Quincy City Council: October 5, 2026

Just name and address for the record, please.

Calvin Fonseca, 55 Monk Street Stoughton. The purpose of this grant of location is due to the new development being built in the area and the two equipment that's currently in the circuit feeding that downtown area. It's in the way, so we have to relocate it to the other side of the property and to do so, we had to reroute cables all the way in that new location So there'll be a small portion of conduit in the sidewalk to kind of reroute to the new location to refeed those two equipments.

Great, thank you. Anybody else here on 2026-130 utility grant of location? Okay, seeing no further public comment I will close this public hearing at 6.31 p.m. Good evening. I'd like to call the Monday, October 5th 635 PM public hearing to order this public hearing is for Council Order 2026-131 grant of location National Grid Bayview Ave and Homestead Ave 2026-131, Utility Grant of Location National Grid Bayview Ave and Homestead Ave. Anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition please come to the podium state your name and address if you do not wish to speak but would like your support our opposition recorded please sign in on the sheet at the back of the chamber. Is anybody here on 2026-131?

Just name an address again for the record, please.

Calvin Fonseca. 55 Monk Street, Stoughton. The purpose for this grant of location there's a pole currently in front of someone's property so we decided to move the pole a few feet away in between property lines it'll be out-of-view for both customers

Thank you, Mr. Fonseca. Anybody else here for 2026-131? Sure. I'm sorry, Mr. Fonseca if you could come back up if you don't mind.

I didn't quite hear what you said it was a poll in front of someone's house?

Yes so currently the poll is kind of in the way one of the customers like garage so he's proposing us to move it a few feet. So we decided to move between two lot lines, so be out the way.

Sorry, I have a question. Richard?

Yes, Councilor Jacobs.

Do you know what the address is of the house? Because we just paved that whole street. Homestead Ave. Right, but it says the intersection of Homestad and Bayview. and Homestead have? It's number 10.

Yeah.

Because we, the city just paved that entire neighborhood like a week ago.

So this work, I did this about during the summertime. So during the recess, so I couldn't put in for a grant location at the time. which is why we're doing it now.

And it's in front of someone's garage?

Yeah, right in front one of the customer's property

Is the work already done, Mr. Fonseca? I mean yeah.

No we need to get approved first before we can even proceed moving the poll.

Do you have any other questions? Councilor Jacobs?

No it's the street behind that. I just need a few minutes sorry.

McKee.

So does this require the street to be torn up again, or is this just sidewalk?

It's on the sidewalk.

Are there any other questions on 2026-131 grant of location, National Grid Bayview and Homestead AFS?

Sorry. I'm looking at it right now. And so you're just moving it a little bit further down like on the property line?

Yeah, like eight feet or so.

Yeah, closer towards Bayview Ave.

If that's going north, yes.

That is going north? Yes. Yes it is.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you. Thank You Mr. Fonseca seeing one last call for any public comment on 2026-131. Seeing no further comment, I will close this public hearing at 638

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to bring the ordinance committee meeting for October 5th to order, 645. Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, Riley, Ryan, Yuan. Chair McKee, present. Okay great thank you so I'm going to 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. So thank you so much for coming, everyone. We are here to discuss setting new raises for the positions of the Mayor and Council.

In June, we undid the raises that had been done in 2024 and 2025. And now we're here to try to set them at a fair Amount using comparable data and including public input. So I just want to say that tonight we're going to, will proceed in a more kind of deliberate way. So tonight we won't be talking about specific amounts, but more the process that we go about setting the raises. I think maybe we'll start with just the methodology, what information we want to collect. What communities are appropriate comparisons and how that information will be presented to the Council and to the public going forward.

So we want to set these amounts, and the goal should be evaluate the office, not the people in the office. So I just want to start by seeing if that makes sense with people? are we okay with first talking about how we're going to do these, the process of setting these raises rather than diving right into numbers. Is that all right with everyone? No? Okay. So the raises that we're talking about would be going into effect in 2028. So, that's what we'll gonna be trying to do is to set something for the Mayor and something for Council in 2028. I wonder if we

We could have that discussion right now, or we could have maybe a little bit later whether we also want to discuss system for incremental raises after that because that was one of the raises Dunne before, starting in the 2030s after the big raises took effect. There were going to be annual raises based on the consumer price index so We've had a long time between raises. Do we want to just take a minute now to discuss whether we want to just focus on 2028 or if we want also think about incremental raises for after that.

Anyone? Hubley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I don't have so much of a preference which way we approach it. I'm very happy to hear that we're going to kind of structure this to set expectations, that we are not going to try and knock this all off on one night, anyone who showed up with that expectation I think it's great to set expectations for the viewers at home, folks who took the time to come out here tonight and for all of our colleagues. I think it makes sense to potentially dive into the data model or like how we're gonna structure that conversation about compensation for the next coming term and then maybe go into and the way it should progress from there. I appreciate that we're going to take a good look at that because I think part of how we got to where we are today has something to do with the lack DeVos, having a routine whether it's check-ins or something that reminds us to address this. You know, Councilor DiBona

has brought the conversation up several times, and just at the time his colleagues weren't ready to take it on. So I appreciate the forethought on all of this. One quick question if you don't mind? We were given some information tonight. I assume we're not going to be diving too much into this. Okay, just wanted to make sure because it wasn't on the website so want to make people knew.

Yeah, no, no.

Okay great that's all I have thank you very much.

Anybody else on that question? Councilor Mahoney? Let's see. Oh, Susan.

So I think the question at hand is right now just the salary raises. And I think once we get through that, we can actually have a second conversation about the Consumer Price Index to see, because I think it's a good idea. But at the same time, I think to take those two things on at the concurrently we might be exhausting ourselves too much. So I think if we focus on the raises first it could potentially be something that we bring up for the next, it could be next in spring or some other time but we can bring it up afterwards once we get through the first half of it. I would say when you get to the consumer price index it should also have some kind of language in it where We're balancing it with the economy. So if the economy is not doing well, we should be able to although the administration has been very well about that too and the budgets are tight they don't take their raises so it's always an option for them but we should probably try to build something in so that it's fair and equitable across the board

Thank you. And just to clarify, what was voted in before was based on the Consumer Price Index. So I'm not saying that we would do that same thing but something that was determined.

Whatever is determined.

That's like Ash.

getting used to the system. OK, yeah.

For you, Madam Chair, thank you. I actually respect President Mahoney's sentiments. I think it would be good to get it all done at once. breaking some of it off and deciding a number now, and then coming back and deciding any potential. If we are going to be putting in guardrails for increases in the future which I think we should be doing because You know, certainly if we can figure it all out now and not have to put that back on a council in the future I think that would be certainly my preference and that's, I know what a lot of our discussions have been over the last year. So I would like to see it all kind of buttoned up at once but I understand the idea to break it out as well.

Thank you Madam Chair, through you. Apologies that was one question I forgot to ask that I had written down which is similar to how we're handling the flock We're having a special night where people can come in and speak in public hearing. Is it our thought that we would do the same for this topic, or would we count on open forum to cover

Um. So that's something that is gonna be part of our discussion tonight about how steps going forward, but my intention and what I put in the order is to have a public hearing specifically for this. But I think it might make sense to do it after we've presented the data and then maybe some analysis as well so that people can come to it and be able to weigh in on various options.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one comment I wanted to clarify because when we've talked about these raises in the past and we did repeal them before we broke for the summer there was an ongoing court case. But I know that on September 30th, there was a final judgment from the Norfolk Superior Court Judge Rosemary Connolly who ruled in favor of the plaintiffs can we just get confirmation that the city is not going to pursue any appeal of that judgment, that it is in fact adjudicated in the Superior Court?

Through you, Madam Chair. I cannot that's a question for the city clerk's office.

OK. We'll try to find that out before the next meeting. Okay, and all right so we have some votes may be in favor of setting the 2028 raises and then a vote in favor handling them both. I think maybe we can, also return to this. It might, as we discuss the raises and what our research finds from other communities that might also bring up some good ideas that we might just be able to knock out. relatively quickly. So, okay. All right so... I think that going forward too, it will make sense

to probably separate out the discussions for the mayor's salary and the council's salary, just because they're very different roles. They'll be using similar data sets, of course from different communities and and then we'll be going through the same kind of process but you know different questions might arise so it might make sense to handle them separately rather than kind of both at the same time. Does that make sense so that we'll just focus on one first and then even potentially in the same meeting, but we could start discussion of another one that will kind of separate them? Any issues with that? Okay. Yeah, because the...

So in our system I'll just do a little overview of city government in Massachusetts anyway. 59 communities have like, a city type government and we're one of those. And the other type is like a town meeting type where basically all of the residents are, the legislators. So in a city type government, like a council tends to be the legislative body and in some communities there's a mayor and a council like here and in some communities there's a manager and the council. And so those, the mayor's discussion would probably be looking at that type of government you know, whether we include different communities that have slightly different ways of running.

And the council legislative and budget responsibilities and oversight Okay, so All right, so we'll have separate discussions focusing on the different roles. The next thing is to talk about Comps, comparable communities. This is where I think the bulk of our work will happen. So, you know population is an obvious We are about 100,000 people. So it would make sense to look at other communities probably that are about that same size but as I was just saying before we have this strong mayor form of government where

the Mayor gets to appoint people, the department heads and proposes the budget and puts people on boards and commissions. the legislature can approve the budget, but doesn't do any hiring or anything like that. In the alternative type of city government in Massachusetts manager, council type. The council actually is sort of the boss of the manager. They hire the manager and they can fire the manager, and the manager reports to the council. So that's a different type of government site I think we might want to be sensitive to that. In this list, which we won't go through I've included you can take a look later at your leisure and we'll put this online.

I've just given some printouts of The Massachusetts Municipal Association has listed communities and what type of government they have. So I've put little check marks next to the ones that are mayor council types. and I've kind of crossed the ones out that I've started looking into. So, these are the ones in Massachusetts but you know there's also of course mayor council types in other states and other um yeah in other States so We can think about government type. So we want to think about what criteria we should have to look at this, so I have some ideas for what these factors might be.

I'll just throw some out, and then maybe if anyone has any additional ideas they can suggest them? Does that sound good? Okay, so population, operating budget, number of employees. form of government, which includes the executive authority and legislative location. from the geographic or economic region, we might have to do factors to convert if there's a much smaller community where the cost of living is cheaper, but we can do that. And whether it's a full-time versus part-time position We can also look at data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. There's legislator salaries. So I just wanna throw it out to you.

Are there any other factors you think we should add to this list of things we're gonna find for these communities that we decide on? DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You can also maybe throw in for the council side is how many councillors per town or city? Yes. Just because I know I believe it's Weymouth, might be 13. And I think Boston has more than us and then more than nine. I think Braintree has nine but they're a lot less in population so I think that's another factor you could probably bring in. Thank you.

Anyone else? Oh, that's me.

Thank you Madam Chair, through you. Yeah thank you Councilor DiBona that's a really good point and I just wanted to kind of expand upon that when you look at Quincy and its population change over the years when it comes to pay increases for the city council. I was focusing primarily on the mayor at the start. Quincy in the past, I want to say 15-20 years has actually grown in population an entire ward and so each ward, each ward councilor has basically one sixth more constituents than we did 15 or so years ago. Which means more calls which means more issues and we have a more complex infrastructure. So I think definitely taking in the population size that we're responsible for responding to is an important factor when looking at the council position. Thank you.

Thank You Anyone else?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I know that compared to the different cities and towns is important. And I also want to just remind the people, all elected officers are public servants So their salaries is not comparable to CEO at the private company, because the role is different. CEOs, if they made a mistake, they can get fired the next day. But elected officers you have to wait until next election. also CEOs, they have to have a specific professional experience in the credentials. But elected officers you just need to get enough votes So that's the difference.

When we consider about salaries, you can't just compare like or the private company CEO get how much and you like have a big budget, it's a bigger population so you get higher. So because that's different roles I just want to remind people of that.

Thank you, that's a good point. Some of us were at the Kennedy Center earlier today getting our flu shots with some state officials and they Some of the public health people were saying that it's hard to get public health nurses because hospitals pay, you know, it's really hard to compete with that. So private sector is definitely more. I would argue, and I don't know if anyone would argue against us but we're not going to look at any CEO salaries. We're gonna stick to city governments, yeah. And I guess I'll just... say it's possible that we could look at other city government types than the ones that have mayor councils. We might want to just weight that differently or mark that differently in the data. I would tend to argue that we should stick, we've got enough of them here to have a good dataset.

I would argue that we should stick to similar as possible to our government structure. Does anyone disagree? No? OK. All right, so I've got population, operating budget, number of employees, form of government, I think we're gonna wanna look at, as I've been doing this research it's actually time consuming and difficult research because Every city budget of every town is written differently in a different format, contains different information. So it actually can be hard to find the data for just like a salary of a mayor or the salary of councilor whatever so sometimes you have to call the office or do an email or something, or sometimes there's other things.

I think we should probably specify the fiscal year 2026 budget when the salaries for Mayor and Council because in some communities outside of Massachusetts, their fiscal years, and possibly inside of Massachusetts. Their fiscal years don't run July, don't start in July like ours do. So are we all okay with starting in FY 2026? Looking at that data so we can kind of compare time as well. Okay the other thing that I would just like to note Oh, I'm sorry. Councilor Hubley.

