonprofits. Are they one thing? Are they different things? Specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic before the ARPA money and all the federal money started to flow in.

There was an announcement made that the Quincy Relief Fund would receive donations, we never received any accounting of where that money went So what I'm looking for, as I campaigned on was transparency and accountability for the taxpayers funds. And we're looking for for the administration to come forward with that, or these non-profits. Whoever wants to come before us. There are no charitable organizations called The Quincy Foundation, the Quincy Relief Fund neither one of those seem to exist. There's been no accountability for the funds raised or dispersed under these entities, Contributions were declared tax deductible, but it's not clear if it's a 501 , which it is whether those deductions would be tax deductable. And more importantly now that I've listened to some of the open forum comments

In 2016, prior to the money going to the nonprofit, the Form 990 for the Quincy Christmas Quincy Christmas Festival Committee received 56,500. That's how much money they raised. In 2017 it became 152,000 and in 2023 which is the most recent filing that's online it's $230,000. So we've been running this parade for however many years and there's no indication that we wouldn't continue to be able to do so but we need to know where that money is going The other thing I will note is that the nonprofit has consistently had addresses, various addresses over the years that are always municipal Quincy municipal properties. So this is not a separate and private entity Helen Murphy was the treasurer at one time with the address listed at 1305 Hancock Street. The most recent one I have is 1 Marymount Parkway,

and the other thing I'll note is that, and we can talk more about this. We'll move it into committee and talk about a little bit more but I think it's important to know that when you look at some of the expenses, and Madam Auditor had provided them up until the time it was being dispersed from city municipal finance. One of the biggest things it went to was fuel assistance People were receiving fuel assistance, getting their oil tanks filled. It's a very worthy need. It sounds like it was sort of done very quietly and very respectfully for people who needed help. and hearing in the news now that it's probably gonna cost people $1,500 to fill their oil tank this winter. We need to take a look at what we're using this money for. We don't need more string lights. We may need more charity. so I'm gonna make a motion if I could that we move this to Finance and Oversight Committee, and we'll discuss it further in committee.

So we have a motion by Councilor Riley seconded by Council Jacobs on the motion not seeing any Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Walker.

President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Next is number seven, 2026-141. Order discuss administration's announcement on Eastern Nazarene College ENC. Councilor McKay.

Thank you. So I will just describe a little bit about what happened over the weekend when the mayor had an announcement about ANC for anyone who doesn't know. So the top line is that a nonprofit associated with Quincy Housing Authority, which runs the city's affordable housing has signed paperwork to buy the campus. The Housing Authority's director said the nonprofit aimed to carry out the Mayor's vision for the property and that involved low density development. Exactly what that means or how the city would be involved in the process is still unclear, but two sources of city funding could be tapped towards the plan according to the Mayor. One is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which is a pot of money that developers can pay into instead of building affordable units when our local ordinance requires them to do one of the two.

That money is intended to be used to create affordable housing, and we heard on Saturday that the QHA nonprofit aims to create 57 units of affordable senior housing by renovating ENC's Young apartment building. The nonprofit will apply for the funding at the Affordable Housing Trust Committee meeting next Tuesday. The other source of city money comes from the Community Preservation Act, The CPA is a state-run program that allows communities that opt into it to add a surcharge to property taxes. Quincy charges 1%. and then use that money along with some additional funding from the state to offer grants for community projects. These must fall into four specific categories, historic preservation, open space, affordable housing and recreation. The mayor said the city would apply for CPA funding to buy and preserve some open space on the campus.

The Patriot Ledger reports this includes the Arboretum, which is made up of more than a dozen groupings of trees spread throughout the main campus and the athletic field. Beyond that, it's unclear what role the administration hopes to have on the campus though the mayor talked about creating a neighborhood advisory committee that would meet with him and the director of the nonprofit periodically. My intention in bringing this order forward is to hold committee meetings where the Council can learn about the Quincy Housing Authority, its associated nonprofit The relationship between the two and what role the administration plans for the City of Quincy and its taxpayers to have on the campus. So with that, I move to send this order 2026-141 to the Oversight and Finance Committees for further discussion.

