Quincy City Council: March 16, 2026

I would like to call the Monday, March 16, 6 o'clock public hearing to order. This public hearing is for Council Order 2026-020, Utility, Grant of Location, Mass Electric, 100 Coddington Street. 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 or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table at the back of the chamber.

Anybody here on 100 Coddington Street?

My name is Ivan Chung. I'm with my wife, Lai Chao. We live on 131 Sagamore Street, Ward 6. There's one of the electrical poles, I think, from National Grid that's being proposed being moved to Southern.

This particular address, sir, is 100 Coddington Street, I believe. You'll be referring to 2026-025. That's the last one. It's 625. Thank you. Anybody here on 100 Coddington Street? Seeing no further public comment, I'll close this public hearing at 6.01 and at 6.05 we will open up the next one. I'd like to call the Monday, March 16th, 6.05 PM public hearing to order. This public hearing is for Council Order 2026-021, Grant of Location, National Grid Gas, 587 C Street, Anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition, please come up to the podium, state your name and address. If you would like to speak, if you do not wish to speak but would like your support or opposition recorded, please sign it on the sheet at the table in the back of the chamber.

Once again, this is for Council Order 2026-021, National Grid Gas, 587 C Street. Seeing no further public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.05 PM and we will resume the next public hearing at 6.10. would like to call the Monday, March 16th, 6 10 p.m. public hearing to order. This is a public hearing for Council Order 2026-022, grant of location Mass Electric slash Verizon for 10 Independence Avenue. 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 or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table at the back of the chamber.

Once again, this is for Public Hearing 2026 for Council Order 2026-022, Utility Grant of Location 10, Independence Ave. Seeing no public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.10 PM and we will resume at 6.15 for the next public hearing. I'd like to call the Monday, March 16th, 6.15 PM public hearing to order, this is a public hearing for Council Order 2026-023, grant of location Mass Electric slash Verizon for 58 Taylor Street. Communications have been received from the following residents in opposition to this order. all have been opposed to the poll being moved and to the curb cut. These communications have been received from Diane Salvoni, 76 Taylor Street,

Sage Lewis, and Caitlin Goff, 66 Taylor Street, Mai Xu, Taylor Street, and Ziao Kevin Dai, 62 Taylor Street. 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 or opposition recorded, please sign it on the sheet at the back of the chamber. You want to just come up right to the... Nope, anybody in favor or opposed who would like to speak on it or without necessarily a vote but would like to give their opinion is welcome to come up to the podium. State your name and address. I can speak first.

My name is Daniel Lin. I live at 58 Taylor Street, I'm the son Chen, and Meilin, who own the house. The pole is right where the sidewalk ends, and it's about five feet in the middle of our about 10 feet driveway area. I don't know if I can pass this to you but that's just an image of the pole and you can see the newly paved driveway is where our property is and it's right in the middle of it. Our household has about but six people, five of them are able to drive now. Two of them are high schoolers. One of them is about to be of driving age. So it's quite inconvenient to have that poll there.

If we were to move it over the eight feet and cut the curb about five feet, I have an image here where it shows two rather large cars parked on the street here in front of the pole. And in this same image has that van, the back of the van, that shows a lot of room. That's about a five feet gap between the end of the pole by where the driveway ramp is to the edge of our fence. If we were to move the pole further in and cut right where the fence is, we'll have full unfettered access to our driveway. We won't obscure any of the parking spots and it'll be easier to drive into our driveway without hitting the pole. We actually reversed into the electrical pole maybe like a month and a half ago.

just because it's dark and we have to go in at an angle with all the snow. So it was not pleasant.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak in favor of Opposition 2026-023?

Good evening, councillors. My name's Xiao Dai. I live at 62 Taylor Street. I have been living there for 10 years. And I had a neighborhood petition that's signed by 10 people from nine different households. They don't want the Utupo to move in Kirkup because we don't have enough parking space on this part of the Taylor Street. And some of the people cannot come here tonight because they are working, taking care of their children, elderly parents, and I represent my family and the community to oppose moving the utility pole that was requested by 58 Taylor Street homeowners.

I have spoken to many neighbors, including 53, 56, 57, 59, 63, 66, 67 Taylor Street homeowner and resident. and no one wants the utility pole to be moved and the curb cut to happen. There's no reason and no game to relocating the utility pole and allow the curb cut. Okay, and there's a negative consequences of moving the utility pole and allowing the curb cut. These action will affect the quality of lights. For example, there's a lady who has a disability and she cannot walk far. she often has to park her car far away when there's no nearby on-street parking space. In addition, she doesn't feel safe walking far from home in the evening.

and more important, the two major snowstorms that happened in January and February demonstrate just how valuable each and every street parking space is. I saw many residents had to park their cars on the side street and Youth Controversy Space Saver. and in addition rewiring the power lines, internet lines, city fire alarm on the utility pole and ground wire under the sidewalk will cause a lot of inconvenience and disruption. particularly for those at home, retired, working, care for their elderly parents, children, while going without power. And Moving the utility pole is different from replacing the utility pole. Moving the pole is a lot of disruption and a lot of work. Replacing the utility pole, that is a normal maintenance.

and on the public hearing notice, the 58 Taylor Street owners request to relocate the utility pole for new driveway widening. but the new driveway is misleading and incorrect. There's already an existing driveway that is used by 58 and 62 Taylor Street for nearly 100 years. it is unnecessary to move the utility pole in order to widen 58 Taylor Street's size of the shared driveway. the share driver has a 15 feet opening and it's even wide enough for a large chart to get in and out. Moreover, moving the Utilco will not create more land and parking space, but it will eliminate at least one critical on-street parking space that everyone desperately need.

and the shared driveway used by 58 and 62 Taylor Street is more than sufficient for vehicles to enter and exit. 58 Taylor Street also has sufficient parking spaces at their side of the driveway. and ladies and gentlemen, the City of Quincy Ordinance clear on utility permits is stated forward. the permit system is intended to achieve an efficient use of public rights of way consistent with the present and future service demands and protection of public interest are related to safety, health, and quality of life. The city permit ordinance also say that the post spacing shall be the measurement allowed under the code consistent with the location and criteria state in this utility permit chapter.

No one benefited from moving the utility pole because everyone had to sacrifice their own street parking spaces. Future power and internet outage will cause lots of inconvenience for residents. As a result, it will impact our enjoyment of quality of life. In conclusion, there's already a driveway available that has been shared by respective neighbors for nearly 100 years without interference. The size is adequate and the assets is more than sufficient, while each neighbor is respectful for one another. Employeesmen allow each neighbor to temporarily cross over the other land while entering and exiting the property and may not be obstructed by either party. The two majors don't demonstrate how valuable even a single street parking space is.

And we cannot justify moving the pole for one homeowner and affecting so many people live on that part of the street. the city council members are asked to deny this permit for pole number 23 relocation and expansion of the curb cut which in the end delivered no value to and the individual and the community. Thank you, Councilor, for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else here wishing to speak on 2026-023, utility grant of location, Mass Electric, Verizon, 58 Taylor Street?

Am I allowed to comment again?

No. Sorry. Do you want to? Yeah. OK. Chair recognizes Councilor Hubley.

Thank you, Councilor Ash. Yeah, I've heard from a number of the different residents received letters, all of which have been furnished to all of my colleagues here on the committee. And the overwhelming sentiment is that this change represents a reduction in parking with no increase in off-street parking. And so when this comes out of committee, I will be voting no on this. Thank you.

Seeing no further public comment, I will close this public hearing at 625. I'd like to call the Monday, March 16th, 6.20 PM public hearing to order. This public hearing is for council order 2026-024 utility grant of location Mass Electric, Verizon, Willard Street. 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 to have your support or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table at the back of the chamber. Once again, this is for 2026-024, utility, grant of location, Mass Electric, Verizon, Willard Street, Monday, March 16th, 620 p.m., public hearing. It is currently 626 p.m.

Seeing no public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.26 PM. I'd like to call the Monday, March 16th, 625 p.m. public hearing to order. This public hearing is for Council Order 2026-025, grant of location, Mass Electric, Verizon, 137 Sagamore Street. 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 or opposition recorded, please sign in on the sheet at the table at the back of the chamber. Once again, this is for 2026-025, utility grant of location, Mass Electric, 137 Sagamore Street,

How are you? My name is Ethan. So I am the son of the developer for 137 Sagamore. Ethan, just your full name and address, please. My full legal name is Gui-Ming Hung at 69 Appleton Street, Unit 1, Quincy, Mass. 02171. Yep, so I see our neighbors are here as well. I'm not sure if they're here to oppose the case, but for us, we have a settlement agreement with our, and neighbors. We had a land court with them since 2019 that got settled in 2024. Jim Timmons' planning board and us and their party, we all signed a settlement agreement for the construction easement during. and then the settlement agreement also has the purchase of their property. We were supposed to close on their property November of last year, but due to some delays, it got delayed. We're waiting on them to submit their survey to the Planning Board. to get an A&R plot plan done.

But their earliest vacate date for the property, so once we take over possession of the property, they can live there. and then they don't pay rent, they just pay the expenses and then their earliest vacate date is December 2027 and then the latest being December 2029. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on 2026-025 utility grant of location, Mass Electric Verizon 137 Sagamore Street?

Good evening. My name is Ivan Chung.

My name is Lai Chao. We both live on 131 Sagamore Street.

And as Ethan just mentioned, that settlement agreement has contingencies and is confidential. Yeah, should not be spoken out on. But it has irrelevant to the basis of what I'm asking because we look at the plans. I'm not sure if anyone here has seen what that plan is because I just see a dot. I see it being moved 56 feet southwest right to a corner of our property. and on both the abutting sides, if you could show them the picture, it's an open driveway on both sides. But we noticed as of July and this past July, when they were redoing the streets and kind of digging it all up, to repave the street, they put in a weird curb that we didn't notice because it was on top. kind of on their construction side, so it was kind of blocked off, so we didn't see it.

Then when we kind of asked Ethan today, where approximately are you moving it, they're moving it right on top of that curb that's blocked off that we didn't see, but that curb never existed. It's an open driveway. So I guess that's legacy driveway opening that somehow during the I guess during the paving of the street, it got inserted in without our knowledge, right? So I guess if it's a legacy opening on both sides, why did the city put the curb in when they would be doing the street, right? Because it was like open on both sides. One. Two, at the same time, we don't have any record of a notification in July 1st of 2025 where National Grid inserted a gas pipe into our driveway at the same time they were redoing the street. So it looked like they were just repaving the street. But instead they were putting in gas pipe for their project without our permission.

It's very close to the pole as well that you guys are moving to.

Exactly. So as Ethan also mentioned, Mr. Solicitor Timm knows about this. You can ask him if that deal is contingent on certain parameters. At this point in time, we own the property. period. So we have a right to oppose it. We just want to understand if you're going to move a poll, they own both property. They own the property that's being constructed that used to be a business, 137, 139, 9,600 square feet that was utilized, about 7,500 square feet for a business. Now they've been approved by this board previously, I don't know if the same members or not, to build an 18-unit apartment there. and now they want to move a pole that's probably, I don't know, two and a half feet wide diameter right into the corner of our property for a driveway for their benefit. When they own the building next to it, they could put that pole right next to theirs. right, they own that property, 77.

And the property number right next to it.

What is it, 77 Newberry? So if you're familiar with that, that's what they own. They could feel free to put a poll over there all day to suffice their project. Why would it have to continue to encumber our property use again? it's an open driveway. Outside of that, it just, you know, again, I have those questions about why there was a gas pipe approved by this board. If not, then I would ask this board to investigate why was a gas pipe inserted under our property. I'm assuming I talked to a National Grid individual here earlier, and he said he wants to know why, because he said he wasn't notified. So he's going to have a conversation with us too. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else here wishing to speak on 2026-025 utility grant of location Mass Electric 137 Sagamore Street? Chair recognizes Councilor Riley.

Ash, this is the first I'm hearing of it. I did not know there was any contention with this. I likewise could not make out much from the plan. So I would suggest voting this down unless we have more information to understand better why there's dispute.

Yes, Councilor McKee.

If there is someone here from National Grid, could they come to speak for a minute on this issue?

Jim Pearson, National Grid, Senior Designer. What can I help you with?

So can you just tell us a little bit about what this is actually? This is a movement of a utility pole.

We were asked by a developer to move it to where he wants it now, which As he stated, I guess it's between two driveways, the entrance into their property and then the property they own next door. They want to move it there because right now the pole is the middle of the new building that's going up. They don't want it there. They want it moved down. So they request us to put it at that location. The pole itself is about 18 inches in diameter. that we're going to move. But we were requested by the developer to move that poll. That's why we're here tonight.

have you reviewed the plans as approved? I'm assuming by the planning board.

I don't know if you've seen those and if this- The only plan that I saw is what Ethan had, which it looked like it was approved by the planning board,

Okay, and did those plans contemplate moving this poll?

The poll itself was none. The developer himself requested it. There was no mention of a poll in those plans. It just basically showed the sidewalk in the building foundation. That's what they had. Basically, like a site plan, basically. Thank you. Yep. Did you have more questions?

Not maybe for tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Anybody else here on 2026-025 utility grant of location 137 Sagamore Street? Okay, seeing no further public comment, I will close this public hearing at 6.34 p.m.

Hello. Good evening. This is the March 16th meeting of the Ordinance Committee. I will read the open meeting law right now. 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. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

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

All right, thank you. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and just read the order, which is something that I put forward. and then we'll invite Solicitor Simmons up to answer the questions. So, this concerns the raises that were voted in for the and the Mayor, and how they were deferred. So, whereas in October 2024, the Mayor and City Council President announced that the State Ethics Commission had brought forward conflict of interest concerns about the Mayor's and Council's 79% and 50% raises taking effect on January 1st, 2025 in the same term as the Mayor and Council were voted in.

and whereas the Mayor and City Council said they would delay taking the raises until their next terms in order to comply with state conflict of interest law, and whereas the City of Quincy handled those deferments administratively, never amending the raised ordinances, 2024-055 and 2024-056, to alter their January 1st, 2025 effective date, and whereas a majority of the newly elected city council campaigned on a platform of transparency and accountability and criticized the lack of community input and rigor involved in the raise process, and whereas a super majority of the newly elected city council would like to undo the raises and start the raise calculation process over, this time with community input and a salary review of comparable positions. Be it ordered that the Quincy City Solicitor appear before the City Council to answer the following questions.

What process did the City undertake to defer the raises administratively in 2025? and if a majority or a supermajority of the current City Council were to vote to administratively defer the Council's raise, Ordinance 2024-056 for the current term, 2026 and 2027, returning the council's salary to $29,128.65, would the city administratively defer the raises for all councilors as it did in 2025. And just a note, I did this in January and got that figure from the city list of salaries. So what's in the actual budget is $29,700. So that amount would, what we're talking about would return to the previous amount, $29,700. So, Solicitor Timmons, can we have you come up?

Good evening Madam Chair and members of the Council. Shall I make a brief presentation? Okay. At the time that this became an issue for the prior council, what occurred was We followed to the letter of the law the particular statute and the general laws for pay raises to a mayor and city council. that statute, and I had shared copies of it at the time, Chapter 43, Section 17A prescribed what exactly had to do when voting a pay raise. And that is precisely what was done for both the mayor's office, the office of the mayor, and the city council.

what happened was the State Ethics Commission was contacted or saw news in the newspaper or whatever, they reached out to me about the fact that they had a concern primarily with the mayor's raise because of the timing. The City Council was on a two-year term and about to cycle out. The Mayor's term, however, was for four years. So we had a discussion because there is an issue under a different statute. As I mentioned, we were following Chapter 43, Section 17A to do the raise. The state ethics statute is Chapter 268A, and it addresses just one particular issue, and that is and others who have been involved in the development of ethics among state,

the general counsel for the State Ethics Commission said that while we may have done what we were supposed to do under the statute regarding the raise, we were not correct in allowing the Mayor to take the raise in accordance with 4317. So they advised that there was a problem and we talked with the General Counsel about how to deal with it. Now, you folks at the first or second meeting introduced an order. I kind of gave a shot to Councilor Ash after the meeting saying, you know, sitting right behind you. You could have just brought me up at the time, but I would have happily just shared with you all we did. was, and I'm sure that Councilor DiBona will remember this, and Councilor Ash. And I'm hopeful you don't mind.

I think the copies I brought down were your letter. What each Councillor did was they sent a letter to Lisa Curtin, who's the business manager in municipal finance, and just said simply, I write. to advise that I am declining the recently voted salary increase for city councilors. I ask that you maintain my salary at the rate of 29.8 annually. it's a little more in the sentence, I'm skipping, my salary should not increase until after the next city council term. commencing in January of 26. So that's where we sit now. And that's really all they did. And I have copies of this letter. I'll circulate them, but that's really all you need to do.