Thank you Madam Chair. I know from running my first meeting up there it's sometimes hard to see both sides so no offense taken of course. I think if there's a really good comp for other reasons but the data isn't readily available, we could possibly just adjust for inflation looking at previous year's data. So just to have a complete dataset if there is a really compelling Comp, based upon the other factors. The other thing that occurred to me and I'll throw this out just for consideration and maybe we make this a secondary measure but I've worked for different organizations that have different structures and different reporting, and it's largely based around filling in positions with complementary skills. So some CEOs might choose to have a lot more people working for that person, whereas some are more directly involved so

maybe one factor to look at is just the total cost of the executive office itself would be a secondary factor to looked at.

Okay, that's great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, so and I like that. Well maybe we'll go on to this how to do the data but I think we should have a little way to do like an asterisk if we have anything like that for, you know, we couldn't find the data for this year but here's 2025 or something. Okay so we have council salary from the 2026 budget Some communities have a different council president salary, so that might be an interesting thing to look at just to have an area where we note that down. And some councils have stipends that they give to councilors. Sometimes you can find that they'll say certain councils are full-time or part-time,

I was surprised to learn that in our city code, our City Council is officially full-time. So it says 1,820 hours per year which works out to like 5200 Weeks at 35-hour weeks. So it is a full time job according to the code, and some other councils will say whether they have that or not. Boston for example is full time. Somerville is fulltime. So that might be an interesting data point. It might be interesting to know like the staffing of the council office in addition to the size like the body itself. One council I saw had a discretionary budget that they were giving out grants to community members. These are all not things that we'll have, but I'm just throwing out things that there might be like a little area interesting things that we find.

Oh, yeah. And if we want to use another community outside of this area even in another place in Massachusetts that might be very different economically we can use kind of a factor to convert that data. So there's a way to make it more comparable. Okay, so anything else that we can think of that we might want to include? Okay, so that if we're okay with that set of data I think if we... Did you have something?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just forget to say like a private company CEO's job is to earn money for the company but for the public officer for the mayor, his job is not earn money. He just spend the money so how to wisely spend tax dollars' money I think that's important So I don't know if you will add a job performance in the salary consideration or not. How would you propose to do that? I don't know if you do every year or every term, or if you want to add the job performance as a consideration. Or you just don't? don't do it at all.

I guess when we're thinking about comparing Quincy to other communities, As I've found, it's really hard to find some of the basic data. So if you had a suggestion for a number that might be relatively easy to find for these communities We could add that to the consideration. It might be tricky because there's a lot explain behind these things, but we could add it and just see what comes of it.

But what would you suggest? I'm just wondering have you found any example like other city or towns they use this method at Job performance is one factor to see.

I have not, not so far. This is, I think that would be more of the manager, city manager or city town manager position In that case, you know they're hired as a job description certain qualifications and certain requirements. And then they come before the council and they sort of say I've hit this and not that goal, and their job performance is overseen by the council. So I would say probably not for mayor-council. Not for elected officials? Yeah. Thank you. Okay, so now that we have a list. We... Oh did you have something to say? Okay so now then we have the list I think I was thinking how could we do this such that if you can put it all into one single spreadsheet,

that can be shared out to us. So I have spoken with the Council Clerk, and she's willing to work with me on creating a Google form so we can have all these and then whenever we are going to have our next meeting, she can share it with people. So we'll have a deadline to try to get some of this data in and then we can talk about it. So does that sound OK to everyone as a way to sort of, because I was thinking gosh if we email everything it's going to be a pain to have to copy and paste. But if we just have the Google form make sense? All right.

So I have been working on, so as I said there's 59 communities with a city form of government. Many of them have mayor council forms and 15 of them are specifically called Plan A government types which is our type of government, our charter. So I have looked at These communities, I'll have to go back and add data from the list that we just made. But on these handouts, I've kind of crossed out the ones that I've done which doesn't mean that other people can't do those ones. If you're interested, it would be actually probably helpful to cross-check my data. But if we've decided that we're going to do mayor council type government these are all the Mayor Council ones in Massachusetts.

I personally think it might make sense to look at the top few on this list that are most closely similar to Quincy in population size. and I know everyone has different capacity levels. I think we'll have a lot of data, I have some data from outside of Massachusetts as well but if anyone would like to even take just one you can You can either say it now or just do it. And if two people do it, then that's fine and we'll just cross-check it. But does anyone want to take one or even two to kind of do this research and put it into the Google form? Jacobs.

So I assume the ones that are already crossed out, we don't need to do. You'll upload that information?

Yeah, I've done those ones but you're welcome to do those if you want.

So I'll do New Bedford and Lawrence.

New Bedfodd and Lawrence, okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll do Malden and Waltham.

or do Brockton and Framingham?

Let me do Brocktown and the New Bedford.

Did you say Brockton and New Bedford?

Yeah. OK.

I think Richard's doing Brockton, but you can do it too if you want. Lawrence. So we're down to Revere, I think. Revere, and Dowell. You might want to look at this second page on the back of this front page. I put them in order of population. Yes, so I have so far me for Boston Springfield. Ash for Brockton, me for Quincy and Lynn, you for New Bedford and Lawrence.

Me for Fall River, me from Newton-Somerville, Councilor Ash Framingham, me Ryan, Malden and Waltham.

So then I just go in like a revere? Revere, okay. and Towton, Weymouth Yeah, it's going to take you a lot longer than you think. I know. OK, thank you.

If you go to the second page of this handout. We're down to Chicopee, Peabody, McSoon. I'm never sure if I'm saying these right.

So what's left? Everett and I don't know, Fitchburg.

Okay.

You'll let us know what we have to do, right?

Yes, I will. It'll be a Google form so you'll just fill it out with as much as you can some of it yeah might be hard Do you have the sources of information that we're supposed to or just trying to find it on their town website city websites? We'll talk about that in a second

Yeah. I didn't know there was going to be homework, Maggie.

I know. I'm sorry. And if you don't get to all of the ones you've committed to it's OK. I think typically salary studies don't have this many things, but who doesn't love data? So let's see if we can do it. I think it's also just an interesting It's just an interesting activity or thing to do, to learn about other communities and how they work. Okay so does anyone on this side want to do anything?

Okay, oh yes.

We still have Chicopee... Oh I'm sorry. Pick Chickpea, Peabody, Methuen?

Yeah, I'll do Chicopea, Peebee and Methuen.

and Councilor DiBona, did you want to do anything? You don't have to.

I would like to throw a little wrench in this. And I'd like to take a look at Cambridge as a different form of government but there's six councillors. I mean, there's nine counsellors on there they have about 122,000 population. But the way they run their government is they have nine council members for every two years appoint one of the council members as the mayor, but they have a city form like it's like a town manager type of thing. County Cork which is in Ireland does that too. They have 50 counselors and they appoint one mayor every year to run that. They've come here and the council, we have a great networking division with them Mr. Walker can tell you a lot about that, we still have a good relationship with them but I think we should also include Cambridge because a lot of these towns and cities you're talking about, cities? They are a lot less in population than us

Yes, these are all ones that are Mayor Council systems. So that one's a little bit different and I think we might put it in a slightly different category, but it's okay. We can include it and just sort of deal with that.

I'd just say it's a little different form of government, but you're only looking at... on your list there's only Brockton, Springfield and Boston that has more of a population than us. So I would assume it's a lot of these communities their salaries are going to be a lot less because they're just less population That's true. And as our city has grown over the years, I see it being a little different.

Yeah.

Okay.

Beyond this list, I would say probably will be most helpful to compare mayor council governments. If you found any, you could find some in New Hampshire or wherever you want to look of larger cities as well. DiBona, you had Cambridge? Okay. All right. That's great. So I've done Newton, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've the ones that are crossed out because they're all plan A. OK. All right. Exactly. If you can't sleep, you can do more.

It might help you sleep. Okay so now you had asked Councilor Riley about what kind of data and that's a good thing to talk about too because as I said, every city is different. I'm kind of shocked that some of them don't seem to have these and others. Thank you, Chair. Yes, I think one community I found is in like a state act for some reason. Maybe that was a home rule petition and I'm not sure how that got there but so I think I think we should try to verify it through primary sources, so not to avoid news stories or something like that or AI. you know, find the source and link to the source or include the source.

Maybe we can create like a Google Drive as well in case people can just email things the Council Clerk and she can upload them so we can check. So some places you might find things, these salary lines are municipal budgets ordinances some cities put their payroll records online. Some of these are in city charters or see codes, some of them are on city websites. I've called departments and done records requests, and again you'll probably not find all this data but as much as we can find for any one of them does that sound good so that we stick to it and I would say if we don't have a number, maybe we'll have some way of putting an asterisk if it's not the latest FY2026 or something.

if you really can't get anything, just skip it. We'll have enough data so better to do that than to put something we're not sure about and if you see two different sources I think we should flag it until we can determine which is correct some other way. Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. So then moving forward, so we'll have this one single spreadsheet with all of these numbers. I think it would make sense to send that out at the next opportunity. So, the Council Clerk will be the only one who has access to the spreadsheet at first and then when it becomes public, we'll get it. We can have a short meeting to maybe go over some of that data and anything that we thought was interesting or if we had any questions about it

and then at a future meeting, we can each go home with that data I'm going to run this so you don't have to do it, but again everyone's welcome to do

Yeah, thank you Madam Chair through you. It's kind of occurred to me that some of the cities we look at might actually be in a similar situation that we've been in And so I think it's worth noting or having a footnote, per se, as to what's their mechanism for determining pay increases. Have they maybe not addressed in 10 years either? and so much like if we're gathering 2024 data, we can adjust for inflation. Likewise, we could do for a municipality that hasn't addressed this issue much like we had for many years. I think that's the only way we're really going to get apples for apples, or as close to that as possible. Otherwise it's like apples and ironing boards or something.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think you might find some interesting things just with different communities. I'm like oh well that's how they do that. That is really kind of cool so Yes, I will add that if there's any other interesting things that you find or if there is a way they do determine future raises. Okay and Councilor Yuan?

Thank you Madam Chair. So I'm just wondering, so seems each councillors pick up several cities to try to analyze. I think we probably should also invite residents who are interested do some analysis. and they can submit their report to city council. You maybe can tell usually from which factors affect, just like you tell city councilors how to run this analysis. You can also tell the residents so whoever interested they can do their research, do the analysis and submit their reports. I think we also need to listen to residents say.

Yes, so I think when we have this spreadsheet, we will definitely share it with the public and we will share it ourselves. We can each go back and run whatever analysis we would like to run. I think that we have to be careful with ourselves not to share that until, you know, the analysis part, the data we can share and then we can talk briefly about at a meeting. We'll have to do the analysis at a public...we'll discuss our analysis at and I think the spreadsheet will be out there for the public so if they want to do their own analysis, they're welcome to email it to us, and we will also again as we've said have a public hearing so people can in addition to emailing it briefly describe if they found something interesting.

I think that's a good, my preferred way of doing it but if other people have other ideas. Yeah?

Just a quick thank you Marlencia I'm wondering, like for public hearing for these periods should we do it as soon as possible? So because usually when you have a public hearing people are informed, more people know that and so more people can get involved to start doing research then submit report. So I saw that it's doing early, then doing late after we already did the report. Then we have a hearing .

OK, I think we should talk about that one because that's an interesting idea whether to do whether to get the data and then just have a public hearing at that point, and then do the analysis including the public hearing. and then do the setting of the ordinance or to do the analysis discussion, and then have a public hearing to allow people to kind of weigh in on our various ideas. So I'd actually really like to hear what people have to say. Oh, 730, okay. All right, we have to open the city council meeting. So can we come back? We'll recess for a minute and then we will not take too much more time.

Thank you.

I'm going to call the city council meeting October 5th, 730 to order. Could you call the roll?

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

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

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

Madam Clerk, will 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 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 deemed acknowledged impermissible.

Thank you. Okay. So before the agenda starts tonight, we have a couple of honors that we want to present this evening. And I'm going to start and say it up here because my voice isn't caring but I want to speak directly to people I'm talking to so good evening. I would like to take a few moments to recognize a very special connection between the city of Quincy and the Republic of Sierra Leone. Recently, we had the privilege of gathering at the United First Parish Church the Church of the Presidents, and reflecting on President John Quincy Adams' courageous role in the Amistad case. In his defense of the Mendi people of Sierra Leone before the United States Supreme Court that gathering was meaningful not only because of where we were standing, but because of the history that still leans today. History does not live in buildings, artifacts, documents or lineage. History travels with us. It connects us and it humanizes us. Its lessons belong to all of us

When we can stand together under one roof and reflect on the enormous differences made by those who came before us, we're reminded about the courage that was not only limited geographically. Their actions were not only important to the people of the United States, they reached across the ocean and affected lives of many people they had never met. More than 180 years later, history has brought Quincy and Sierra Leone together again. That's what makes this connection so powerful. We are not simply remembering history, we're continuing it. Tonight we are honored to have with us Special Envoy Dr. Breema Rogers, who is representing Sierra Leone and will generously accept recognitions on behalf of His Excellency President Julius Matabeo, Her Excellancy Lee, Dr. Fatima Mada Beyo, First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone and His Excellency Ambassador Amara Sheikh Mohammed Soa. The first recognition is for the President Beyo. I'm going to come up here now.

