The Real State of the City

Blog post by AJQ executive committee member Spencer Henderson

Given the immaterial State of the City address and the recent city council meeting that was canceled due to ‘no business’, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were no pressing issues facing our city. 

Sure, the roads are in horrible shape, but I’m sure we'll be getting freshly paved roads any day now. Sure, the mayor and city council were forced to delay taking their 79% and 50% raises in response to the state's ethics investigation, but they decided to leave the raises on the books and in the budget, so there must be no problems there. Also, that guy who stole all that city money from Quincy Elder Services? He was caught. Yes, he is a close friend of the mayor, who also happened to be a leader in the same local men’s-only prayer group, but you never really know who you can trust nowadays.

Sure that prayer group (the Men of Divine Mercy) has special guests such as Father Tom Hoar, who posts and reposts anti-climate change messages repeatedly on X/Twitter and who seems to believe quite literally that we are in a spiritual war between God and the devil. But surely the prayer group’s leaders – the mayor, his media director, the commissioner of public works (the guy in charge of the roads), the commissioner of natural resources, the chief financial officer, a city lawyer, and the former director of plant facilities – leave their personal religious beliefs at the door when acting in their professional capacities as government employees, right?

That’s what the mayor implied when asked about two 10-foot-tall bronze statues that will flank the entrance to the new public safety building at a cost of $850,000. According to The Patriot Ledger, “Neither statue carries strictly religious messages, Koch said, stressing instead their representation of bravery, courage and service, values which he said Quincy's first responders exemplify.”

The statues depict Saint Florian (patron saint of chimney sweeps, soapmakers and firefighters) and Saint Michael the Archangel (representing the angel of death and the model of spiritual warfare in the Catholic tradition). The latter is standing on the head and neck of the devil. “‘That's what the police are about in our community,’ Koch said, referring to St. Michael's symbolic representation of ‘good versus evil,’” reported the Ledger.

Most of the city council was totally unaware of these sculptural features until the Ledger’s story came out (and one, a retired Quincy police lieutenant, then objected to St. Michael’s “us vs them” symbolism), but the mayor had a ready explanation. The designs evolved after the building’s plans were presented to the council. “It seemed natural to do those images,” he said.

Speaking of things that have evolved over time, check out this chart of the city’s net financial position that I made using the city’s audited financial statements. “Net position” means just what you’d think – it’s the value of the city’s assets minus the value of its debts. 

Data from the City of Quincy’s audited financial statements (Image: Spencer Henderson/AJQ)

When Koch won his first mayoral election in 2007, we were running a net positive $152 million balance sheet – we were “up” by $152 million. That climbed to a $175 million surplus in 2013 before dropping down to a deficit of $762 million in 2023 – a loss of almost $1 billion in a decade. 

That is quite a feat, and the mayor’s unilateral decision to add ~$1 million of religious statuary to a $175 million public safety building (which, with interest payments, will ultimately cost taxpayers $320 million) is just the latest example of the kind of leadership that got us here. Amazing work!

This blog has been updated to include more context on the statues and on the parallels between the mayor’s comments about them and Father Hoar’s beliefs.

Huge turnout at candidate info session brings hope for A Just Quincy

A Just Quincy (AJQ), a citizen-led group formed in Quincy in mid-2024 in response to the mayor and city council’s approval of exorbitant pay raises for themselves, hosted a lunchtime meet-and-greet on Saturday, January 11th. 

The event was designed to provide more information on running for political office. “The pay raises were a symptom of a government that needs more challenges to its power – and in fact most races for ward councilor are uncontested,” said group leader Joe Murphy. “We hope to inspire more people to run for elected office, which should create greater checks and balances in local government.”

The organizers faced some logistical challenges when they had to switch venues at the last minute while contending with Quincy’s first significant snowfall of the new year. Initially, the group had reserved a medium-sized conference room at the public library’s main branch. However, as the RSVP list looked likely to grow beyond the room’s capacity, AJQ approached library staff earlier in the week about upgrading to the larger conference room. After initially being told that would likely be possible, since the larger room was not booked, library administration later returned its verdict on the change: no. That decision held the morning of the event, after a flood of last-minute RSVPs pushed attendance numbers well past the booked room’s capacity.

Fortunately, AJQ quickly secured an alternate venue at the United First Parish Church (the President’s Church), located across the street. According to the church’s website, it is inspired to uphold democratic values and promote “spiritual growth, creative expression, and freedom of thought.”

Despite the last-minute change and the snowy weather, attendance and enthusiasm were undiminished.