The issue when it comes to pay raises is not so much the language of an ordinance or whatever, it's whether you take the money or not. and what happened in this case. This was something I worked on with the General Counsel of the State Ethics Commission they said that had we not done this, they would have opened an investigation into the matter, but there was no investigation open. And frankly, I'm probably going well beyond what I should because state ethics is you know they maintain confidentiality they won't even acknowledge whether they've if they're conducting an investigation or not. But at the time, the councilors and the mayor agreed, given what was going on, that we just disclose what was going on. and Happening and it was a pretty easy fix.

So my recommendation to you folks is if you want to just replicate this letter that can eliminate all the you know, concerns and heartache about what you might go through in order to adjust the race. You can just simply... advised municipal finance, as your predecessors did, that you are declining the race. And then, your check will be based on a $29,800 annual salary, whatever that works out to weekly.

So thank you, Solicitor Timmons. We wanted to do this in public, hence talking to you right now. I did ask for that letter earlier and you told me that you had decided not to share it, so this is nice to actually have the letter shared.

I'll wait to you, I'm sorry. Okay. You can finish.

Okay, so I am It's true that what you're saying that there's two state laws and they seem to actually be in direct conflict with each other. one of them says that councils can put in ordinances for the next calendar year, but the state conflict of interest law says you cannot change raising or lowering your salary in the current term. It has to be for the next term because you may or may not be there based on election results, right? So those are two state laws that are just in conflict. I guess, was there any pushback from,

any members of the council when this was raised as a solution to this issue of the two state laws being in conflict?

I'm not sure what you mean. What do you mean by pushback?

So I guess what I'm saying is when you suggested this as a solution, did everyone agree wholeheartedly and immediately or was there some discussion about that?

I'm not quite sure about what constitutes wholehearted agreement. But I will tell you, I just don't understand the question. They were told by the State Ethics Commission acting through me, I told the councilors, this is not legal. Everyone said, what do we do? And it took me about a week working with the general counsel. We came up with this letter. And this all happened in one night. to say there was no pushback is understating. It was complete cooperation. And I just want to correct something you said, which is inaccurate. What you asked me for was the letter from the State Ethics Commission to the councilors. And I asked a couple of councilors, how do you feel about sharing that? And they weren't comfortable with that. and I agreed, like the letter sets out the specifics

of a concern that the State Ethics Commission had with an individual, and they didn't want that shared with the public. But I never said I wouldn't share this letter with you. I would have told you that at the night of the first meeting that that's how we solved it. but no, there was, I think I'm understanding your question correctly, I hope I am, but your predecessors completely cooperated because they heard what you're hearing tonight. we couldn't do it. We couldn't do it, yeah. Yeah, and one other correction is this. What the State Ethics Commission is concerned about is money, money changing hands. So you can take actions on an ordinance that relates to salaries, but they just don't take effect in terms of the effect on the money that changes hands until a term has completed.

Okay, so I think that was a misunderstanding. I intended to ask for this letter that you're talking about in addition, so we just had our wires crossed. So I reached out to the State Ethics Commission and they said that we can repeal the council salary for sure starting in 2028 for the next council term. No question if we do it well in advance of papers being taken out for candidates to run for office, which this currently is for sure. they said that I said well what if we wanted to take a vote because you know, we want to be sure that we're all on the same page.

Like this, you know, it seems an equity issue if all of us can do something. So they said, that's gonna be your, So the second question, if we were to take a vote on this issue, whether we can go back to the previous salary, That's the central question, I guess, and that they said you have to answer.

Sure. First of all, when you say you talked to the State Ethics Commission, who specifically did you speak with up there?

I'm going to forget her name, but it was a woman. It was not like the general counsel.

Was she one of the attorneys?

She's one of the attorneys. I called their office and they put me in touch with someone.

I asked because I'm sure that had I been in on that call, I may have been able to clarify for her that we weren't just talking about whether under the state ethics statute you could take actions. The concern I expressed to you a while back about these ordinances is your use of the word repeal and I'm quite certain that if, well, I don't know that a state ethics attorney would understand that necessarily. It's a different issue that they don't really deal with. But if you follow what's in the orders that are before the body this evening and repeal what was done in the prior years. What repeal means is that you completely wipe it off the books, including the predecessor.

provisions. So if you were to repeal what was done back in 24, not only would the pay raise go out the window, but specifically referenced in that those ordinances in 24 were the existing salary lines. All we were really doing was amending salary lines in the municipal ordinance. So if the body were to vote this evening to repeal, then there's gonna be no council salary because you've repealed it. And you can't go back to the prior year because that's what repeal means. And there'll be no mayoral salary. So that's why I was recommending to you that you not use the word repeal, but use the word delete, which was the word that we used in 2024. It's a little bit of a nuance, but these words have meanings.

And repeal, like we used it in the zoning ordinance. It's in like one of the first sections of the municipal zoning ordinance. that's back in 2011 when we redid the entire zoning ordinance and we said the prior zoning ordinance is repealed and then a brand new zoning ordinance follow. So you have to be careful with the language here. And I'm also concerned that in the environment today where if folks don't accept what goes on, there may be lawsuits or will certainly be recriminations, but I don't know that you'll maintain control over the salary line if you use the word repeal, because repeal means it's gone, the whole thing, including his predecessor.

So I did a little bit of research into this just because you had mentioned early on in my tenure that you didn't think that the council could repeal things. And from the city charter section five, it says the city council may at any time by ordinance increase, reduce, establish, or abolish salaries of heads of departments or members of boards. And so the question is, is the mayor the head of a department? And section 512 of the city code says yes. The office of the mayor shall be known for administrative and budgetary purposes. as the executive department. And then I looked into whether the council can repeal things and it's section 21 of the city charter says, No ordinance shall be amended or repealed except by an ordinance adopted in accordance with this chapter. So we can repeal things.

That's also chapter 43, section 21 of Mass. State Law, and then State Law Chapter 43B, Section 13 says, any city may by the adoption, amendment, or repeal of local ordinances or bylaws exercise any power or function which the general court has power to confer upon it. So I think on that question, it seems clear to me that we can repeal things. I guess what... I'm asking you, I don't think we could repeal our current salary because of this not being able to take legislative ordinances on our own salary. but they said you could decide whether or not we could take a vote and whether or not a super majority could decide to go back to the old salary.

So my question is could we take a vote and a super majority or a majority of people voting to go back to the old salary would take us back to the old salary.

Well, I'm sorry it wasn't clear. and I want to explain that we're all on the same team here. I hope that's understood. Like, you folks are now the legislative body of the city of Quincy, and I know at least a few folks, because I've worked with them over the past several years, understand this, but we're supposed to be working together to move things forward. And frankly, I'm not sure what your background is and I won't challenge it, but generally speaking, city councilors don't challenge when a city solicitor gives an opinion. I mean, I've been around doing this. I'm trained in municipal law. I know exactly what the state ethics lawyer said to you. because they say that in the first instance, all state ethics related questions are to be answered by the city attorney or the town council. So that's what she said to you.

But we're not dealing with ethics issues here. we're dealing with a different matter. And I suppose the council's gonna do what it's going to do, but I am publicly advising you that you're gonna be creating a real problem because of what the word repeal means. Yes, it shows up in the general laws. You didn't mention general law chapter four, where the word repeal is defined. It's in there, it's defined, and it says it wipes out not only what is currently in place, but all predecessors. And generally you use repeal. I use the example of when we redid the zoning ordinance. we did a brand new rewrite of the entire zoning ordinance. So we said the prior ordinance is totally out the door so there'd be no conflict.

I'm not certain why you're so committed to the word repeal, but if you use the word delete, everything's fine. You get the outcome you want. the number, the salary numbers off the books and you replace it with whatever number the body votes for. So that's my strong recommendation we do. We're gonna avoid a lot of problems.

So I understand what you're saying. And I think in the ordinances that I subsequently wrote, once I realized that we do have to repeal things with an ordinance, I've written it so that it talks specifically about going back to the prior salary so that we wouldn't end up with a situation where no one's getting paid in the city, the mayor's getting zero, we're getting zero. I guess we're still not getting to the question here because what I'm trying to find out is we can't repeal our current salary. But can we take a vote and the city would allow us if we all, or most of us, voted to do this? they said you would have to weigh in on this.

Could we take a vote and the super majority of us could take our salaries back to the original level? It wouldn't be called a repeal in this case for our current term. So that's issues off the table.

Okay. Well, then, are you going to be rewriting these orders?

This order doesn't This Order 2026016 does not talk about repeal. it's just saying if a majority or a supermajority of the current city council were to vote to administratively defer So similar to what you did before, the council's raise for the current term, returning the council's salary to blah, blah, blah, would the city administratively defer the raises for all Councillors as it did in 2025?

Okay, well that's, yeah, that question we talked about and I believe I answered. I don't think you need to do it with an ordinance. I think you should do it in the manner you're doing because if you do vote an ordinance that either increases or decreases your pay raise, I'd rather your pay, either an increase or decrease falls under 268A. And it can have no effect until the next term. But if you wanna make a change now, you can simply, the term that was used and it was approved by the General Counsel when we worked together is that you decline payment. and I think that's the safest way. I'm trying to be helpful. You said we're not getting to the question. I think we're not getting to the answer and I'm honestly trying to be helpful because I think you just,

not fully comprehending, and it gets very confusing. It did for the prior council, and I understand that. But because there's a couple of laws that conflict, you have to be very careful about what you do and the words are important. If you want to do letters like the ones I passed out, you could address things for the balance of the year or balance of the term and then go to work on the type of salary study that you folks have expressed interest in pursuing. And you could do that in a very peaceful way without having to say something's repealed or not. Because the fact of the matter is right now the mayor the Mayor is on record in municipal finance and it has been the case since he filed his letter

that he declines payment on the salary and the increase level will not take effect until the beginning of the next mayoral term. So the mayoral salary is right now fixed and you folks could do the same with the council salary and do so without, creating problems. Otherwise, I'm concerned. What we talk about here is one thing, but in the same manner, you've kind of questioned what I'm saying. There are folks out there who may file a lawsuit or may press this issue and then the word repeal means no one gets anything.

So I guess just to go back, I'm not talking about an ordinance. I'm just saying like in a kind of vote, we would vote here. and would we be allowed to then have a super majority of us do this? So it sounds like the answer is no, based on what you're saying that the only way that you're saying Thank you very much. you're saying how it was done before was this individual letter whereby everyone sent a letter individually that's the way you're saying so basically the answer to this question is no is that

Well, I don't know about that. Like, you're asking me questions and they're not necessarily yes or no questions. I don't know what you mean, can we just vote? Resolution. Order, like what would it be? I don't know what you mean.

It could be a resolution, could be an order, like either one of those.

Okay.

It's not an ordinance.

I'm not sure why you need to if the council, I suppose members can chime in. I hope I've been clear with what I'm saying, but I don't know what mechanism you could introduce this under this general equity theory. I think talk to your colleagues and see, you can talk among yourselves what, because I know that my experience with Councilor DiBona, Councilor Ash, and their colleagues on the prior council, everyone, was cooperative and I'm certain that this group could be as well if you talked about this.

Okay, thank you very much. Councilor Riley, you were just saying that we have to go to finance. Okay, sorry about that. Thank you very much. Okay, so the March 16th ordinance committee will recess then.

Good evening. I would like to call to order the March 16, 2026 meeting of the Quincy City Council Finance Committee and begin reading 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. I'd like to state for the record. Oh, do you want to take a call? Okay.

Councilor Ash. President. Councilor DiBona. Councilor Hubley. Councilor Hubley. Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, McKee, Ryan, Yuan, Chairman Riley. Present. Nine members.

Okay, the first item on the agenda is order number 2026-038, appropriation for $2,646,730, fire department, new firefighter turnout gear. and I would like to read that order into the record. The order is dated February 23rd, 2026. Be it ordained that $2,646,730 is appropriated to purchase fire department equipment and safety gear. and to pay all of the costs incidental and related thereto. To meet this appropriation, the treasurer collector with the approval of the mayor is authorized to borrow $2,646,730 under General Law Chapter 44, Section 7 or any other enabling authority, and to issue bonds or notes of the city therefore.

The treasurer collector is authorized to file an application with the administrative finance oversight board to qualify under chapter 44A of the general laws any or all of the bonds authorized to be issued by this order and to provide such information and execute such documents as the board may require for these purposes. I'd like to note that accompanying this original order when it was introduced on March 2nd was a letter dated February 17th, 2026 from Interim Fire Chief Gary Smith. to Mayor Thomas P. Koch, and a one-page cost estimate for the items to be covered by the appropriation. The supplemental materials that were delivered to the Councillors on March 12th and will be presented this evening has been posted to the City's website on on the homepage. As legally required, this matter was referred to this committee on March 2nd and was advertised in the March 4th edition of the Patriot Ledger, satisfying the 10-day public notice requirement.

I would also like to add that although there are other matters that have been referred to the Finance Committee for discussion, as the Chair I wanted to make this the only business discussed here tonight in committee. I, along with my fellow Councillors, recognize the importance of this request. And just to be clear, the request is to approve the $2.6 million bond debt to pay for the emergency gear for our first responders. It is not to approve the purchase itself. that lies solely within the control of the administration and the department. So with that, I'd like to turn this over to Chief of Staff Walker to begin the presentation. We will hold questions from the counselors until all presenters have presented. and under Rule 10, we will limit the initial comment period for each consulate of 15 minutes. Thank you.

Madam Chairman, Chairwoman, through you, thank you very much. It was a great honor tonight on behalf of Mayor Koch to introduce tonight's presentation on a proposal that will continue to make the city of Quincy not just a regional model, not just a statewide model, but a national model when it comes to protecting those who protect us, our firefighters and their families. You've all received the relevant material. and it has been posted publicly to the city's website. The team is here this evening and ready to answer every single question this body may have. Leading the presentation this evening will be Interim Fire Chief Gary Smith, will provide a brief overview and be able to answer any questions you have relative to the new gear we expect to purchase with approval of this authorization. He will be followed by Quincy Firefighters Local President, Local 792 President Thomas Bowes, who has really put in an incredible amount of work, he and his group, over the last number of years relative to firefighter safety and specifically

on this issue. He'll walk through a timeline on how we got to where we are this evening. I also want to acknowledge we have with us tonight the President of the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, Trish McKinnon, and Bill Cabral, also from Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts. Following them, we'll have Notre Dame Professor Graham Peasley. He is an expert on PFAS and you have a good amount of material from him. a lot of his work is based off of some of, is the nucleus of the work that we've performed and the union has performed over this past year. Municipal Finance Director, Paul Della Barber, will then review the debt schedule and the financing of the purchase. With us tonight from the finance team, we also have Strategic Assets Director Rick Kosha, and from Ramirez & Co., the managing partner of Ramirez & Co., Mario Marzano, and one of our outside financial advisors.

Lastly, not leastly, Solicitor Timmons will touch on the legal issues related to this matter. With that, with the body's permission, I would turn it over to Chief Smith.

Good evening, Councilor Riley, members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening on behalf of the Quincy Fire Department regarding our proposal to purchase new personal protective equipment for our members. We present this evening in honor of all of our active and retired Quincy firefighters and families suffering from cancer and those that we've lost, and to all firefighters suffering from cancer, including my own brother Paul. a Lieutenant on the Braintree Fire Department with 32 years service who's been diagnosed with brain cancer. May we keep all of them in our thoughts and prayers this evening. Firefighting has always involved risk and all of us are aware of it. While flames are the most visible danger, the greatest long-term threat often comes from toxic smoke and the byproducts of combustion. These contain a mix of toxic gases and carcinogens that firefighters inhale and absorb through their skin

repeatedly throughout their careers. Years ago, protective equipment consisted of simple rubber boots and single layer coats that protected little against heat and flame and provided no protection from toxic exposure. In the 1990s, the fire service, including the Quincy Fire Department, began a major shift toward modern protective equipment in accordance with NFPA 1971, introducing fully encapsulated protective equipment that included multi-layer turnout coats and pants, protective hoods, fire-resistant gloves and boots, and self-contained breathing apparatus. These advancements significantly improve firefighter safety by reducing exposure to heat, flame, and harmful contaminants.

During the same period, we also began addressing another major exposure risk, diesel exhaust inside our firehouses. Historically, apparatus bays are open to living quarters, allowing diesel fumes to circulate through the areas where firefighters lived and slept. To address this, the city installed separation doors in Plymouth exhaust extraction systems in accordance with NFPA 1500. capturing diesel fumes directly at the tailpipe in reducing carcinogen exposure risk. Over the last decade, Quincy has continued to be proactive in protecting firefighters' health, given that today, Modern buildings and furnishings now contain large amounts of synthetic materials that produce extremely toxic smoke when they burn. As a result, cancer rates in the fire service have increased dramatically.

