Quincy City Council: September 15, 2025

GOOD EVENING. CALL THIS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2025, CITY COUNCIL MEETING TO ORDER. MADAM CLERK, PLEASE CALL THE ROLL.

COUNCILOR ASH. PRESIDENT. COUNCILOR CAMPBELL. PRESIDENT. COUNCILOR DEVINE. PRESIDENT. COUNCILOR DiBona. COUNCILOR HARRIS. Council of the A's. Present. Councilor McCarthy. Present. Councilor Minton. Present. President Cain.

Present.

Eight members, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Would everyone please stand and join me for a moment of silence. We've had some crazy political turmoil out there these days. Let us hope that we can find a semblance of balance and peace in our hearts. Please turn to the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, please read the open meeting law.

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

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

Thank you. First item on the agenda.

Honoring of Quincy Access Television.

Great. So I guess it was back in June that Quincy Access Television, our beloved local access television station and operators, they recently won first place in the government meeting coverage category for the Alliance for Community Media Hometown Video Festival. And they received the award back in June. And so the ACM is an organization that's composed of community media centers like QATV across the US. And so apparently the entry, which was put together by Mark Crosby and Jonathan Cleary, who are sitting here with us tonight, it featured the Quincy City Council's meeting of December 2nd, 2024, which featured a presentation, a public hearing, the honoring of Uncle Sam and the regularly scheduled meeting of the city council, which you probably all remember. So we all starred in the award-winning episode that was submitted. um so we're here to honor qatv tonight uh for their achievement and their award uh they do such These guys worked tirelessly to make sure that our community is covered and that communications about different events, this meeting, committee meetings, the hearing meetings, the boards and commissions are covered and that people can have access to this on a regular basis. You guys do yeoman's work and I know that there is a deep bench of talent and volunteers that are out and about on a regular basis making sure that all these events are covered. So thank you very much for your work and thank you for being here tonight. Congratulations on winning this award. We'd love to have you come up on the podium if you want to have a few words.

Mr. President, thank you very much, and counselors, thank you. We certainly appreciate the recognition, and you are correct. The staff at QATV works tirelessly to go out and about in the community to bring government meeting coverage, political coverage, local events, sports, school coverage, whatever it might be, to go out there and bring it to the residents of quincy and also like you said our volunteers they're really the heart and soul of our organization going out there and covering events helping us cover events and also doing event coverage on their own as well to make sure that they can go out and about and again keep the city of quincy informed mark is our government access coordinator and he's in charge of doing all of the government meeting coverage and When he can't be there, such as tonight when Chris Potter is upstairs doing our government coverage, other people step in to do that as well. But I want to let Mark speak a little bit because, again, he's the main coverage of all the meeting coverage and does a great job and has done so for many, many years at QATV.

Thank you, Councillors. Thank you, Council President. One of the things that I really think that is really shows, I suppose, the depth and the The exactness of QATV's coverage is that we cover gavel to gavel. We don't edit. We show, we edit at times to show, to condense a meeting, but we don't edit the initial broadcast. It is the way it is. And I want to say that that meeting that was obviously edited to include what happened that evening showed that. It showed that we show everything that happened that evening. And incidentally, the meeting coverage, yes, the Quincy City Council, the license board, the zoning board. But as Councilor Ash knows recently, the In Your Neighborhood programs, which is basically a news format kind of a news magazine format that was on just moments before this meeting here tonight so i just want to thank you all and it's been a pleasure and i hope to see you all not only in the chamber but back in the studio to kind of continue the government coverage that we were just recognized for so thank you very much thanks mark any of my colleagues scott council camera

Thank you, Mr. President. I have a great appreciation for what they do at Quincy Access. I've known Mark a lot of years. John, I actually coached in football back in the day, lumbering tight end that he was. I would be remiss if we didn't tell the story. It just happened recently. Of course, I'm talking about the sports angle because I really appreciate how it has evolved. If you haven't really watched the sports stuff, it has really taken on a whole new level. It's every sport, possibly, if you call John, he will show up. Two years ago, three years ago, I think we started the Thanksgiving game day where we set up an actual um set and people would come in would have guests coming in and we had a host and co-host and it was it wasn't a question of whether um they were we were going to do it it was how we were going to do it and john stepped in and i think one of the best testaments that he can get was the other night at the revere game The coaching staff came by, and he said, wait a minute, are you the guy that does the pregame for the Thanksgiving Day football game? This was a guy in Revere who saw the pregame and how incredible it was. And that's credit to the whole staff, the volunteers, the elements, all that stuff they deal with, but just the quality of the product. And kudos for you guys. You guys are amazing. and i can't say enough good things truly that was a i think it was a big smile on everybody's face stevie mays and and everybody involved that that it actually took that um extra notice by someone who you wouldn't expect to have noticed but thought it was great so congratulations thanks Councillor campbell president recognized Councillor devon um thank you mr president um