The event opened with a 15-minute presentation by AJQ co-founders Joe Murphy and Maggie McKee, who outlined six main points:

1. Why Quincy needs new candidates

2. The responsibilities of elected leaders

3. What to expect while running

4. Fundraising and campaign spending

5. How AJQ can support candidates

6. Qualities AJQ seeks in candidates they endorse

Following the presentation, former school committee member, at-large city councilor, and mayoral candidate Anne Mahoney shared her insights and experiences about running for and serving in elected office. She emphasized that while winning is always the goal, government is strengthened when more people run, regardless of the outcome. She added that elected officials fulfill their duty to represent constituents when they ask tough questions of city leaders, even when it makes them “shake in their boots.”

The event attracted 60 attendees with varying levels of political experience, from campaign veterans to newcomers. The goal was to create opportunities for those new to the process to ask questions and learn from those with firsthand experience.

AJQ was delighted with the turnout and results. “Our current councilors and school committee members should expect to face challengers this year, and we hope that will make them more accountable to their constituents immediately,” said Murphy. “Running for office is truly a form of community service.”

For more information about the event and the resources shared there, visit ajustquincy.com. To sign up for AJQ’s mailing list, visit bit.ly/ajqlist. And to volunteer to help elect new candidates, fill out the form at bit.ly/ajqcanhelp.

Letter: Granite Links lease is much more than an extension

AJQ's blog is a place for members to express opinions and ideas and should not be considered official statements from the group. This post was written by Jocelyn Sedney, a retired attorney and Quincy resident.

Don’t be fooled! Quarry Hills Associates wants much more than a 50-year extension tacked to its existing lease to run the Granite Links Golf Club on city land.

As we all know, the devil is in the details. Some city councilors praised the plan before they even had a copy of the new lease. That was provided by the City the day after the glossy presentation by Quarry Hills that failed to include a single word about money to be paid to the City.

The new lease releases Quarry Hills from its obligation in the current lease, which runs for another 20 years, to provide the city with a recreational complex. It also adds language that loads the Quarry Hills Advisory Committee required by the current lease – and not fulfilled – with Quarry Hills representatives so that they can advise themselves. 

But the most appalling change is that Mayor Koch carves out 12 acres of our open space and offers Quarry Hills the option to purchase it. And make no doubt, they will exercise the option. They unveiled schematics of the entire buildout – hotel, condominiums, huge parking areas, enhanced amenities, etc. WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THIS?

The formula for payment to the City is not only worse than that in the current lease but also worse than in the company’s earlier request for a 99-year lease extension – an unpopular plan that it revoked months after the mayor proposed it. 

In the latest lease proposal, Quarry Hills will pay the city 10% gross revenues minus all expenses customarily related to operating, maintaining and financing the clubhouse, function rooms, and any other services such as the wedding tent. That is even more generous to Quarry Hills than the current lease, which allows some of these deductions but not maintenance or financing costs. These deductions are why Quincy gets so little of the club’s gross profits. Why would the mayor propose a new lease that stacks the deck even more in the club’s favor?

We need a new lease negotiated by Quincy and in the best interest of Quincy. This is not it.

—Jocelyn Sedney, Quincy

Have an example of intimidation by city officials?

The following letter ran in The Quincy Sun on November 7, 2024. Please see the last paragraph to find out how to report examples of intimidation by city officials.

Mayor, Sun Should Apologize for IDing Raise Critic

The Oct. 31 Sun included an interview with the mayor in which he identified the name and street of a constituent who had participated in a summer petition effort to repeal the mayor’s and council’s 79 and 50% pay raises.

The mayor pointed out that the city had rebuilt the resident’s street and had temporarily housed some folks in the neighborhood after a catastrophic flood in 2018. “We went in as a city and did everything for those people,” the mayor said.

The fact that the resident (and presumably his neighbors) accepted this help without the funding being put to a popular vote – as many residents wanted the pay raises to be – struck the mayor as unfair. “So it’s okay when it works in his favor,” he complained.

Before naming the resident and his street, the mayor made it clear he wanted them published: “I don’t mind going on the record on this.” But the Sun should have minded. “Private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than public figures,” reads the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics. “Weigh the consequences of publishing personal information.”

The mayor is a public figure; the resident he named is not. Publishing the name and home street of a private citizen who criticized the mayor is not in the public’s best interest – and worse, it could endanger the citizen who dared to speak truth to power. The mayor and the Sun owe this citizen an apology for putting him and his family at risk.