In response to this and with the support of our mayor, our elected officials, and our membership, we've taken several important steps here in Quincy. Our firehouses now include dedicated decontamination facilities in accordance with NFPA 1585. allowing firefighters to shower immediately after incidents and clean the protective equipment using specialized extractor machines. We conduct gross decontamination on scene whenever possible to remove a high percentage of contaminants before entering apparatus and returning to firehouses. Each firefighter is issued two sets of protective equipment to ensure that contaminated gear can be properly cleaned without compromising operational readiness. in accordance with 1851 standards of the NFPA.

Firefighters are also encouraged to keep their uniforms at the station and launder them on site to reduce risk of bringing contaminants home to their families. In partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services, medical providers, and our local, state, and international fire unions, our firefighters are offered the opportunity to participate in cancer screening programs to detect illnesses as early as possible. Cancer awareness courses available through the Department of Fire Services, and we have cancer prevention standard operating guidelines within our own department. Members of our department have also created the Quincy Fire Cancer Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds to support our firefighters and their families who are suffering from cancer and to help provide screening opportunities for our members. Thank you to all who've donated to this foundation, and I'm extremely proud and grateful for the work of our foundation.

Cancer prevention is at the forefront of the fire service. Yet despite all these efforts, cancer continues to rise within the fire service. National data shows firefighters have approximately a 9% higher risk of developing cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from it. Most staggering of all and maybe one of the most important things that I share with you this evening is cancer. is now the leading cause of line of duty deaths among firefighters at an alarming rate of up to almost 80% of those deaths. I'm going to repeat that. 80% of line of duty deaths in the fire service today are from occupational cancer. Think about that for a moment.

Our city has taken every possible step to safeguard the health and wellness of our firefighters by reducing their exposure to dangerous toxins and carcinogens at every opportunity. Now I stand before you this evening to report that research and testing have proven that the personal protective equipment our firefighters are currently wearing Our first line of defense against toxins and carcinogens contains dangerous levels of chemicals known as PFAS. Most concerning, they've been intentionally added. These compounds have been used in protective equipment for their moisture repellent and thermal resistant properties. Known as forever chemicals, they're persistent. They do not break down readily in the environment nor in the human body. and are increasingly linked to cancer and other serious illness.

Research and testing conducted by Professor Graham Peasley of the University of Notre Dame has brought national attention to this issue. and it's what prompted us here in Quincy to begin testing our own equipment. I welcome Professor Peasley to our city for his extraordinary work and thank him for being here this evening. working collaboratively with Mayor Koch and our union leadership, particularly Local 792 President Tom Bowes, we began researching, testing, and evaluating PFAS-free alternatives President Bosa spent an extraordinary amount of time working with testing institutions and fire departments across the country to identify safer options for our members.

After extensive research, testing, and evaluation, we selected protective equipment that's been independently tested by both our department and the manufacturers and confirmed it to be PFAS-free. We did our due diligence and we stand before you confident in our decision. It's one that protects the health and wellness of our firefighters, their families and the citizens we serve. Let me be clear. This is not a Quincy issue. It's an issue that spans fire departments and communities across the nation. Governor Maura Haley has already taken action in Massachusetts by signing legislation that bans the sale of personal protective equipment containing intentionally added PFAS effective January 1st of 2027.

In addition, the proposed PFAS Alternatives Act is expected to be introduced into the United States Senate, which would require PFAS-free firefighter protective equipment nationwide. the World Health Organization. It classifies firefighting now as a class one carcinogen. these actions at both the state and federal levels reflect the growing recognition of the risks associated with PFAS and the urgent need to transition to safer alternatives. Councilors, I have the responsibility to protect the health and wellness of our firefighters, their families, and the community we serve. We have a duty to act

in the positions we hold to provide the safest available personal protective equipment for the men and women who risk their lives every day to protect the lives and property of this city. Together, let's do what's right for our firefighters, for their families, and for our great city. Thank you. At this time, Councilor, I'd like to introduce Local 792 President Tom Bose, who's going to come up and discuss the testing portion of the presentation. Thank you.

Good evening, Councils. I'm just going to go over a timeline. My name is Tom Bose. I'm a lifetime Quincy resident, president of the Quincy Firefighters Association, Local 792. I represent 280 sworn members of the department. It's my 26th year as a firefighter, almost 25 of them being a principal officer for Local 792. I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and discuss with the council the process we've undertaken over the last year and longer on behalf of our members and their families to provide the safest care possible. As the Chief mentioned, occupational cancer is the leading cause of death of active duty firefighters. I've personally seen far too many of my colleagues who have succumbed. We've been working on this issue for years. is absolutely critical for the members of the Parliament when we get it right. The best firefighters in the country that I took an oath to protect. We have before you a full narrative timeline of the events of the last year that have led us to here tonight. I'm not going to go through the entire timeline, but I will discuss the highlights.

One thing I want to stress to the council before I get started in this, we do not believe, based on the work we have done to date, that we have any clean sets of gear in the department in the city. That's an important point as the council deliberates this matter this evening. After working to find the cleanest gear possible for a class of recruits last year, we began hearing reports that while the new gear was guaranteed to be free of intentionally added levels of PFAS, it may still have contained an equally dangerous group of chemicals called brominated flame retardants, or BFRs. Specifically, our concern was related to the moisture barrier. There's three layers to the gear. There's a moisture barrier, an outer shell, and a thermal layer. The moisture barrier is in the middle. That's what we were going to have tested for BFRs. This originally had nothing to do with PFAS. Research into these chemicals is very new, and we were so frustrated by what we were hearing.

At that time, around April of last year, I was approached by Jason Burns, District Vice President with the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, who had been a leading advocate in the gear on the PFAS issue for many years. Jason also helped us with the PFAS firefighting foam a few years back. We replaced all our foam in the city and get rid of the AFFF. And that was thanks to Jason's help. And if he's watching tonight, we appreciate it. Jason was going to try to be with us on IDF family commitment. Firefighter Burns introduced us to Notre Dame Professor Grant Peasley, whose scientific expertise and work on the PFAS issue over the last number of years actually helped guide us to seek out gear that was explicitly sold as PFAS-free, some of which was even made using PF-0. Professor Peasley agreed to test the sample from the new gear. A short time later, he called us to let us know the initial testing showed suspected BFRs in the moisture barrier of the gear, which we assumed, but also showed troubling indications of PFAS in a different component of the gear, the outer shell.

Peafast that we were told in writing is not supposed to be there. Professor Peasley agreed to a full test of the outer shell for the PFAS as well as the original request relative to the moisture barrier. On June 23rd, 2025, we received the full report from Professor Peasley and our worst concerns were confirmed. The test results, which Professor Peasley will discuss tonight, showed high levels of BFRs and levels of PFAS so high they indicated they were intentionally added. We informed Mayor Koch of the test results and we began a broader investigation into exactly what happened and to determine how deep the issue may actually go. In August, Mayor Koch held a press conference with our members and the president of the International Association of Firefighters, Ed Kelly, to release the test results and announce potential action against the companies that defrauded the city. Prior to the announcement, we had begun working with the IEFF Scientific Department, who's also been amazing.

They sent the same original sample tested by Professor Peasley to both Duke University and NC State University. Both Duke and NC State verified Professor Peasley's findings. And you have the material with you tonight as well. You have the reports from Duke and NC State. Broadening our investigation, we sent additional sets of gear purchased in 2019, 2023, 2024, and July of 2025 to Professor Peasley for testing. The results we received in September were devastating to hear. Multiple batches of gear promised to be PFAS-free going back to 2019 were loaded with it, as well as unacceptable levels of BFRs. frustrating news as we specifically asked the manufacturers to produce documents back in 2019 stating the gear was PFAS free, which they did and we kept. Our gear committee took that step back then

because of what Professor Peasley had started to say in the late 2018 and early 2019 after he tested a set of gear from Worcester about the concern of high level of PFAS in the gear. We kept multiple documents and emails, one specifically stating that our laminates do not contain PFAS chemicals. Another stating a line we've got to know over the years, and we laughed about it earlier, It said it may contain trace amounts from the production process and then went on to say the trace amounts would be removed by June of 2018. The test results show that what they said and gave us in writing was a lie. It appears they made the gear in 2019 using the same fabrics they were using for years, which is considered legacy gear. They knew it, they just thought we would never figure it out. I spoke to Mayor Koch the same night we received the report. He immediately told us in the department to begin looking for new gear. The written timeline the council has goes into great detail about the process we went through.

In short, it included multiple conversations with departments locally, and around the country. Confirmation that the products we were looking to buy were reported as tested as safe in multiple meetings and trust building sessions with Milliken and Company, the manufacturer of the products and the gear that we are proposing to buy. All this culminated in January with a site visit to the Milliken facility in South Carolina and samples of the fabric to be used in our gear was sent to Professor Peasley to be tested. We received the results of this testing on February 17th of this year, also in your material, and it confirmed the fabrics to be safe. Chief Smith advised Mayor Koch the next day that the problem is ready to proceed with a proposed purchase, and the order was introduced to the council the following week. I think all the information you have is very important because there have been a lot of misinformation the last couple of weeks. There was no intentional delay at all to get this done.

Back at the end of September, when we got the other test results of the batch gear testing, we knew we had a major issue throughout every set of gear in the department, and we didn't even know if there was a solution or what the cost would be. When you buy gear, you don't just go down the store and pick it off the rack. You don't go to Amazon and click a button and it shows up the next day. There's a full process, as every vendor has a different product, even though they're made with the same fabrics. Just to get a couple sets of test gear takes up to eight weeks after a member is sized. There is field testing, homework on thermal ratings, and now thanks to Professor Peasley and Forever Analytical, we have an avenue to test the gear for PFAS and BFIs. After the work and time we have put into this, it was disappointing to hear people actually saying we're delaying this because of politics, especially after two of our members are currently fighting occupational cancer. Guys with wives and children deported on the line every day for the city. On a day goes by, we don't think about those guys and the fights they're going through. This isn't about politics.

This is about doing the right thing and trying to make sure that maybe no one else has to go through what they're going and their families are going through. It's been a long year that has featured hundreds of hours of research and homework to make sure we have this right. Write down a finding language that can be used in regards to testing and safeguarding the purchase of the gear. We can't thank Mayor Koch and his administration enough for the efforts they have put into this effort. It's a monumental effort. Also, a big thanks to IFF President Ed Kelly, IFF President Third District Vice President Jay Colbert, PFFM President Rich McKinnon, Secretary-Treasurer Billy Cabral, Vice President Jay Burns, San Francisco Battalion Chief Matt Alba, who has been a wealth of information for us, Brian Hodges from Milliken, John Sawyer from FireDex, Danielle from IPS, and Professor Graham Peasley and Hunter McMillan for all they have done with the testing program. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the Quincy Foyer Cancer Foundation. Those guys paid for the testing. God bless the foundation and the work they've done.

The collaborative effort over the past year has literally changed the industry and how departments across the country are now going about purchasing PPE. None of this happens without Jason Burns and Professor Graham Peasley. Professor Peasley for taking time out of his busy schedule and traveling to Massachusetts to discuss this very important issue tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment. One moment, if we could please. We'll have to recess this hearing briefly. We'll start the city council meeting and then we'll come back in committee.

We're going to call the City Council meeting Monday, March 16th, 2026, 730 to order. Madam Clerk, could you call the roll, please?

Councilor Ash. Present. Councilor DiBona. Present. Councilor Hubley. Present. Councilor Jacobs.

Present.

McKee?

Present.

Councilor Riley? Present. Councilor Ryan? Present. Councilor Yuan? Present. President Mahoney? Present. Nine members here.

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

Pledge our allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. So now we're going to recess the city council meeting and we're going to go right back into the finance meeting.

Jump around a little. We'll have open forum after.

Thank you. We'll call this back to order. Professor Peasley, thank you very much for your patience.

No problem. I'd like to thank the Council for allowing me to speak. It's a privilege to be here in Quincy and I'd like to thank the Quincy Fire Department for inviting me. I'm coming on my own dime because I think it's important to show that this is a personal passion of mine. and the Quincy Fire Department is ahead of about 95% of the fire departments in the country. And I should mention that they do that out of their own interest in getting safe gear. I'm also partly responsible for the mess we're in now in the sense that there are 27,000 fire departments in the United States of America and they are all searching for new gear because of a discovery that we made back in about 2017, 2018. when I tested the gear and we found staggering levels of PFAS in it beyond anything I'd seen in any other commercial textile. and it took me about three years to publish that. We had to get the gear first. I asked the firefighter in Worcester who sent me the gear, was anybody not like him or did somebody, anybody else wear this gear?

and I was amazed to find out that was not only a common occurrence to put PFAS in PPE, it was required by the then current NFPA 1971 standard. And they couldn't meet it without PFAS, they said. Well, that turned out not to be true. It just happened to be a company spokesman that put that in. And so we did research into it. We published it in 2021. and I'm proud to say that's a peer-reviewed scientific article saying there's PFAS in the gear and it could harm the firefighter. It was followed up by an IAFF, the International Union, of Firefighters that asked to do an independent research study. They called me up and said, who's the best PFAS expert in the country to do that? I said, Jennifer Fields, number one in the world. And so they went to Oregon State and they offered her money to do a study. and to her credit, she also invited me to contribute to her study. But she did an independent study and not only confirmed the results I had published the year before, but she found another source of them.

There were gaseous ones as well as solid ones. and they were in fact much even worse than what I had predicted. and it represents, both papers were published and said it represents the risk to the firefighter to wear this gear. That was enough for the IAFF and they did an immediate about face to their credit. The new union president came in and he said, we're gonna be behind this. and within a year resolutions had been passed by IFF saying that we want PFAS free gear and without it the manufacturers aren't allowed to attend their conferences. that's their sales route. The manufacturers, of course, were not without some four cents. I had told them about my work when I was doing it and I said, do you guys know how much PFAS are in here? And again, there was plausible deniability. They weren't sure. They hadn't heard this. But at the moment, we went ahead and proved that it's there. And not only that, it comes off. I have pictures of my students holding the gear and no sooner than we got the gear in our lab that we discovered it transferred to hands.

All my students have to handle the gear with nitrile gloves because of personal safety risks. The university won't allow us to handle hazardous chemicals like that without gear on. They have to have eyewear and nitrile gloves. and when the firefighters saw my students holding the gear up for a photograph, hiding behind the gear, they noticed the nitrile gloves and said, why don't I wear gloves when I wear my gear? and, of course, they're putting it on their entire body. I'm not an environmental toxicologist. I can't tell you what the transfer rate is between, but I know it's not zero. There's a lot of published studies now. A published study came out in 2024 saying there's dermal absorption of these very same PFAS chemicals. and the number of adverse health effects from PFAS are very well known in this country and around the world. And it's scary. And while we do not know that any set of gear could cause anyone cancer, We know that it's not necessary. There was, at the time I published my first paper, a company that came up and said, could you test this gear for us? And I did, free of charge.

and I looked at it and I said, it's got no PFAS in it. Is it 1971 compliant? They said, yes. And I said, well, aren't you clever? I'm publishing a paper next week about how this is what we need to do. and they had thought about it. And they spent six months beating their competitors to something that was PFAS free. And this was in 2021. And by 2023, every manufacturer was now offering PFAS Free Gear, or at least they said so. And I thought my job was over. We'd done an amazing thing. Everything had turned around in three or four years, which is pretty fast for an industry. until I got a call from Jason Burns, who then put me in touch with Tom here in Quincy and one other firefighter in San Francisco. And they said, how do we know our gear is now PFAS-free? It's supposed to have a label, I said. They aren't putting labels in. and that became a little bit of a concern.

So I tested some more gear and most of it, the good news is about 80% of the gear, I've tested about 70 sets in the last three months, has been PFAS-free, as advertised. But Quincy was the second set of gear I tested, and it wasn't. And that was a mistake. It should have been PFAS-free. And the manufacturer apologized, but they are not producing the gear that they expect. And so what are we going to do? We're going to trust but verify. And we're going to check that they have PFAS-free gear and they deserve it. So I'm not here to argue about what all the testing protocols are. I'll be happy to explain that in question time. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer that. What I would like to say is I support fully any fire department that's trying to change out the gear for their members. They're not doing it for themselves. They're doing it for the future generation of firefighters because they have already been exposed to PFAS and the future generation doesn't need to be. and I think it's a worthy cause.

The issue before you is of course how to fund it and that's beyond my purview but I would like to, urged support for these firefighters and they are doing a yeoman's job for the whole city, not just for the city, but for the state and for the country. Everybody's looking to Quincy and they've heard about Quincy Fire Department thanks to their press conference when they discovered they weren't getting what they expect. and that's led to this city council meeting will be reproduced in dozens of other cities in the next months and in the next coming years. So I thank you for your time and I'll be happy to answer questions later.

Thank you, Professor. Mr. Delavarro.