I'm gonna move now.

You're very welcome. So the first one is for... I'm going to mess this up now, so hold on for one second. The first one is for His Excellency, Julius Matapbio President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Office of the President of Sierra Leon. The Quincy City Council is proud to honor his historic connection between Quincy and Sierra León and recognize President John Quincy Adams' courageous defense of the Mende people of Sierra Leone. Helping secure their freedom before the United States Supreme Court in 1841, held in the United States First Parish, the resting place of the President Adams and his first lady Louisa Catherine Adams. At this gathering celebrated a history of courage, freedom, an enduring pursuit of justice The City of Quincy extends its warmest welcome to His Excellency President Julius Mata, his wife and the ambassador as well.

Celebrates this meaningful connection between our communities so we have this for you And we have a similar one for Her Excellency Dr. Fatima Mada Beyo, the First Lady of the Republic. This was her second trip. I just want to make sure I'm mentioning this. This was the First Lady's second visit to the City of Quincy and we were delighted to welcome her back. We certainly hope it will not be her last, and she is always welcomed with a warm heart here in Quincy. and in recognition of the Ambassador Soa, with thanks for helping strengthen our relationships between Sierra Leone and the City of Quincy. And finally... Dr. Rogers, it was a pleasure to meet you and I appreciate the fact that you personally helped bring our two very important groups of people together. We want to thank you for being here tonight in representing Sierra Leone and for helping carry this relationship forward. Please bring our warmest, warmest regards back to President Biot, First Lady, First lady Imad Biot and Ambassador Sola.

And I also want to say We look forward to welcoming you always back to the city of Quincy and perhaps next time instead of everyone traveling to Quincy, some of us may have the opportunity to travel to visit you. So I thank you very much and welcome. No, you have it.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening city of Quincy. Good evening City Council at large. It's a privilege for me to stand in front of you that history repeats itself. The individual we're talking about, Shane B. Pierce which is pronounced in Spanish La Amistad The language they speak there is me. I speak the same language with the President, His Excellency. When he was coming here he asked me, Dr. Rogers is there any possibility this hidden Bible I can come and see it? Who am I to say no? I tried my possible best with the museum and I met Annie Mahoney.

Thank you very much for making it possible for me to even be here today, tonight. It was a very busy, busy time and I have to stay behind to receive this on behalf of the President, and the people of Sierra Leone. We are very grateful for what Quincy Adams did for us If it was not Quincy Adams, we wouldn't be talking about history. He did his possible best. The case went as far as Supreme Court He released us. We were free, but we told him we want to go back home and he make it possible. So why do you think we're gonna forget about the city of Quincy? We will not, so I'm here with a message from His Excellency

that he want to extend special relationship between Sierra Leone and the city of Quincy. Because if it was not Quincy, I wouldn't be standing here. We'll be talking about something else. By me giving him this, there's going to be a surprise. And City of Quincy, you surprised me. We're going to surprise you in a very good way. We do have a lot of Sierra Leoneans, even in Quincy here. But when he asked me to do this confused and difficult job we came to find out There are more Sierra Leoneans going to be coming here in the city of Quincy to see that Bible. And I even have, I was so impressed, Saint-Pierre when he was arrested

He wrote this. It's in that Bible, and this is 180 years ago. Even my great-great grandfather were not born by the time. but I have it in my hand. So why should I forget about this history? I'm gonna take this message to His Excellency, his wife, she had been here twice In fact, it was a challenge. His Excellency said, well you've been there one time I want to go back myself and see it. Thank you very much the city of Quincy. The mayor was there He saw it, he touched it, and read it. He was satisfied. So thank you very much City of Quincy with all this Politica, brilliant people I'm talking to tonight. I'm out of words. But we're going to create a new history like you said.

We're gonna continue. Don't be surprised if we're gonna bring the president again for something else within the city of Quincy. So thank you very much, City Councilors, politicians, citizens of Quincie Most of you are not there, but this is what Quincy did for some of us. So history have been established. It's not gonna be erased. We're just going to continue it. Thank you very much for your gestalt. Thank you, the city of Quincy and the mayor. Thank You.

We're going to take a quick recess just to get some pictures.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're going to call the meeting back to order. And at this point, I'm going to recognize Councilor Ash for recognizing the White Cane Awareness Month.

Thank you, Madam President. I wanted to take a moment and speak about White Cane Awareness Month for some of those who may not be privy to what it means but also to highlight some of the initiatives, I think in the city that we're moving forward with and recognition of White Cane Awareness Month. White Cane Awareness Month is a month dedicated to honoring the blind community and utilizing and recognizing the white cane as a symbol of independence, and as a of those hearing impaired individuals being able to show that they are, you know, of course transgressed through the city and certainly used that cane as a symbol of independence, safety, empowerment. and for the blind community.

But citywide, I wanted to take a moment as well when we look at a lot of the infrastructure problems, issues, discussions were highlighting at the same time ADA accessibility. And I think that is very important to note at the council level So if I am tasked or if I look into with former Commissioner Grennan and certainly Director, Ali Luff now in charge of the traffic department. If we look at an intersection for mobility issues or if the walk time seems to be off or if it's too long. And those, part of that work and the haul of getting all of those reviews done is recognizing the blind and visually impaired communities. And bringing all of these intersections back up so that

you hear say things that we take for granted like the chirp when you're pressing a button to be able to cross the street. So I do know, I've spoken with and certainly represented on a number of issues and those who may have visual impairments or be blind in my neighborhood. And I know that this is a very important month to that community, and I really just wanted to take a moment and recognize that certain organizations like the Lions Club, The Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. There is a low and visually impaired support group that meets at the four of a clubhouse. And if any of those, if you know people affected with loss of vision or visually impaired certainly reach out and connect them with some of those organizations if they're not already connected.

But the White Cane Awareness Month is recognized every October, and White Canes Awareness Day is October 15th. So I did want to take a moment, and if you or anyone that you know could benefit from a vision screening the Lions Club should have screenings every so often. So please reach out to the Lions club.

Thank you. Moving on, Councilor Ash again for recognizing Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and I wanted to highlight DOVE specifically. DOVE as many of my colleagues know stands for domestic violence ended they are based in Quincy the only Norfolk County based domestic violence awareness organization. working for victims to end partner and domestic violence in Quincy and surrounding areas. Over the years, they have helped adults Elders, seniors, teens, children abused and all of those abused emotionally financially physically or sexually. Dove does incredible work. There are a number of different drives and fundraisers this month to highlight their work in and around the community. The Four River Bridge was on,

on Saturday the 3rd and Friday the 30th lit up purple for DoVE in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. and they have their annual Harvesting Hope Gala is on October 30th. It's the Friday night before Halloween at the Blue Hills Country Club they will celebrate 50 years of service in 2028. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you very much, Councilor Ash. So we're moving on to the open forum portion of the evening. Just want to remind people when they come up if they could state their name Address, and city that they live in. Obviously it's going to be the City of Quincy when we start and we're gonna have a three-minute tops and when I ask you or get close to your three minutes I'll give you a warning and then if we continue we'll have to shut it off. I know you know all the rules, so thank you very much. We're going to start with Maria Mulligan Hi, Maria.

Can you hear me? All right. Maria Mulligan, 21 Winthrop Ave. I'm independent, not representing any group. Bear with me while I share a few thoughts about the potential design opportunities at Nickerson Squaw Rock Park. One of the most distinctive features of the park is the great lawn that overlooks the ocean to the east. On that lawn, I imagine the members of the tribe performing their rituals as they note on their website. As stated ritual dance drum rattles song and rites of passage all enable the present day Massachusetts tribe to transfer the knowledge of their ancestors to succeeding generations. We have an oral tradition of storytelling just as our ancestors did.

That passes on the Massachusetts worldview of how the world works, our relationship with all of nature and why things are the way they are. I mentioned in the community meeting that to my eye, the current size of The Great Long is not large enough for this statue and these dance rituals. More open space is needed to enhance the functionality and aesthetics of that lawn for the tribe. So why aren't we contemplating expanding that great lawn? to the members of the administration, let's meet up on Friday 11 o'clock October 9th. Let me show you how magnificent that lawn could be if it was much, much larger.

Once you see it, it will be a no-brainer. I hope you'll join me will only take an hour of your time. I'll have coffee and munchkins. And don't worry, this is not a standout. It's not a protest. No media will be there. I just want to show you what I see and imagine what could be Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next up we have Gail Callahan

Hello, Gail Callahan 437 Quarry Street Quincy. Okay so we have talked about Tom Clasby endlessly endlessly, over and over and again. And quite frankly I think enough we have plenty of other things that you have to do. You've got to move on to try to figure out the race situation, the city at large your budgets and all of that. This is a done deal over and done with he's in jail it's enough. I am tired of hearing it. Last week we had a reference that the mayor, that Tom Clasby served as the best man in the mayor's wedding. He wasn't even at the wedding, never mind best man and yet that was stated to the public. We don't need that. I mean if you want to talk about specific things maybe, but innuendo it has no place. It really doesn't so I think getting rid of that would be great.

I think that we had our person in charge of POs did in fact call New York did check with the state of New York to make sure that the company that they were dealing with was a vetted company, and it was. And it had a number. What more could they have done? Would you have wanted them to drive to New York So I really think that should be done. Granite links, another one. I don't really mind you wanting to have an updated budget. I think that's fine. but going back 20 years from before the mayor was even there, I don't see any need for that. Go for five years, that's fine, go back, check in I know that Deb had asked for information, got 151 pages. Not all of it was easy to understand and I think made good effort trying to go through it and figure it out and all that kind of stuff. That's fine. Do that but at the end of the day, sometimes the answers are just the answers.

And so do your audit, get it over and done with, and then can we please be done with Granite Links once and for all? That would be wonderful. Raises, I do believe in the raises but I always say that anyways. I think you all work hard even though I don't agree with many of you most of the time. I do belief that you work hard so I'm good with that. I'm go with the Mayor. I agree that you should be using these cities use that. One final thing, I want to praise the Quincy Sun You do a great job. The Quincy son is very, he tells the good, the bad and the ugly. So the ledger does their thing and that's great but we don't always hear everything for the ledgers. select things, whereas I have to say with the sun they tell us everything whether we want to hear it or not. So we appreciate that. Thank you very much. Next up Mary Travers

How we're pitting it against each other. Mary Travers, 148 Presidents Lane and Quincy Well well well Halloween is certainly coming because last week I watched a witch hunt in this very chamber. And it's not that there were any gotcha moments with the presentation of actual facts as concrete evidence, No, it was full of innuendo and a Councillor herself said on camera gossip. Not research, not facts, gossip. Thank you, Mr. Walker and Mr. Timmons for defending the mayor and city employees so vehemently against some not-so-hidden allegations. I have no idea where the Councilor got her script or facts from but for someone who prides himself in doing research, you certainly did not do it last week. you dropped the ball, kicked it out of bounds and hit a cheerleader square in the face with it.

I guess from your standpoint which truthfully I never understand, it probably doesn't matter but what does matter is the audacity to use a private moment, like a wedding that happened over 30 years ago when you most likely didn't even live here and then pull it into the muck and mire that was that farce of a meeting. talk about setting the bar low and then digging a trench to get right under it. I'll give you another example of how severe false accusations can be, three people that work for a local town's DPW have been arrested in the last three months. So does that also mean someone that works for that town's administration had something to do with attempts to cover it up? Of course, it absolutely does not. Absolutely and unequivocally no because you cannot control nor are you responsible for another person's behavior

this council must leave the past behind, move into that here and now and onto the future. Every one of us in this city needs to work on positive changes to improve the future of Quincy. I love this city. I have lived here 57 years. I may not agree on everything that happens, but dammit Quincy is a thousand percent better than it ever has been and that is because of Mayor Koch and his administration Thank you. Thank John Darrow.

Hank Dondero, 65 man and a half. The neck. For those of you that don't know where the neck is I'm sure most of you do, but take a ride down there. You might find it interesting. I want to speak to the proposal that Noel brought up last week about possibly having the open forum very focused on strictly what the agenda is for City Council meeting. As an open forum, we have an opportunity to speak our minds whether it's good bad or otherwise. If I want to come up here and talk about the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence There's no bearing on anything this council is doing. I will because it's my goddamn right, number one. Number two, I won't resort to the vernacular but

Situation developed over the weekend where a person, I won't name her name but a person was verbally attacked we'll say. Here and there's son based upon certain things that go on within this council and certain members within this Council. There's a very, very simple phrase that Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Well, something's rotten in this city council and it extends beyond just the individuals that are here it extends beyond just some of their followers. It extends beyond and includes a lot of the nonsense that's been going on in places like Reddit, under false names Now listen, folks. If some of your followers are willing to say it, put a face to it.