By naming and shaming a constituent who spoke out against his official actions – actions that the same Sun article revealed had triggered an inquiry by the State Ethics Commission, the mayor proved that he is willing to go after his critics. 

That could discourage residents from expressing their true views to those in power. A Just Quincy saw that phenomenon in action this summer during our salary repeal petition drive, which ultimately fell short of the required signatures for a binding repeal. We decided to hold onto the signed forms instead of turning them over to the city because so many residents feared that signing could lead to retaliation. Now the mayor has proven them right.

We’d like to gauge the extent of such abuses of power, so please reach out to info@ajustquincy.com, @ajustquincy.18 on Signal, or 6176691832 on WhatsApp with any examples.

Maggie McKee

Executive committee member

A Just Quincy

QATV: Koch and Cain on the raise deferments

This week, Mayor Tom Koch and Council President Ian Cain each addressed the newly announced raise deferments on QATV’s podcast, AM Quincy with Joe Catalano. Their transcribed comments are below.

Mayor Tom Koch discusses raise deferments (Oct. 15, 2024)

Mayor Koch: The issue just continued to come about. I just felt it was time we put it aside so we can continue to focus on the important issues that the city is facing. It’s becoming a real distraction. So the city council president, Ian Cain, I know he discussed it with his body… and myself, we talked the end of last week. We talked and both agreed we would put it off til next term. That should hopefully put an end to it for a bit. The council term, you know, is a two-year term. The mayor’s term is a four-year term. I think at this point that was the best we could do with it.

QATV’s Joe Catalano: Would they be retroactive once they take effect?

Mayor: No, it’s forward.

Joe C: What happens to the funds that were already approved for these increases? 

Mayor: They’d just fall in at the end of the year for the surplus. That’s not a problem. You look at the budget like a big pie with pieces broken up for various departments. So sometimes certain departments may have trouble staying within that number, and others have a surplus. At the end of the year, you take the surpluses and deal with the deficits. Whatever is left is a positive thing that goes into our free cash. That’s not a problem at all.

Joe C: Would there have to be another public hearing process again once these are included in the budgets?

Mayor: No because the process is done. We made a decision just to put it off til after the next election. I think it had plenty of public comments. So It’ll just take effect the next term for the city councilors, which I believe for the councilors would be Jan 26, and for the mayor’s position, Jan 28.

Joe C: Does that mean you’re running for reelection?

Mayor: It does not mean anything, Joe. I’ve always said one at a time. It’s too early to talk about that. I’m only in year one of a four-year term. I’m not even thinking about that right now.

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Council President Ian Cain discusses raise deferments (Oct. 16, 2024)

Cain: The statement was pretty clear that we put out. There isn't much more to discuss about it. I think it just made a practical sense to push it to the subsequent elected term so whomever is elected in those roles for that term would benefit from that salary increase. Now, there still is some discussion to be had at the council for the ordinances and the process by which future salaries in those positions would be governed, so that will come whenever we put it on the agenda in the ordinance committee.

QATV’s Joe Catalano: The mayor talked about distraction. Was that part of the reasoning behind the deferment?

Cain: Yeah, that was his direct quote, and I agree with him. I think this has been a distraction. I just even want to stress the two issues that we’re talking about [in this podcast]... we’re also talking about huge amounts of roadway work and infrastructure work. Huge amounts of cost savings to the city for work that's being done across the city, between electricity infrastructure and more roadway and infrastructure work itself. Those are the real tangible things that I know that my constituents in ward 3 care about. They still care more about that work, they care about the trees being trimmed, they care about the trash being picked up, they care about the snow being plowed in the winter. I think that there are so many good things going on in Quincy in terms of our growth, and as we’re heading towards the 400th anniversary of the establishment of this great city. Yeah, I think this has been a big distraction. I’ve said it in the Sun and I'll say it here. I just think that people have easily bit onto this as an issue to grab onto, and it’s a sort of continuum of issues I think that we’ve seen, at last I’ve seen in my tenure as a city council. I think there are bigger fish and things to do in the city. And to continue working forward to make this city better than it is.

Joe C: Have you decided whether or not you’ve running for reelection next year?

Cain: I’m enjoying the role that I'm playing right now. I’m trying to make sure that I can finish projects that I've started. And that I can give the same level of energy that I made a commitment to since I first ran in 2015. So I’m working on getting this municipal broadband project over the line, and if I feel that I still have all to give to the residents of Quincy, I think I got a little time to make that decision. We’re still in the first half of the term. But I certainly will make a decision in the coming months.