Good evening, Councilors. Okay, well, I would just like to say if this council votes and goes forward with this purchase that the firefighter gave for the firefighters, the city was planning on doing a 10-year bond offering. We reached out to a Ramirez and company to help us estimate the cuts on that. And I can go over that with you briefly right now. I believe every councilor has a copy of this with your package. The interest on a 10-year note for this purchase of the gear would be $785,625. with an annual debt service of roughly $325 to pay for it. So that would be over a 10-year period.

The cost increase for the debt service to the average residential taxpayer in Quincy for this purchase would be roughly $7.97 a year for 10 years or $80 over the life of the bond. If you have any questions on the debt schedule, I'd be more than happy to go over that at that time. Thank you. Thank you.

Solicitor ten minutes. Thank you.

Madam Chair, good evening again, Councilors. There's not much to say on as far as legal in relation to this acquisition, because we're kind of out in a separate universe. The city was involved in a fairly complex matter involving the Honeywell Corporation when Metcalfe first came in back in 2008. And some of you may be familiar with it, went on for about four years. We involved the Attorney General's office, private attorneys, and it was a lot of work. While we're embarking on that same process now, working with staff from the Attorney General's office. I have another attorney who's working on this with me, but for the most part, we've been waiting for the engineering work to come through. In addition, PFAS and perhaps

Someone more qualified with the science of it all would be able to explain this better than me. But PFAS is in the groundwater supply in a number of areas. And what has happened is there are communities that have filed lawsuits in relation to the liability aspects. They've raised the liability for how the water got there. In some instances, there were pipe manufacturers who manufactured using PFAS. The legal world of PFAS claims, it's evolving and we're at the front end of it right now. I'm involved with... matters that we're still exploring. There are a number of questions like just by way of example, who would a plaintiff be in this case? Would it be the city? Well, we're about to become

a damaged party by virtue of the expenditure of money to buy new turnout gear. So that would be damages held by the city, but the individual firefighters in this room and their families their plaintiffs as well. So how you parse those claims and how things are Thank you, Mr. Chair. or should in any way delay what's going on here tonight. This is very important. the people behind me. The litigation will trail a bit and we'll certainly keep you updated as developments occur, but we're at the very beginning stages.

Thank you. Okay, at this time, I would like to open it up to my colleagues. Councilor DiBona.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank all the firefighters and their families, and I see police officers here as well, any public safety folks that are here in tonight's chambers. I just want to start off by saying I express my full support for the safety gear proposal for our Quincy firefighters. This is a critical issue. I attended the Mayor Koch's August 2025 press conference regarding this gear. that we have in front of us tonight. Throughout my 10 years as a city councilor at large, I've consistently advocated for public safety. Having worked closely with Chief Barron, Chief Jackson, Chief Smith, and Quincy Firefighters Local 792 Presidents Bowes and Moody, I've supported various funding appropriations for our firefighters. including station revitalizations, new apparatus, specialized washing machines, and essential staffing levels. I believe this new equipment is necessary.

providing this turnout gear ensures our firefighters can safely perform their duties while serving the citizens of Quincy and all citizens. With that, I'd like to make a motion to approve this measure. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor DiBona. So you're making a motion that you would like to move this out of committee?

I'd like to make a motion to approve.

To approve it without further discussion.

Discuss on the motion.

discussed on his motion. Okay.

But there would be no further discussion on... No, you can discuss.

Okay, I'll open it up to anyone else who would like to make comment.

Madam Chairwoman, are we discuss about his, Councilor DiBona's motion or we discuss about this ordinance, this bond? We can just, I guess we can deliberate more broadly. Okay, so may I ask several questions to Mr. Bowles?

Bowles.

Bowles. Thank you for your report. So I just have a couple questions about. So in your report, item 10, you said we purchased 188 sets of PPE personal protective equipment at the time. I'm wondering, these 188 sets, you all purchased from one company or from different companies? Is I'm speaking to this?

Okay.

Yeah.

What was your question, Councilor?

So, number 10, it's written, we purchased 188 sets of PPE at the time. I'm questioning, is that a 188 set or from one company or from different companies?

Councilor, it was actually 171. That's a misprint. It was 171. Those 171 were bought by the same company.

171 or from which company?

I'm not going to say. We're not saying company names tonight, Councilor.

And these 171 sets purchased through several batches, right? From 2019, 2023, 2024, and 2025? Or you just purchase at one time?

So there were different purchases, Councilor. There was a purchase in 2019, and then a new Academy come on, and they purchased in 2023 for a new Academy. Another Academy come on in 2024, they purchased more gear in 2024. and then at 2025, there was actually another academy, a second academy in 2025. So that was a different purchase as well.

Yeah, the reason I ask this because the test result of several sets from different years are very different.

Correct.

So that's why I want to ask. How many sets did you purchase in 2019 and 2023 and 2024? Do you have an idea?

2023.

We can get those, State Councilor. Yeah, we don't have them.

Okay. And you said a good estimate is that there are still 150 to 160 sets of this PPE as a first set of PPE for Quincy firefighters.

That's correct. So just to explain it, Councilor, in 2019, There was a couple academy classes a couple years before that. And in 19, we needed gear. We had no idea about chemicals back then. We started to learn about it. But we needed gear for thermal protection. After 10 years, your gear starts to wear, and you're not protected for thermal protection. So the gear was from, all the sets of gear at that point were 2012. So we made a major purchase in 2019 and that's why we bought so many sets in 2019.

So big purchase is from 2019?

Correct.

And then gradually you have a 2023?

Correct. That was new academy classes coming on. Correct. So those weren't as big cons. So there's probably, I'd venture to say, maybe 20 sets each year.

So what does that mean, still 150 to 160 sets of PPE as a first set of PPE? Does that mean 150 to 160 firefighters only have one set?

What I mean by that, Councilor, is so someone might have retired. They got a 2019 set. and so that set just sits for, you know, that's not, it's for use for like academy purposes and stuff like that. So if a person retires, so out of 2019, Councilor, There is, without a doubt, 150, 160 sets still being won by members, including myself. My guess, 2019.

And that's your first set?

That's my first set. My backup set is 2012, which has expired according to NFPA standards.

Okay, so 2012 already expired.

Yes, ma'am. The recommended is 10 years, the recommendation.

Okay, so my next question is on the table, but audience don't have that. So the question is, so the first set you sent to Professor...

Correct, yep.

That's from 2020, manufactured in March 2025.

March 2025, that's correct.

and that's from the same company you purchased all those sets.

Yes, can I say that? I'm asking, yeah. Same company, yep.

Okay, and then in table, second table, the item one to four, like, four pairs, that's all test PFAS-free, both pants and the jacket, both the outer shell and the moisture barrel. That's from the same company. and why that all test PFAS-free?

I'm losing it, Council.

That's table two.

Table two? Yeah.

The first one to four items.

Correct. What you don't have in front of you, Councilor, but it should be in your notes is the brominated flame retardant test. So they were high in brominated flame retardants, even though there were no PFAS in them. So technically, there are very dangerous chemicals in those sets of gear.

So, I said the infer, when they manufactured This turn out of it in March, in March 2025, they still have a PFAS on the out layer. And then in July, that's the new batch of the PFAS.

That's correct. You hit it right on the head, Councilor. They corrected their action, Councilor, after they were called out on it.

Okay, from March to July, okay. Another question is, the same table two, item nine to 12, that's manufactured in 2024, but also show PFAS-free.

That's correct, Councilor. And as I said, there's another shot. I should have it in front of you. they're filled with brominated flame retardants even though they're PFAS free so they are filled with dangerous chemicals as well.

I know that but I'm just wondering if in 2024 the company already stopped using PFAS as the data number nine to number 12. Why in 2025 March they start to use PFAS again?

If I had that answer, Councilor, we wouldn't be here right now.

I'm just asking, have you tested other set from the same batch made in 2025 March?

Yeah, the professor's going to come up and talk.

I understand the question, and it's very confusing, why the company that first produced, and we won't mention the name of the company, first produced PFAS-free gear, but then at some point later, the gear was no longer PFAS-free. That's because in an enormous effort, 1.2 million firefighters need new sets of gear. They're switching all from PFAS-filled gear to PFAS-free gear. They went through some technical issues on the company manufacturing side. and I know this for certain that this company actually manufactured gear unintentionally, they thought it was PFAS-free and they failed to manufacture it PFAS-free. and then they quickly caught that and that's why as little as three months later the gear was again PFAS-3. It was supposed to be PFAS-3 all along but Quincy purchased the gear right in the middle when they didn't have PFAS-3. and that's unfortunate, but it was very lucky we caught that because when it was realized, they realized they had an issue in the manufacturing process.

My question is, is this information provided by the manufacturer?

the manufacturer contacted me.

Like this process, first they go through PFAS-free, then meet some technical problem, then they start to add PFAS on it, then after being caught, they go back to PFAS-free. Is this information provided by the manufacturer?

I'm not a member of the Quincy, so I will say that I spoke with the manufacturer who described such an incident to me. I can't say that that's for their legal case and things like that. I don't want to go into detail, but I know that's what happened. and so I'll say that, but I'm saying that as a person, not as a member of Quincy. That's where I'm trying to work with manufacturers and firefighters to try and achieve the same thing. We want to reestablish trust with the manufacturers. The manufacturers have lost their trust and the idea of testing is to get everybody back on the same page. They should be talking to each other.

and that batch we purchased 30 pairs, right? 2025 in March from the... So you just send one of 30 pairs

That's correct, and that was actually a brand new set of gear, Councilor. It was never worn. It was taken from the box it got delivered in, and it was sent out to Professor Peasey. That was meant for a recruit that never joined the Academy. He quit before the Academy started.

Have you sent some other pairs from that batch to Professor?

From that batch? No, we have not.

You haven't, okay. So because I saw that if you want litigation, only one pair seems not that strong.

We learned a lot. when we went down to one of the plants, and I know Professor Peasey can attest to this, when they make gear, gear is usually between three and five yards to make a set of gear. I think that's accurate, correct? So three to five yards to make a set of gear. These rolls of material, they're about 100-yard rolls. So I venture to say that the limited number that we bought in March of 2025 would be from the same roll of material. So odds are. it's all going to be contaminated because they're coming off the same roll of material.

And I have another question. So you also tested the and a high amount of brominated flan retardants in which pairs? Like this table.

I don't have it in front of me. We have that in report somewhere. I can take a look right now, ma'am, yeah.

Any other questions?

Oh, yeah, I have more questions.

Let's get a few more minutes.

What's your question, Councilor?

Oh, I mean, because the original pair standard for test is for test brominated flame retardants.

Correct. So, Councilor, that was our intentions. We thought we had accomplished finding a clean outer shell, a PFAS-free outer shell, because that's how it was sold to us. It was made with a chemical called PF0. So it's supposed to be clean, PFAS-free. So our biggest worry as we're trying to find new gear for guys, clean gear, we were hearing reports that the moisture barrier, which is a very important piece of the gear, contained brominated flame retardants were just as bad. They're very toxic chemicals. So we wanted to see if that was accurate. And Jason Burns at the time, I knew we were frustrated. We put a lot of work into this over the years. And that's when he put me in contact with Professor Peasley. and I, we did some testing and it did confirm the fact that there were high levels of brominated flame retardants.

My question is did the company disclose the information about brominated flame retardants? How did you get? the information think, oh, maybe that turnout will be loaded with PFR.

I don't remember off the top, my head counsel. I don't.

So it's not in company's disclosure, right?

I'm going to let the technical expert answer that, Council.

The company did not voluntarily disclose that, but they had to meet what's called the NFPA vertical flame test for the moisture barrier. That means it has to be held to a vertical flame and it has to not catch fire. and the manufacturing went away from Teflon which was the PFAS gear and they went unfortunately to one which was a flammable and they added something that contained a lot of bromine, which is a brominated flame retardant. And you don't know which flame retardant it was. We didn't test that. but it's no doubt that it is. They have since that time, other manufacturers have come up with the same gear that is not have, it's used titanium oxide which is much safer. and so it's only the brominated flame retardant that caught people's attention and only one manufacturer switched that and they have never publicly announced that but they're working very hard to switch it right now. and so it will not be available as brominated flame retardants in the next year, I would say. But at the moment, still one company manufactures it.

So at that time, Bromelator Flynn retardants is the only choice to add it still meet the criteria That's right.

It's a separate retirement, but it's a vertical flame test that doesn't catch on fire either. The PFAS are added for water resistance, nothing to do with flame retardants. So they can add other things for flame retardants, and that's what the manufacturers did.

Rule 10, okay, so that we can try to get a few more people to be able to speak tonight. Madam President, if that, pardon me. For now. McGee. Madam President, is it okay if I continue? Okay. Anyone else on the Council would like to speak? Councilor McGee.

Hi, I just want to get some just kind of simple facts. So how many firefighters does Quincy employ now?

Good evening, Councilor. currently we have 281 with this purchase when I went through the original We were at 281, but I looked through our entire roster, spoke to some members of the fire department, and I'm eliminating 10 from this order that are gonna be retiring in the very foreseeable future. So we have it down to, for the purchase, it'll be for 271, but, the trial gear that we got from Fire Dex that we're going with has offered to give us the two trial sets at no charge. So I was able to reduce it by two so it's,

that's where the number 270 and 540 come from on the purchase order.

Thank you. And then how many sets total were tested, sent out for testing?

five sets of Quincy fire gear were tested. One set was tested three times. It was tested by Professor Peasley. And there was a follow-up test at Duke University and NC State University. OK. Which represent all the years of the gear that we had. Yeah, it was 2019, 2023, 24, and two sets from 2025, one from March of 2025 and one from July of 2025.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. So and just you mentioned that you don't think that you have any safe gear. Are you talking about PFAS or are you talking about and the brominated flame retardants.

Both test results show that it's either or. Some sets of gear have both. But no set of gear we tested since 2019 is clean.

Okay. For clarity, for people who are not in the fire department, the BFRs, is there any kind of regulation on them? You're the professor?

Professor, yeah.

There's no regulation on BFRs or on PFAS. The only rule on PFAS is that they are now all being regulated out. Most of those take effect at the end of this year. But there's nothing specific about BFRs.

nothing, okay, yeah, because I did most of my research on the PFAS element, but yeah, looks like there's other. So actually, Professor Peasley, we spoke a little bit before. Thank you for taking the time to chat. I, you had said this, to me it's hard to get a sense of, you know, Learning about this, it's made me realize how very dangerous it is to be a firefighter. But if we were to try to sort of understand the gear aspect of this versus I know the firefighting foam that is going to, that's used to fight fuel fires, right? that tends to have quite a lot of PFAS. Can you help put into context where the PFAS that

firefighters might come into contact from is coming from and where the data so far suggests the risks Absolutely.

As you'll realize, I'm not invited to parties anymore. This is really doom and doom. But four years ago, there was a phase out of all aqueous film forming foam. A triple F is so called in the industry. that was the firefighting foam we used for class B fires. Those are petroleum based fires and those are hard to fight. So a jet fuel fire, a overturned tanker truck, those sort of big fires sometimes exploding transformers and electrical power stations. Those will need a specialized type of, you can't put water on them, you have to use something different. And this foam was developed in 1969 and has been used continuously since that until 2019 when it started to phase out. and that was due to the fact that it was made predominantly from PFAS and in a liquid form. And when you spray a liquid form of PFAS onto a burning vehicle or onto a burning airplane or to, any structure that has this, it is immediately dispersed into the environment.

And these are called forever chemicals for a reason. They'll last for a few thousand years. which means that foam gets into your water, which gets into your drinking water, which gets into your irrigation water, and into us, all of us, whether you're a firefighter or not. and everybody in North America, your council included, has five parts per billion of this in their blood right now. And it comes predominantly from the firefighting foam that was used by both the military and the municipal fire departments for the last 60 years. that's our biggest source of PFAS in our body and that's true for firefighters as well as non-firefighters. The occupational use of PPE that has PFAS in it, it wasn't even identified as a source of PFAS into the body until my papers came out in 2021 and 22. and those sources are still not known how extensive that will be.

My belief is that most North Americans are getting their PFAS from aqueous foam forming foam because we put it in the groundwater and we're drinking it. almost 40% of the country is drinking it above levels that the EPA recommends, just for bad news. I haven't tested Quincy's water, so I don't know, but they will know. The answer is that you are exposed from PFAS from a number of different directions. The risk that firefighters face from the gear is unknown in its magnitude. but there is a safer alternative available. And there is a safer alternative available. They have fluorine-free foam now. Heathrow's used it for five years and all sorts of plane crashes and it works just fine. and so the fire service has switched from that for about four years ago. All of Quincy stopped using it four years ago and that's true even in Indiana and Florida just decided to ban it last week. So everybody's getting there. but mainly for environmental reasons rather than personal protective reasons.