Put a name to it Let them come up here on the City Council and address you folks And let them address us Why not? Is there a problem with that? I don't see a problem with it, but I'm sure a lot of people do. At one point in time A comment was made on a text message about my body disappearing. Well, it's pretty obvious I'm still here and is pretty obvious. I haven't committed suicide or nobody has wiped me out but again this is the kind of crap that goes on fostered by this council, certain members. It isn't appreciated. It's well beneath you and it's well, well beneath the city of Quincy to have to deal with this stuff. That's all I have to say other than three letters, and it's not W-F but it's E-N-C. Remember that in November 2027. James Dunn

Good evening. James Dunn, 167 Babcock Street. I'm just may be following up with Hank, with this nonsense, with everything online and everything. If I get a problem with you, I'm gonna meet you eye to eye Okay, no Facebook. I wouldn't know how to go on Facebook if that officer held his gun in my hand. Okay, Facebook Marketplace to buy stuff. I made a pamphlet here. This is one of your councilors putting the permit from the Nickerson Post that Manor Contracting bid on put up the bid bond, contracted, got all the proper paperwork and we demoed the building. I really don't care about opinions, people's personal thoughts.

I was hired for a contract and I fulfilled that contract someone that's sitting in this room up on that head tonight, come up to me the day we were taking it down. She asked me if there was any asbestos in the building or anything because she looked at up on the portal and said she saw no paperwork. And I very graciously took up my phone, and I showed her the copy of the building permit which is posted right here, which she put online Okay? She said, okay. And then she progressed to say I thought I put the kibosh on that purchase order. Good luck getting paid. Those were the words, and I very graciously, because most people know me.

You don't want to back into a corner with me, okay? I very graciously told her I don't really care. I'm very blessed, which I am thank you Lord. I am very blessed. I have 13 grandchildren I can look at myself in the mirror every day and say that I didn't hurt anybody. And if I did, I will look you in the eye! make amends to it, but I don't appreciate someone putting my permit with my son. I built the company and gave it to my son My son at eight o'clock at night is out in Watertown with a broken water pipe blowing 80 feet in the air. If he learned anything from me, his work ethics and also his giving.

We give more money away to the city of Quincy very quietly than we do for work in this city of Quincey. be it the elderly, Boy Scouts, any amount of them. I know my time's up but This disturbs me that someone's trying to smear my son's name. Maybe you didn't do it purposely, but it's not going away!

Bill Zamzo.

Thank you for your time.

That was my third time calling, Bill Zamzow.

Good evening, councillors. Lively evening. Tonight begins consideration of raises for the mayor and yourselves. First up you should ignore any beggarly calls for a raise from Mayor Koch by law except in this unique situation. He's the only one who can propose a raise and Long did not propose one until he commissioned a bank job of a compensation study. The proposal raised to $275,000 to $395,00 a year that relied on the views of city managers and private sector employee salaries as comparables. So what if those are entirely different sorts of jobs? Voters railed over the mayor's original proposal for an 89%, subsequent 89% raise, and most of you were elected because of it. And the court has spoken to it. Elected office is public service and thus not a career even though some

such as arguably been the case in Quincy in recent decades. Be sure to also notice that the Office of Mayor comes with all manner of unique non-stipendary perks and powers, as such, consider Mayor Wu's recent lesser raise of $250,000. A raise which she did not seek Austin has seven times the population of Quincy. I'm not suggesting that the mayor of Quincey be paid around $36,000 a year Rather, the currently proposed mayoral salary increase should be somewhere between $183,000 in the ballot petition and the Mayor's counter of $225,000. It's reasonable The 183,000 reflects a roughly 2% raise by rank and file employees since the last mayoral race. And 225 tracks with the concurrent 3% average rate of inflation. At the same time, please note that indexing...

So that's your range. You can talk all you want about metrics and everything else but you've got a $40,000 range that you should morally abide by At the same time, please note that any indexing set raises that have been discussed would clearly appear to violate state law. Granted, promulgating a policy statement on raises for the future is possible but future raises must be proposed by the mayor and then duly considered by this body. Additionally, there's Chapter 17A of the city charter. 17A calls for a vote of locals to approve mayoral races and council races. opinion to the contrary of the city solicitor notwithstanding. Given the city's solicitors' woeful record on revising this council and on other matters, allow me to suggest a simple solution. and seek an advisory opinion on 17A by a Superior Court Judge. This is a very simple, easy and inexpensive way to do stuff. Thank you. Thank You, Jake Bell.

Helen Shiner?

Good evening, my name is Helen Shiner. I live at 23 Copley Street I want to just start out talking about the comment that we started out with, talking about raises. Evaluate the office and not the person in the office. I also ask you evaluate our city. Population doesn't necessarily equate to the effort necessary to run a successful growing city. The community should be considered active and vibrant community has more expectations than a dormant one. When you're looking at some of the other cities and towns that fall within that 15 count that Councilor McKee provided, and you may have to go outside I'm really curious to know how you're going to be able to make that factor. What's the factor? How are we going to determine that you're not going to include a Form A form of government in your consideration? I think it's important for us to know that.

but I really think it's important that the people here and you yourselves know Quincy is a special place. We have a lot of things going on here from economic development to growth to a substantial sense of community here. When you're comparing these cities and towns for compensation for the mayor, and maybe potentially for the councilors, I ask you to consider those things too. I can tell you over the last probably seven to 10 days, I have been in the same place as the Mayor on three different occasions and they were 14 hour days. starting at 7 a.m., ending at 9, 10 o'clock at night and that's appreciation of our citizens in different organizations, anniversaries that are being celebrated. We need to make sure that we compensate the position so that we don't lower our expectations of citizens. The citizens enjoy that engagement, the citizens appreciate having an active and involved mayor. And I ask you to seriously consider the cities and towns. We're hearing places like Methuen probably a great place to live.

It's not Quincy. I ask you to consider that what is going on in those cities and towns, especially the cities, what's going on those towns and how comparable are they to Quincy? We want leadership that's able to handle both our current and our future. Thank you.

Hi, good evening. Good evening. I'm here to respond to the argument for keeping the city's automated license plate reader or ALPR program in order to keep our community safe. Now, I understand the emotion behind the argument. Violent crime is real and the urgency to prevent it is real but we need to separate what feels protective from what actually protects us. The police chief has cited a few anecdotes to support the ALPR program that are weak to alarming. In a 2022 road rage incident, ALPRs identified a suspect quickly but an arrest came days later Public records show witness statements and victim testimony did the work, not ALPRs. In the Wollaston Station sexual assault case, MBTA surveillance video helped solve that crime quickly. ALPR's rules surfaced three days later after the case was solved.

Most troubling is the case on Quincy's transparency portal. The police pulled a citizen's ALPR driving history based on an ex-partner suspicion. The portal called this a success because the person was cleared, but I call it a warning A system that tracks on suspicion is a system that can be misused. City leadership credits ALPRs with solving crimes that its traditional police work would have solved anyway, while exposing residents to documented misuse. Officers stalking ex-partners and monitoring ordinary citizens without cause. The Mayor has called such concerns overblown, and with respect his response did not match the seriousness of this issue. Residents asked about oversight data access and accountability were not being alarmist We deserve answers to real problems police departments across the state and the country have grappled with.

Now, crime happens with or without aggressive surveillance and sadly there's no such thing as zero crime Effective alternatives to constant surveillance already exist in Quincy too. programs like ward officers, mental health conditions Narcan access and NCIC and silver alerts. These target people in real danger without surveilling everyone else that Quincy's crime rate is average and Massachusetts is safer than much of the United States. Aggressive surveillance doesn't prevent crime, it just means everyone gets surveilled. With all this in mind, I'm asking you to listen carefully to the speakers and evidence during tomorrow's Flock ALPR hearing. And consider ending Quincy's program. Thank you. Thank You

Christopher.

High, Zachary Christopher, 67 Montclair Ave., Quincy Massachusetts Ward 3 doing a great job as always. Same with the rest of the council. On that note, you guys do deserve a raise. Last I checked and I'm no expert the city council is back to the old salary, right? Which was around $30,000 or you guys at the 45 number. It's a mix. It is a mix? Yeah. Wonderful. Anyway, you should be at like around 60K because anything less is sort of pushing what you can sustain in the city. I make like 57K annually as a mechanic, I definitely don't do as much for society as you guys do.

You guys keep this city running, I just keep cars on the road. Why are you making less than me for doing all of this? Importantly, whatever we decide according to the city charter section 17A just like a little sentence right at the end of that fat paragraph it does say that all decisions on mayoral and council raises are to be put to a general election by the people at the next regularly scheduled election. So we're going to have great discussions. I would propose a solution like DiBona said, Cambridge is doing great work in improving democracy. One of their programs that they just started is, what did they call it?

The Cambridge Civic Assembly. most of the council about it, I believe. A great program where they send out interest forms and you reply and you get added to a lottery to be selected to attend a series of meetings regarding a topic, random sampling of the population. To deliberate on important policy decisions before putting it to a public vote very great system and they even had like $1,000 stipends for attendees and childcare and interpretation services. All great things because the people deserve more power in the city The mayor's been doing his work, but I do think the people deserve more. It is by our hands that this city is built. You guys are just guiding us. Thank you.

Thank you, Sue Doherty.

Hi, I'm Sue Daugherty, 922 C Street. And I want to thank you Councilor Asch for mentioning the white cane month. I didn't know about that and that's going to be helpful Jacobs for checking the streetlights in Housenac. That's like really something I've been concerned about over the years when I walk at night sometimes, these long stretches with no street lights and I saw you say the other day in one year emails, I think that you've been checking that. So thank you. But I did want to also just thank you guys in general for working on so many issues that need to be addressed in Quincy We do need to fix past issues and problems. That's part of being a leader, you can't just ignore things and move on without making sure that things are tied up. And I know with Clasby, I just want to mention like I think that the idea of just making sure the money goes back to the elder services, that'll tie it up and then everyone can move on.

And you have to finish the work. So, but I want to talk about the raises. I totally support implementing thoughtful approach for fair raises and thinking of city employees like our educators they end up in negotiations, they're fighting for one two three percent raises every three years That was one reason why I was really personally appalled as an educator at the proposed raises for the council and the mayor before. And when I did the math on those, for what the teachers got for their tenures that the mayor had gone without a raise. It came to around $187,000 if we had actually taken the same percentages forward each year. and I think teachers should get more than two or three percent a year, and mayors should get less than 87%. There's gotta be in the middle ground there. So again, thank you to all the people in the city, the City Council who've worked so hard to rescind those crazy high raises and now the next step is what do we do?

and maybe you come up with a system that would be helpful for referring to in negotiations with other city workers because you negotiate with the fire, the police, the teachers. I know that's not your role but well I think you do maybe with the police and fire but now at the school committee do with the teachers. But whatever you come up with, have public hearing, discuss, vote on and as Zachary just mentioned it would be great to have voters vote on it if that is in the city charter and I do wanna just make a note that if there's any way to do something retroactively for the mayor and councilors who did not get raises for the period of time, that all this has been under dispute. If there's a way for you to consider doing that, I don't know how you would do that in the budget, if you could put that in As a unionist, I believe that would be fair for everyone because right now people have been going without raises for several years now. I don't know if you got to keep the money. I dunno how that worked over the last few years if it just rescinds going forward.

So, I'm thinking retroactive pay and I don't know if that even makes sense so I'm gonna stop right there but thank you.

Thank you. So that closes the open forum portion of this evening. It was back there, so Jocelyn I'll let you come up and then

Hello, Jocelyn Sedney. I live at 85 Monroe Road in Quincy and I'm going to address a topic that is not on the agenda today but it will be on the Agenda in the future but it requires some work now so that you're all prepared, I hope to address this when you do. This deals with the residential tax rate I propose and I suggest that this council adopt a policy that's followed by over 25 or 20 cities, towns and municipalities in the state. And give an exemption a residential tax exemption for single family properties and perhaps two-family properties. These cities and towns find a way to give relief to single family properties. And it's important because some people might not realize that there are big commercial enterprises in this city, such as Fox Rock, that has thousands of apartments

and they are taxed at the same residential tax rate that we as homeowners are tax-taxed at. Now, they have to be as I understand it, as a matter of law. But there is a way to protect individuals and these cities and towns have found the way to do that and they have factors that this city council can adopt. For instance, the properties would have to be owner occupied only via primary residence it would exempt not the whole property, but a portion of the property value and the City Council can establish what that is. For instance if you have a $750,000 house or valued by the city at 750,000 maybe 500 would be exempt and you would pay the residential tax rate on the $250,000. Now some people are going to say we can't possibly afford that because we need that money from everybody where you can

give us the exemption and you can raise the residential tax rate that these commercial entities are paying. I don't mind paying an increased residential tax on 250,000 I don't want to pay it on $750,000. So there's a solution out there that requires study it requires some effort by the City Council. I actually spoke about this last year when a tax rate was being addressed and of course nothing happened I'm asking that you all look at this because the citizens of Quincy, the individual property owners need some tax relief. Let us have the relief and make the big commercial property owners who have multiple thousands, over a thousand properties or apartments that Fox Rock has paying the same residential tax rate as us. Thank you.