Jonathan, Mark, you guys have done a great job over at QATV. I wanna point out over COVID, you guys have stepped up and did a fantastic job, which is the live streaming has gone up to another level. You know, Betty Campbell for many, many years, and then Jonathan taking over and doing a really good job. So I just wanna thank you for everything you've done over the years. My first start when I was back in 2011, 2012, I was coach of the Quincy Point Panthers, and I was doing videos all the time, and I ran for school committee, and then I'm up here at the council. But you guys helped me with a lot of the videos. The editing was very different back then, so we really had to wait for it to go through real time, where it's a lot different now with the technology upgrades that you guys have had over there. So I just want to thank you for everything you're doing and you're continuing to do. You help us out with all the different things different shows and Mr. Joe Catalano in the morning. So I just want to give a shout out to him and the rest of the crew, part of the gang. They've done just a great job over the years. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. John, Mark, great to see you guys. I know that the specific award is for one of our meetings, and I can commend you both on kind of the showing every aspect of every meeting and every board. I know last week when I couldn't make a meeting, I knew exactly how to get on and how to view it both in real time and right after. And I certainly try to let people know that, because I think it's an underutilized forum, your YouTube channel and the Facebook live stream. And I really want and try to push more people to access meetings that way if they can't make it to them. But that being said, and Mark, you beat me to it, the In Your Neighborhood segments, especially the one that we just did, outside of a live meeting forum, even the editing and those episodes and where you're able to use your skill set, I would assume a little more in your neighborhood segments and going to the different places. adding clips in and certainly like flex that muscle which makes me look a lot better because we get to cover all of the all of the ward two items and then i'm always happy and and surprised and thankful afterwards when i go back and watch it although i hate hearing my own voice i do appreciate you guys going back to the sites and getting real-time footage and blending it all together so it's a nice succinct uh half hour program so congratulations on this award and really your operations in general just it's impressive I would you know certainly recommend any of my colleagues up here that haven't been in a while for a program or sit down or an interview and there are so many different ways for us to utilize QATB so certainly I'm thankful for the opportunity to do that and wish you continued success and congratulations thank you

President recognizes Councilor Minton.

Mark, Jonathan, thanks for all the years that we worked together. We started in 2005, 2020. We did a lot of shows on crime prevention. And I think you know that I got a lot of slack for how to carry a purse safely.

You're a national award winner as well.

Yeah, that was the Frankenstein one, which my kids said never show again.

We'll show it again.

I'm sure you will. All right, thanks again.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a commendation here on behalf of the council that we'll give you. Why don't we take a brief recess? We'll take a picture in the well and we'll celebrate. Take five.

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Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, next item on the agenda, please.

Number 1, 2025-108, an appropriation for $1,230,000 from sewer and drainage rehabilitation to drain and sewer infrastructure improvements.

Joining us this evening is DPW Commissioner Al Grazioso. Al, nice to see you.