Okay, we have a motion to move it to oversight and what else did you say? Finance. Seconded by Councilor Ryan. on the motion? I'm not seeing any. Roll call vote.

Councilor Ash, Councilor DiBona, Council Hubley, Council Jacobs, Council McKee, Council Riley, Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Moving on to item number eight. Ordinance regulating intrusive surveillance technology. Councilor

Thank you, Madam President. So this ordinance is about protecting people's privacy and liberty from intrusive surveillance technology who want to be watched all the time. Americans are proud, free citizens. They can go anywhere they want. It's nobody else business We councillors have received many emails from residents raising serious concerns about their privacy and constitutional rights being weighted by intrusive surveillance like ALPR. Some said this is the first time they have ever spoken up to the City Council because this is an issue they simply cannot silently stand by and watch.

Some relatively new residents are appalled to learn that Quincy has one of the largest flock networks in Massachusetts. When I talked with people in the Asian community about a flock, they couldn't believe such invasive surveillance could exist in the United States. Why? Because we immigrants have always held American freedoms in high regard. This is a nonpartisan issue. This is about basic human right, privacy. If Americans allow mass surveillance on their own soil how can they later turn around and condemn other nations for violating human rights? You lose your moral ground.

So please, cherish the freedom and liberty you have. It is still a luxury in many parts of world I shared a little of my experience in the country I came from during the last two meetings. Now, I'm really interested to hear how my colleagues who were born and grow up in this free land, and who learned about freedom and liberty from their very first days in school. view this invasive surveillance technology and its impact on people's freedom in the privacy. and yeah, so I know because this is an ordinance we couldn't vote an ordinance at the same meeting when it's first introduced. So we need to refer it to the committee to further discuss.

I make a motion to refer this ordinance to oversight and the Ordinance Committee

Okay, so we have a motion to refer this to oversight and ordinance. And we have second by Councilor Ryan. On the motion do we have any questions? So we're gonna move the vote okay. Can we have the vote? Councilor Ash. Yes.

Councilor DiBona. Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan. Yuen, President Mahoney? Yes. Nine members. Moving on to item number nine. Resolution regarding the City of Quincy use of flock safety technology.

Councilor Yuen. Thank you, Madam President. So today we heard many residents talk about concerns about their constitutional right, their liberty, right to their privacy being weighted by this mass surveillance technology. And I don't want to repeat it My resolution mainly point out these companies and trust for this. So we can talk about internal control of QPD all night long, all day long but the back door is wide open the company has access of this data and QPD have no control of what this company can do. And that this company very miserable track records.

and disclosed data sharing, data analyzed way beyond the contract described in accurate statement. So my resolution has listed all those cases. Actually, that's not all. That's only just a small part of it. and I think as a city of Quincy, we have 49 cameras. one of the largest flock network in Massachusetts and have been used for a long time since 2020. use and expand of this system haven't been informed residents. So for all those

since we should immediately take actions to stop, keep connecting residents' private information and let that company into access. So I just read it. Now, therefore be it resolved that the Quincy City Council strongly calls upon the administration to terminate all flood safety contracts and agreements as soon as possible. and be it further resolved that the Quincy City Council calls upon the administration to immediately direct flock safety, to remove all flock cameras from city property. and to stop the cameras from collecting residents' data where the termination and removal process is in the way. and be it further resolved that if the camera can't be physically removed immediately, the administration should take immediate

immediate steps to stop them from connecting data, including covering the cameras until they can be removed. and be it further resolved that the administration report to the city council on the step it has taken to terminate the FLOG agreements, stop data connection, and remove the cameras. and be it further resolved that any renewal of the contract with FLOG or any contract with another ALPR vendor, be subject to a public discussion in the City Council approval. I want to make a motion to vote and pass this resolution. Okay, so there's this motion to pass the resolution.

Do we have a second by Councilor Ryan? On the motion did you wanna speak, Councilor Rayne?

Yes, to you Madam Chair. I'd like to just make a statement with regards to this ordinance So in June, I met with Chief Kennedy to discuss the use of ALPRs in the city of Quincy. We reviewed the benefits that these ALPRs provided to the QPD and to the citizens of Quincy. I was not aware at the time that that they were not accurately being used by Flock Company, and that some of the data was being used inappropriately.