The gear is very personal because you wear the gear for many hours a day and you're exposed to what comes off it and it comes off readily. Rubbing it will get it onto your hands, will get it into your skin. You do decon for smoke inhalation and all the exposures you get in a flame, but you do not know, you don't necessarily think about what your gear is giving you. and that's the risk that that bears. We know it's not zero. We don't know how extensive it is. And in the case of turning the gear off, we've decided, you know, if you have a choice of a toxic-filled gear or non-toxic-filled gear, which would you prefer? and it's simply not essential for waterproofing as they found other ingredients and so there is now PFAS-free gear available and the firefighters have voted overwhelmingly to go to that. I still believe, and as I told you, that I think AFFF is the biggest source, and we're all getting that, but the firefighters are probably getting an extra burden from their gear. and that's the reason they're asking for this PFAS-free.

The fact that it became public and became of scrutiny is probably why all the firefighters, as many seated here today, know about it and where nobody knows about AFFF. because it really hasn't been very publicly announced until people started finding it in their water. Does that explain?

Yes, so probably the biggest source is from the firefighting foam that found its way into the groundwater sources, and we're all drinking that, including firefighters. but firefighters would in addition have come into contact with PFAS, I guess, in fires just from things that contain PFAS that are burning, right?

And that... No, they're not really exposed very much to that. That has to be gaseous form. And they don't stick to you as a gas very well. So you don't get much from a fire, maybe a Teflon factory fire or something. But in general, they're not going to be... are all combustion products that contain PFAS, only the firefighting foam or the gear.

The gear. And the gear could, as we discussed, become a problem, potentially, because it could go through the skin or it could be ingested.

There's a study in 2024 that shows dermal absorption is not zero like they claimed 20 years ago. It is actually significant for certain forms of up to 56% of one form. The long chain ones are only about one or 2% that goes through the skin in 36 hours.

Okay, so one or two percent could potentially go through, according to the science that's been published, could go through the skin from the gear.

And one or two percent of what's the amount on the outside, which is part per million, means that you've got part per billion, tens of parts per billion on a source where your body only contains five. So that would increase. And in fact, since we're getting most of it from the firefighting firm, where's the rest coming from? And it is from some sort of product that we're being exposed to.

I guess I spoke with another scientist at North Carolina State and he said that that some research indicates that washing gear could actually remove it. He gave this very vivid example. He said, you know, Everybody at his university is given like a red shirt as a freshman and then you wash it with white clothes and it gets on to the white clothes and everyone's got pink. and he said that's because the people who sell that material haven't washed it enough times to get rid of everything that's not really bound closely to the rest of the fiber. and he told me that when he asked these companies that make this if they

wash, rinse the gear before they send it out, they all said no. And some studies suggest that just washing it three times, one to three times could significantly reduce the amount of PFAS because they may be the companies don't seem to have realized that it's not bound as tightly as they thought. So I guess is that in line with what you've read as well? Not at all. Not at all? No. No, okay.

Okay.

It does wash off. And so when you wash a set of turnout gear, you'll see it in the water at quite significant levels. That's another issue because where does that water go? But the main problem is that the gear is a heavy Nomex, which is a 20-pound set of gear, right? The whole, just the coat by itself. and to wash off that much or to rub off that much would be a significant number. I tested in the original study gear from 2008 up to 2018 at that point. And all that gear, some of it was only a year or two old, some of it was new. Some of it was 10 years old and had been washed over 100 times. And it still shed at just the appropriate. I could still rub it and get 20 parts per million on my fingers. And so we didn't see any noticeable decrease in the way that it came off. The gear lasts for 10 years, and that's because it can continue to shed the outer layer, especially what's called the side chain polymers come off. But there's enough mass there that the gear is good for 10 years.

It won't have worn through at that point. and that means that you haven't washed it all off and it's continuing to come. The Teflon moisture barrier lasts even longer but it doesn't, it will have more washed off at the beginning than the end, that's true because it's less incorporated into that but this continues to shed for its entire lifetime.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that there was nothing there, but just that it does go down. He cited some studies that it goes down.

For the moisture barrier, there's a definite drop off after a couple of years. but the outer shell I saw no drop off. It just continues to shed all its life. In fact, if you wear the crotch, it tends to wear out more and you see larger as it goes longer.

Okay, I think that might be, unless I misunderstood, a little bit different from what he said because he said abrasion wasn't helping but putting it in water and shaking it as you would like in a washing machine actually showed reductions, so.

It showed reduction in what came off. I don't know how he measured what came off. All I do is I measure the water and there's plenty in the water every time it comes off. And more importantly, if you look at the gear after it's been washed, there's still plenty left. Some of this gear is up to percent level of PFAS on it and it's still percent level after you wash it.

So the next question I have is, looking at this, there were three different places that tested the gear, and each one used a different method. and so yours is like a surface method and then there's the method that North Carolina State used which is to put a little piece of material in a container and burn it at a thousand degrees till it all burns up and then see what's left over. And then there was another one from Duke University that used kind of what leaches out from the material, right? So there are different techniques. Do you use the other techniques as well as you do both?

I use the Duke University, the combustion ion chromatography, the second method I don't use. I have some issues with that one because it has a couple of features that are both expensive and not reliable. But the gold standard is what Duke does. and that's what everybody does. Unfortunately, both those testing methods are destructive. You have to cut a hole in the gear which renders it no longer under contract. It can't be used in firefighting. but NFPA rules, you have to patch it. And even after that, it's not, you don't wanna wear, I think my suit's safe except for this hole. So you don't do that. And so the non-destructive test is what I developed. And it's not the use for quantification of which type of chemical, just that they're present or not. and how much of that total quantity. And so that's why it's appropriate for turnout gear. It's rapid and it's non-destructive. and we can do it quickly. But I do use in my lab the LCM aspect because that's the gold standard, everybody uses that.

Okay. The Nyer, I'm sorry. Did I already get through 15 minutes? Oh my gosh.

Anyone else? Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have any specific questions. I appreciate the timeline provided. I know some emails that I received were with respect to the timeline, so President Bose, it's very helpful. I am not going to pretend to be an expert in PFAS. I'm going to with all due respect trust the expert. and that's not intended in any negative way, but I appreciate Professor Peasley's report. We have a long history of supporting our first responders in this city. I look forward to supporting this initiative. I will say that if there is a resolution from a suit in the future, it would be, it would behoove me not to say like,

I think we would like to see that money come back to pay this bond off, but I understand depending on who the parties are, what the damages are, the resolution of that, that's impossible I think at this point to be able to tell nor should we be conditioning the bond on that so I would just suggest and hope that my fellow councillors will feel the same and I certainly don't believe that $80 per resident for the next 10 years is worth any of our 280 first responders health and wellness. So thank you.

Anyone else? Councilor Hubley.

Yeah, so if there aren't any additional questions from my colleagues, I would like to second Mr. DiBona's motion if I can.

We actually don't need a second, I think, in committee, but I do want to make sure everyone has a chance to be heard at least once. Do you have any other comments or questions that you wanted to add?

Yeah, I mean, you stated it quite well, Councilor Esch, in terms of the financial implications of the city as well as the impact on health. and I do want to say thank you to those who traveled in from out of town. Thank you to those who have done such diligent work and brought this to the council as quickly as they could. Really appreciate that. I mean, these are the City employees who are running towards danger to make sure that we can run away from danger. And I don't want to lose sight of that. So that's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you.

Mahoney. I want to make sure everybody else was able to speak. So I'm not going to argue about PFAS either because PFAS is in everything. It's in our water and it's in your jackets that you wear out to When you buy a jacket that's water repellent, so when you're out running and you have a water repellent jacket, we're wearing that as well. It's in your kids' snowsuits, so when you're buying your baby a snowsuit, it's in your snowsuits. It's, and when you discard of this, it will be in our, it will be our forever chemical, so that would be a question is, what do we do with 188? pieces that we have to safely discard of it. Many people who are dealing with water, and water is really the the biggest issue that most people are getting PFAS. So there's a lot of cancer that's happening. It's not just in the police, in the fire. It's in the everyday people. You're drinking water. And I know that in the town I work in,

that we're working on a tri-town water treatment facility and we're trying to figure out how we can prevent PFAS from being in that water system. So I am familiar with PFAS. and I'm sad to say that I am familiar with it and I think it's in the news a lot too and it's at the federal government. PFAS is something that we're talking about at the federal government. One of the concerns we have at the federal government is whether or not the funding to remove it is going to stay. That's a big concern, right? Because it's a health risk for everybody, not just what we're here to talk about tonight, although I appreciate that we're here to talk about tonight, I wanted to make sure that people understood that. So I'm very sensitive to that. One of the questions that I did have, though, is I just want to make sure I understand this. PFAS-free gear was what we were promised, but I'm not going to say that, I never say the technical terms, but the Fire, Retard, and Peace was not promised to be in the gear. Is that correct? That was a bonus?

What do you mean? I'm sorry. I think you have to go up to the microphone. Sorry. It's okay.

It's PFAS-free, and nobody thought to ask about the brominated flame retardants.

So when you say nobody thought to ask, who is the nobody that thought to ask? I just want to clarify that. When we were purchasing it or just in general, people didn't know to ask this?

Nobody thought that they would switch to a brominated flame retardant. after they had removed one dangerous chemical. It's what's called a regrettable substitution in industry. They put this other one in and they didn't tell anybody about it. And that was, so nobody knew that was in there until after we started testing.

I can't get into it tonight, but I'm sure at some point we will.

Back to 2019, I actually have documentation that says there's no brominated flame retardants in it either. I do, yeah.

Yeah, well, I mean, that would be great for us to have tonight, but that's fine. and the only reason why I bring it up is because we were only talking about PFAS and now we're talking about a different chemical. Like we're testing PFAS and finding out there's another chemical there. and one of the other things when we're talking about PFAS, when PFAS was probably created several years ago, we were thinking this was the next best thing. It was gonna keep us all very safe and this is synthetic. This is what we're talking about. This is not natural. it's synthetic, it's manmade, just like the next set of gear that we're gonna be buying is gonna be manmade, and in 10 years there could be something in that set that could potentially be also Health Risk. I just need to set that ground level set because PFAS is practically in everything. It is definitely in, because you tested it, it is in your equipment, but the science is changing so fast that we could get two sets of gear and in three years be back here talking about another chemical, may it not be PFAS or...

The fire retardant chemical that's going to not come out of my mouth correctly. It could be something else. Is that correct?

That is correct. And it's a very good observation. What I would like to say is that once burned, you get a little bit shy the second time. and I think the fire services caught the brand-new flame retardants almost instantly and San Francisco is responsible for most of that and thank you to them for noticing it.

Yes, thank you, San Francisco. And they also only bought one set in their renewal. They didn't buy two sets because they're cautiously moving forward because they don't know what else is in those.

That's correct.

and the same with East Providence and the same with Newton and the same with many other communities that are investing and that are all in the same battle that our fire department's in. So I just wanna make sure we level set that as well. Because of the concern of investing in those communities, for more than one set because we don't know what's coming down the road in two or three years with the chemicals. Because as you said, they don't have to tell you. So we could go, and when we buy the equipment, can we ask, could you give us a full set of what's in the materials so that we know what we're getting? Do we get that when we purchase it?

I doubt whether the manufacturers disclose all their proprietary secrets.

So that is one of the challenges that we have. So as science evolves and what we realized was going to be the next best thing to keep us safe, we might find, just like we were all cooking our grilled cheeses on Teflon, not so long ago. And if you go to HomeSense, you can still buy Teflon bakeware.

Absolutely.

Yep. So I mean, and that's the thing, right? So even though it's been taken off the market and you shouldn't use it because it's very risk-averse for people to use, people are still buying it because they like their eggs to slide around on a plate.

What will drive it is, in this country, litigation. and unfortunately Europe regulates but the United States litigates. And what will happen is that the personal injury lawsuits will come about from exposure to PFAS. They're already existing now. 900 million suit settlements all over the place for this water contamination you referred to. And that's absolutely true. There's movies out about it now. And so as people get more aware, the industry is getting wiser and all the major manufacturers are walking away from... Oh, sure. They're going to back it up. Most industries do check before they create something new, and they do try to check for the lack of any sort of chemicals of concern, but that of course didn't work in this case.

but again, when we go back to the fact that the materials that are being created, they're not natural, they're synthetically made. And the secret sauce is in the manufacturer's hands and what they're looking for is something that's gonna prevent and especially in the fire department, because when I think about it, and I would never want to do your job because it is terrifying to me when I see firefighters, you know, any kind of fire, terrifying for the families that are in the building, but also terrifying for the people who have to go in and put those fires out. and the same thing with car fires with electric, the way the cars are built right now, you can't put the fire out because it just automatically keeps turning over. I know that that's a challenge for firefighters too. So, and the foam is one of the things that does put that out, but I'm just saying it's not an easy job. But by that same token, we wanna make sure we're putting equipment on you that is as safe as it possibly can be. But as we're talking about science evolving, and not knowing what's going to be going into. We're taking out PFAS because it's dangerous. We don't know what they're putting in next. That could be just as dangerous, if not worse.

I think that's a very valid point. I agree with you. What I will say is that they can't go into a fire without gear.

Oh, no. I've told them that. That's my whole point. I want to put them in things that are not going to... Exactly. Because one of the trade-offs, though, is that some of this equipment that we're talking about... that may not be able, they might have to have new training as well, because if your equipment isn't gonna be able to prevent the heat restrictions or certain things, it could also cause different things for them to go into the fire.

I'll defer to them on that, but I don't think they get training on their equipment, their PPE they're not trained on. On the equipment they operate, the trucks, of course, they get training, but on the

But the equipment, the gear that they have now is there's a heat-resistant, fire-retardant, and water-resistant. So if you have something that's heat-resistant that you're going into a flame, you may not feel it immediately from what I've read. it says that you would not feel it necessarily and if you change those chemicals out, granted they are dangerous chemicals and I'm not suggesting by any means I'm a scientist, I'm just saying that the change out of that gear could could prevent, you might have overheating and things that are happening in those uniforms.

That's regulated in NFP 1971. So the gear, although it's has changed, still has to meet the strict standards and those are tested by Underwriters Lab and other laboratories to make sure that they pass the flame test, they pass all the heat resistance and the steam barrier, All that has to be present in any set of gear manufactured through this NFPA. It's a nonprofit advisory organization, but the gear is all adherent to it.

but again there's trade-offs that's all I'm saying that there's trade-offs in what we're doing and the chemicals that we're using and you trade off one thing for another and we're not sure what those things are going to be. Get one thing out and the next thing...

They still have to be safe and they're regulated to be. And that's tested. I mean, that's tested by the manufacturers. They have to get a stamp that says...

I just want to make sure we don't have to go out and test that because I don't want any of you guys wearing any equipment that's going to make you that's going to not protect you too. Because when I think about it, when you think back to like, I don't even know what they said when they rubber boots and a jacket, that's all they had. That's terrifying.

That's even more terrifying to me. Absolutely. Just on that, counsel. I think Lieutenant Murphy's here. He had two fires in the last month with the test set of gear. and it held up fine. He's doing fine. He actually likes it, thinks it's comfortable. There's actually, in terms of heat, this new gear has an AeroFlex system in it. It helps the heat release from the gear better than the old gear we were wearing.

So with the new gear that you're getting, does it say it's guaranteed, 100% guaranteed PFAS-free, or does...

I think it's safe to say there's... There's really no guarantees of PFAS-free yet, right? I mean, we talk about this all the time. It's within the allowable limit of 100 parts per million or less. That's the standard. And as you can see from the test results that we had on this gear, with the margin of error, it's pretty much zero.

So it says right here for PFAS-free, never rely solely on a manufacturer's claim that it's PFAS-free.

That's why we're testing. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's the whole point, even though that they said it before. And it says, basically, ask manufacturers directly whether the gear in the department is considering to contain PFAS halogen flame retardants. of any type or any other chemical treatments because they can't promise that.

Correct. And as you saw, Councilor, we did secure some procurement language from San Francisco that we're going to attempt to use as well and we're going to continue testing and the Cancer Foundation is going to pay for it.

Absolutely. So, which then brings me to the other side because I don't, I'm not here. I mean, I just felt like I had to ask those science questions just because, you know, you have a scientist in the room, so why not? but for the financial presentation, I guess I do have a couple of questions on that as well. And maybe before, just one other question, what's the lifespan of this new equipment? Yeah, the new equipment that we're talking about.

The new equipment that we're getting?

Yep.

we we are going I'm confident that we're going to get 10 years on the NFPA standards and that that has to do with the combination of getting that alternative set of gear as well normally our gear a city this size the amount of uh fires that we fight we've been getting six to seven years. I think with this alternative set, which is what departments are doing now going forward, which I can explain more. We're going to get 10 years out of this. Barring, you know, we could have, God forbid, some type of incident where the gear got destroyed.

So I know you can get 10. So the recommendation is 10 years. The recommendation is to change out your gear every 10 years. Is that correct?

NFPA standard is 10 years, a 10-year life.