At NINE NINE rally, citizens will demand leaders rescind raises

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Quincy residents who oppose the mayor’s and council’s pay raises, which will cost taxpayers an additional quarter of a million dollars a year starting in January, will rally at City Hall Plaza on Monday, September 9, to demand that the council rescind the raises and involve the public in future raise discussions. 

The “Nine Nine” rally is being organized by A Just Quincy, the group that formed to fight the raises and work towards greater accountability and transparency in the city.

Residents are encouraged to bring homemade protest signs to the John Adams statue on the plaza starting at 5:30 pm that day. Later, those who are able to will head into Old City Hall to watch the first council meeting since June 17, when the council voted to increase the mayor’s and council’s salaries by 79 and 50%, respectively.

Those raises proved hugely unpopular with the public. More than 6,030 people physically signed a petition to repeal the mayor’s raise and 4,642 signed a petition to repeal the council’s raise in the 20-day, state-mandated window following the raise votes. Although those figures fell short of the 8,000 or so signatures needed to legally force the repeals, they represent a third and a quarter, respectively, of the number of people who voted in the November 2023 election that brought the mayor and council into office.

“The people have spoken, and they do not want these raises,” says Joe Murphy, founder of A Just Quincy.

City leaders have so far remained silent on the pay boosts, ignoring the vast majority of emails sent to them as part of a recent A Just Quincy campaign asking residents to request that councilors rescind the raises and meet with them. Residents have received zero responses from every councilor except Ward 2’s Richard Ash, who answered three of six emails in AJQ’s campaign (in two he offered to meet to discuss the issue, in one he simply thanked the letter writer for their input); Ward 3’s Ian Cain, who answered one of nine emails (and offered to meet); and Ward 4’s James Devine, who answered one of six (he said the raises were warranted). None of the at-large councilors, Noel DiBona, Nina Liang, or Scott Campbell, answered any of the 30-odd emails that each of them received. Check out your councilor’s response rate at ajustquincy.com/who.

“The mayor and city council’s getaway plan is to wait the outrage out – a move that worked for them when our hospital closed, our property taxes went up, and our land was sold to developers in sweetheart deals,” says Murphy. “It’s up to the people of Quincy to decide if it will work again, and we’re hoping the ‘Nine Nine’ rally will be the next of many actions to show it won’t.”

To join the A Just Quincy email list, go to bit.ly/ajqlist.

Flyer to promote A Just Quincy's NINE NINE Rally

Please give us your input!

Even though we didn’t collect the 8,000 signatures needed to legally repeal the mayor’s and council’s raises, we’re not giving up on making Quincy’s government more transparent and accountable to its residents!

To do that, we need as many of you involved as possible. We’d love your input as we decide where to go from here:

• Please help us prioritize potential next steps by filling out this poll

• We’d like to have a meeting to discuss those potential projects – and to celebrate our hard work on the petitions – in the next two weeks. Please fill out this form to let us know which date(s) work for you so we can choose a location big enough to accommodate everyone who wants to come

• To get a sense of how ambitious we can be as a group, please let us know how big a role you’d like to play in A Just Quincy by filling out this form

Finally, please join, and ask friends and neighbors to join, our mailing list. Thanks so much for your interest in creating A Just Quincy!

—Maggie

What it was like to collect signatures on the salary repeal petitions

AJQ's blog is a place for members to express opinions and ideas and should not be considered official statements from the group. This post contains letters published in The Quincy Sun by two residents who collected signatures on the raise repeal petitions, Jim Kogler and Jocelyn Sedney.

How can the Mayor unite a city as diverse as Quincy? By giving himself a taxpayer-funded 79% raise.

I have never been a political activist, and I certainly never thought I would be going door to door to collect signatures in Quincy Point to repeal City Council resolutions. Despite being a long-time supporter of Mayor Koch, I was outraged when I learned about the recent raises given to the City Council and Mayor. As soon as I heard about the work of A Just Quincy to repeal these raises by obtaining 8000 signatures of Quincy residents, I became involved. I resolved to collect 200 signatures in support of the effort. I had to act quickly because, due to a previously scheduled vacation, I had only one week to collect them.Each night, I walked between one and two hours through Quincy Point, knocking on doors, talking to my neighbors, and leaving flyers. The process was enlightening. I didn’t keep count of the actual doors I knocked on, but it was over one thousand. I did manage to collect my two hundred signatures. During this process I got to learn a lot about the mood of this city, it’s angry.