To be clear, yes we are monitored every day when we turn on our phones, when we turned on our computers, when return on our iPads. But we do that knowing that we are being monitored. With the flock cameras, that is not the case. There was no public meeting and that is part of the problem. We need to be part of process when a system like this is being used in our city. Thank you.

So we have a motion to pass resolution seconded by Councilor Ryan. Anybody else on the motion want to speak? Councilor Jacobs.

just on the motion, it was brought up by one of the speakers tonight that there are now Motorola ALPRs we don't know who they belong to, there's like four or five of them. So I'm just in this resolve it mentions a lot about flock so if we could make an amendment to have it really just specify all automatic license plate readers, just somewhere in there as an addition or any other license plate reader that we may not know is even out. Has not been disclosed to us

Through you, Madam President. So Councilor Jacobs, so you want to like add a terminator Any contract with Motorola ALPR on this resolution?

just add in there, it's not just Flock because apparently now it's Motorola too. So we can still use the same terminology but just add-in or any other

I can concede the right here.

So to be able to do this, the language has to be exact. And where do you want to put it in the whereas's?

I notice down at the bottom it says be it further resolved that any renewal of a contract with Flock or any contract with another ALPR vendor is to be subject to public discussion. But I just want to make sure, Huber just said it's mentioned there. And I did see that, but I just don't know because we're talking about covering removing and or covering cameras so right there where it says, therefore be it resolved that the Quincy City Council strongly calls for administration to terminate all flock safety contracts or other ALPR Network Contracts. Do you see where I added that? Yep.

She has, so it should say now therefore be resolved that the Quincy City Council strongly calls upon the administration to terminate all flock safety contracts or other ALPR network contract agreements as soon as possible.

Did you get that? Mm-hmm. All right, so Friendly Amendment from David Jacobs. Councilor, do you accept?

I accept it.

So do we have to take an amendment too? OK. We do? No. OK, so we have a motion? If it's all in favor. Is it all in favour for the friendly amendment? All in favour? OK, anybody else on the motion? Anybody else to speak about Locke?

Councilor Riley? Thank you, Madam President. Obviously it's been quite a number of hours was spent talking about this issue and Ryan, I had met with Chief Kennedy in June when I hardly knew anything about flaw cameras. But I expressed my concern having come from a technology background, having lived through the dot-com boom and bust These technology companies, this is not a law enforcement tool company. This is a technology company that's seeking to move into new areas Since that time, two more communities have ended FLOC including Milton the night we met last. 18% reduction in the workforce at FLOCC which is not going to help them provide good services and be able make changes to their software. This is an unregulated industry using AI, which is an unrelated technology

The safeguards that have been put in place, I commend the Quincy PD for working with Flock but they've been reactive. Flock has been reacting to the public outcry and not proactive. They're not the ones delivering these, they are they're delivering them at the request of the communities. I deeply respect Chief Kennedy in the QPD and it is difficult to think about taking away a tool that provides value. I mean, if it didn't provide value this would be a much easier decision, right? It would be much easier conversation if they weren't getting any value out of it but obviously it does help them to do their jobs more efficiently. What we heard the last time was they can gather the data, they can get usually the information they need, but it's much more time consuming. It's not as efficient. The other thing I'll mention is that companies like Flock answer to their investors. They don't answer to the customers, they don't answered to the public, they answer to your investors. That's what their job is to make money and go public. and tech companies don't remain stagnant.

Their job is to innovate, to keep moving forward. The reason why Facebook bought Instagram was because Instagram was taking market share. They were a competitor and so what did Facebook do? They made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and that could happen with Flock or Flock would do that with another company I'm hearing more about the bus cameras which seems to be another conversation similar to the same arguments but i think at the end of the day we simply cannot guarantee that this data is safe. We cannot, it's not within our control to do so. It's ultimately at the control of the third party and the host of the data. With that, I'm ready to take the vote. Anybody else? Councilor

Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate the time. I've had a lot of meetings with QPD, with constituents a lot of residents in the city that usually don't speak on issues and or are involved civically or municipally. have been very involved and vocal and interested in this. And I would like to commend those people for their research, and whatever ignited that that fire, obviously we're not the only municipality in which that's happening. Similarly, the Quincy Police and Chief Kennedy I believe have implemented a number of changes to their internal policies into these contracts and done whatever we possibly can do as a police department to regulate the data that's being collected or, and to put our best foot forward in really answering the residents' concerns. Jones.