Good evening, Mr. President, City Councilors. Joining me this evening is City Engineer Paul Costello and Joe Shea from Granite City Partners. They're here to help with any questions you may have after this presentation. So tonight, we'll be asking for transfer from the Sewer Drain Rehab Fund for sewer drainage projects throughout the city. You see the first slide is something I think you're all familiar with. It just gives a basic DPW, systematically assesses and improves the horizontal infrastructure with an asset management based approach. This tells you what we have in our assets. 1,035 roads are 257 miles, 304 miles of sidewalks, 240 miles of water mains, 208 miles of sewers, 150 miles of drainage system, and 188 outfalls. We have dozens of pumping stations, water tanks, and fixed assets. So there's a lot to maintain around the city. As you know, in the last few years, the mayor's aggressive investment plan, with the support of this council, is improving neighborhoods quickly in a programmatic year-to-year advancement. Asset management approach to coordinate roads, water, sewers, and drains balances replacements with maintenance strategies to extend the life of our assets. Roadways and water mains are funded in omnibus multi-year approvals, and sewer and stormwater, MS4, are funded annually based on annual budgets. Tonight, we will talk about several about sewer and drainage infrastructure improvements throughout the city several immediate construction projects to improve stormwater flow in our brooks and streams added infrastructure for better functioning of our brooks and streams replacing damaged stormwater infrastructure initiating the engineering design of several large-scale future flood prevention projects replacing sewer equipment in our largest pumping stations If approved, the money used to fund these projects will be transferred out of the sewer and drainage rehab account, which all of you know was funded by developers on private projects in the city. The important thing to note is this work will be paid out of this fund, not out of the general fund or not from borrower bonds. The next slide. Just to give you an example, I went back about nine years to talk about all of the projects that the Sewer Drain Rehab Fund has funded. The last nine years alone, we've spent over $16.4 million on all of these projects you see here. We've actually brought in about $20 million into that fund over the last nine years. Again, funded by developers, all funded by developers. So $20 million is really nothing to sneeze at. Some of the projects we have completed, Squanam School Area Drainage Project and the Dorchester Street Outfall Pipe, the Sailors Home Pond Dredging and Drainage Project, Citywide MS4 Outfall Pipe Rebuild and Repairs, the Butler's Pond Drainage and Dredging Project, Tom Brook at Bigelow Street Reconstruction, Manitowoc Seawall Engineering, Langley Circle Drainage and Tide Gate Repair, Adamshaw Seawall, there was a grant match. In 2018, the emergency repairs to seawalls, tide gates, revetment, roads, and sidewalks due to the 2018 March flooding. That was really important because we all know what went on in 2018. We had neighborhoods that were cut off. We needed to make emergency repairs and come up with over $3 million very quickly. We couldn't go to the general fund and DPW doesn't have funds to budget that, but because we have money in the sewer drain rehab fund, we funded those projects. We do sewer contractual emergency repairs. The Broad Street Pump Station. We repaired a section of pipe-supported drainage and piping system at New Breave, Hunt Street, and Kendall Street. We replaced the Sachem Brook outfall. We repaired that. We rebuilt the Rockland Street Bridge. Scott, you're familiar with that? Repair and reconstruction of embankment and protection of sanitary sewer system at Sumac Road and Squanam. the Quincy Point Pump Station Rehab Design, and the East Quantum Street Atlantic Area Sewer Repairs. Again, this was all done in the last nine years, $16.4 million. Just to give you an example, our drain budget for the city on a yearly basis is about 1.6 million. Um, the contractual part of that is about $800,000. So all we have to do, you know, repairs to, to pump stations, tide gates, catch basins, catch basin cleaning. disposal of catch basin cleanings, MS4, emergency work, all of that has to come out of that 800,000. And I think as all of you know, recently we've seen a lot of flooding around the city. And it's probably one of the most, recently it's probably we've had more calls on drainage and flooding than than we've seen in years. Again, in a drain budget with only $806,000 to be able to fix some of those things, it just isn't there. So this is a, it's a fantastic story. You know, $20 million, developers paying into this fund. The individual projects we're gonna talk about tonight, Sherman Street Bog Area Assessment and Improvements, Joe Shay can talk about that. He's done a lot of work in there. Furnacebrook Inlet Great at Quarry Street. The Town Brook Inlet Great at Bigelow Street. Webster Street Drainage Repairs. Councilor Harris has been on us for quite some time Get some of that situation resolved. Fort Square and Deep Rock site repairs. That's our biggest pump station. East Squanam and Huckins intersection and causeway near Victory Road, roadway resiliency. That's the flooding we've been experiencing where Squanam is actually cut off. Again, Councilor Harris has worked with us and the mayor's office to really push this. Blacks Creek Tide Gate, I know that affects several wards throughout the city. We have a lot of issues. We've been trying to get these tide gates permitted for years. Joe can talk about that. Sagamore Creek Tide Gate also up in the Montclair area, which affects Ward 3 and Ward 6. The Sherman-Borg Assessment Improvements, six discharge points into one outlet system to be rebuilt, CCTV internal inspection of Box culvert inlet along Harvard Street, a 36-inch outlet pipe at Belmont and Hobart, the MS4 outfalls, tree pruning and channel reestablishment, access paths and gate for maintenance, debris removal and environmental repairs, and construction contingency, and that budgets for $275,000. The Furnace Brook Inlet Grade at Quarry Street. The inlet before, though, it's roughly the one mile covered at Brook, which is next, we're fixing the grate next to that in the daylighted area east of Bernazzani. To replace it entirely, localized wall repairs to support the new structure, angle grate for easier cleaning, access path and slope repairs, engineering design and construction, DCR coordination, and construction contingency. That's a $300,000 budget. The Town Brook Inlet Grate at Bigelow Street. Again, the inlet before the cross-country granite culvert, which daylights at Elm Street and McGrath Highway. Localized wall repairs to support a new steel structure. Angle grate for easier cleaning. Access easement for adjacent property. Minor repairs to the culvert. Engineering and construction. Construction contingency. That's a $100,000 budget. Webster Street drainage. And we can thank City Engineer Paul Costello, who's done a lot of work on this, working with Councilor Harris on this one. install a new tide gate install two six feet diameter dry wells install four leaching galleys install 25 feet of new 12-inch pipe police detail costs and construction contingency that's a 75 000 budget fort square pump station in deep rock tunnel repairs this is for both drainage and sewer system repairs and improvements We're going to replace a broken drain pipe, which is causing a sinkhole at the Deep Rock Tunnel, align the overflow wall section into the tunnel, replace sewer aeration equipment in Fort Square Station, and clean the existing wet wells and prep for new equipment. This has a $100,000 budget. East Quantum-Huckins Intersection and Causeway near Victory Road. These are two areas that experience frequent coastal flooding. So we want to engineer this to come up with improve the access and evacuation routes, conceptual engineering design, adjacent parcel impact evaluation, construction cost estimates, instead of funding plan and strategy. So we're looking at a couple different options, whether we raise the road lower Huckins or build a type of berm to keep the water out, but all of that, that 180,000 is to engineer this. Next page is a picture of the original Blacks Creek Bridge in the 1940s. Pretty interesting how they moved that. The Black Creek Tide Gates on the Greenbird Bridge, they will help in stormwater retention. It's a stormwater retention base for Furnace Brook. As we know, the park departments use this as their boating program venue. In this, these tide gates will help with the coastal marshes habitat. When we have to close the tide gates completely now, all of those marshes get drained out and we don't get that, as Councilor Mitten would know, living in that area, everything dries out. So Joe can talk to you about some of the permitting requirements. So the gates were installed in 1972. The last major infrastructure upgrade was bid in November of 2000. So the current request is for planning and permitting of three replacement gates, update the engineering, a habitat study and benchmarking, state agency coordination, and set a funding plan and schedule. We're asking for 100,000 in that. The Sagamore Creek tide gate, which affects the Montclair and the North Quincy area and the Atlantic area, we're hoping that will help with some of the State Street complex flooding, Newport Ave extension closures, National Grid substation protection, MBTA track inundation, faster draining of many neighborhoods, at the Atlantic Middle School area, Welcome Young area, and John and Division Streets. So we want to hire a specialized consultant for the planning and permitting of habitat study and benchmarking, updating hydraulic and inundation models, commercial parcel impact evaluation, state agency coordination, and set a funding plan and a schedule. Again, this is another $100,000 budget. So the total of the projects in this request come to $1,230,000. Currently, I think, as the auditor may be able to answer, but I believe we have 3.7 million in that fund as of today. And we are open for questions.

Thank you, Commissioner. You said there's 3.7 million in the fund right now?

So is that... 3.1 madam monitor currently there is 3.1 million in the account right now and the um sorry before i get to my colleagues i just said this online 20 million that um you referenced over the same nine year period that's how much has come in yeah if you right so if you add in the 16.4 and the three point we're roughly somewhere around 20 million dollars and again that's that funding keeps coming as projects get online.

Great. Any of my colleagues have questions, comments?

President recognizes Councilor Harris. Thank you. Thank you very much. Al, first of all, and your folks, thank you. A lot of Ward 6 has been mentioned tonight, and I can't thank you enough because There's nothing worse, you know, when during some of the storms that take place, most of the water that I represented is underwater or can't get out of certain locations. And the first thing that came to my mind was that it's so sad that, as I believe President Cain mentioned earlier about the the atmosphere of what's going on in politics, whether it's above us or at the bottom level that we're at. Basically, we are the ground floor of representing the people. And it's so sad that the negative attention on everything gets from certain media groups, gets the attention instead of all the great work that's coming to fruition here, especially with the appropriation tonight. Sagamore Creek, Victory Road, Atlantic Street, Webster Street, Hawkins, East Guana, Victory Road, Marina Bay, we're talking about all of Ward 6, so I just would hope that my colleagues would, I ask you all, I'd always would, if a ward councillor especially would ask for help, this is important. This is important. This is a no-brainer. And I ask, can I make a motion to approve? And I'd like to make a motion to approve. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councillor Harris. There's a motion on the floor to approve on the motion. The President recognizes Councillor McCarthy.

Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening.

Good evening, Councillor.

Yeah, it's a tremendous amount of work. We've all talked to you about this, you know, and in all due respect to other administrations, a lot of this stuff gets kicked down the road. The can gets kicked and kicked and kicked. I mean, the fund is healthy and is doing the right thing, but the amount of infrastructure work period, even outside of this presentation tonight is, it's all things the city needs. So thank you very much. Can I pinpoint in on a couple of things here? I'm looking at, hang on with me, the town Brook inlet over at Bigelow. And I know that, Councillor Asher, myself and Councilman Minton kind of all merge in that area. But when we talk about this and we talk about the town book inlet, are we talking about the inlet, the culvert on McGrath Highway? I mean, is that in the mix in this?

Not in this particular case.

Right, but that all kind of filters I know that we've had issues in that area. And I know that there's some construction going on there now in regards to a beautiful building that's going up to replace that blighted nursing home that was there. And I just wanted to kind of pinpoint on where this is.

It's actually kind of right behind there. It's right on Bigelow. It's before that you get to that building. Joe may. Joe, do you want to come up? Joe's worked on some of that area.

Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Joseph Shea from Granite City Partners. The great fortune to do a lot of engineering work in the city. Nice to see you, Joe. Thank you. To your question, Councillor, this is the inlet grate behind what most of us recall to be the old Quincy Chamber building on Bigelow, but really near Miller Stiles. And the inlet of Town Brook in this area no longer has a grate to keep debris out of it. So as debris floats in underneath 21 McGrath Highway, floats underneath Washington Street and what many of us think of as Bagnell Auto Supply, although it has a new name, and then it daylights at Elm Street, we're finding a lot of debris is getting snagged on the rocks in the region of Town Brook along McGrath Highway. So we want to keep that debris out, keep that section flowing out to Brackett Street in the ocean, make it as optimal as possible. And an inlet grate of a design similar to the most effective grate we have in the city, which is behind Home Depot and Ward 4 on Center Street, also where Town Brook enters the city will be the same model we designed here and on Quarry Street, the project before this one. The goal is to make sure these underground pipes that cut through our city just flow with water. They don't flow with branches, leaves, debris, the things that can wash in.

Joe, you think that I understand this is going to catch debris. Were we ever thinking, and I guess I'm getting off subject, but to look a little further down, I know we had, there was discussions when that construction was starting that we might have some issues on how the Brook kind of angled by that nursing home. And I didn't know if we were in the ground or getting in the ground, we could try to do something there to straighten the flow, to get out to Town Brook where the old,

cab place was there you know right right there at the um amagrath highway i i guess i'm uh i'm i know this is one piece but i knew that was close and that seemed to be a problem uh no that's a great memory you pay very close attention Councillor so in 2020 the city submitted an application uh to fema under their brick program called building resilient infrastructure to effectively take Town Brook in this section, triple its width, and put it into Bigelow Street, come straight across underneath Bagnell Auto Supply and the Pizza Place, and really take out a lot of zigs and zags and corners and curves that don't assist with the water flowing quickly to the ocean. You are correct. That was a project that we submitted to FEMA. FEMA's review of it is they supported elements of it, but they would not fund it. The project that was submitted, I'm gonna try to recollect that it was in the 30 to 40 million dollar order of magnitude because it required taking houses on Bigelow Street. This, to your question, when the nursing home redevelopment came in before the planning board, we were able to review it and make sure that its layout doesn't foreclose on that future project. So the redeveloper, the Galvans, and their designers were very accommodating to the fact that if that 30 to 40 million project ever comes to fruition, their project does not impede its ability to move forward, which is terrific. They basically future designed their project for our benefit. This is more of a smaller intermediate type project to make sure what we have operates as efficiently as possible.

Yeah, no, it's all good, Joe, and I'm glad we're still on track with the other one because I think the city owned maybe an easement there next to the auto place, the auto parts place. We do. So we were working that. I'm glad we're still working that. Another thing I'm surprised on, Blacks Creek Bridge here. On Morrissey Boulevard, now Quincy Shore Drive. Are you telling me Morrissey Boulevard came all the way? And we came all the way, I had no idea that.

I mean, Al was a kid and swam in these waters in the 40s, but Al will tell you that wasn't Marcy Boulevard. Yeah, Al was a kid. Yes, Marcy Boulevard entered right into Quincy and just kept going.

So leading into that, when we do the Black's Creek project, is that kind of a combo with the state? I mean, how does that?

Very much so.

How does that work? Um, so they got another good one for you after. Okay.

Um, the way that this works is the state owns the bridge, the Greenberg bridge in Quincy shore drive, and is responsible for it. We have tight gates on the state's bridge. So there are tight gates. The control of the water is incredibly important to us because it is the drainage system for ward four and portions of board five. Um, As the Commissioner correctly said, these gates are now 30 years old. They are not the most modern style of gate. They're not a style that allows us to really fine-tune the operation of that marsh. They are like a light switch. Blacks Creek either has all the water or has zero water. Those are our only choices. And when it's full of water, if we get a rainstorm, we run the risk of flooding out Armory and Putnam. Or if we really get hit, That's the reason why Ulrich Road floods out. New gates that are proposed, actually there's a concept picture in your packet, there's not one in the slideshow, but new gates that are proposed would be a vertical style and would allow us to trim the water, to keep the marsh wet but keep the excess water in the ocean. Much more modern style of gate would allow us to operate in a much more modern manner. And the current gates, again, approaching their 30th birthday, when they break, they break closed. So some may remember they were broken for a number of years in the late 90s, and Blacks Creek was just a mudflat for a very long extended period of time. It's time for renewal. This project is listed at a $100,000 budget really to get directionally correct, get a funding strategy and a timeline for a much larger project. in concert with the state, both DCI who owns the bridge, but all of the state agencies who will be stakeholders in the habitat impacts on Blacks Creek. Same philosophy for the next project on Sagamore Creek.