Someone answered the door approximately fifteen percent of the time. Almost everyone I interacted with signed.I spoke to exactly one person who didn’t sign, saying, “The Mayor deserves it!” I spoke to two people who said something along the lines of, “I am personal friends with the Mayor, and I cannot sign it, but I support your efforts. He messed up here.” I had two additional people say they wouldn’t sign it without giving a reason. I had one couple tell me they wouldn’t sign because the FBI would be sent to arrest them (I believe they were serious). About fifteen people told me they were not citizens of Quincy and therefore were not eligible to sign. I had two people tell me they weren’t registered to vote. I had one child tell me their “father only votes for the president of Brazil” as he ran away. Finally, I had two people with whom I couldn’t communicate due to language barriers. One of them spoke to me in Italian, telling me, what I could only imagine, was the story of his life for ten minutes. I understood some words and tried my best to communicate back; it was a wonderful conversation.Everyone else signed. The anger at the mayor is visceral. I had a couple tell me that they were extremely grateful I interrupted their dinner. I had multiple people offer me food and beverages. I met with firefighters, police, teachers, and other city employees who were outraged at the pay change; the mayor ensured they received significantly less. I met with people who, like me, explained they were long-time supporters of Mayor Koch but had been disillusioned by this cash-grab. I also ran into many people who had clearly disliked the mayor for a long time and were happy to sign. I ran into young people, grandparents, xenophobes, self-described activists, people of every age, color, and walk of life. A few chased me down the street, one with a bicycle, to sign. Most had a story to tell. I ran into someone who had grown up in the house I currently own.The anger at the City Council for agreeing to the raises was fierce.In the last Mayor’s election, the electorate was split. Anne Mahoney had a very good showing, and Mayor Koch got by with a sizable lead but not a blowout. As I walked and talked, I saw there was no split. Quincy is outraged, across the board. A Just Quincy didn’t achieve the eight thousand signatures to repeal the raises due to the tight time limit imposed by the state, but they would have far surpassed it if another week had been allowed.I have been a long-time supporter of Mayor Koch, and I had the chance to speak to him at a parade some time before the raises were given. I told him he has done a good job running Quincy. He told me, “It’s not me, it’s the great people of Quincy.” As I trod the streets of Quincy Point, I saw just how true that is, but I also saw how universally angry people are at both the Mayor and the City Council for the way these raises were given.

—Jim Kogler
Stewart St

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Grateful for raise repeal signers and volunteers

THANK YOU to the 6,000-plus Quincy voters who signed the petitions to roll back the raises! I volunteered to spread the word about the petitions to repeal the 79% mayor’s raise and the 50% council raise and want to share some of my experiences.  

As I went door to door, I was so impressed with how engaged people were – most had heard about the raises and were so angered they practically grabbed the clipboard from my hands. Others shared the fruits of their own analysis of the basis given for the raises. Others wanted to share their outrage when so much needed to be taken care of in their neighborhood. Others told me that they were solid Koch supporters, but this was just too much. Many said that they were in favor of raises but the greediness here was wrong. Some said that they were concerned about negative impacts on themselves, family members or businesses – but they signed. Almost to a person, they thanked me.  

I volunteered my porch as a signing location. In looking at the addresses on the petitions, I was struck by the distance that people traveled. I was surprised at signatures by elderly people who left their homes to walk to the house. I was impressed by the diversity of signers. 

What started out as a small group of people disturbed by the size of the mayor’s raise grew to a grassroots movement with many volunteers across the city. I would not be surprised if this was the first time in the history of Quincy that such an effort was undertaken. And, while not ultimately successful in repealing the related ordinances, the group did collect signatures from just shy of 10% of all registered voters in Quincy – in only 20 days, including a four-day holiday when many were away. My hat off to all!

—Jocelyn Sedney

Did we meet our goals?

No – and yes. We needed about 8,000 signatures on each of two petitions to repeal Quincy politician’s raises, and we got 6,030 to reverse the mayor’s 79% raise and 4,642 to undo the council’s 50% pay boost. So, not enough to stop the raises from going into effect on January 1. But more than enough to build a movement to prevent such injustices from sliding through unchallenged in the future.

The fact that we fell short of 8,000 signatures is disappointing for sure, especially after the hope we had allowed ourselves to feel when we saw our signature collection rate rise ever higher over time. “We might just pull this off!” I thought, after seeing that we’d made it more than halfway to our goal.