I think the last time the chief was here and, and I was discussing kind of the county or not the county the municipality and the different lines. While this seems like a simple example, I do think that it takes all of those considerations into play meaning each demographic, each city, each town, each population if we see these cities and towns around us that are calling or canceling their contracts, what is so beneficial with this program is universality. and having everybody be on one network. If those neighboring cities and towns are canceling contracts, I'm struggling to see how to balance kind of the concern with the data and although that seems like a kind of a simple, I don't want it to seem like a way out or a simple way to explain it but I think that it takes

a little bit of every discussion and presents it in something that's succinct, at least for me to be able to think about it because I had a meeting over the weekend which we say, I discussed one resident does not feel safe being surveilled by this company and one resident feels more safe. and so how do you value one person's feeling of safety over the other? It's virtually impossible. but I think that, that example is what I'm choosing to lead with in this discussion. But I also, the police department they're great at the meeting we had Great discussions, and I hope that there's some usefulness to the infrastructure. And hopefully more better discussions moving forward to see what can be done internally that we can control. So thank you.

So I really came into this pretty open-minded and trying to think how could we put more guardrails on the current system so that the police could have a useful tool. but after hearing from all the residents and hearing from the experts who came in and spoke, hearing that there's not a lot of research to show benefits to the system. While there are many examples of things could go wrong kind at every level, talking about Flock the company, talking security issues, talking oversight. The ACLU said

and really any of the technologies has an issue with constitutional protections, so. all of those issues combined have just tipped me over. I know I said if my son was kidnapped, I would want him to be found as quickly as possible that's of course still but then I think we could all have chips implanted in us and that would make things a lot easier, but we don't feel comfortable with that. I think I'm falling on the line that we just, the oversight for this, I think would still need to be greater than what we have but I think there are too many downsides for the technology so I'm going to vote in support of this.

Has everybody had a chance to speak? Hubley, you're all set? Councilor DiBona, are you all set. Okay so I'm gonna just make a note on this as well. So this is really not... This is actually not a Quincy police issue. This is a flock issue and I realized that when Chief Kennedy was here, he said we own the data. That's in their contract it says we own data but they don't truly, we just own the date for when we delete it. Flock actually owns the data because they serve the data the metadata is actually being kept by Flock. Even if it's deleted, it's being kept my flock and that's the part that we're really struggling with and I think everybody up here struggling with that so even when we close our network and we think we're protecting it from other people being able to see it which goes against actually what the idea of the software is supposed to be able to do. And we delete it, so originally we were deleting it after 30 days and then we're gonna delete it after 15 days and I think he said just recently they might delete it at seven. That's what we're doing on Quincy but that's not what FLOC is doing.

FLOCC is collecting the data and we have no control over what they're doing, and we can say we do, but we don't, and that is why so many towns and communities around us has canceled that because there is no trust in the technology. with a company that's selling it to us. And we talked about CGIS when we were here, and that's a governmental software that we're using too. That also had to have some guardrails, but the difference there was that it wasn't a private entity company that was creating it. And we had to put those guardrailes in for those in the past as well. But the problem really lies on the fact that Flock and companies like Flock, Motorola. And I think Axon is also doing something very similar where not being able to trust that data is not being collected or used in any other way. Chief Kennedy when he was here, when I was asking him specifically.

He's saying that if it's an active investigation, it wouldn't be able to be shared but other agencies can share that. and we don't have that control. And one of the reasons why we don�t have that controller, that's what the ACLU said is because we don' t have the legislation. This is bigger than the city of Quincy. It's bigger than all the other towns but it's a big issue and it's where we need to lean on our state representatives, and where we needs to lean in on our representatives up in the federal government. Because this is something that the police deserve to have but we as a community have to be careful about what we're allowing and other people to see. So it's not so much about the tool that our Quincy police are using the company itself and the rules they're having. And you're seeing that happen because you're adjusting really quick. So since last August, you're saying Flock changed things automatically keep changing and they keep promising that their data hasn't been hasn't been broken into, but it has. And it's not updated on their site.