So I'm going to let you come up, but I'm terribly sorry. This has to be the last one because you have to sign in. That's the new rules. Jocelyn, it was in the back of the room so just letting you know.

I appreciate this very much. I'm a new resident in city of Quincy, relatively new. I moved from Providence in 2017 I currently reside at 21 Kemper Street.

Could you give us your name and address, please?

Oh, to address 21 Kemper Street.

Name?

Oh, sorry, David White.

Thank you.

Yeah, 21 Kempert Street. I appreciate the City of Quincy very much. I really enjoy living here and I must say this is exciting for me to talk to the city council eye-to-eye. I wanted to express my displeasure, however, with the installation of flock cameras in the city. I do not believe that one, looking at the crime rates in this city, we need such invasive measures to keep the city safe. I do appreciate what the city policemen do for us, keep us safe. I am concerned about our civil liberties more than that. I think the possibility of misuse is very high for these cameras and for misuse. Being told that we can trust the city or the policeman is one thing I just am very skeptical, especially in this city where our mayor

seems to have ignored the rights of separation of church and state by spending city money on statues, and now having them sitting God knows where in some storage. Perhaps that money could be used to give you raises? but no, it's sitting in the form of statues. For a city that does not understand the basic principles of our civil liberties I do not trust this city with the information gathered on fly flock cameras. I enjoy this city. I'm sure that I will live here many, many years. I hope to maybe be buried in one of your graveyards but I'm very concerned about my civil liberties being abused by the installation of these cameras. It's good for your consideration, thank you very much. Thank you.

With that we're going to close open forum Before we go on to the rest of the agenda, I'm going to give Susan, Councilor Yuan a moment to speak.

Thank you, Madam President. Through you, Madame President, Madame Committee Clerk, I would like to read my full statement into record and I'm going to submit a copy. First, I want to apologize that I made an inaccurate statement at last Tuesday's meeting that Thomas Clesby was the best man at Mayor Coe's wedding. I should have double checked the information before stating it. This is my mistake, I take this sentence back. but the best man or not, it does not change the fact I wanted to state. Thomas Clesby's long-term

close friendship with Mayor Tomskow, which Clesby often touted made the employees too scared to report his stealing for 10 years. Here is the government memorandum regarding sentencing as to Thomas F. Clesby Jr., I quote, Clasby had no shame flaunting his theft among the Kennedy Center employees because he knew they would be too scared of his relationship with Mayor Koch to report him. Here is the Federal Court Transcript. I quote, There was additional testimony that a various woman who worked at the Kennedy Center tried for 10 years to get him to stop taking the petty cash or the cash that was coming in.

They kept the cash in locked desk drawers and filing cabinets, and they moved it around their offices to try to keep it out of his hand. But he persisted. pathetic workplace culture that intimidate city employees into silence for 10 years where this theft was happening right in their face is abhorrent. Who has apologized to these employees who suffered? Where was the oversight? Was there any board overseeing the elder service department where Class B was the director? or was the mayor directly responsible for overseeing the department?

Susan, we're going to stop now because I'm just going to put in a hole.

The failure of oversight was so extreme Susan, I'm going to stop.

We're gonna move on okay?

Okay we'll stay wait for the... Ramascha.

Number two on the agenda, 2026-133 ordinance establishing a rolling five year capital improvement plan.

Councilor Yuen?

So in May this year, I had an order requesting the administration to provide a two-year capital improvement plan. At first we were told they didn't have one Then finally, a draft was provided. but for the size of our city, for so many projects going on and for the city's massive nearly two billion dollar debt I believe we very much need a plan. Residents in the City Council should have an idea of what the administration is planning to do with taxpayers' money. Without a plan, we just learn about one project at a time and then ask the city council to approve the borrowing for one project that time. It's like driving 60 miles an hour without a map, without knowing where you are going to end up.

Do you have enough gas? Can you afford to buy enough gas to get to the destination you want to reach? We don't want to drive with our eyes covered. Maybe the administration does have a plan. If it does, then please provide it to the city council and the residents. No surprise, please! So this ordinance establishing a rolling five-year capital improvement plan. I just read the second part. Now therefore be it ordained that the city council of the City of Quincy as follows, Section 1, Rolling Five-Year Capital Improvement Plan. The Mayor shall submit to the City Council a rolling five year capital improvement plan no later than February first of each year.

The first plan shall be submitted no later than February 1, 2027 and shall cover fiscal year 2028 through 2032. The plan shall identify the capital projects, capital improvements the city anticipate undertaking during the five-year period. regardless of funding source and shall include for each project the anticipated cost, timing in the founding source including municipal bonds or other borrowing, grants, city funds, revolving funds. and others. The plan shall be revised and extended annually to update the status of projects, and add an additional fiscal year to the five-year planning horizon.

The plan shall be submitted to the City Council and made available to the public Section 2, effective date. This ordinance shall take effect upon passage in the publication as required by law. So this plan is... So in Massachusetts, it's around more than 20 municipal government have this kind of five years Capital Improvement Plan, such as Boston, Newton, Framingham, Salem, Cambridge, and for the city, I just said Quincy if we want to develop it responsibly, we should have a plan.

So in the other cities, some are much more sophisticated than this. simple sample so we can city councilors can discuss like if you want to add something or one thing I think about in this ordinance I didn't put any enforcement in it. If the city don't submit it then what? So I think city councilors can discuss that too. And I would like to hear my colleagues' opinions. Are you going to be referring this to committee? Yeah. I'm making motion to refer it to the finance committee. The finance or the ordinance committee? OK.

ORDINANCE COMMITTEE? SO COUNCILMEMBER MADE A MOTION TO REFER TO ORDNANCE. DO WE HAVE A SECOND? ANYTHING ON THE MOTIO?

So we may be both ordinance and finance?

It would go into ordinance. We're going to refer it to ordinance, and then we have a second by Councilor Riley. Does anybody have anything on the motion? DiBona.

Thank you, Madam President. Just to elaborate a little bit about sophistication with the word we've had a capital improvement plan installed. In 2016, when I first came onto the council in 2017, we rolled out a capital-improvement plan and we did an inventory through all different departments, police fire schools public buildings the whole nine yards unfortunately in march of 2020 we got hit with covid and we prioritized a lot of the projects that were top priorities. Now, we would come in with different capital improvement plans and different items like the $100 million roads and sidewalks and different you make it sound like we've never had a capital improvement plan. We have no sophistication here in the city, we have and the City Council has deliberated about it. I've walked in different fire stations and gone through different items that we had to

particularly do at different stages of the time. So to not say that the administration or even prior councils did not deliberate on these type of things is to be a little far-fetched, so I'm looking forward to obviously having a new capital improvement plan, obviously or a revised version but we have done stuff over the years. Public buildings especially Commissioner Heinz will come in every year and do a spot check on every single school in the city of Quincy, and all the public buildings which is a lot. So I just want to say it's not only the administration's previous City Councillors have worked together on prioritizing what we think is important for the city. But to say that the administration or the previous councils have never had it, we have. and I'm sure we'll have more, but this is a new council. And we're in month nine, 10 now. but I will look forward to that.

But to say the administration hasn't come to the council with it is a little far-fetched because we did 16 and 17, and economics, you talk about economics very different back then than it is today You look at gas prices, they're soaring off the roof. Interest rates just hit like I think 7.375 on the home mortgages. So things have altered. I mean you're looking at $4 a gallon for gas Groceries are off the roof. We've done a pretty good job up to this far, considering all the different things that have come in front of us so I'll be happy to support this but at the end of the day I just want to let you know I don't know if you were here in 2016 or 17 when we first rolled it out from previous councils, but I'm sure that we can talk more about this. But just to let you give you a little history lesson for the last 10 years, thank you.

Anybody else on the motion? I'm going to speak if I can. So, I appreciate what Councilor DiBona is saying and I appreciate We did have, and I was on the council when we had a capital improvement plan. But I think where some of the frustrations coming from maybe some of newer councillors is that when asking for these things they're not receiving it and although we had something back in 2017, and because of COVID things got moved around. We're now in 2026. We are in fiscal year 27. We do have to start looking to have more formality when we're doing these types of things to understand what's happening. So I think the initiative of what this five-year capital improvement plan is, is just to get us back on track. To be able to see what our priorities are in the city so that we can be transparent with people who are looking for those things to be taken care of and so we can understand where those bonds are being spent and how these things are doing. I supported it, and I will continue to support all the work that we're doing as well. So with that, I think are we going to take a motion to vote?

You want to speak? Yeah. We're going to be quick though, Susan. Go ahead.

Thanks, Madam President. and through you Madam President. So I would like to ask Councilor DiBona, is there any ordinance in place to add enforcement like the administration? has to submit a five-year capital improvement plan. Because I asked in May, but they said that they don't have it so the purpose of this is set this as the law so that administration will follow it every year, rolling like a five-year capital plan. That's my purpose.

So Councilor Yuen, I'm going to stop the debate back and forth as we put this into ordinance. And it's been seconded. All those in favor? Aye. OK. Moving on.

3, 2026-134 resolved regarding the City of Quincy's Noise Control Advisory Board. Councilor Ashton?

Through you. Thank you Madam. Thank you, Madam President. I will read this and then I'll kind of give a brief overview of what I'm trying to accomplish with this resolve and then I will move to have it referred to, I believe oversight would be... Oversight or public works but oversight may be the best Committee for it. So 2026-134, order regarding the City of Quincy's Noise Control Advisory Board whereas Chapter 215 entitled Noise of the City of Quincy Code was amended and or restated in 2010, whereas at this time the city adopted and or instituted a noise control advisory board. the Board, whereas The Board has been signed into law to advise the Mayor, Director of Inspectional Services, City Council and Planning Board on noise control issues including administration and enforcement of the chapter.

whereas the board consists of seven members, including one chairperson and one vice-chairperson appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council. whereas the board must meet at the call of the chairperson as required to perform its duties, but not less than once each quarter and a majority of the members of the board constitutes a quorum for transacting business. whereas no later than March 1st of each year, the Chairperson of the Board must report to the Director of Inspectional Services, the Mayor, the City Council and the Planning Board on activities and actions the Noise Control Advisory Board took during the previous calendar year. whereas over the last 10 plus years, the city of Quincy has experienced one of the most transformative construction booms in its history resulting in a significant increase in residents and the overall population. whereas in recent years there has been a noticeable uptick in excessive speeding, drag racing and loud vehicle noises.

whereas excessive speeding, drag racing and loud vehicle noises led to a summer 2026 pilot program that closed Wampatuck Road and Chickatawbit Roads within the Blue Hills Reservation in Quincy on the weekends. whereas nearby municipalities have recently amended their respective laws and our legislative authority to enhance precautions related to, and or to prohibit high noise outputs near residences. whereas nearby municipalities have recently amended their respective laws and legislative authority to include restrictions on vehicles with modified exhaust systems and or muffler cutouts or bypasses, and whereas nearby municipalities have recently approved appropriations for noise cameras and or increased police presence in problem areas. Now, therefore be it resolved that the administration including but not limited to the Noise Control Advisory Board, the Quincy Police Department and the Inspectional Services Department review and present recent considerations issues complaints and suggested remedies.

Therefore, now therefore be it resolved that the administration including but not limited to the Noise Control Advisory Board, the Quincy Police Department and the Inspectional Services Department review and consider benefits of adopting or changing current measures to address the adverse effects these issues have on our residents' quality of life. therefore be it further resolved that this review should include financial and environmental concerns for all residents, any or all contractors, and also the city's first responders. So this is very... Constituent-based. I hear, I'm sure you all hear about noise and speeding constantly. If it's...I have Southern Artery, Quincy Ave., Washington Street but I don't think it's even specific to emergency arteries. I think some of you are hearing it, speeding on side roads is unacceptable we all have to deal with some level of that in a city of our population.

I've never heard the noise that comes out of these vehicles like I have the last couple of years, maybe I just am in tune now more than because obviously I'm a representative but The noise is really out of control. So I did do a little bit of research and try to figure out the best way to move this forward, and look at some remedies or implementations what other cities and towns are doing. A number of constituents I've discussed this with at varying levels over the last few years, We do have a noise control advisory board. If that board has met recently, then I'd love to see what's come of those meetings. If the board hasn't met recently then maybe we can reconvene with some players, just because I know something has to be done. And with all the respect to the state legislation, said the pilot program for Blue Hills was a success.

I just don't want to see that problem pushed out now into our neighborhoods and our areas in our wards, I can do all the spot checks at different places and talk to the chief, and they're great about patrol. But if we can look at citywide, I really think it would benefit some of or most of our residents. So I would like to make a motion to move this into oversight.

Excellent, so we have a motion move this in oversight. Do we have second? Second by Councilor Riley on the motion.

I would just like to add another category in that excessive noise, and that's excessive dog barking. because actually I've had calls from family with regards to dogs barking in the middle of the night. after the noise ordinance ends and they can't recognize where it's coming from, which home. And there are at least three or four dogs in the neighborhood and it does not help with their rest, and it doesn't help with the quality of life. That's it, thank you.

Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. All right, moving on.

and number four. Next is number 4, 2026-135. Resolve ordering requesting a review of the city's website usage and navigation requirements for popular online municipal services. Hubley.