Still, we had less than two days to collect the remaining 3,500 signatures. We threw ourselves into it, as we had since the project’s start. Our volunteers braved miserably hot weather to collect the required signatures. New volunteers raised their hands to help, which gave all of us a lift. And we saw more and more people interested in signing because they had seen news stories about the repeal effort. It was an exhilarating and exhausting push to the finish line.

And truly, that’s how it’s been for the last three weeks. A series of highs and lows that have left us a little bruised and battered but also invigorated and hopeful. Here are some of the challenges we faced, in addition to the heat and the fact that many folks were on vacation during our 20-day (state-regulated) collection window:

• Bullying. Some volunteers – to my knowledge all women – have been followed, yelled at, or told to leave public spaces (sometimes with the admonition to go home and “spend time with their families”). Ironically, these incidents have occurred at events meant to celebrate the birth of our democracy. One woman, a veteran and member of a Gold Star family, was told to leave this past weekend’s patriotic celebration in Quincy Center.

• Lack of citizenship status. The state law governing this process, known as a referendum petition, says that only registered Quincy voters can have their signatures count towards the required total. And to vote, one must be a US citizen. So unfortunately, many folks who pay taxes here who wanted to sign – and whose taxes are affected by increases in government spending, such as raises – could not make their wishes known through this process.

• Fear of reprisals. Many residents who wanted to sign the petitions didn’t because they were afraid of reprisals from the city government. All our volunteers reported hearing this fear. On June 30, I wrote to the city clerk asking her to address those concerns. With no reply, a few days later I emailed the city’s top lawyer, Solicitor Jim Timmins. He responded that the city clerk had been out of the office and that it was up to our group to “reassure” people who had these worries. We continued to hear these fears – unfounded or not – all across the city. (And those fears are why we decided not to turn in petition signatures to the city clerk unless we thought we had enough to repeal the raises.)

But while we did face some headwinds, our experience collecting signatures left us all feeling overwhelmingly hopeful and invigorated. Here are some of the reasons why:

• More than 100 people officially signed up to collect signatures, and many others just downloaded PDFs of the petitions at home, gathered signatures, and dropped them off. People’s willingness to pitch in and help was touching and inspiring – people WANT to play a role in how our city runs. Even if our elected representatives discourage it, WE can help each other have a voice in what happens here.

• Many volunteers said they had never participated in civic actions like this but felt the raises were so unfair that they had to try to stop them. These new civic engagers included folks who had voted for the mayor, members of the Asian community, and city workers who, even though they feared reprisals, joined the effort because their annual raises had been just 0 to 3% since the mayor’s last raise took effect (while the mayor’s new raise is equivalent to a 6% increase every year over the same time period), and (in the case of teachers), they had fought for months and stood out in the bitter cold to push for fair contracts.

• All the interactions with signers and other volunteers have brought people together and forged new friendships. Since collecting signatures from strangers can be a daunting task, some people paired up with each other for moral support. Volunteers have been bringing petitions to residents unable to visit signing locations posted online, and acting as on-call translators when needed. Folks have shared their research expertise, musical and writing skills, and video and graphic know-how. This is a dedicated, thoughtful, and generous community, and I’m grateful to be part of it.

So, yes, I am disappointed that we didn’t hit our goal of getting 8,000 registered Quincy voters to sign our petitions in 20 days. But we knew from the start that reaching this goal would be a long shot. I consider the effort a monumental success because it has sparked so many conversations about how we want things to run here. And each of those thousands of signatures represents a conversation – a connection – with a neighbor that strengthens our community.

Our work is not finished. Stay tuned for how you can help in our next steps as we fight to make the city more transparent and accountable to us, its residents, by joining our mailing list at bit.ly/ajqlist. I have been so moved by my neighbors’ passion and commitment. Together we will bring about the change that Quincy residents deserve!

–Maggie McKee

Update: keep collecting signatures til July 10 @ NOON!

I write with some exciting news. You all have been SO GOOD at collecting signatures that we have more than 4,500 for the mayor (and a similar, but smaller number for the council, as yet uncounted). We are more than halfway to our goal of 8,000!

We have decided to extend our repeal referendum signature collecting until Wednesday, July 10. So PLEASE KEEP COLLECTING UNTIL THEN!

Our signature collection rate has been rising exponentially in the last couple of days, and I think we have a really good shot at this if we all get out there and pound the pavement!

More about why we have the extra two days for those interested: State law says we have 20 days after a measure’s final passage to collect 12% of registered voters’ signatures to repeal the measure, and City Clerk Nicole Crispo told Lorrie Thomas, the volunteer who wrote up the petitions, that we could start the 20-day count on June 20, with the signatures due on July 10. Lorrie emailed the clerk back the next day reiterating what the clerk had said and thanking her for her help. 