I think that's actually another reason why you should really open your eyes and say this isn't a good company to be partnering with because they're not even being honest about the breaches that they have had So with that, I know that there's a resolve. This is a resolve that was brought before us by Councilor Yuan, seconded by Councillor Ryan. It's a recommendation. I'm getting to it Chris . So what I can tell you is that the council here can recommend to the administration that this is what we want to see happen, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen. It's a recommendation that's going to go to the mayor's office. But as we stand here tonight, we have a resolve brought to us by Council UN seconded by Council Ryan and we're gonna take a vote on that this resolve will go to administration and then we'll have another conversation I'm sure Are they covered? I just wanted to make sure I did. So with that, can we have a roll call? Council Yuan, sorry.

Thank you, Madam President. I just want to briefly explain why we couldn't use an ordinance to order the administration take down Cameron or cancel the contract because Quincy is a Plan A government. The administration has all the power and city council has very limited power so we can only call the administration to terminate those contracts, and we even couldn't physically remove those cameras because that company's terms in the condition state only their technician can take down the camera. We, customer are not allowed to remove them so all we can do is use a garbage bag to bag it

and I hope administration after hear all those residents' opinions and can seriously consider residents' concerns in the City Council's and make a wise decision and put residents' interest first. So, Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. My only comment is going to be about process while I understand we're voting on a what are we calling it resolution recommendation to do this, I do think even though we did have a hearing about the topic, I think it's useful for us to commit to form when it comes to not introducing something a few days before and then voting on it that night. I think when it's consequential, I think it's a topic that's before us so i guess in the future it would be good if we could distinguish between that which we're voting on that night and that's what, that which were referring to committee would be useful for councilors to have a little bit more time with the material and know which ones they need to focus on. for a vote that night.

So I'm just taking this opportunity to point out form, it would be good in the future for us to refer things to committee, come out of committee with a positive recommendation. That's all I have for this one.

So the difference there, and I'll just say is that when we put something into committee. We put something in to oversight and we have a conversation at oversight. We can't make that vote out of oversight to do that and I think what Council UN was trying to do is a recommendation to the administration, and anybody can do that. That's a resolve, and it does happen on the first night. So this is just a recommendation. It is a resolve. We are hearing the community What we do have is also an ordinance that's going to go into our committee. And there are two different things, one is a resolve with their request, saying we've heard people from our oversight and these are the feelings that we're hearing. And everybody gets their individual vote so we don't know where that's gonna go. We'll take a vote in a second. We have an amendment for the amendment that was approved by everybody here on the body and then there'll be an oversight. There will be an ordinance and oversight meeting for the ordinance, but tonight is just a request to the administration Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee.

Yes. Councilor Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes, Council Yuan, yes President Mahoney, yes Eight members Moving on 256-144, resolution reflecting identifying markers on contracted snow removal vehicles. Councilor Jacobs

Yes, this stems from the meeting we had back in I want to reiterate that the city did an amazing job. The DPW workers did an We had a whole presentation, Commissioner Graziazzo. came in and did a presentation. And I've spoken to the administration about this couple of times, I spoke to Commissioner Graciazzo about this a few times. I'm pretty sure I spoke with Commissioner Grennan about it at some point but all this is really looking to do the contractors who are working for the city should have some type of identifying marker on their snow removal vehicles so that way folks know that vehicle is being utilized by the city.

When I was going around in board one, You get a lot of dead end streets there at the WADA. The streets just, they just end, right? So a lot snow getting built up around there and people were going out and they were approaching the plow operators and the plough operators were saying, oh I'm a private contractor plowing this person's driveway. So it was difficult for the city residents to really identify which plow operators were working for them under contract with the city, and it was difficult for me. and you know, I really think that this is something that could easily be done by way of just buying some magnets and putting like the city seal on it with a contractor. underneath, but also having just like a little orange flag or something on the antenna of the vehicle. Just so that way our residents know

you know, these are their people that the city has contracted with to do the people's business. So I'm hoping that everyone here will certainly support this resolution as where I intend to make a motion to vote on it right now and send this to the Mayor, and hopefully to Commissioner Grennan.