Thank you, Madam President through you. So I'm going to waive my own reading because this is very dry and just explain it at a high level so In our previous and first municipal technology meeting, we did a review to understand what were the top reasons why constituents come into our office or phone in, and how many of those popular needs are available on the website. And through that meeting we determined that most of them were, the city has done a great job at surfacing and making available online transactions for things that are very popular to do in person. so people who prefer to do business online can. And actually in that discussion, Councilor Riley pointed out something where I kind of thought we were gonna go next which is Navicability. So I think this resolution is asking probably the IT department

to explore options for being able to give actually quantitative reports on how frequently people use our online services and which services they use, and how long it would take you to navigate to those surfaces to ensure that the website is structured in such a way that things are easy to find, and things that are popular are easily surfaced. I did make a mistake earlier last week when I submitted this Resolution, there was an email that came back to me asking if I wanted to share it for additional sponsorship and I didn't reply to that which is why. There's no one else I imagine tagging onto this one so my apologies. I was at a required all in-person employee meeting So in short, this has just asked the administration to explore reporting options so we can see actual quantifiable data that comes from the website itself and to look at how navigable the website is. to look for, consider improvements. So that's an explanation of the resolution.

So I'm looking to refer this to municipal tech and happy to hear anyone on the motion.

Okay, so it's being referred to Municipal Tech. Is there a second? Councilor Ryan is seconded. Did you want to talk about it? Okay. Does anybody wanna talk on the motion? Council Riley.

Thank you, Madam President. Yes I really appreciate your bringing this forward, Councilor Hubley. I believe when we had the Munitech meeting, this was almost exactly what I had brought forward as a comment that I think we have a lot of good functionality. I think there's a lot things that can be done through the city website, but they're not easily navigatable. I need to put things on the homepage that how to pay a bill, how to report a street light out which will save all of us a few extra calls and probably make the treasurer collector's job a little bit easier if people can easily find how to those bills online. I fully support this. I hope we can find some suggestions that we can give to our technology people to make the website a little bit more navigatable, so thank you for bringing this forward All right. So all those in favor? Aye.

Excellent.

Okay, moving on to number five. 2026136 Resolve Quincy Center Station in Long-Term Redevelopment.

I'm going to wait for the reading because I have a very bad tickle in my throat. So this resolve is intended to give the council and the public an update, and a clear record on what is happening at the Quincy Center since the parking garage closed in 2012. What progress has been made, what has been moved forward and what is the long-term plan? There have been a number of proposals the planning efforts over the years while the city has also had substantial investments throughout the downtown Quincy. The MBTA's current capital investment plan now includes approximately 96 million dollars associated with project P1165 at Quincy Center. So I think it's important that we understand exactly what the work includes and how it fits into the larger development of the station area. The resolve is asking for a chronological review beginning in 2012, including the major plan studies approvals funding commitments and what's been completed, what has advanced, and what the scope is of the current MBTA investment. And with specific next steps responsible priorities milestones anticipated timeline.

The purpose is really very simple. After 14 years, I would like the council and the public to have a clear understanding of where we have been, where we are today, and what the plan is going forward. I would also like to ask maybe for a member, be taken up in oversight. Maybe have representatives of the MBTA, MassDOT, MBTA Advisory Board and the Mayor's Administration to invite the proper people to participate. This is not about relitigating the past. It's really about establishing the record for making sure we understand what happens next. So at this point, I'd like to ask to refer this to the Oversight Committee. Okay, so motion to move is seconded by David Jacobs. On the motion? Nothing on the motion. All those in favor? Aye.

Number six, 2026-137, a resolve seeking restitution on the Tom Clasby case.

Before we go on, were we supposed to do a roll call on the MBTA?

did you want it to pass or did you wanna refer it?

We're referring it. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, so number six, resolve seeking restitution of Tom Clasby. This is to Councilor Jacobs.

Hi, yes. So thank you for letting me speak about this. We spoke about this at the oversight committee hearing last week. Basically, what this resolution is asking for is basically we are aware that there's $136,000 in restitution coming to the way of the city by way I don't know if it's Parekh or the Quincy Retirement Board, but by way of retirement. So $136,000 is according to what was said by the, I believe the auditor at the last meeting has still not arrived here. But from emails that I have gotten and things that people have said here up in front of the council, it seems like there's a pretty good

understanding that people want this money to go directly back to the seniors and not into the general fund. So what I'm really asking for is for you to support this as I do think it is what the people of Quincy want, and most notably I would like it when the City Council be notified when restitution payments are received so that we don't have to ask to find out it was received, but we are told when it comes in. and that we be shown where those funds have been added to the Council on Aging Department. So I'm gonna ask for a vote to pass this and send it onto the Mayor at this time, thank you.

Okay, so we have a motion to approve this and move it onto the Mayor. Second? Are you seconding or on the motion? On the motion. Do we have a second before we go on to the motion? Councillor Riley seconds it and Councilor Hubley.

Yeah, thank you Madam President. So as written I'd like to offer a friendly amendment As written, the money of restitution would be directed to the Council on Aging department budget which as we all know is something that needs to be used within a fiscal year. I'd like to offer a friendly amendment to have that read instead of Council of Aging Department budget, the council on aging gift account. which was established years ago under Commonwealth Chapter 44, Section 53A. It's a revolving account where fees and donations go that can be utilized over time, which allows the department head Jacobs, which allows the department head to use the money at a pace that makes sense for the organization.

So friendly amendment on the table? Second.

Councilor Jacobs? Yeah, thank you. And I was actually told that this had been written before that so and I've forgotten that I wanted to add that. So yeah the gift account is where we want it to go

So we have a motion on the table to accept with the friendly amendment to put it into the gift account? Yep, so. Is that okay? Okay, and we had a second by Councilor Riley. Can we have roll call vote in this one? Councilor Ash. Oh sorry, Council UN has a question.

Thank you Madam President. I have a comment on this So I think this is very good first step to trying to make up for the damage. Tom Culespie did to the senior department, senior service department, the senior people. And I want to say people working in that department, when they every day go to work and watch this theft happening right in their face, and they still dare not to speak up. Try to imagine how they feel

That's damage to their feeling, damage it to their dignity. Who has come out to apologize to these employees who suffered all these years? And these kind of things happen right in the hometown. of Quincy Adams, and the John Quincy Adam who had fought so hard to protect individual citizens from abuse and the suppression of government in this country. This case, this intimidating working environment can last for 10 years.

That's really bring a huge shame to the hometown of Quincy Adams, and John Quincy Adam. And I want to say where was the oversight Was there any board overseeing the Health Service Department where Clasby was the director? Or was the mayor directly responsible for overseeing that department? the failure of oversight was so extreme that this theft could happen opening in front of employees for 10 years. and this intimidating working environment could last for 10 years. This is a problem of leadership, this is a problems oversight.

Thank you Susan we have an order on the table, we have a friendly amendment and we're gonna take a roll call vote okay?

Thank you. Roll call vote.

Councilor DiBona? Yes. Council Hubley? Yes, Council Jacobs? Yes Council McKee? Yes Ryan, Councilor Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes. All right. Moving on to? Seven. 2026-138, a gift for $1,800 from various donors today.

Motion to approve, and you can send a letter. Thank you.

Motion by Councilor DiBona to approve to send a letters seconded by Counciler Riley. Others in favor? A roll call vote, sorry.

Councilor Ash. Chips, Councilor McKee, Counciler Riley, Council Ryan, Council Yuan, President Mahoney, nine members.

Okay, moving on to approval of previous minutes. September 22nd, 2026 City Council Meeting and September 29th the Joint Finance and Oversight Meetings. Motion to approve. Motion approved by Councillor DiBona, seconded by Councillor Jacobs. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You guys have it? All right. At this point, we're going to stop the council meeting and return to ordinance because we didn't do that at the beginning of last week. So we're gonna go back to ordinance and then we'll come back and finish, okay?

Thank you.

returning to the ordinance committee. Okay, so we won't stay... We'll wrap it up pretty quickly I think. We had left off where Councilor Yuan had discussed, so I had discussed possibly getting the data and then doing our own analysis presenting that analysis. and then having a public hearing. Should we move the public hearing after the data is finished and publicized? What do people think? So it would be so we give the data on this Google form to We fill it in, give it to the Google form and then the council clerk sends it out.

And then Council Yuan is suggesting that we then have a public hearing and then talk about whatever analysis we do on the data. The alternative is to get the data do our own analysis, discuss the analysis and then have a public hearing. So it's sort of whether or not people in the public will receive just the data or whether they will see what we sort of if we run any numbers on it or something like that, or say here's the average or whatever before they have a chance to comment. So should they comment at the data stage or after the analysis stage? Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that it's the work of the committee to do that sort of number crunching and come up with recommendations, and then we can certainly take the public's comment but I think that the work of the committee should be to crunch all the numbers and make a recommendation as to what salaries and increases would be going forward, but that's just my perspective.

I'm just going to give Councilor Ash a second.

through you, Madam Chair. I think if we have... If this Google form is completed, if we were just to use it as an exhibit, if you will, and then schedule a public hearing in an ordinance committee. I mean, I think we would have to have a public caring anyway if we're having this discussion in ordinance you could probably do it the same night but contemporaneously, I guess. So if the information's out there we haven't discussed it yet but the information is attached to the agenda or to the body of whatever document we're working off of, I think that probably accomplishes both

Yes, so I think it's just whether we... So we might have a couple of more meetings on this. take the data when it comes in and sort of respond to it, address any questions. That could be a fairly short meeting probably. and then I guess you're saying that we could do it at the, then do this hearing or do the hearing and then have the data discuss the data but the alternative is to do the after the second meeting where we discuss whatever analysis we do. Do you see what I mean? Do you have a preference on that or are you...

I think they can be done on the same night. If, if the data is put together and we're having a public comment period to discuss it and then have comment, we may be back to the drawing board again. Okay, so if we were to have the data out there in regular course of business and just have the public hearing and then the deliberations and if that's continued to a second public hearing, more deliberations then I guess so be it. That would be my recommendation.

So we have to have a public hearing for the ordinance, whatever we come up with. So it sounds like we'll probably have to have two public hearings. I was not realizing that. So actually, yeah. We might have maybe two short public hearings Sorry, this is all uncharted territory for me. So let me just hear from some folks that we haven't heard from. Maybe I'll try the side of the room and then I'll go back to you.

Thank you. I agree that we should probably have the data at the public hearing because if people are going to come in and speak, if we share the data they'll at least something to have synthesized, and they can speak to that. We can speak do that. They can speak of that.

I think it's always a question of whether we would always have the data, but it's like I was saying should we first have a meeting where we analyze the data. So there are two steps. there's like where we actually get the data and sort of Asch is saying we could do it on the same night but later where we put forward our analysis of said data. Anyway, it's a little bit confusing to think about now. But it's sort of whether or not we've crunched the numbers and whether we just put out the raw numbers. but now we actually have to have, it sounds like two public hearings if we do it. I guess or one after we've come up with the ordinance.

Do people feel that two public hearings is the way to go? Or should we just do it? Yuan. Oh, I'm sorry. I said it would go to Councilor Ryan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the two public meetings would be the best solution just to make sure that we cover everything. but I have a question with regards to discussing the source of the data that we're gonna compile. we are going to review what sources we're gonna use and we're all going to agree on that one specific source or maybe two specific sources to compile the data, so we're using the same source. Wouldn't it be confusing if we used all different sources?

Well, we'll all be looking at different cities. So we'll be using different sources and that will be using city budgets from different cities I think in the Google form we'll just say, we'll have a place so we can put the source for every piece of information. I used to work years and years ago as a fact checker, and you had to highlight every single fact. And then as you went through, you just crossed through the word that you checked So we'll have a little area where we can just put the source. And I think we've discussed that, you know, we should be careful with the sources and stick to municipal documents that are like primary sources

Okay, all right. Thank you.

Yes? Councilor Mahoney?

Sorry, I'm just asking for a point of clarification. So we have tonight's meeting which you're setting the framework for. We're going to gather the information and put it into the Google Doc. What's the next step after that? Just walk me through it again. Sorry.

Yeah, so once we get the data then the Clerk will email it out and post it to a public website At that point we could have a very brief meeting where we just discuss the data, the raw numbers without doing any analysis.

I think that's it. So, I think it has to be multiple meetings. I think what you wanna do is have that discussion And I don't mean to jump in here and just say, because my head is full of fluid. But I think what you want to do is have that discussion, because it's going to be a raw data sheet you can share with the public. Have us discuss it. and then come to some finalizations of what we're focusing on so that we're giving the public where we're at. And then once we have that discussion at the next meeting, let the people kind of digest what we've been talking about and have the public forum at that point so they can go back and give us the feedback and should be after the public forum, be able to go back and address some of those things that we can tighten it up but be very fair about what we're doing. So we don't have to have two meetings. We should just have one public forum tighten it out and then we should be able make a decision potentially

Well, the Council Clerk is saying we actually need to have a public hearing for whatever ordinance we come up with. So in that sense,

I guess what I'm just trying to say is as we move forward, we have the public hearing about what we're working towards for a number. Because at the end of the day that's what the public is going to want to really know So we definitely have to have a public hearing because of the ordinance, but I think we want to be able to have the public hearing about the salary raises too.