Originally, we decided to be extra conservative, in case the city chose to use June 18 for “final passage” date (the council vote was the night of June 17). But the clerk did tell Lorrie we could start the count on June 20 because that’s when she answered Lorrie’s question about when the final passage was. So because we have SO MUCH MOMENTUM – and new TV coverage, and people coming back from vacation now – we are going to try to reach our goal by July 10, when the clerk told us we could return signatures for a legally binding repeal.

So please go out and collect like mad til Wednesday (still try to return signatures to 117 Rawson as early and often as possible)!

Here are some suggested places to collect signatures (thanks for the list, Nate!):

• All grocery stores in town

• 2 Stop & Shops

• Star Market

• 99 Ranch

• H Mart

• All Public Transport

• North Quincy T Station

• Wollaston T Station

• Quincy Center T Station

• Adams T Station

• Marina Bay Ferry

• Major Shopping Areas

• North Quincy Target

• Walmart

• BJ's

I have clipboards on the porch at 117 Rawson Road if you’ve already turned yours in and want to go out again, as well as blank forms.

Onward, and THANK YOU for all your hard work thus far! We are at this exciting point because of you!

—Maggie

We address the mayor’s defense of his raise

In our efforts to try and reach everyone by land, sea, and air, we have tried a video podcast.

We consider the mayor's defense of his raise point by point

Podcast, Joe, Kathy, Maggie

Looking Forward to Quincy’s First Olympic Games

AJQ's blog is a place for members to express opinions and ideas and should not be considered official statements from the group. This post was written by Jon Gorey, a writer and Quincy resident.

Paris, France, is set to host its third Summer Olympics later this month. I’m excited to watch the world come together in a spirit of free, fair, and fierce competition, in one of the most enchanting cities on earth. Since bidding for the games almost a decade ago, Parisian mayor Anne Hidalgo has worked hard to prepare her city for this intense global spotlight, building arenas, expanding Metro service and accessibility, and cleaning up the River Seine to allow recreational swimming.  

And yet, next year, Quincy’s mayor will be paid more than double what his Parisian peer earns.  

The mayor of Paris, a legendarily glamorous city of 2 million residents, earns about $115,000 annually, while the lord of our six wards will draw a staggering salary of $285,000 next year. That’s more than the mayors of New York, Boston, and London earn, according to the City Mayors Foundation. Not only that, Quincy’s mayor will soon make three times as much as his counterpart in Tokyo, who earned about $76,000 while leading a thrumming metropolis of 14 million as it hosted the previous Summer Olympics. 

So what I’d like to know is: When is Quincy submitting its bid to host the 2036 Olympics? 

It would be a thrill to watch the world’s most elite athletes sprint around the track at Faxon Field, glide across the Lincoln Hancock pool, row sculls down the Neponset, bounce down the trails of the Blue Hills Reservation on mountain bikes, leap and tumble across the mats in the Quincy High School gym, and dive to dig volleyballs out of the sand on Wollaston Beach. If we could slow climate change enough to once again ensure reliable snowfall and frozen February ponds, maybe we could even make a bid for the Winter Games, and resurrect the speed skating and ski jumping terrain in the Blue Hills where Quincy used to host an annual St. Moritz Winter Carnival almost a century ago. 

While it’s gratifying to realize that our little city of 102,000 really does have, on a small scale, many of the recreational facilities and landscapes needed to host a sporting event as diverse as the Olympic Games, this is mostly a joke, obviously — just like the mayor’s 79% pay raise. 

Of course our mayor should get a raise; that’s hardly in question. But when adjusted for inflation, the mayor’s last pay increase, which brought his salary to $150,000 plus perks, would amount to about $198,000 today. That’s a competitive and fair salary, more than double what the median Quincy household earns, and roughly in line with the mayor of Boston’s salary. Bring it back up to par, then set it to automatically increase with inflation so we don’t have to keep doing this.

Some folks may consider Quincy “the Paris of the South Shore,” but if we’re going to pay our mayor more than double what the real Parisian mayor makes, I expect much bigger and bolder leadership to accompany that whopping pay raise. As mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo hasn’t just readied her city for another Olympics. She has also ushered in a new era of sustainable livability for her residents by prioritizing people over cars — slashing vehicle emissions and car trips  by adding bike lanes, repurposing parking spots, and closing hundreds of streets to traffic next to schools.