So does the control of those gates, does it control the velocity of the water coming in and out on the tides at all?

It does not right now, nope.

It always comes up and I've thrown it at the state a few times and really haven't got an answer about when it comes out of Blacks Creek, that Marymount Beach, it's kind of a swirling effect and it's eating the beach away on the way it comes out because, and I know it's not us, I know it's the DCR, but trying to get a jetty and trying to get almost a canal type model coming up to get the water so it doesn't swirl in and eat the beach away, which it has been for years. So I didn't know if this was gonna help.

The tide gates are gonna help in the flooding, That's a separate project, Joe. I know Chris may be able to talk to that. The mayor is looking at a possible dredging of that area. So my understanding is they moved the bridge years ago. That used to flow in and out. There was a beach there. The Army Corps did some work. And I don't know if they ever finished the work they were going to do there, which created some issues. One time they put sand on the beach and all that sand ended up on Marymount. So there is some studies going on now about dredging that, dredging that Marymount Beach area. I'm not sure if the tide gates affect that, will affect that. This is more about keeping water in the creek filling those marshes, being able to, they're either shut or they're open. There's no in between. So this would allow water to go in and keep the levels, to control the levels of the water. So if that answers your question.

No, maybe I can ask Mr. Walker through you, Mr. President, just to, if he does have any information on that, because I know we've all, well, I've been asked a few times, I'm sure the mayor has too,

Short through you, Mr. President. As the commissioner mentioned, the mayor's committed to a couple of dredging projects in that area. One specifically out near the yacht clubs to assist in the channel out there. That's a bigger scope. And then one closer to the beach area in this area. And that is in the permitting process. As we speak, we've been fortunate to have some state grant money to assist us in that. Working with the Marymount Beach Association, we're also on the final planning stages of some beach renourishment in that area. As you know, Councilor, that the water comes in and it takes out the sand and it leaves a good deal of a pebbly beach, a rocky pebbly beach. So we're working through the permitting process uh beach re-nourishment at Marymount as well.

Thank you, thank you Mr. Walker and now just one final thing you know I'm looking at the um over the last nine years I I between Broad Street and a lot of the you know Butler Pond um but the big thing with me of course is is the seawall everything we've done down there um especially the drainage because the water is going to come over the wall in a storm, the drainage has improved so much on C Street. And I know we're looking at Manitowoc now. I know we're very close to having something solid to show to the residents down there. So that's a great thing too, because that pretty much, there's a few small sections down there. I'll probably bother you about, but that's a big section down there and that takes care of, Um, that North side and then the, the South side, um, with Edgewater drive is, is really worked out great. And I know that was done a long time ago, so thank you very much. Great job.

Um, city engineer, Paul Costello has been working very closely with Tetra tech on that project. Um, so, you know, we'll be talking shortly on that.

Thank you. Thank president recognizes councilor Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you guys for this presentation. It's really to see the amount of work that gets done with really the amount of limited funds that go into this is incredible. I think I just had a couple of real quick questions on the Fort Square. That's one of those ones where you have one, four, and five coming into it as far as the drainage goes. Obviously that's a major thoroughfare, for lack of a better word, for all of the systems that work throughout. And you mentioned the area down in State Street and all those things there. Are there plans at some point, I know this may be kind of a futuristic type thing, for something of that to end up down there, or is that the four square item, is that unique to the area? I don't know who necessarily that would go to. So I guess the question is, this seems to be working right that's been in in service now for it has to be 25 30 years right and that was an army core project army okay so and i would imagine that you know to solve some of the the drainage that goes on is is are there other areas of the city that they're this is there's a candidate for this type of work for this type of for another like a joe i don't know i mean we have projects but

another pump station like that, that's a deep rock tunnel. That's a multi-million dollar project, Councillor. I mean, as far as State Street, the Tide Gates, eventually that area that road is going to have to be raised over there which would alleviate a lot of that flooding also so we're doing a lot in that area that North Quincy Montclair area we really have been trying to fine-tune that area but there are you know some major elements raising the road would be a huge piece of that and the mayor wants us to study that The tide gates are really critical down there.

Is it, so that, okay, that answered that question. And you also brought up the, just the amount of projects that we're doing here, 16, you know, close to 20 million, I guess, if you add in all of it. So without predicting kind of, you know, the expectation of things, the projects that are being done, is there a percentage, I think, that gets put into this fund and allows us to do it? Can we anticipate what that's gonna be?