Okay so you're saying after we do the analysis rather than just after the raw data? Yuan. Thank you.

Thank you Madam Chair. I feel like having two hearings, like Councilor Ash recommended is good because people have more chance to think, so first they get the information and then they do their own research and analyze. And they probably can sent their report to City Council and we probably also can learn something from residents. And then when you have a second hearing So you already have those information, then you discuss on all those reports and also Councilor's analysis. So two steps I think is good.

Well, how about this? So it sounds like a councillor. Did anyone else have something to say before I jump in? Sorry. Councillor DiBona

Thank you, Madam Chair. You can compile all the data you want. Somebody came up and spoke tonight and she said Quincy's unique and it really is. It's a unique city above all these other communities that we're gonna research. To be honest with you, I think it's an unbelievable city and we have to make a benchmark, okay? That goes for mayor and City Council you wanna have these low salaries, I mean it's just gonna devalue the positions. That's just my opinion and you can do all this data you want but you have to look at other factors that Economic Growth, where the city's come from over the last 10 years. There's all these other factors that you're not gonna get on this, on the data that we all research to be very honest with you so you can do it all you want. You could put it on a spreadsheet all you at the end of the day, Quincy's unique. It's a unique city.

The Hancock Adams Common out front, what other place has something like that? Rockefeller Plaza? and New York. I mean, who has the tree lighting that we have? Who has all these things that we in this city that's above all these other cities and towns in the whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts? 351 communities. I think when we compile all this, at the end of the day you're going to be like well where we've come from over the last 10 years is unprecedented. So I'll just put that out there and we'll compile all this other stuff, and we will figure it out but anyways.

Councilor Jacobs?

I agree with Councilor DiBona. Quincy is a very unique city, with $2 billion in debt These things didn't happen by magic. They were paid for by the people that are sitting out here, the taxpayers. And we're somehow now going to try to say where we should take credit for spending their money, money that they spent and that they are paying interest on OK, and somehow we should take credit for that and give ourselves bigger fatter paychecks. That logic doesn't make any sense. And you're trying to square a circle. That doesn't makes any sense

Okay. Yes, Councilor Ash?

I just want to say Noel were all putting things on the spreadsheet because it's a group project. So you said, you can put stuff on the spread sheet all day long. I'm gonna put my stuff on this spreadsheet and then everyone is going to put it on the spreadsheets cause this was a group projects. That's all just want to make that clear No, I don't think... If we go down a rabbit hole of the substance right now it's not beneficial. I think we have a good framework to move forward with the next steps so we should respectfully end it there.

Hubley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess with our group project in the interest of using our time wisely I don't think we're trying to crunch these numbers so much to come up with like a cost per citizen or cost per household, or whatever. And correct me if I'm wrong. but I think we are trying to come up with some watermarks that give us an indication of different ranges. And then when we look at those ranges, I really appreciate McKee's initial list of factors, a way of evaluating and comparing towns. but there's also, I mean as we started meeting like five other things came off in my mind. There's things like sophistication of plant. We have an infrastructure here that is far more sophisticated than many other municipalities and that requires different divisions to be created within the city.

Public Works Department probably doesn't look exactly like other public works departments. So I think what we're trying to do is get a few frames of reference and then apply, I think the uniqueness of our city and what we think the role contributes, both on the council side and on the mayoral side. That's kind of how I envision it. We're looking to establish a few watermarks and then from there we apply the filter of the uniqueness of our situation because we're going to be looking at a lot of municipalities that Some have it more densely populated than Quincy. Some are much more rural. There's a lot of different factors, and when I tried to do this on my own just looking at different towns and cities and so forth in the forms of government It really opened my eyes as to how unique so many municipalities. And then you start to look outside Massachusetts, and it's almost senseless to compare outside Massachusetts because what I'm learning is we have a different level of government from a lot of other states.

So I think it makes sense for us to look at Massachusetts, establish some watermarks and then apply the uniqueness in the qualities that we think the positions hold. Now to use an analogy in the private sector, which I know we're not doing comparative to the private You know, you'd like to say that every CEO has perhaps a business degree. But I've worked in organizations where our CEO had a degree in history and theater but they were still very effective. And what they do is surround themselves with different people who have different competencies and it's a mosaic of the leadership that that's important in the private sector, and I think cities are similar. I think city have sort of a similar situation where each Executive, and also the legislative branch.

We all of us bring a different quality to the council. I have a technology background. I've executive leadership background but others have education backgrounds We are such an eclectic group of people with different proficiencies, which I think adds a lot of value. Likewise, I think organizations are structured the same way on the executive side. I'd like to say that we're looking for watermarks, we're lookin' for benchmarks then we're gonna apply what we think is appropriate for the city and not just do a straight calculation. That's sorta what I think and if people disagree I'd love to hear it. That all thank you.

Did anyone else have things to say?

Yeah, I mean I think we're never going to find you know there's gonna be a lot of different arguments you could make, but this is gonna sort of provide the framework or yeah, the watermarks, the parameters to base a decision. And while I can understand the notion that we all love Quincy, and it does. It's such a vibrant community. But when we're trying to do something data driven, we're going to need something like something include in that. It's ineffable, but otherwise we can't really... So this part of it I think is data driven and has to be data driven. but yes, if anyone has any further criteria that we haven't yet added

We should probably add it now. Okay, so I think once we get that data... Oh, we didn't ever decide. Could we take a raise of hands votes just to see if we're OK? Oh, I was about to say. So Council Yuan. I think if we present the data at a meeting, people can get up and speak at the open forum at that point if they want to about them. Well, at the full council meeting following.

my recommendation is to do that and then to have the public hearing, the first public hearing after we run whatever analysis and discuss that. Let them hear that have the comment and then come back. And then we will discuss it again, come up with something, and then we'll have to do another public hearing for the ordinance anyway once we've come up a suggestion. I feel like that gives people a lot of opportunities and they can also reach out to us by email and phone individually. So yes, Councilor Riley.

Madam Chair, feel a little bit worried that we could run into some analysis paralysis. It sounds like an awful lot of meetings for us to, which are hard to schedule. It's hard to scheduled committee meetings. We have to check everyone's availability, our clerk's availability or auditor's availability and I just think that we should do our very best to try to make the process as efficient as possible. I think once we get the data, and we evaluate it, kind of clearly where these numbers are shaking out. And not that I don't want to include public comment, obviously we have to when we propose an ordinance but I still believe it's the work of a committee to do some of that upfront work and make the recommendation to the full body, and to the public on where we think these these salaries and raises should go.

So I'm just a little bit concerned because I'm hearing an awful lot of meetings before we ever get to an ordinance recommendation, and I just hope that we can try to be as efficient as possible knowing that there are other... Just 30 meetings.

35, maybe. That's it.

Because we have other committee work and we have committees that need to meet and all of these people need to be available for that so I'm glad you're finding my comments humorous. but again, I just hope that we can try to be as efficient as possible. I think once we see the data a pattern may emerge fairly obviously that may not require further analysis. But if it doesn't, then we can certainly expand upon that but my preference is to try and be a little efficient

will try to be efficient. I do think it's important in this case For me, process is so important and I think that was the reason that I had a big problem with the way the raises were done previously. It just felt like it was not a good process that kind of erodes trust in the system, I think. So I'm going to argue that we should take care with such an issue that was such a big one for the community? And there were two major petition efforts to try to undo it or change it. I think we should take the time in this case to have meetings. And I do take your point, though. We'll try to be as efficient as possible.

Okay, so are we in agreement that we can have a public hearing after the kind of after we do our analysis? and then another one when we promote the ordinance. Any objections? No, okay. All right. When we do the analysis I just want to go through and other things that we might like to see, you know the range. So the minimum, the maximum, the median, we could do kind of 25th percentile, so the value below which a quarter of the list falls and 75th the value below which three quarters of the list falls and where Quincy falls within that to try make some sense of the data.

But again, this will be something of an art not completely Not completely a science. OK, I guess another thing that we might want to discuss I have some of this information already, but do you think it would be helpful to see a little bit of history about past compensation for these roles? and maybe a few benchmarks of inflation or what the unions have received as just, would that be helpful for me to put together? Yeah. Not back pay. I mean, we could discuss that but I...

So you're talking about back pay.

Yeah, folks that didn't get any pay over the last few years is it's almost like compound interest, compound salary where they didn't receive anything

I personally don't think that's within our purview because nothing was put forward for salary, so I think we should just move forward. and just move forward. Okay, okay. Councilor?

No, I pushed it but it didn't go.

Okay. Thank you Madam Chair through you. One thing about our process that occurred to me is and I thought of this as a result of some folks who have commented on this topic in the past I think it's worth at the front end of our process very soon, because that's where we are. to help the folks at home and to kind of codify within our group what our process is to establish pay. And what I mean by that is there is some conflict between what's currently written in our city charter and what is what supersedes that in Mass General Law. So you'll hear a lot of people talking about taking this to a vote and that's how we should handle it, and the reason that's confusing is because we're a little overdue to update our charter to reflect what superseded by Mass General Law.

And so I think it's important for the public to know that the process that we're doing now is the right process and that any other document that suggests otherwise is just in need of updating specifically our charter. So I think there's some way of making that clear, what we're following and maybe perhaps Mr. Timmons can kind testify to that point, that what we're following is indeed the process. That is the correct process so that later on down the line there aren't other problems with what we've done. I'd hate to get through all this and then have someone say, yeah but look at the charter. Right? I don't want to end up back where we came from.

I think that I can actually address that and share that. I can do that at the next meeting because I have emails from Solicitor Timmons, very carefully looked at this issue, at the laws around us. But as you said our charter is based on Massachusetts general law Our charter is like from, I have it somewhere but it's like from the early 50s. It hasn't been touched since and this The general laws have changed over the time to make it so that it doesn't have to go before voters for approval. We actually could put a non-binding ballot question on next year's municipal ballot once we figure this out. we can, by majority vote say just a non-binding sort of advisory question. Do you support this process and these raises?

That's something I'll throw out there that we could discuss.

We could. And we can also have 30 meetings, but I think . So what I'm suggesting is that we get it clear and I think having a legal resource sort of explain this, kind of covers us so that we don't spend a lot of time going down this path. only to have people question the work that's happening. Just wanna make sure that's clear, because I think it's very confusing for people.

It is confusing. It's very confused, yeah. Yes, I think that's a good point and I'm happy to put something together on that. Okay. So if no one disagrees, I'll just put together a little info sheet on passed compensation just for reference so we understand. Okay, so... Going forward, I actually think so our next meeting is October 19th. Is it possible for people to I'll try to get this Google form made and sent to Jen.

so that she can send it out by the end of the week. Is it possible, do you think we could... You could all input your data by October 19th? The Monday? Yes, okay. All right and then I'm thinking we could maybe aim for the November 23rd meeting for the analysis because we'll probably need a little bit of time for that and we can work to schedule public hearing. Does that make sense, that sort of timing?

Okay.

I'm going to take that as a yes. for the analysis part. And if we submit the data, we could potentially discuss it that night All right, so I think that will wrap it up. Unless anyone has any questions or is confused about what we've decided, I think we have decided what criteria we're going to have on the Google form sending the date, sending things in by October 19th. Aiming to discuss the analysis November 23rd and then have public discussion and then come to a decision. Just 30, 29 more meetings. All right, thank you. Okay, Councilor Levine?

Quite well, thank Madam Chair. So October 19th is the date that the data has to be completed and did you say November 23rd?

That's what I'm just thinking is we could aim for that when we discuss our analysis of that data. Okay, thank you. We should, just to point it out. I called the State Ethics Commission about this because again we're the council and we're talking about council raises So the State Ethics Commission doesn't have any hard and fast rules about when we would need to decide this. Well, they do in the sense that it has to be before people pull papers to run for council Ideally, we would wrap this process up you know, not close to that time in the spring. So we could aim to do it by the end of this year, this calendar year so okay. All right, so I will adjourn the ordinance committee meeting.

Thank you for watching!

Council meeting and at this point we're at communications and reports from the mayor and other city officers and boards. None? Okay, unfinished business in proceeding minute meetings Okay. Reports of committees, Public Works, Councilor Ash.

Thank you Madam President. Tonight we had at 5 at 6.30 p.m., a public hearing on 2026-130 Utility Granted Location, Mass Electric Company, Chestnut Street. Positive recommendation from committee.

Pass recommendation. Roll call vote? Do we have a seconder? Seconded by Councilor Riley.

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

Similarly, we had a public hearing on 2026-131 utility grant to location National Grid Bayview Ave and Homestead Ave which also received a positive recommendation to come out of committee. So motion to... I'm sorry, unless Councilor Jacobs, I can withdraw that if you had something.

I just have a question on the motion. These utility grants, are the neighbors notified of them? Yes. Yeah, so the neighbor who's having the pole moved basically right up against their driveway has been notified and we received no communication from them?

I do not receive communication.