Yeah, that's the standard. But what I'm asking you from the manufacturer, not from the standards that are set because the standards that are set are one thing. That's when you go back to your cities and your towns and you say, well, we're at 10 years and we're required to do this because that's the standards that are set for national fire protection. What I'm asking you is for the manufacturer they usually will tell you what they think how long this will last.

I think they go with the standard, but also you have to understand is that it depends on your community. It depends on the size of your city, the size of your department, the amount of activity. Some departments buy this gear and they do 300 runs a year. We buy it, we do 12,000 a year. and we've had nine house fires since August 28th. So the life of the gear has to do with the volume that you do, and the care you have. So like in our case, you know, our SOGs reflect NFPA standards. We have the extractors, you know, we have policies in place to take care of this gear. So I believe that, a city our size, as busy as we are, given the request that I propose, I believe we can reach that 10 year mark, I really do.

So if I could ask Dr. Peasley that as well, because that's just a question.

Councilor Mahoney, in all fairness, I'm going to have to vote roll 10 on you as well. Jacobs, did you have anything you wanted to add? no pressure, I just wanna.

Well, I guess, you know, kind of going off what Councilor Mahoney was saying, you know, there's a manufacturer, just the Chief, there's a manufacturer what does the manufacturer say is the lifespan of that turnout year? If we're going to spend $2.6 million and we don't get an answer to that question, I would say that would be you know, us not doing our job. So we're gonna have to have an answer to that.

All the manufacturers are going to meet NFPA standards, and they will tell you it'll last 10 years. But they will tell you that regardless of whether you're a large city with lots of municipal fires or a small town with very few. and it's much easier to reach the 10-year. I know the 10-year lifetime is met in South Bend, which is a similarly sized city, but it doesn't have the municipal buildup this one does and quite the fire load that these guys are fighting. and so I know that 10 years is routine and many of the gear in that city go in South Bend for 12 year. So that's already achievable under the current year. The new gear is supposed to last just as long and it's manufactured to do that. So the manufacturer will say 10 years, but there are examples of high use areas where it didn't last that way. and that's currently, but I suspect that under management that they will try new techniques to try and preserve the life of the gear.

Let me ask another question. So we talked about how some of these other cities, Newton, a very similar town size-wise to Quincy, San Francisco, obviously much larger, are buying one set of gear. And Chief Smith had kind of alluded to the fact that if we do it this way, we'll get 10 years out of it. when he's, and I guess this is more, but when he says that, right, is he saying that we're gonna get 10 years because we have two suits? Like if we only had one, or if the firefighters only had one, would it still be 10 years?

No, I don't think you'd get that with one set. They assume that the firefighter has two because one is in service and one is being laundered or one is being in service, one is being repaired, whatever it happens to be. there's always two suits in all major municipal firefighting departments, and they'll correct me if I'm wrong, but that's sort of an industry-wide standard. What they are proposing is to have a set of gear which is lighter, that can be used in non-household fires that are not so taxing. And that would allow them to preserve the good suit. And that's not been done widely in the industry up till now. This is what the firefighters meet every year to discuss new strategy. This is a relatively new strategy, and he's proposing to do that, which would extend the lifetime of all gear because you're using one. There are marsh fires and things that aren't as intensive and that you may not need the heavy gear for. and that's new to me. I had not heard that before recently. And again, the fire services are deciding this amongst themselves, how to best meet that. And that's why he's predicting that the next set of gear will last longer.

I think that's because of that, if I'm not over speaking.

Okay, and so now you're talking about a lighter gear. Yep. Is this something we already, this is gear that we already have, or is this additional gear that we're going to be purchasing, or is this somehow related to the $2.6 million?

Good evening, Councilor. This proposal, this was new gear. We've never had it.

The new light gear.

The alternative, yes.

And we already have it.

No, we do not have it. It would be new. It's in combination with the two sets. Again, the reason for the two sets is... like January 24th, we had a major fire on California Ave. It was one of the coldest days of the winter. It was like right after that first big snowstorm. We were there all morning about, they got back about two hours later, they had a house fire in Newcomb Street. There's just one example of why you need that second set of gear. Their gear, you know, I don't know if you saw pictures in the newspapers, you know, these firefighters were frozen, and... I was at the Newcomb Street one. I'm sorry.

I was at the Newcomb Street one. I was there.

Oh, okay, so... So you knew the conditions that day. So their gears, they come back from California Ave. That gear gets put into extractors. Now it's not like home. You do a large load of laundry, throw it in the dryer, and all of a sudden everyone's clothes are clean. They only hold like two at a time. So like at headquarters alone, there's up to 15 firefighters there. You have to run their sets. there's an air drying system. That gear is out of service for days, actually. That gear does not come back on your same shift once you have a fire. So that's one of the reasons for that second set of gear. In regards to the lighter gear, you know, This here, the PPE that we wear, we've always been taught and trained in the fire service. It's our first line of defense and protection.

we're wearing this structural firefighting gear to everything, including your homes, with your families, if you're extricating someone out of a car, we're wearing this gear on everything. It doesn't only protect us from heat and flame and carcinogens and smoke. We've been taught in the fire service historically that it protects you from everything. If you get medicals, you know, bodily fluids, fluids from car accidents. So we wear this everywhere. with this lighter gear, just some of the things I'll go through very quickly, Councilor.

I'm sorry, can I just start right there? Sure. I appreciate all the things you're saying, but we are on a time limit here. I'm just looking at the item descriptions here. and the document that you gave us, which one of these item descriptions is the, I don't wanna say the lesser gear, but the.

The alternative gear it's called.

And it's in there, yeah.

It's at the bottom. Okay. Okay. So with this gear, we have several benefits. It's going to decrease the injuries that we get from our firefighters wearing the structural gear all the time. It's gonna be the elimination of wearing structural PPE into homes and businesses during non-life Fire Emergencies, limiting exposures to the public. So there's a reduction in the use of our structural PPE. We'll preserve the thermal integrity of our structural PPE. We'll have fuel contamination exposures to our structural PPE. Yeah. a reduction in cleaning cycles, which extends the life of the barriers with the PPE, reduction in replacement frequency and cycle costs. And we believe that that will contribute to the 10 years on the structural.

Okay, and I have another question. You know, just like Councilor Mahoney was saying, these other towns, they're buying one set of gear. We've obviously invested lots of money in these extractors throughout all of the stations. I support that 100%. but let's just say there's only one set of gear and you washed them in these extractors and you still had the other set of gear, I guess this is more for, are scientists, I guess. But what's the cross-contamination like if you're washing the gear and the extractors? What's going to happen?

That's another reason why you don't want to wash PFAS constructed gear with non-PFAS constructed gear because there is cross-contamination. We can measure that with our technique, for example, and that's why the numbers are not zero on some sets of gear. If they've been in service, it immediately starts picking it up from others that it has been washed with. So there's some transfer to the levels of a few hundred. as opposed to many thousands in the...

Okay, and so how do we treat the extractors so that way we're minimizing, you know, where, you know, because I know, like, you know, there was, you know.

That's why they're proposing to replace all the gear simultaneously as opposed to phasing it in because if you have one fluorinated and one not fluorinated, they're still fluorinated. Right, but how do we clear the extractors that have, there's water in them, I mean, I'll make a recommendation that they run them once without the gear just to clean them in between.

You think that's enough?

Yeah, it's mainly metal and it's like a washing machine. Yes, you can do treatments, but those are the very minimum you should do that before you buy new gear.

Thank you. I have a question for Mr. Della Barba.

Good evening, Councilor.

Good evening, Mr. Delababa. How are you? Good. Good. I just have a question about the tax levy from a couple months ago. We moved money, you know, from different accounts, like from, you know, free cash, to lower the tax levy for the residents of Quincy. and here you are a few months later, not you, but here the city is a few months later, asking for us to bond $2.6 million to buy this turnout gear, which our firefighters need and deserve and should have. The administration knew that we were going to do this. So I guess my question is, why wouldn't we have just held back $2.6 million from lowering the excess, sorry, the levy so that way we could forego paying $800,000 in interest on this side. We could have used that money to pay it down.

So you're asking the residents to pay $800,000 that if we had just not used it to lower the taxes, we could have saved the residents money.

Order.

I will recess.

I will recess.

I need water.

Are you comfortable answering the question, Mr. DeLaBarre?

Sure, counsel.

Thank you.

The determination to use $2 million in free cash to lower the residential levy is a policy decision. It's a decision that we frequently make and have made, the administration has made. over the course of the last several years. It also has been used for one-time purchases. $2 million on the residential levy equals $50 in tax relief. The debt service that we're talking about on this purchase is $7.97 per year times $10, $80. So you're talking about a difference of maybe $15 to $20. over a 10-year period.

Thank you. I'm just saying I think that that was short-sighted. That's my opinion on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Delano. Thank you, Councilor.

Ryan, do you have any input you'd like to make? You're the only one who I've not given an opportunity to speak yet.

Well, I have a question for Mr. Bowes. I wanted to ask you about your visit down to Milliken. Okay, because I noticed that you were quite impressed.

I was, ma'am, yes.

Okay, and when you were down, before you went down there, did you start collaborating with other fire stations throughout the country?

I dealt with Battalion Chief Matt Alba from San Francisco.

Okay. Okay. Now, are you going to continue to collaborate with them?

Absolutely, ma'am. The goal is to continue the random testing program and Professor Peasley, his company's made it even easier to test. So we'll be able to test using swabs now. I've had calls from Canada, Florida, Michigan, everyone's kinda working together to try to solve this problem.

Okay, okay, one other question. You had mentioned that PFAS was intentionally added to the gear?

So, ma'am, I think Professor Peasey could answer that better than me, but based on the levels that they found, that would consider them intentionally added versus not intentionally added. There's a level that Professor can answer for you.

Okay.

to impart waterproofness to the gear. They used PFAS to achieve a waterproof gear. When we measure it, we measure high levels or low levels or zero below our detection limit. and when we see low levels of gear, it's when we've mixed the wash together and you see small amounts come off and therefore the gear is not zero but a little bit elevated. The older gear was more elevated. but it's still hundreds versus tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. So it's quite clear that this wasn't manufactured with it. It had picked it up from a neighboring layer or neighboring wash.

Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Ryan. OK. I guess this is baptism by fire for me. I guess I'm the last one that gets to speak. However, under Rule 10, we can allow an additional five minutes per. Councilmember. I do have a couple of questions. First is, is this new gear available for immediate delivery, all of it, or would it be

As soon as we begin sizing, it's about an eight day sizing, eight days. We may have to get a few extra days if firefighters aren't available. six to eight weeks were being told right now. And we were surprised by that, to be honest with you, because, you know, Fire Departments across the nation are starting to deal with this. So we have the opportunity right now in the position we're in by being one of the early departments to tackle this that we can have in six to eight weeks as soon as our measuring can start. And our measuring, they're ready to start. So they're just waiting for me to call them.

Okay, so one of the concerns I have is that if this is in short supply and we're able to garner two sets for each firefighter, is that gonna leave other communities no opportunity to replace even one set of their gear?

Respectfully, I'm concerned about Quincy. And I mean that respectfully. No, I think, I mean that with complete respect. I believe that these companies, they see what's coming around the bend. They're manufacturing. and one thing that you should all take into consideration as well is it's a lot of money, but I think if I was to come back here in three months, could be three million because you know what's gonna happen? The demand is starting to take off and the prices are going to increase. and the time to getting the gear is gonna take longer. And remember what President Bose said, you know, we had the big change in getting everyone updating a second set of gear in 19.

most of our firefighters second set is older than that. So we're at expiration dates as well. It's a perfect storm. So we need two sets of gear. to move forward. We need everyone in the same gear. It's tested. We're gonna continue testing. and I think right now it's the right move for this city to move forward with this. I really do. I took my time with this proposal. I'll just run through a quick few, but there's some things you'll see the numbers are different. Two sets is 540. For instance, the belt for the escape ropes. The pants come with a sewn-in harness for those, so we would need two sewn-in harnesses for each person.

We would need 540 sets of those. We've tested the belt. which is obviously removable. They can use one belt for both sets. So what happens if they use it and they have it on fire, we can decon it very quickly and have it returned to service very quickly. So we've cut that 540 harnesses down to 270, that's a savings of over $50,000. Like I said, I did the numbers from 280 to 270. That saved about $57,000. Let me just pull it up. I have it right here. Actually, I'm sorry, that was $80,000. $80,630. Going to the single rope harness, I was able to save $57,510. conducted a full inventory of our gloves and our hoods.

And I'm comfortable that we can go with one set instead of two sets, so 270 of each. The savings of $59,400 and through some other negotiation I did with the bunker pants and coats, there was another $51,000. So I went from the original, down, I saved about $248,000. I can look at you in the eye and tell you I did everything as fiscally responsible as I could to get this to where we're at today. And I truly think if we wait and we buy only one set, we're gonna pay more money for that second set within months. and I don't want to do that. I want to get us in at the best price and get the gear as quickly as we can. It's a crisis for us and that's no exaggeration.

This is a crisis for us and I really hope that all of you see that.

Do you believe that the technology, though, will continue to evolve, the materials will continue to be Fabricated and, you know, this is the solution today based on what's available, but obviously the industry will continue to evolve and bring new materials and

I mean, I don't have a crystal ball. I know what I know now. I know the gear that we have today is very dangerous, not only for our firefighters, but for the public, our city that we protect. because we're bringing it into your homes. We're bringing it everywhere we go, and I don't want that anymore. I really don't. Can technology evolve? Of course it can. We've done the testing. The manufacturer have done the testing. were going to continue to test. And I pray to God that everything goes accordingly. But I can't sit and wait, because what if something else comes in a few years? So do we just sit and use the gear we're using? We can't do it. Cancer is up 80% in line of duty deaths. What scares me the most is with everything we've done as a fire service, all of the things I mentioned earlier in preventing cancer.

Doesn't it make you think? why is it up 80% with fully encapsulated gear? I spoke to Professor Peasley early and I said my greatest concern is that what we are gonna find out in a few years is PFAS and our PPE, our protective gear, is responsible for a high percentage of that 80%. Think about it. everything that we're doing and it's at 80% of line of duty deaths. What do you usually think of when you hear line of duty deaths? A firefighter got killed in a fire, right? No, it's cancer. 80%. And I'm sorry to repeat it, but it's worth arriving at home.

I respect that. Thank you. You're welcome.

OK.

Science is not my superpower. My superpower is more money related, and I am very disappointed that the only way we seem to be able to find our way out of this problem is through bonding the money.

Can I say something on money? We don't come up here often. We normally operate in our budget, and that's something that you will learn. Let's talk grants for just a minute, okay? In the last four months, I've applied, we've applied and gotten grants for $55,000 for hazardous materials equipment, $50,000 for communications equipment, $50,000 for new thermal image cameras. Thermal image cameras, we inventoried them, they're starting to break down. They're not worth fixing anymore. We're not coming to you for $50,000 for new ones. We're doing it in a grant. We have a fire education safety grant we just applied for for $13,000 that we're going to receive. I'm going to revamp the safety education program this year for our elderly and our children, our most vulnerable.

Right now we are starting this month in year two of a three-year grant of $6 million that are paying the salaries and benefits of 16 firefighters. $6 million, not in the budget. We wrote a grant for it for three years for the city of Quincy. we have a UASI grant that we have $375,000 we received to create our dive team. In the past, the assistance to firefighters grant, we got Rescue One, we got Engine Two, probably 1.5 million. So maybe we need a little bit of a, maybe I need to do now a little better job promoting the Quincy Fire Department. We are saving the city millions of dollars on top of

the fires that we're fighting right now because of our manning, because of our staffing, because of the equipment that all of our councilors, our mayors support, we're going into these house fires and knocking them down. We are saving homes for people, their memories, their treasures, We are saving the city millions of dollars. All we're asking for is let's get us some PFAS-free gear and let's focus on the health and safety of our firefighters.

Thank you.

And I apologize because I interrupted you.

Yes, and I'm going to hold myself to Rule 10, Chief. So if you could please just indulge me for a moment. This is obviously not how I expected to start my term here as the Finance Chair. I do not for a second doubt the science. I know that you guys are putting, one woman, putting themselves out there every day and we want to get this right. We did not, most of us were not here when these appropriations happened. I do believe that PFASs are dangerous. I believe that they are pervasive and we want to get this right. I would ask of my counselors, if we would, and Mr. Walker, if we would be willing to recess this and have.

I believe there's a second.

There's no second.

If you take a vote, it's going to be me.

Through you Madam Chairwoman, it is certainly within this Council's purview to ask as many questions as it feels appropriate within a reasonable amount of time. If this party feels that it needs to move to an additional meeting to make that happen. Don't boo me. the administration understands and will make that work. That being said, I do believe that there's an opportunity here for virtually every question to be answered here. it is well within the Council's purview to hold an additional hearing on this if it feels it's appropriate.

I personally would like to see us have executive session and get a little bit more information on what the legal action is planned beyond what is being shared with the public. I think the council has a right to some additional information on that.