Sure, well, so... The Sewer Drain Rehab Fund is funded by developers. So every project in the city, they're required to pay a 1% of the construction cost. So if, say, downtown, someone's putting in a $50 million project, they would pay a half a million dollars, 500,000, 1% into this fund. So the fund is always being replenished. And as we see some of these in most of this is financed through the downtown projects 1% anything over a three-family home Any construction over three family the contractor plays pays 1% the developer So it's it's a great story. It's so positive. I maybe the ledger will write a story about it something positive But it's a great story and Not only that, they also, this is what they, mandatory they have to pay. That's before mitigation, that's before any drainage, sewer work they have to do on that project that we, before we allow that project. Our engineering department goes through all of that to make sure they can handle any water or anything on there. So this is over and above that. It's over and above mitigation. They may agree to pave a road or put a water main. the project down on wentworth street now those two projects they're going to be paying to put in a new water main in wentworth and pave that road these are things that great things that happen through mitigation but um but the sewer drain rehab it's continually being funded so that's great so a lot of the infrastructure is being done by the developers themselves yeah and on top of that we're adding in kind of the drainage so that's great all right great thank you thank you Councilor Campbell uh president recognizes Councilor Devine

Thank you, Mr. President. Commissioner, Mr. Casello, Mr. Shea, as well as Mr. Prendeville, I just want to thank you guys for coming in tonight. This is kind of nuts and bolts of city council work, like the presentation you guys have done. I think one of the major things that I've gotten out of tonight is the preventative measures. We've done a lot of work out there, but we have to have a proactive approach upon floods and all these different measures that are going to happen out there in the city from natural disasters slash mitigation of weather. We don't know. We can't predict it sometimes. And going through the 2018 floods over on Post Island Road, and it went all over the Marymount section, was down in Germantown. It hit in January of 18 as well, so all the areas got hit pretty hard. You guys have done such a good job listening to the different wards and different things in their wards. But I think the major part of all this is the developers going into the private fund and helping out with paying for all these projects. to move the city forward. Infrastructure is very important. You know, it's not called, not sexy. It's underneath, but it has to be done to do the roads and sidewalks. So I know you guys are out there working hard every day. We're gonna try to get this stuff in for another couple months, right, before the winter. So we're hopefully gonna pound away the best you guys can, but I'm in full support of this tonight. And I wanna thank you for your presentation. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Council. I want the President to recognize his Councilor Devine.

Commissioner, thank you very much for coming in, Paul and everyone. While we're still with Councillor Campbell talking about the deep rock there, how long is the deep rock tunnel?

That's a great question, and I'm going to nerd out a little bit here, Councillor.

You can just give me a rough. You can even say where does it start.

It's about a mile long. That's a 12-foot diameter hole behind Star Market. It goes down 180 feet, and then it goes over towards Pond Street. So between Pond Street and Brackett Street, where the skateboard park is, it comes back up. and flows immediately out under Southern Artery to the town river. So it's a 12-foot diameter tunnel. It goes down 180 feet under Quincy Square.

Is any of it over by Columbia Road on the backside there? No?

By Columbia Road.

Over behind Dunkin' Donuts.

Does it not start down there?

No.

Yes, there are two overflow.

I got them. You're very good.

In Town Brook, there are two overflow structures. This overflow structure is the larger one behind Star Market. There is a smaller overflow structure in Ward 4 in front of BJ's, right in front of where Lincoln Memorial Granite was and is now a heritage tree site.

Right, it kind of flanks Columbia and heads down towards Star Market.

It trims off water coming out from behind Braintree and behind Home Depot and actually runs it straight down Bergen Parkway.

Right.

and dumps it into this same location. So it's almost like the introduction chamber to this location.

Like a little tributary.

Very technical term, yes.

Do we ever inspect those? I assume we inspect them a lot?

Twice a year you inspect them.

Um, that's great. Cause I always worry, you know, you used to talk about a 12 foot pipe, but, uh, sometimes sediment and stuff gets in there and all of a sudden it's no longer 12 feet. It's, you know, 10 or nine. Uh, and it's great to hear that it's, uh, inspected. Um, so, well, I guess to get started, I mean, the reason that I know a lot of this, because my house is at Cross and Miller, uh, during the, the big flood where Ulrich road got really destroyed. My house did too. I had six feet of water in my basement. I was able to take a canoe over a six-foot fence in my backyard. So I've watched it closely. So I do have a couple more questions. First, I'd like to say it's unbelievable what Quincy has been doing for the last 15 years that I've watched for flood mitigation. We just keep getting it done. We're getting grants. other funding besides this $16 million that we're talking about here. We're doing so much work on the Burns-Ziney-Culvert area. I was hoping that we could pay attention or we talked about the fact that DCR is in conjunction with us on there and they're working on it and I know you guys work closely with them. I was hoping that we could also get whoever owns the area between Furnace Brook exit on the highway. There's a lot of dead trees there and I've heard that the state doesn't want to put in a what do you call it, the gate there, because it also goes in the culvert where Commissioner Grazioso, I know when a big storm's coming because he has them pulling dead trees and cleaning certain catch basins or parts of the culvert. So as soon as I see you guys out there, I know a storm's coming because you are proactive, like I think Councillor DiBona said. But if we could work on maybe trying to reach out to them to make sure that their dead trees are not falling in and then we're picking it all up. Because we're going to catch it at Barnazani. Just one observation. And then Joyce and Canal, the pump house. I see a lot of money being here. I don't think it would take a lot, but I was hoping that we might be able to get something that would tell us That we have power there, because I think possibly a transformer blew. It's sort of archaic. I know you put a lot, I know you lifted it up and you put in extra pumps and it works really well. But I was hoping we might be able to give a little attention to that too, because it's very important to O'Rourke, Lake Connell, the people that are on the low end of Connell and Alrick Road. And then the Talmbrook Inlet Great on Bigelow. I know it doesn't say anything about affecting Ward 4, but in reality, that's great for Ward 4 too, because the faster Town Brook moves, the better Grossman Street, Kincaid area is gonna drain. So I'm very thankful for all that. Like Councillor Harris said, He sees a lot of Ward 6. Well, I see a lot of Ward 4, too, so we're also thankful for everything that you guys are doing there. Then I'm all over the place. I hope you're catching all this. We can replay it on QATV if we have to, right? At Furnace Ave, Dr. Iorio one time found a old... little creek that was supposed to be added during the highway when the highway was developed and it was never completed and then over the years a some people that own the property that we now own filled it in where we potentially were going to put a furnace a pump station a furnace out So I hope that maybe we can also look into recreating part of that brook, which will help drain some water and possibly make a retention basin there or something.