All right, so we have a motion to pass the resolution for requesting identifier markers on the contracted snow removal vehicles. Do we have second? Seconded by Councilor Riley. On the motions, anybody? Councilor Hubley.

Yeah, thank you President Mahoney. We have Director Glennon here tonight I just wanted to get his If he has any immediate reaction to it or if he has thoughts logistically, contract-wise, any implications before we just move this along. Always good to hear from a department head when it affects their department.

Yeah, thank you for that question through Madam President. We have looked at this. We are working through the logistics of what an implementation would look like our contracts for this upcoming season are in place. So there is a little bit of a timing issue with getting it widespread. We are talking to a couple Contractors about maybe for this upcoming season, a targeted pilot program on certain routes. I think right now it sounds like magnets would be preferred. We'd tried the flags before, and there was a lot of pushback on not being able to roll down the windows and that sort of thing. They get lost, they get blown away. We're talking about it. We'll report back with what we find. Okay, thank you sir.

Anybody else? Councilor Riley? Thank you, Madam President. I think that this is actually something that we should at least strive for and I appreciate it here, Commissioner. It's no different than a private contractor driving for FedEx, or for Comcast. Those vans that are third parties were always identified subcontractor for... So I think it helps The plow drivers to not get yelled at when it turns out somebody's plowing privately for another entity and keeps all of our calls down. So I would be in favor of trying to pass this tonight and not complicate it any more than we need to by sending it to a committee. As you've said, the contracts are already in place. But I think it benefits everybody to be able to just identify so that people aren't accused of wrongdoing or whatever and plowing into somebody's driveway. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Koch, Mahoney,

Thank you, Madam President. Do we have anything in place already? I know you're new to the position but you are a TPAL. Do have anything installed right now where we have vehicles that kind of like emblems or tags or numbers on them right now?

To my knowledge, there's no identifying markers on the vehicles. I would say that they're specifically working for the city there are certain contractors that have the, I believe all of the contractors that we use have the contractor name on the truck but there is no identifying City of Quincy marker on those vehicles as of yet.

Thank you. You're welcome.

All right, anybody else? Okay so we're gonna move the question to roll call vote.

Councilor Ash. Yes. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan. President Mahoney? Yes. Nine members. Okay moving on. No. 11, 2026-145, a gift for $1,000 from Donovan Service to Dia.

Motioned by Councilor DiBona, seconded by Councillor Ryan. Roll call vote.

Mahoney, nine members. Next, number 12. 2026-146 a gift for $250 from Randolph Elks Lodge 2130 to Animal Care Center Food Pantry

DeVona, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. Roll call vote.

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

So then we have the approval of previous minutes, October 5th, 2026 Ordinance City Council meeting, October 6th,2026 Oversight Meeting. Motion to approve by Councillor DiBona, seconded by Councillor Jacobs. All those in favor? All those opposed? The ayes have it. Communication reports from the mayor and other city officers and boards? None, excellent thank you. Unfinished business and proceeding meetings? Not seeing any.

Jensen, yes.

Councilor Ash, sorry.

Thank you. On Monday, October 5th, 2026 we had a public hearing on Council Order 2026-131 Utility Granted Location National Grid Bayview Ave and Homestead Ave Ash has a positive recommendation, seconded by Councilor Yuan.

Give me a roll call vote. Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor DiBona? Yes

Jacobs, Councilor McKee, Council Riley, Council Ryan, Council Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. Nine members.

Any other reports to the committees? Okay, moving on to presentations, petitions and remonstrances. Okay, give away? Memorial, okay.