DiBona. Okay.

Councilor DiBona's motion stands.

There's no second.

We don't need to second it.

Call the roll.

Ash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, Mahoney, McKee, Ryan. No. Councilor Yuan.

I still have so many questions.

It's yay or nay. Yay or nay.

No.

Jim and Riley. Yes.

Thanks.

It remains a committee.

Just to move out of the committee.

We will, um, we will, what are we doing? Are we recessing? So we can go on to adjourn. We're going to adjourn. I want to adjourn and we'll take up the regular council business.

Huh?

.

. .

No talking out like that, please. We're back into the City Council March 16th meeting, and we're going to turn this over to the City Clerk. Madam Clerk, could you please read the open meeting law?

Pursuant to the open meeting law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transit. 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 impermissible. Okay.

So the first thing on the meeting tonight is open forum and public comment. I don't have a sign-in sheet up here, but if you could step up.

It's going to be Quincy residents first. followed by the type of rehab. So Quincy residents first.

Please state your name and address for the record, please. Hi. I have a comment as myself and then I'm reading something from another resident. Is that allowed? As long as it stays in three minutes. Oh, yes. As long as it takes three minutes. Thank you. My name is Joanne Collins, 88 Hillside. I just want to make sure everybody here understands. I understand with all due respect that Councilor Ash didn't have the information, isn't versed in PFAS. I am not either. But I'd like everybody to know that Councilor Susan Yuen is versed in this. She has her PhD in science. So when she asks questions, I think that they're perfectly legitimate to ask questions. That's what democracy is, not rubber stamping things through. That's how we get into the debt we're in. My other thing that I just want to say is tonight on Netflix is the plastic detox about PFAS.

So if anybody's interested in learning more about them, we heard a lot about them tonight, you can watch it on Netflix. This is a letter from Mary Vesely, 46 Genesis Street. I was just asked to read this for her. I don't know her. I am writing not in response to any letter campaign but as a Quincy resident who cares about how this city spends public money both for this issue and any others that may come up. To start, I fully support getting our firefighters safe gear, but I am writing about the process surrounding Order 2026-038 and some genuine questions I hope the Council will consider asking on behalf of residents like me. I'm unable to attend in person tonight due to an injury but I want to ask the questions regardless. I'll start with this weird narrative going around saying that supporting firefighters means approving this bond without questions and that asking questions somehow signals opposition to firefighters. making a villain where there is none.

Fiscal due diligence is what responsible government looks like, and I am grateful to any Councillor willing to do that work regardless of the contrived political pressure surrounding it. does the city have fund reserves or free cash for emergencies that could have funded this purchase? If so, why was the bond chosen instead? Bonding 2.6 million means Quincy taxpayers pay more overtime in interest. I'm not sure if a potential lawsuit will remedy that, but that's also hard to see since I'm unaware if the mayor's office has shared the test results yet. Also, I am wondering why Mayor Koch held a press conference about PFAS and firefighter gear in August 2025, but the bond order wasn't introduced until February 2026. I genuinely do not know how long it takes to test replacement gear and confirm it's safe, and I recognize the process may explain the timeline entirely. but if that is the case, it makes the current narrative about stalling and delay all the more frustrating.

If the administration itself If the administration itself needed six months between identifying the problem and introducing a solution, characterizing the council's legally required 10-day process as obstruction seems obviously unfair. the council cannot move faster than the law allows. The delay is not coming from you. Also, I have seen the union president of IAFF 792 commenting publicly that the council hasn't bothered to reach out to the union to get the test results. You're at time. Okay, thank you for telling me.

State your name and address for the record, please.

Veronica Bertrand, 195 Copeland Street. First of all, I want to apologize for my outburst a little while ago because I was being videotaped and the person who videotaped me was all incensed over the last two weeks because she thought she was being videotaped by members of the council. So why does she feel that she can videotape me without asking me first, but she gets indignant when she feels she's being videotaped by other people? I'd also like to apologize to Firefighter Bowes. He did a wonderful presentation. I want the firefighters to have this gear. I want the firefighters to have safe houses that they live in. I want the firefighters to do what they do best and be safe when they do it. All of us have used the fire department at one time in our life, maybe even more.

It is not a question of supporting, not supporting the firefighters. But as a citizen of Quincy, as a citizen of the United States, we all have our right to question how our leaders spend our money. So if they had spent money, If they had been more diligent with how they spent money in the last four, six years, we probably would have had $10 million in free cash, and we'd be ordering that equipment today. but instead we have to bond something else. And I'm sorry that it seems like we don't want to bond for the firefighters. Of course we do. But then two months down the road, we could have another emergency in Quincy. and we'll have to bond it again. We are already $1.6 billion in debt. We're paying interest on that. I'm not talking about $80 for me.

I'm talking about the money for the generations that are coming up behind us. We're going to leave them in a mess. So yes, vote to give the firefighters their money now. But let's really think about the wasteful spending that had been going on by this administration for the last 20 years. Thank you.

Name and address, please.

Mike Griffith, 38 Greenview Street. Good evening to all the city councilors and everybody here tonight. My name is Mike Griffith. I've been a Quincy firefighter for the past 12 years. I'm here tonight. Well, you guys already know, so disregard that part. The gear we currently wear contains harmful chemicals that not only put firefighters at risk, but also expose citizens of Quincy. With our new gear we are requesting, we can better protect ourselves with also protecting the people we serve. We respond to calls such as carbon monoxide alarms, food on the stove, fire alarms going off in your homes. The chemicals in our gear are being brought directly into people's living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. When we respond to car accidents and crawl into vehicles stabilizing victims and protect their spines, that car is also making direct contact with those victims. This issue hits very close to home to me. Tonight in this room, someone who has been my role model for as long as I can remember. He started the Quincy Fire Department for 34 years and rose to the rank of the Deputy Chief. That person is my father.

My father was recently diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer that unfortunately has no cure. Like so many other firefighters across this country, he has spent decades wearing the same type of gear Radiath and Firefighters 3 brought up. wear the same type of gear that we now know contains dangerous chemicals. Firefighters dedicate their lives to protecting others. We accept the risk of the job, but we shouldn't have to wear gear that is slowly harming us. while we do it. I want the chance to walk my two beautiful daughters down the aisle someday. I want to retire and live a long, healthy life with my beautiful wife. I want to be around to watch my grandchildren grow up. Provide firefighters with clean gear is a step towards that. Please consider voting yes. Leah, thank you for all your support you've been giving us. And all those who said no, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Please state your name and address for the record, please.

Kristen Green, Tannehill-Gonquin Road. Madam President, members of the council, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. I'm a resident of Quincy and have been for 45 years, and this is the first time I'm speaking at a council or board meeting in the city. and that's because of the importance of this issue. I'm speaking as both a Quincy resident and a wife of a Quincy firefighter. I would respectfully urge you to reconsider your vote and approve the authorization for the turnout gear for the Quincy firefighters that does not contain the harmful chemicals contained in their existing gear. I would ask that you do this as expeditiously as possible because this is involving people's health and public safety. When my husband, Mike Matarano, got on the Quincy Fire Department, I was so proud. But I knew that he was putting his life on the line in certain circumstances. However, in no event did I think that it was gonna be the result of the gear that he had to wear while protecting the public.

I understand that there may be an appetite to look back and ask questions and ask how we got here. but I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in moving forward. We know what we know. You know what you know. And every time my husband goes to work, I need to know that the gear he may have to put on has harmful chemicals that he's being exposed to that could make him sick down the line. States are banning PFAS in consumer products and materials for a reason. And in my opinion, to have this knowledge that we now have and not do anything or delay action defies common sense and in my opinion is quite frankly negligent. remember that while you're looking at the numbers, we're looking at husbands, fathers, sons, daughter, sister, brother, and we really want them around long after they leave their position with the city. Thank you very much for your time and your consideration.

Can you state your name and address for the record?

Jeff Baldock, 23 Heath Street. Thank you, Councilors, officials, colleagues, and citizens. I found a couple pictures the other day. This is the day when I got my bunker gear in 2004. I was so proud, I brought it home to my parents. I brought this chemical-aiding gear into my house. We didn't know back then. You know, back then, guys still smoked cigarettes at fires. You were considered tough if you didn't go on air at a fire. We didn't know. Today we do know. Let's do the right thing for the next generation of firefighters. Thank you.

Name and address, please.

My name is Andrew Pham. I reside at 154 Sumner Street. Happy Partnership and S Corporation deadline tax day, everybody. I'm here as a property owner, therefore a taxpayer, who wants to kind of Reshift the discussion on how we allocate our taxes in the city. We're starting at 2.1 was the bond, I think, or? I want to reshift it back to $135,000. Now I as a working man has made commitments to my wife and my boss that I would show up to work every day five days a week at my workplace and work. I also as a North Quincy alumni had the honor to plan the reunion to learn that 30% of my classmates were in between jobs not working or not in education. Now, you can imagine the working person's frustration to learn that politicians elected the raises, just very briefly, $135,000 for themselves. Now, the opposition wasn't for the fact of the raises, but it was the fact that

the old councillors, cancelled a meeting, one whole meeting of this. We could have had so much discussion in that meeting. Now, the public comment wasn't brought back until after the election. And you know damn well I could have benefited from that. But that is not the point. I get to watch this at 2x speed at home. These councillors do not, so all of the councillors here deserve that extra $15,000, which divided by 12 months, two weeks payroll, 625 in your bank account each payroll. I think you guys deserve that. I want to kind of address, bring it back to the firefighters here. Dave Jacobs, you made a, Interesting observation that the mayor's office knew that this turnout gear was needed. This was going to be an expensive line item no matter what because we love our firefighters. Now, there was an annual discussion on whether taxes should be raised for residents not too long ago.

And the politicians in this case elected to say, hey, no, we're not raising taxes for anybody. but at that expense, we wiped out our 2.1 million in reserves Now we are here. We have to get $800,000 in extra interest expense. Do you know why the Wall Street banks and the banks of this world are so happy? It's because of situations like this. If you were taking on the debt and we divide it by the amount of residents in this room right now, well, in this city, we get that margin that The gentleman was like, oh, my life isn't worth X amount of dollars. That's not what this council was saying at all. We should have just raised the taxes by that same margin of debt that we are planning to take on, except we would have saved $800,000 in interest expense and still have our reserve fund. And that's all I got. Thank you.

You're very welcome. name and address please.

Hello, everyone. Good evening. My name is Mimi Balsamo. I live at 27 Post Island Road. I wanted to thank the firefighters, the scientists, for helping us to kind of dive a little bit deeper and learn a little bit more about the gear for the firefighters. In my family, I've had some wonderful personal experience with the assistance of firefighters, especially very personal with helping my mother, who She struggled living alone and had occasional falls and she was rescued in the kindest way and possibly by someone who was wearing PFAS material, but she had lots of exposure to it.

We have tremendous gratitude for our firefighters. For this reason, I'm especially pleased that we now have who'll ask interesting, deep, and penetrating questions about the gear and so that a hasty decision would not be made like was done in the past. However, that extensive gear was purchased. So I, for one, really appreciate having people who want to really know answers to questions, have curiosity and openness to learning and to expressing honest opinions. I feel very good about that. Another thing I wanted to say that I felt really good about is that

In my many years in living in Quincy, just in the past couple of weeks, I've just felt how fabulous it is that in our community, how much wonderful volunteerism, how many people contribute to making the community rich and vibrant. I've had the opportunity to see volunteers in action in so many places. Specifically, I'd say in the library, teaching, English as a second language, English talk time, citizenship, the enthusiasm of people who help in that area is tremendous. In the programs for volunteering in the library and the funding,

to raise funds for the Friends of the Library. Generous, kind, and enthusiastic people are working together.

You're coming up at the three minute mark, sorry. In your three minutes.

I'd just like to say, I'd like to see that quality and level of respect and communication that I've seen carried out in so many places to be restored and maintained here for our city council. Thank you.

My name is Steven Sweet. I grew up here in Quincy. I graduated from North Quincy High. Your address? I'm a proud Quincy fireman for the past 40 years.

Could you state your address, please?

I live in Braintree now. My parents still live here in Quincy. But as I said, I grew up here. I'm a Quincy fireman for the past 40 years, currently assigned to Latitude in Wollaston. In the span of my career, I have seen vast improvements in safety and equipment, from riding the back step and open cab convertibles to fully enclosed apparatus. Better self-contained breathing apparatus to the introduction of thermal imaging technology and beyond are just a few. But what has not changed in the last 200 years is the simple fact that it takes brave firemen to put themselves directly in harm's way to get the job done. And that is true anywhere in this great country. The bottom line is you can do everything right and still get killed doing this job. What is absurd to me is that I am up here debating about if you should approve the expenditure to purchase PFAS cancer chemical-free gear. Your decision here tonight won't affect me since I am near the end of my firefighting career.

I would like you to take a long hard look at all the young firemen behind me and tell them that PFAS, cancer-free gear, in your opinion, is not for them. Take a good hard look around. If that is your opinion, I suggest you take my turnout code and wear it while you are at work, whatever job you have. I will leave it right here for you. You make the call. Thank you.

name and address, please.

Hello, John Rotherfield, 62 Brownwall Road, Quincy, Massachusetts. I just want to say I've been coming I've been coming up to these meetings for a real long time. A lot of times, me and Mrs. Amzow would be the only two people sitting in here. So, I mean, I've seen a lot of meetings. I've seen how a lot of things work. It's kind of light. Politics is sort of like a cross between Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and Reno 911, okay? So the new councilors, you gotta learn basically how to pick your battles, okay? the Mayor at his speech gave like five or six new asks. This is an ask that you should have not put into committee and you should have just approved it. Because the fight of fighters are always gonna come up with. Okay, so this is just wasting a lot of people's times. All these fire people got to go home and go to bed and stuff. I am against bonding money and stuff because we don't have money. But this is an ask. I've seen so many things that you don't put in the committee.

We gave them the tax break for the Grossman people. Didn't go in the committee. You just gave it to them. so you should have gave them to them, okay? And I want to tell all the people in here, be respectful to who's ever talking. Don't speak when other people are speaking. Have some decorum, okay? You wasted 15 of my seconds. But anyway, like I said, I try to take life with half empty, half full. I don't know if this is even reality that we're sitting in sometimes. But the reality is that this should have been approved because this is turning into a bad dog and pony show and I'm tired of watching it. There's more important things to talk about. If you guys want to make a stand against something, let's talk about, you know, $150, $100 million for buying the Easton Nazarene project. That's in. Again, have some decorum. I don't want anyone clapping.

I don't want anyone booing. I just want you to sit there and let me speak. Please. Au revoir. I'm gonna come up here every week because I got three minutes. I wish there was a council meeting every week. Even though I say 62 Grenwell Road, I actually live in Taunton. They have a meeting. Every, again, I honestly, this is just, I'm kind of glad I live in Taunton because they have the quorum, the people that sit in the audience there, okay? So, but the bottom line is this, is that, you know, When it comes to the Easton NAS, that's Res B. We're kind of protected by zoning, okay? money for the Art Center. I'm for St. Michael. I love that statue. I'm not against the statue. I'm against that we have to borrow $850,000 to pay for it, OK? I was making a list tonight, and there's 120 bond issuings we've done since the mayor has been mayor.

That's more than any other municipality in the Commonwealth. So we do have to be more fiscally responsible, but this should have been approved already. Thank you.

State your name and address for the record, please.

Hi. My name is Leah DeGloria. I live on Lakeshore Drive in Weymouth. So I think that everybody knows that I've been talking about the raises. merely because I saw many of you campaign against them loudly. And I think that you forget that there is a lot of footage that are showing how vehemently you protested against the races. So we put it to bed tonight. You could have simply written a letter and refused the raise. But you didn't do that for some reason. And I think it's because you want the money. So the reality that you're sitting here Haggling over a bond for firefighters while you're pocketing a raise that you actively protested against that there's footage everywhere, okay? And next time we come to the meeting, maybe I could bring some quotes from all of you. The hypocrisy is just astounding. I don't know how you guys can sit there and Hagel and talk about fiscal responsibility when you actively campaigned against the raises and you've been taking that money from the residents. So I don't understand any of that.

I mean, I don't know how you guys can even sleep at night. But you don't care, do you? Because you are getting the money.

I didn't say anything.

Order, please. No comments, if we can, please. That's it. Name and address, please.