Absolutely.

It's just another small step. So while we're talking about this, I want to throw it out there. And other than that, I'll let you go. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor. Thanks, Councilor Devine. President recognizes Councilor Minton.

This quick question regarding the Blacks Creek project. What effect is that going to have on the Princess Eve Marsh?

You want to talk about the Princess Eve Marsh? Would affect.

The direct answer is yes, it would. It will have an impact on the Princess Eve Marsh. The Princess Eve Marsh for decades was protected by a separate tide gate on Fenno St. That then came into the very natural pros and cons of tide gates where the Princess Eve Marsh may not have been being flooded because of the tide gate. Therefore, yards on Haviland or Princess Eve or even up to Dickens may have been dry. However, they stayed too dry and then the marsh dried out and habitat impacts occurred. So then the tide gate would be opened and There would be a flushing, a benefit, a fire protection benefit, a habitat benefit, but then a flooding benefit. I believe that tide gate on Fenno Street was put in because Blacks Creek couldn't be fine-tuned. It was either fully empty or fully full or fully empty. Princess Eve Marsh is hydraulically connected, so a new gate system on Blacks Creek will have an impact on Princess Eve Marsh. I think it will have both a flood protection and a habitat benefit impact because we could fine tune what's happening in Princess Eve Marsh. In terms of your constituents, they are the ones who would lean towards flood protection versus the ones who lean towards habitat. I'm not sure we will ever satisfy both of those constituencies at once, but we'll be equipped to do a better job.

Most of the constituents want a healthy marsh. That's the most important thing.

Fair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Minton. President recognizes Councilor Devine.

You can stay up there if you want, Mr. Chair. I forgot, I had another note. Councilor Minton reminded me, talking about Black's Creek. It says here that state agency coordination. Am I correct that I heard rumors that some of the agencies were going back and forth and one would say yes and the other would say no? or is everybody okay? Because if you need the support of the Council, if anybody's giving you a hard time, I'm pretty sure that everybody here will do whatever you need to make sure that those agencies work together. I know we don't have real power, but if you're having any issues, please let us know because This is important for all these communities. I think we saw almost everybody is affected by the Blacks Creek. So I speak for myself, but I think everybody else here would agree that whatever you need from us, we're going to do to make sure that those agencies work properly with you so you can get this done.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We do appreciate that. And yes, there are a number of state agency stakeholders in Blacks Creek from DOT because of the roadway, DCR because of the brook. wetlands and habitat agencies this initiative was engineered many years ago coming out of a 2011 capital improvements plan so the design is solid design has been in place for a while at that point the project that derailed over a winter flounder habitat disagreement that's probably what you're the rumors that you heard you know is a state agency really dug in around For this to happen, the Winter Flounder need to pass through the Greenberg Bridge. And for that to happen, the Greenberg Bridge would need to be fully rebuilt to a natural sand bottom bridge. We are looking to maintain gates and not rebuild bridges. I guess maybe that was a bridge too far to come up with a terrible pun in terms of what they needed from this project. And at that point, the project initiative ceased. but one of the reasons why in your packet and here it says three replacement grates updating the engineering is significant engineering from a technical standpoint has already been approved by the state. Okay. In terms of what that bridge can hold, how it could be fastened. So that state agency component was approved and is in, just needs to be updated. The habitat agency components still need work.

Okay. Well, whatever you need from me, let me know, please.

We may be calling upon you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Councillor Devine. All right, there's a motion on the floor. The president recognizes Councillor.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'll be brief. Commissioner, thank you for the presentation. I have a one. Thank you. Specifically, of course, on the Town Brook attention, there have been a number, and of course, Mr. Shea and Mr. Costello, there have been a number of projects, whether they be the 11 McGrath Highway, which I do know a lot of the constituents and residents over there were happy with the particular details in that project that Mayor Mrakas, lend themselves that lent that lent to themselves to to future town brook remediation and certainly don't not only. Mayor Mrakas, refrain from making the air, the matter worse, but also actually the inverse it seemed that that project in the particular attention and aspects related to the town brook would would help the area. Um, outside of that, there are some other, um, smaller rehab, um, uh, proposals in the area. And that usually, um, helps, uh, the residents tend to look around and see what, what can be fixed, um, when there is a residential proposal or a commercial proposal in their neighborhood. That being said, the proposals that have been brought to my attention or filed with the boards in that area, Bigelow, Miller Style, Elm Street, McGrath Highway, in conjunction with the flooding that we saw in July and August of this year, resulted with those rainstorms and floods hit the area pretty hard behind the Chamber of Commerce on Elm Street. The roads were closed, and the water and the flooding was higher, as I'm told, than a lot of residents have seen over there. So I certainly appreciate the recommendation from Mr. Shea and through DPW to pay some attention to that area. The other area that I wanted to ask about was Independence Ave. independents have is uh a butts ward two and i know that um i certainly saw and and and noticed some flooding over there that i don't ever recall seeing in the past i know we discussed it um and i'm i'm wondering if any of these line items while they don't necessarily um they aren't labeled or cited as independents have if they are geared towards helping that particular area in a roundabout way or if there's another issue over there that we can talk about

Well, I mean, we've spent a lot of time over there catching, checking all our drains, cleaning our drains. This summer we've seen probably more flooding than I've seen in my nine years here. Some of these storms, they happen, the rain comes in so fast, the inundation, and then if you have a high tide at the same time, there's nowhere for the water to go. When the tide goes out, the water goes down. A couple simple things we've seen, some of the issues, maybe not particularly in that neighborhood, but we see some of it down in Montclair. We go and check the catch basins, and the catch basins are clean, but we see debris all on top of the catch basins. It's like a stop in a bathtub, causing the water to pool. And I would just ask any resident listening out there this evening, just check the catch basin in front of your house. If you see debris, clear it. It will help. We have over 9,000 catch basins throughout the city. We're on a three-year cycle. We try to clean 3,000 a year. Actually, we contracted with a company this year based on a low bid, and they signed a contract, and they didn't show up.