Thank you, Madam President. Tonight I want to take a few moments to remember our dedicated community leader and mentor and friend Michael Berry who passed away on October 9th at the age of 76. Mike was many things to many people. He was a devoted husband, a father, a grandfather, a proud union leader and a longtime leader in ward one democratic politics and someone who dedicated much of their life to Boy Scouts and to the Housenet community. I'm proud to say that I knew Mike in many of these different capacities and through many of his different roles, but Mike was first and foremost my friend. I first met Mike when I was 10 years old. My father had been our Cub Scout leader for many years, but when we moved up to be Weeblos, Mike became our leader

I remember spending countless hours in the basement of the House Neck Congregational Church where there was always plenty of fun, laughter and learning. Mike taught us everything from tying knots and serving food at the Blue & Gold Banquet to wilderness camping and winter camping. And I have wonderful memories of the Klondike Camping Events at Camp Sayre, and our annual summer trips to TL Store in New Hampshire. Those trips remain some of the fondest memories of my childhood. I remember one summer when our campsite project was installing a new flagpole, and I also remember early morning polar bear swims in the pond Mike would warn us about the snapping turtle that supposedly lived in the water, and he told us that the turtle's name was Spot. And then he'd say a corny thing like spot the turtle. That was Mike. He always had a joke and a laugh that was absolutely infectious. What makes Mike so special to me is that his influence didn't end when I grew out of scouting.

As I became interested in politics, I joined the Ward 1 Democrats and the Quincy Democratic City Committee where Mike had been involved for decades. When I began my teaching career and I became involved in a local teacher's union I carried with me the lessons I had learned from Mike and his importance of organized labor. Mike was a proud 53-year member of IBEW Local 103, serving as an officer for 40 years. and when I decided to run for the City Council, Mike was there. He was never shy about telling me what I had done right and certainly wasn't shy about the things I was doing wrong. but I always appreciated his advice because I knew it came from a lifetime of experience. Mike's commitment to Quincy extended well beyond scouting and politics. He served on the board of Quincy Community Action Program for more than 20 years, and volunteered at countless community events and was elected Mayor of Housneck through his fundraising efforts.

I do have to say one thing about the Chowder Fest, before they ripped down the Maritime Center he used to run Extension Corps, he was an electrician used to run extension cords all over that place. And when they ripped the building down and we had to go to propane, I think a little bit of them died right there but that's okay. Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to have Mike in my life for more than 30 years. He was there when I was a young boy learning to tie knots when I was a young teacher learning about the importance of unions and when I as an adult finding my way in public service. I think that it says something about the kind of man that Mike Berry was. He didn't just volunteer his time, he invested in people especially young people and those investments lasted a lifetime. To his wife Mary, his children Karen and Michael Jr., and his grandchildren and his entire family I offer my deepest condolences for your loss. Mike was a special person.

He gave so much of himself to Howe's Neck and to the city of Quincy, and I know that there are countless people whose lives are better because they knew him. Mike, thank you for the lessons, the laughter and the memories. And most of all your friendship. You made a difference in my life and I will always be grateful. Rest in peace, my friend. You will certainly be missed. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. I just want to use this opportunity to thank all the people who have worked so hard to bring awareness to residents about this mass surveillance technology flock. without their effort, we even couldn't have a conversation at this great hall let alone pass this resolution. So I give my full gratefulness to people who worked so hard for democracy, liberty and freedom. And those are people I have always looked up to after I moved to America you have my salute. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President. I would like to just take a moment to recognize the tragic school shooting that took place this past Thursday in Bend, Oregon. Three special needs children and their teacher lost their lives to gun violence What have we become when a senseless killing in a school setting does not spark the kind of outrage it did when, in 1999, Columbine was referred to as a massacre? According to sources from Sandy Hook Promise, guns are the leading cause of death for children and teens ages 1-17. Since 1990, 558 people have died and 1172 have been injured in school shootings. Why have we become almost numb to these events? How did this type of thing become so frequent and yet just another news story? Where is the outrage in the call for answers? I'm old enough. that it really wasn't something you even thought about in your school years.

Your parents worried about car crashes and teen pregnancy, but they never really thought about you would go to school and not come home because of a gun-wielding intruder coming to your school to shoot the place up. No wonder our young people are so anxious and suffer from all forms of mental health issues. It's something drilled into their heads at the earliest grades, how to crouch, where to crouch? Teachers are taught to barricade doors and fend off armed intruders. It's absolutely maddening that this is what our society in our country has become. I pray for the families, victims' families, survivors who will never be the same and communities affected by such horrific acts. I pray that first responders who have to respond quickly act decisively and deal with the effects of witnessing these events. Hubley. Thoughts and prayers are clearly not enough to end these senseless tragedies. Thank you.