My name is Shawn Dossier. I live at 116 Highland Avenue, Mansfield, Massachusetts. I'm a lieutenant for the Quincy Fire Department coming up on 31 years on the job. I would encourage you to reconsider and make sure that we get this gear that we need Not only for our safeties, like I said, I'm kind of in the same boat as Steve Sweet. My career is behind me. My son is on the job. A lot of the younger firefighters are on the job. They need that. I hear a lot of things about money. and being spent. And yes, I don't live in the city anymore. I grew up here, bought my first house here, and then we moved out. But what I see in the city of Quincy is a great city. I see a vibrant downtown that wasn't a while ago. I see a place that people want to come to. People want to buy houses here. People want to live here. And the old adage is, you've got to spend money to make money.

and money's being spent and I appreciate everybody has a paycheck and they have to pay taxes, but their taxes, I believe, are going in the right places. You have great public safety, the police, the fire department, EMS, school systems. DPW, we all do our job and we do it really well because we're well funded. And we have a well funded public safety department. We have a well funded city. This is a beautiful city. It's vibrant. There's a lot of stuff good going on in Quincy. But if you don't want to spend the money, You're not going to have it good. You're going to have a barren downtown. You're going to have businesses that don't want to come here. Spend the money. You're going to make the money. And you have a beautiful city to show for it. Thank you.

Anybody else for open forum? OK. One more call. Anybody else for open forum? OK. We're going to close open forum. Thank you very much.

So we're going to move on. Could you?

Number two on the agenda, 20-26-0-4-7, Ordinance Amending Municipal Code Chapter 134, Drugs, Article 1, Synthetic Drugs, Kratom. The motion to move this to ordinance. To ordinance?

Did you want to speak to that? No. Okay. So we're going to move it to Ordinance Committee. We have a motion to move it to Ordinance Committee. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Councilor Riley. All those in favor? What's that? Okay.

Anybody against?

It's going into ordinance.

Number 3, 2026048, a resolve requesting a comprehensive fiscal and debt overview prior to the fiscal year 27 budget deliberations.

Thank you very much. I'm introducing this and I'm going to be asking for a motion to put it into finance. This resolve is regarding our financial debt and overview before the fiscal 27 deliberation. The city of Quincy regularly relies on municipal borrowing and bond insurance for finance, capital, infrastructure improvements, and long-term municipal The City currently carries about $1.6 billion in outstanding debt and is responsible for managing long-term obligations associated with the capital investments and pension liabilities. Fiscal Year 27's budget will be coming out. I believe the mayor said he'll be presenting it to the city council on May 7, so I think this is timely. and we would like to take a look at those long-term obligations associated with it. Fiscal year 27's budget process will begin, like I said, and the administration has discussed the potential of adding large-scale capital projects that may require significant borrowing.

Maintaining strong reserve levels, sustainable debt ratios, and stable credit ratings are critical for the City of Quincy's long-term financial health and favorable interest rates for future capital projects. the city issued 475 million dollar bond obligation bond in 2021 currently pays about 37 million dollars annually and our pension retirement Administration, Commission, Parrick, has certified required contributions of approximately $16 million to the city's retirement system for fiscal year 2026, and the City Council seeks to better understand the city pension funding obligation for fiscal year 2027. I do know that the Quincy Retirement Board did change their investments from six to seven percent which may drop that number for fiscal year 27 however we would like to have that ahead of the budget

What we're asking for in this is that the City of Quincy comes back with the Chief Financial Officer, the City Municipal Finance Officers, the City Bonds Council that appear before the City Council and the Finance to provide a comprehensive overview of the city's financial positions and debt obligations prior to the council deliberation on the fiscal year 2027 municipal budget. That's both for long-term and short-term debt. So I want to make sure that we have those both. So at this point, I'm just looking for a motion to move this into finance. I have a motion by Councilor Riley.

Yes, a motion to move 2026-048 to the report of the Finance Committee.

Pause for one second. We need to approve the result first.

And refer. And then refer. No, you can do it in one.

So we need to approve to approve and then move it into finance. We can do it in one.

I would like to make a motion to approve. and refer to finance the Resolve 2026-048. So on the motion, and we have a second by Councilor Ryan.

Anybody, any questions on the motion? So we need a roll call vote on this one.

Mahoney, nine members.

So moving on, I think the, could you go into the next quarter?

Yes, number four, 2026-049, a resolution urging the Department of Veteran Affairs to withdraw or revise the interim final rule. and the impact of the medication in evaluating disability ratings. Hubley.

Thank you, President Mahoney. So in the interest of not burying the lead, this issue actually got resolved. However, President Mahoney and I spoke Friday and agreed it was a good opportunity to bring some awareness to these types of issues that veterans face and also the value that our veteran services provides. So for some context, back on February 18th, I was at a Quincy Veterans Council meeting, and I learned about a rule change that the VA was putting in place from Veterans Director Christine Cagini. Director Congeni asked those in attendance to submit letters to the Veterans Administration during their comment period, which would go from when the rule was implemented until April 20th and so I asked if it would be helpful to have the council put forth a resolution to send a correspondence to the VA as well in representation of all the veterans that we have here in the city. and she agreed.

So the next day, I also got an email the next day from the American Legion National Commander, Dan Wiley, who also had issue with this rule change. So I kind of knew we were onto something that was pretty important. So Director Congeni and I collaborated on this resolution, and I attempted to get it into the March 2nd agenda, but it was a very full agenda, which is evident by how long we were meeting that night. And so that was OK, because we had until the 20th of April to get this comments put in place. So that worked out OK. So last week, while doing her due diligence, Councilor McKee discovered that there was a suspension on the rule. So I reached out to Director Congeni to confirm this to understand if she still needed us to follow through with the correspondence. And she confirmed that they had actually halted enforcement and they're moving to formally rescind the rule.

and so Council, sorry, President Mahoney and I agreed to keep it on the agenda just to bring some awareness. So the rule, if it remained, would allow the VA to reduce benefits that veterans receive in relation to the efficacy of the medication prescribed to them. So, for example, if a member of our armed services sustained an injury or exposure that resulted in, let's say, headaches, you know, maybe five times a week, and they sought medical treatment, if that treatment had a reduction in occurrence, that could result in the reduction of benefits. Now, while I appreciate any government agency that seeks to reduce costs, this is no place to find those cost savings. It really isn't. A rule like this reduces people to numbers overlooks the multidimensional impact of service injuries It ignores the emotional social impact as well as the cascading effects that reveal themselves over time in different ways.

It ignores the fact that this person is now tethered to treatment. and any side effects that may result from said treatment. So my last point on this is just echoing what the National Commander said, which was veterans should never have to choose between engaging in treatment and the financial resources for their family. That's not a decision that our veterans should have to make. And so this is important because it's just one example of what our veteran services does every day in terms of advocating for our veterans and the challenges that they run into. So, you know, my dad was in the military World War II and Korea and sustained an injury where he lost part of his hand. And I know that

Thank you.

I know him enough to know that he would have dealt with pain of headaches, for example, if it meant more money coming into the family. So we should never put any veteran in that position. So the good news is they got a lot of feedback. and a lot of feedback. And so it led to their rescinding of the rule. So they're suspending enforcement and then moving to get rid of the new rule change. So anyway, I just wanted to share that to bring some awareness to what our veterans face.

Thank you very much, Councilor. So moving on. So we're not going to take a vote, but thank you very much for explaining that for anybody that was interested to learn that at home.

So can we move on to next? Number five, 20-26-0-5-0, a gift for $250 from Echo Muffet

Sorry, one minute, please.

DiBona to approve in sending a letter of thanks. Do we have a second? Councilor Hubley? And then we need a roll call vote on that.

Councilor Ash? Yes. Councilor DiBona? Yes. Councilor Hubley? Yes. Councilor Jacobs? Yes. McCabe, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney, nine members. Next, number 6, 2026051, a gift from State Street Bank to Quincy Fire Department.

Motion by Councilor DiBona, second by Councilor Jacobs. Roll call vote, please.

Mahoney. Yes. Nine members. Okay. Let us conclude.

We're moving on to approval of previous minutes. March 2nd, 2026. Motion approved by Councilor DiBona. Seconded by Councilor Riley. All those in favor say yes. Anybody opposed? Alright. Moving on to communications and reports from the Mayor and other City Officers and City Boards.

We do have a traffic request to refer to ordinance committee for advertising. Board 1, Councilor Jacobs, add no left turn on Coddington Street. at 170, excuse me, at 147 Coddington Street at the Car Wash driveway. We'll refer that. Do you refer to ordinance committee for advertising?

Okay, seconded by Councilor Ryan.

Do you need a roll call vote? Clark.

All those in favor? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any other communications? No. Okay. Any other communications? Chris? I'm going to go, but just want to make sure.

All right. So, oh, so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. So we're going to, for me, I'm going to be introducing a complaint. The City Council has received a formal open meeting law complaint regarding the March 2nd, 2026 City Council meeting. Copies of the complaint I'll hand out to you after, when we finish, because I didn't have them ready for you to pass out, to be entered into the record. Without objection, the open meeting law complaint dated March 5th will be entered into the meeting record. The under Massachusetts open meeting law, the public body must review the complaint and determine how it wishes to respond in a timeframe required by law. We have 14 days and I've talked to the city solicitor and we're going to have a motion in a minute. Just from my statement alone, I'm not asking for anybody else to make a statement. I'm just going to make my statement. I can state that I've had no communications with members of the council or members of the public regarding council business outside of the public meeting references in this complaint.

So I did not receive any text messages on March 2nd. I did not receive any photos on March 2nd, and I'll be happy to give Timmons, my phone. What I'd like to do, though, at this point is make a motion to actually respond. So, Councilor Hubley.

Sure.

Motion to authorize the Council President to review with the City Solicitor and respond in accordance to the Open Meeting Law.

Do I have a second? Second. DiBona. Could we have a roll call vote on that, please? Yes.

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

Yes. Thank you very much, Chair and members. And that ends our communications. So moving on to unfinished business and proceeding meetings.

Okay, Councilor McKee.

Yes, so from the Ordinance Committee, positive recommendation made by Ordinance Committee,

Oh, no, sorry, this is the report, I'm sorry, this is unfinished business and proceeding meetings, so that your reports or committees are next. So any unfinished business or from proceeding meetings? seeing none, moving on to reports of committee.

Yes, so there was a positive recommendation for adding a no left turn on Hancock Street northbound at 839 Hancock Street into the car wash driveway. This this car wash right by Central Middle School has, if anyone's driven by there, there's been a lot of you know cars lined up and so residents have been contacting me to say what can we do and so the traffic department worked on this. And so 20-26-045 would add a no left turn to try to keep things moving along. So motion to approve 20-26-045.

motion on the table, seconded by Councilor DiBona. Any questions or motions? All those in favor? Hi. Any opposed? Any more?

Yeah, there's one more. This is the same, actually, the same place. So eastbound, so you can't go left into or left out of that car wash. So that is motion to approve 20-26-046. Okay, so motion to approve.

Seconded by Councilor Jacobs. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK, both of those will move forward. Anything else? Do you have a report? Yeah. Okay. Councilor Hubley.

Thank you. Thank you, President Mahoney. that we've had a couple of different Veterans Association or Veterans Council meetings and the reports from, we don't have the numbers from Q1 this year, but we have them for Q4 from last year. And compensation benefits increased by 12% from 24 to 25. This increase represents $250,000 additional federal compensation paid directly to Quincy veterans, spouses, families, and so forth. Let's see. in terms of Chapter 115 financial assistance. The department currently administers Chapter 115 benefits to 120 veterans and eligible dependents. The state-funded benefits support low-income, surviving spouses, and eligible children. Enrollment numbers fluctuate monthly, and they're based upon eligibility and financial status change.

The other thing that we covered was the employment support program. So the department currently manages six active employment plans. Each participating vendor is required to attend weekly meetings and submit documentations. It's all part of the process. And then provide status updates. And the goal is for employment on a long-term self-sufficient and successful work status. And then lastly, we have some events coming up. I went to a couple of the St. Patrick's Day gatherings. It was a great time. Unfortunately, I got there late for one. I missed the corned beef. But up on March 29th, we have the Vietnam Veterans Day, which the veterans are doing at the Clock Tower Marina Bay wreath-laying ceremony on the 29th at 10 a.m. There's also the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Ceremony that'll be on April 23rd at 11 a.m., which is the current tentative time. Stay tuned for updates.

And it was moved from March due to weather considerations that we've been having recently. Then we also have the Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony. That's on May 25th. Parade step-off is at 10.30 in the morning. We begin over the credit union. and then a ceremony to follow. And then lastly, the Veterans Expo on July 18th at 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Pageants Field. So hope to see everyone there. Thank you.

And moving on to Public Works.

Yes, thank you, Madam President. We had, I held, I'm sorry, I chaired six public hearings earlier tonight, Council Orders 2026-020 through Council Order 2026-025. I believe we are prepared to bring five of them out for a full vote. and so that would begin with 2026-020 utility grant of location Mass Electric 100 Coddington Street received a positive recommendation. that's a motion to approve 2026-020 utility mass electric.

Aye.

Rash, DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney, 9 members.

I also chaired a public hearing on 2026-021 utility grant of location Mass Electric Verizon 587 C Street. And we are prepared to take a vote on 2026-021. Motion. Motion to approve 2026-021587 C Street. Excellent.

Seconded by Council Ryan.

Vote call vote please. DiBona, Hubley, Jacobs, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney

further 2026-022 at 6 10 tonight held a public hearing on the grant allocation mass electric Verizon 10 Independence Ave. and prepared to take a vote on 2026-022 motion to approve.

Ash, seconded by Councilor Ryan. Roll call vote.

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

Thank you. And 2026-023, Utility Granted Location, Mass Electric, Verizon, 58 Taylor Street. and we held a public hearing tonight. There were a few attendees that spoke and I'm not sure if Councilor Hubley wanted to reiterate maybe his stance on it before we take the vote or if if that's appropriate. Madam President, thank you.

Sure, I'm sorry. So this is a request to move a Verizon Electric Company telephone pole there was a number of people who showed up to talk about it in opposition, only one for it, and the challenge they had was that this was reducing street parking without adding any off-street parking. So it was voted out for negative, or however we phrase that, to return.

Thank you. So we will take a motion. I will make a motion to approve 2026-02358 Taylor Street. Motion to deny. I'm sorry.

Motion to deny. Okay. All right. Motion to deny. Seconded by Councilor Hubley. And roll call vote, please.

Councilor Ash.

Yes.

Councilor DiBona. Yes. Hubley, Jacob, McKee, Riley, Ryan, Yuan, Mahoney,

2026-024, Utility Grant of Location, Mass Electric, Verizon, Willard Street held a public hearing tonight on this item and prepared to make a motion to approve 2026-024.

Ash, second by Councilor Jacobs. Roll call vote, please.

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

And just of note, 2026-025, after speaking with Councilor Riley, we'll be leaving 2026-025 in committee. Yes.

All right, thank you very much, Councilor Ash. Moving on to presentations, petitions, memorials and remonstrances. Councilor Ash.

Thank you, Madam President. Over the last two weeks, there are two longtime Quincy Point individuals who unfortunately passed away from very well-respected families in the community. I will start by sending the Pertios family my condolences on James Jimmy Pertios. Mr. Pertios passed away on March 5th, 2026 at the age of 87. Mr. Perdios was a member of the South Boston High School class of 1955. He was married. He was married for 68 years to Mary and they lived on Arnold Street for the majority of their tenure and Quincy raised four boys who have their own families at this point and Mary now, now she's, outside of Quincy, but there's one good thing about the services it was getting to see her, certainly. Many of you know the Perdios family.

As I said, Mr. Perdios had four boys, all with families, partners of their own. He was a local 17 metal worker, skilled craftsman. His obituary noted that he loved gardening and summers on Craigsville Beach. and certainly want to wish his family, his eight grandchildren, the condolences from myself and from the body. I would also want to memorialize and pay my respects to the Travers family. Dick Travers, Richard A. Travers passed away on March 7th, 2026 at the age of 91. Similarly, if there's one silver lining, it's that he's reunited now with his wife, Linda, who passed away at the end of 2024. The Travers are a very, have been over the years very involved members of the Quincy community, namely of the Quincy Point community.

Jake was married to Linda for 60, Seven years of note was that their love of travel, his love of golf and his involvement in sports. He was in charge of the St. Joseph CYO Basketball League for some years. sometime and certainly was memorable in that post. He was also a member of the Braintree Moose Lodge and coached Wallace and Legion Baseball, a big fan of the Celtics, Red Sox. Patz, and Bruins. Mr. and Mrs. Stravers had five children, six grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. So certainly want to send condolences to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Stravers as well. Thank you.

Do we have anything for motions or for presentations of petitions, memorials, remonstrances? No. Moving on to motions, orders, and resolutions. Seeing none. Riley, scheduling of committee meetings and public hearings.

Yes, with the majority of the council available, I'd like to suggest that we continue the finance committee meeting next Monday, the 23rd, if people are available. to continue the conversation about the bond. I would like to do six, but I'm fine if people need a little later time. I would also like to just try to keep it just to the Finance Committee and just to that topic. Can people make it? 6 o'clock next Monday. Yes, please. Thank you.

any meetings? At this time, not seeing any.

So do we have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn by Councilor DiBona.

Second by Councilor Yuan. All those in favor? Thanks a lot, everybody.

Thank you for watching!