Wow.

And city engineer Paul Costello called them and said, hey, you know, if you don't show up, we're going to the second bidder. And that's exactly what we did. And that happened last week. The second bidder was in town today. National Water Main, they've done tremendous work for us. They're on our GIS system. They do everything. They started cleaning catch basins today. So between them and, I mean, we have our in-house system. Catch basic cleaner, but we can't again 3000 a year is a lot and then we try to concentrate on those areas that we know are flood prone. So you know we see a storm coming. We go out, we check. And you know, but we are looking in that area because you are correct, we had. Places that never flood flooded before.

So thank you. President recognized Councilor McCarthy.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. Just to go back to Councillor Campbell and yourself, Commissioner, about the formula, the 1%, a couple of stats here. In 2024, it grew to 1.5 million. In 2025, it grew to 2 million. In fiscal 2026, we're a couple of months in, we're already at 900,000 plus. So it's a great account, it's a great formula with the people that are contributing into it 1% and it's at $900,000 two months in. So I'd love to see it at the end of fiscal 2026, because it's gonna be a lot larger. Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion on the floor from Councilor Harris. Do I have a second? Seconded from Councilor Devine. MADAM CLERK, PLEASE CALL THE ROLL.

COUNCILOR ASH, COUNCILOR CAMPBELL. YES. COUNCILOR DEVINE. YES. COUNCILOR DiBona. YES. COUNCILOR HARRIS. YES. COUNCILOR LIANG. YES. COUNCILOR MCCATHY.

YES.

COUNCILOR MENTON. YES. President Cain. YES. NINE MEMBERS.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU ALL.

THANK YOU, COUNCILORS. APPRECIATE IT.

MADAM CLERK, NEXT ITEM, PLEASE.

Next number two 2025109 order mass general law chapter 140 section 139 C fees for dogs owned by persons age 70 and over.

President recognizes Councilor bone.

Thank you Mr President. Thank you Madam Clerk Crispo Jen Manning as well as solicitor Timmons for helping me out with this ordinance. You know this this first came to me. you know, with the animal shelter, going through the ribbon cutting and the process of opening that beautiful center up there on Quarry Street. I built a lot of great relationships up there before the vote, after the vote, and then just up there over the last, you know, less than a year now. I know Susan, we'd always talk about it over here next to me about the dogs and the cats and all the different things. And then the constituent came to me over the summer and asked me if we could do something to help out seniors. We did some digging and we found out that we could help out some folks. I'd just like to read it in the record just for legal purposes. In Massachusetts, state law allows cities and towns to exempt senior citizens age 70 or older from paying a dog's license fee. It is not a statewide mandate. This means that specific exemptions depends on whether your local municipality has accepted this provision. I'm gonna put it in front of us tonight to allow that to happen so Quincy can be one of them. Massachusetts General Law Chapter 140, Section 139 states that no fee shall be charged for a license for a dog owned by a person aged 70 years or over in a city or a town that accepts this provision. Bringing this in front of my fellow counselors, we're looking to adopt this. Also goes with the ringtone, adopting. Go to the animal shelter, adopt. So we're adopting tonight. If you guys would help me out and support this measure, I'd like to put that in a form of a motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Motion to approve by Councilor DiBona, seconded by Councilor McCarthy on the motion for this highly controversial proposal. Okay, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Ash. Yes. Councilor Campbell. Yes. Councilor Devine. Yes. Councilor DiBona.

Yes.

Councilor Harris. Yes. Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McCarthy. Yes. Councilor Minton.

Yes.

President Cain.

Yes.

Nine members.

Thank you, Councillors. Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Number three, 2025-110 gift for $600 from 2025 DARE. Motion approved.

Motion approved by Councillor McCarthy, seconded by Councillor Campbell. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councillor Ash. Councilor Campbell. Yes. Councilor Devine. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Harris. Yes. Council Liang. Yes. Councilor McCarthy. Yes. Councilor Minton. Yes. President Cain.

Yes.

Eight members.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Next item, please.

Number 4, 2025-111, gift for $1,000 from Capital Waste.

Motion to approve, made by Councilor McCarthy, seconded by Councilor Campbell. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilor Campbell. Yes. Councilor Devine. Yes. Councilor DiBona. Yes. Councilor Harris. Yes. Councilor Liang. Yes. Councilor McCarthy. Yes. Councilor Minton.

Yes.

President Cain.

Yes. Eight members. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. That concludes our regularly scheduled agenda for tonight. Approval of previous meeting minutes. Motion approved, made by Council Liang, seconded by Councilor Campbell. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Ayes have it. Communications and reports from the Mayor and other city officers and city boards. Madam Clerk.

Thank you. I do have a request to refer to Ordinance Committee for Advertising Board for Councilor Devine. Add two stop signs on Pembroke Street and Lurton Street, creating a four-way stop. And I also have a utility request to refer to the Public Works Committee for Schedule and Advertising. Break the location National Grid, General Dunford Drive and Hancock Street to 101 General McConville Way.

Thank you, Madam Clark. Unfinished business and proceeding meeting, seeing none. Reports of committees, seeing none. Presentation of petitions, memorials, and remonstrance. Seeing none. Motions, orders, and resolutions? Seeing none. Scheduling of committee meetings and public hearings. Our next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be Monday, October 6th at 6.30 p.m. Be there or be square. Motion to adjourn may be by Councilor Liang. All those in favor? Those opposed, call this meeting to close at 7.43. Thank you. Have a good night.

Thank you.