I don't believe the Council Office can... Can we table this? If you want to table this one, if you wanna reach out- To the next one just because I would like to talk to that person My house in West Quincy, I went away on vacation. I came back and there was a fire hydrant in front of the house. I'd never been there. We've known the house for 40 years and nobody ever said there was It's a surprise when you sat a house for many, many years and you roll up where you park on the street. You can't park there because it was a firehouse that was never there.

That's fine. 2026-131 will stay in committee.

McHugh. Are you all set? Yes. Moving on to ordinance traffic, Councilor McKee. We'll go after ordinance, then we'll have you do it. Yep, ordinance?

So we have some traffics. I'd like to move to remove 2026, 127 at Handicap Parking in front of 5 Bittern Road and Ward 1 out of committee.

Okay. Do I have a second for that, Councilor Riley? All right. Do we take a roll call vote?

Councilor Ash. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney.

Okay, so I'd like to motion to approve 2026-127 add handicap parking in front of 510 Road. Second.

Second by Councillor, motion by Councilor McKee, seconded by Councillor Jacobs. Roll call vote. Councilor Ash?

Yes.

Council DiBona? Yes Council Hubley? Yes Councillor Jacobs? Yes council McKee? Yes, Council Riley?

Yes

Yuan, President Mahoney. Yes.

I'd like to move to Take 2026-128, Add Handicapped Parking in Front of 29 Speer Street and Ward 1 out of committee.

Second. A motion by Council Mickey, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. All those in favor?

Aye.

OK. Council Mickey.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. I'd like to move to approve 2026-128 a handicap parking in front of 29 Spear Street.

McKee, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. Roll call vote.

President Mahoney. Yes. Is that it?

sorry, moved to take 2026-132 at Handicap Parking opposite 72 Tuff Railroad out of committee.

Second by Councilor Riley. Motion by Councilman McKee, seconded by Counciler Riley. All those in favor? Aye.

Motion to approve 2026-132 at Handicap Parking opposite 72 Teff Railroad.

Second. Motion by Council McKee, seconded by Councilor Jacobs. I'm going to invoke rule number four because my head's getting... So we're just gonna say all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay moving on.

Okay, one last one. Motion to take 2026-129 add no parking on the west side of Mullen Avenue from O'Connell Avenue to the accepted portion of Mullin Avenue out of committee.

Motion by Councilor McKee, seconded by Council Ryan. All those in favor? Aye.

Motion to approve 2026-129 add no parking on the west side of Mullen Avenue from O'Connell to the accepted portion of Mullein Avenue.

Okay, motion by Councilor McKee, seconded by Council Ryan. All those in favor? Aye. Excellent. You all set? Yes. Moving on to Councilor Riley.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you, Madam President. A combined meeting of the Finance and Oversight Committees was held last Tuesday, September 29th, and although there were no motions to move any of the matters out of committee there was some noteworthy followup actions and takeaways from the discussions. On order number 2026-106, Oversight of the Public Works Enhancement Fund it seems clear that the city officials weren't aware of the 2004 Act restricting the use of funds strictly for sidewalk and road improvements, and capital equipment purchases. The city instead has stated that they see the use in broader terms and view the DPW and oversight accounts to be interchangeable. Mr. Walker stated several times that the administration takes a, quote, expansive view of the use of various funding sources such as this one outside of the general budget. The committee welcomes any additional information or commitments the city wants to offer on this matter.

on 2026-081, the resolve seeking a formal audit of the lease deductions expenses and payments by Corey Hills Associates. The committee reviewed the most recent quarterly income statement and questioned many deductions including administration, depreciation, comps, function expenses and other miscellaneous deduictions. The committee welcomes any additional information regarding the use of the oversight account for a public building's project manager salary, the removal of the golf cart revenue from their revenue calculation, the reinstatement of the Quarry Hills Advisory Committee per paragraph 20 of the current lease terms. Further disclosure of the 2009 audit and subsequent council order that criticized the lease deductions over a decade ago. The money raised and spent from the Mayor's Cup golf tournament, and finally, the commitment to a full and complete audit in this fiscal year with input by this Council. The matter 2026-042, American Rescue Plan spending transparency.

We were able to identify many areas where funds were used for real estate purchases, statues, landscaping parks transfers to non-charitable nonprofits, holiday string lights and other nonessential spending using pandemic relief funds. The committee welcomes any additional information on the spending from the administration. Council Order 2026-056, the council on aging department head theft. On this matter, the city could not confirm or produce a whistleblower policy Not the state and federal statute, but rather a policy on how it is carried out in the City of Quincy. The reporting process, investigating process, and ensuring the confidentiality of the reporter are some of the things that would be in the city's policy Instead, Solicitor Timmons stated publicly that quote there aren't any prophylactic measures that can be taken to prevent fraud. It can't happen especially in municipal government end quote

which is a discouraging statement from the Chief Legal Counsel for the City of Quincy. Per the Mass Office of the Inspector General, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2024 report to The Nation's More than half of workplace frauds occurred due to a lack of internal controls or the override of existing controls. The report further states that 44% of government fraud is detected as a result of a hotline tip, and tips are twice as likely to come from employees who have received fraud training awareness, as from those who did not. They emphasized that the combination of a fraud hotline and fraud awareness training results in a significant reduction in losses. So the committee encourages the city to create a whistleblower policy, if one does not already exist and set up an independent reporting hotline as promised in February 2025 and mandate fraud prevention training for all employees.

And finally, This committee and oversight committees are happy to reconvene a meeting to allow the city to provide supplemental materials in discussion with the councilors on any of these matters at a future date. Therefore, they will remain in committee to allow for further discussion. Thank you.

Moving on to presentations of petitions, memorials and remonstrances. Councilor Ash

Thank you, Madam President. I would like to take a moment and extend the condolences of this body certainly my own personal condolence is to the family of Rita McGowan. Rita was 95 years old when she died on September 15th and she lived most of her life in Quincy. Rita was born in Queens, New York. She moved to Everett when she was a teenager, a graduate of Quincy High class of 1948 Her obituary read that she met her husband, Bill of 59 years at the merry-go-round in Houseneck. So I thought that was I, you know, you could see it in your head if you knew Mrs. McGowan she was married to her husband Bill for 59 years eight kids 19 grandkids She worked as a receptionist for the Quincy Police Department for a number of years, and she was extremely involved in St. Joseph's Church. She was a Eucharistic minister one of the leaders of the Lady's Sodality.

She gave communion to the seniors at 1000 Southern Artery where she lived. She often visited friends and patients in nursing homes as a sunshine Cardinal O'Malley came to Mrs. McGowan in 2017 and presented her with the Cheverus Award because of her generosity for time, compassion and dedication. She's the epitome of the term matriarch of a beautiful family and I certainly send and condolences to all of the McGowan family as they had services last week. And I hope that they were as special as Mrs. McGowan was, thank you.

Thank you very much. Councilor Jacobs?

Clementina Brill, DeAngelis Brill of Housenac passed away peacefully on October 1st interesting attachment here, but her family owned and operated that carousel in Houseneck. So there you go. And one of I'll never forget this is maybe three or four years ago, they had that carousel for many years in storage and we're trying to get it rebuilt at Brill Field like my entire life. I heard about it my entire from her brother who's still with us. But that carousel was eventually sold to the company that actually built The Carousel, and was restored and is available for rides in Buffalo if you're ever out there. It is operating right now. She's a cherished member of our community at Hasnack although she grew up in Hyde Park in Boston but she met her husband, Robert and they shared 73 years of marriage together.

She had a wonderful way of making everyone feel welcome and brought joy and laughter and warmth to everyone that knew her She was the head school lunch matron at Athen Howe. That was before I was there, and I was in the early 90s so she was there before that. We had Mrs. Fitzgerald. She was a member of the Catholic Daughters of Lady Sodality, she was a den mother for Cub Scouts and she was in the bowling league no doubt at Marymount Lanes. where everybody was a member, myself included. Clementina she was devoted mother, grandmother great-grandmother sister and friend and again is survived by her husband Robert Their children that are still surviving are Donna Rowan, her husband Michael, Richard Brill of Quincy and Catherine Doyle, and her husband James of Braintree. And her daughter-in-law she has many great grandchildren and one great grandchild She was also survived by her sister, Antoinette Dacoste of Florida and Joe DeAngelis of Quincy.

She was pre-deceased by four of her sons some of them you might know, Christopher Brill, John Brill, Robert Brill and Joe Brill. And her sister Genevieve and her brother Gerald and John. Family was everything to Clementina. She would often have big gatherings at her house. She has a beautiful front porch right next to Chapel Park there. I remember as a kid, there was always people on that porch. I was there the other day there were people on that porch. There's always people on the porch and she just had a way of making everybody feel you're very welcome in her home. I grew up with her granddaughter and one of my core childhood memories, even though I didn't go in that house a lot, one of me core childhood was going over there one day after church and her husband had an entire basement with model trains. And it was all decorated for Christmas, and I remember it was around Christmastime and there were cookies and that's the kind of person she was.

She was always inviting and bringing people into her house, so I hope we just keep her in our thoughts and prayers and their family as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilor Jacobs. Ms. Brill is a very special person and she likes to have a cup of tea too. She often would offer me one. Anybody else tonight? Where are you guys? House U-N.

Thank you, Madam President. On the city website, the Quincy Council on Aging Board The Board of Directors serve as an advisor to the Director of Health Services. And Tom Clasby was the Director for Health Services and I'm just wondering why this theft can happen in the face, in front of employees for 10 years. and then nobody know that? Is every department a sealed tank? That is the head of administration.

You have to let me finish.

It's an extraordinary level of insinuation that continues to go on, a level of misinformation, a and it continues to go on from some members of this body that is absolutely disgraceful.

All right, I'm gonna stop both of you at this point.

I'm going to ask to stop for tonight, okay? Is that okay? We're gonna just all stop but I am gonna... We're on petitions, memorials and remonstrances. Okay? So... I know, but you're actually going on with this is about... You started with an apology and you've moved onto something else. But I'm gonna ask if we can just table it for right now. But what I will say is that No, actually for tonight I'm gonna actually be the one that says this tonight. So there's a lot of accusations going about from both sides and the reality of it is our job as elected officials is the legislature arm of this city. So, the oversight that we're asking to have and everybody's very sensitive about that is our job. We couldn't have it two years ago because it was in the courts So when it was finally decided upon, it came back and was put into oversight. And we had those meetings.

We had two meetings. One meeting I don't even want to recall back to that. That was an uncomfortable evening where we had a department head basically accusing us of Monday morning quarterbacking and shaming. We're not shaming anybody, and I'm not certainly here to say anything about shaming anyone but what is a shame is what happened in our city and the fact that we think we shouldn't talk about it We should talk about it because quite honestly, this is how we fix the problems that happen. It should never have happened in the first place but it did and it happened to a director of the COA underneath an administration that they do have a close relationship for. I think it would be shocking for anybody, I think we can all look internally into our families and say maybe some of our family members have done things that are shocking to us too but that doesn't change the fact that this happened in our city and that we do have to put safeguards up to make sure that we're doing those things. We didn't get all the answers that were asking for in that oversight meeting, and that is what oversight is about

is about answering those questions and making sure the taxpayers of the City of Quincy feel as though that we're doing our jobs. Now, I don't want to have any more personal attacks about anybody. I'm not personally attacking anybody when I'm talking about this. I am talking about the gravity what happened in our city underneath our own noses here. And if it didn't happen outside of the state of Massachusetts, we probably still wouldn't know about it. That is the only reason why Tom Clasby isn't jailed is because he went across state lines. That's not true. That is true, that is true. Because no, you know what? Out of order, because you don't have the floor now, but Councilor, you do not... I'm going to ask you right now. You do not have the floor. That is true. You can try to rewrite history, but it is true He went across. It was true. He was taking money across state lines he was having it come and it is sure once it goes past straight lines, it leaves the state of Massachusetts and becomes federal. That is true.

So at the end of the day I want to put this to rest we do have more things to do in the city of Quincy I'm not, Councilor Yuan you started to apologize tonight. I appreciate that apology but i don't want to talk about any more about that because what right now what we have is we do not have the answers that we want. We had a city solicitor come up and basically counter what he was saying at that night when he was standing here, shaming us. I'm not ashamed about asking questions in the city. That is my job, to ask questions and make sure we're getting answers right for the public so that we know that we're actually protecting the taxpayers of the city of Quincy. And I will continue to do that, and you know, when bad things happen we have to address them because if we don't address them they'll continue to happen. So that is the end of that and I'm gonna leave it at that so motions orders and resolutions does anybody have any? I feel like I'm at home at my dinner table Okay, upcoming meetings. We have Tuesday, October 6th, 6 p.m., public hearing for the FLOC. That's tomorrow night and 7 o'clock oversight meeting for FLOCC.

and then Monday, October 19th 630 Munitech and 730 City Council. Did you have a meeting coming up for the raises? Did you mention a date?

Yes so it would be great to It would be great to schedule an October 19th meeting, an ordinance committee.

MUNITEC is already happening at 630.

Oh, MUNIETEC is happening? OK. I will work with you.

So Councilor McKee is going to work with Jen. Look for those emails that are coming out, okay? And with that do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion's adjourned. Councilor Riley thank you very much everybody. Have a great night.