Thank you, President Mahoney. First two things. First I want to mention that Ward 3, the Wollaston area lost Eileen Rita Fury Moynihan was her maiden name. It states here that she was surrounded by family. She passed on October 16th at her home, and she was 91 years old. I didn't know her personally but I grew up with her daughter Maureen, now Cormackan, and her wife who live actually right down the street from me, not too far. Neither of us left. I really loved how it said that she is from Quincy and Hull. I guess they summer in Hull which I think is like a really cool thing sort of very Quincy So I just wanted to put their family in our thoughts and prayers. And also, just a word or two Actually, not many words because I don't think I can do it.

Mike Berry. So incredible man. I've known him for many years. He lived one door away from my sister Betty who lived on Manitow for 40 something years So we were always down there on a number of different events and just a huge loss to the city, and a great friend. And that's about all I think I can get out.

Councilor DiBona?

Thank you, Madam President. Just want to say thank you to the administration and Mayor Koch for the Quincy Housing Development Corp coming in and purchasing the E&C property. I attended the meeting on Saturday, and it was well-attended and a lot of the abutters, and the people from ward five in the entire city to be honest with you was in limbo didn't know what was going on. And I'm looking forward to positive development in that particular area, affordable housing. The mayor talked about folks that want to downsize their houses and stay in the city of Quincy. They could have possibly a place there on the campus, and the redevelopment preserving the green space and other entities of the particular property. So kudos to the mayor on this one.

and thank you, because folks in Ward 5 abutters were confused. They didn't really know what was gonna happen to that particular property going into the winter season here with the holidays coming soon. And now we have somebody that came and stepped up to the plate, so looking forward to the future and what it brings. Thank you. because a lot of people were very excited to see that happen on the campus the other day and it was, it was very well attended. A lot of clapping so Sometimes you just got to talk about some positive things, and this was a positive step in the right direction. So I'm looking forward to possibly having some input in the future. Thank you.

So we're going to go back now to communications.

Communications. We do have a traffic request to refer to ordinance committee for advertising Ward 3, Councilor Hubley at handicap parking at 94 Wilson Ave. Thank you, is that it?

So motions, orders and resolutions? Not seeing any upcoming meetings. Anybody scheduling any upcoming meeting? Councilor Riley?

Thank you. I've spoken with Councilor Jacobs, and I think we need to schedule another combined finance and oversight committee. I'm hoping that people can check their calendars for October 26th I'll work with the Clerk and see if it's something we can pull off. The purpose would be to maybe just run through everything that's in those two committees, and try to prioritize the ones try to bring forward. We would certainly welcome any additional information that the administration would like to provide on any of these matters prior to that meeting, but I think it would be more of a priority setting exercise.

Okay, so I'm looking for that date on the next Monday.

The 26th?

I think we have to meet every Monday. Councilor Jacobs?

I just want to add that one of the things I hope to have on that agenda is going to be tenant representative to the Quincy Housing Authority. We're still waiting for that signed the letter that's supposed to come from the administration 90 days prior to the nomination. So, that would have been February 1st so January, December sometime back in end of October beginning November 2025 a letter should've been sent out by state, required by state statute. We've asked for that letter many, many times. No letter has been furnished so we need to have that letter or the city administration needs to do the correct thing, send a letter out to the 11 tenant organizations. So that way we can start the 90 day process so then we can bring Mr. Del Carly back before this council and approve him to serve on the Quincy Housing Authority Board for five years?

So there's a couple different things going on up here. So early voting is happening in this chamber next Monday. Oh, OK. But we'll just check. We'll confirm and we'll get it out to everybody if we can make next Monday work, OK? Did you have anything? Ash, anybody else? Okay so any other meetings are going to be scheduled after. So our next meeting is gonna be November 9th at 730. So now I look for a motion to adjourn. Thank you Councilor Ash. Seconded by Councilor Yuan. Thanks everybody.

Thank you for watching!