If a Mount Olympus-sized mayoral salary won’t buy us an Olympic Games, I at least want a world-class city out of the deal. Or better yet, a more reasonable pay increase we can all live with.

Quincy residents to hold July 7 ‘Repeal the Raises’ event at City Hall Plaza

When Quincy Mayor Tom Koch proposed enormous raises for himself and the city council, residents were given no opportunity for public comment. 

When residents grumbled in a city council committee meeting where the raises were discussed, they were scolded. 

And when the council rushed through votes for their 50% raises and the mayor’s 79% pay boost in the last council meeting before the summer break, residents – and at least one councilor – were confused about what had just happened.

Now, residents collecting signatures to legally repeal those raises are planning an event to give the public an opportunity to voice their concerns about the raises and their hopes for the city. The event will be held at City Hall Plaza on Sunday, July 7, from 2 to 4 pm. 

“This is the starting point of the journey to strive for good governance in the city,” says event organizer Susan Yuan, a member of the newly formed group A Just Quincy, which is working to repeal the raises. “We need to send a loud and powerful message. We won't just quietly back down.”

A group of A Just Quincy volunteers holding a sign made by one of them (thanks, John!)

The event will also serve as the final gathering to collect the required signatures necessary to legally repeal the raises through what’s known as a referendum petition. Under state law, if 12% of registered voters sign the referendum petitions within 20 days of the final passage of the raise ordinances, those ordinances will either be repealed or put to a public vote in a city or special election. That means about 8,000 registered Quincy voters must sign each of the two petitions (one to repeal the mayor’s salary and one the councilors’) by July 8.

More than 100 volunteers have been tirelessly collecting signatures towards that goal, and residents from across the city have been lining up at collection locations to sign. “People are really upset about both the size of the raises and how they were pushed through,” says A Just Quincy member Maggie McKee. “It’s inspiring to see how much energy and time people are putting into trying to fix what they see as a broken system.”

To celebrate this massive grassroots effort, A Just Quincy is providing free ice cream (in individually wrapped packages bought from the store) and music by musician Jon Gorey and DJ Spencer Henderson, both Quincy residents.

But A Just Quincy’s work is just beginning, and the group hopes to build on the momentum of this referendum petition to work towards greater transparency and accountability in city government. To join the group, go to ajustquincy.com/contact.

Will residents face retribution for trying to block the raises?

Our volunteers keep reporting that folks they talk to WANT to sign the petitions to repeal Quincy politicians’ raises, but they’re afraid to do so for fear of retribution from the city. (Hopefully that fear is not based in reality, but it’s concerning that it seems to be so widespread.) So here is a little information for anyone who is worried about that.

1. A Just Quincy will only send the signed forms to the city clerk’s office if it looks like we have the required number of signatures to pass one or both repeal referendums (one is to repeal the mayor’s 79% raise, the other is to repeal the council’s 50% raise).

2. The city clerk’s office will then have to check that the signatures come from registered Quincy voters and that the number of those verified voter signatures is equal to at least 12% of all registered Quincy voters.

Citizens’ right to follow their consciences and petition the government for a redress of grievances is enshrined in the first amendment to the US Constitution. But even so, I’ve asked the city clerk to confirm that citizens will face no negative repercussions if they sign these petitions, and I fully expect she will do so when she returns to the office after the weekend.

—Maggie McKee

How it started vs how it’s going

It’s been one week since a group of Quincy residents launched an effort to repeal the 79% and 50% raises for the mayor and city council, but it feels much longer. 

In part, that’s because we had been working for several weeks before that to convince the city council not to vote the raises through. That work sprang up quite organically. Folks shared news of the record-setting salary range proposed by consultants connected to city officials, researched the bidding process through which the consultant’s contract came about, discovered that (a) the city has a charter, (b) the charter requires politicians’ raises to go into effect in the term following the one in which they’re voted, and after a public vote, and (c) apparently the charter has no teeth, and state law allows the raises to go through in the calendar year following a raise vote (ie, January 1, 2025). 

Neighbors who had never met in real life shared findings from their public records requests and calls to the state attorney general’s office and organized protests at City Hall.

Before the June 17 council votes on the raises

Teachers got between 0 and 3% increases every year since 2015, when the mayor’s last raise went into effect. The mayor’s newly approved salary is equivalent to him making a 6% raise for each of those years.

Quincy is one of 15 cities with so-called “plan A” governments in Massachusetts. The mayor’s new raise is far out of line with what the mayors of all those other cities make

After the council rushed through the first of two votes to approve the mayor’s raise and looked set to rubber stamp both raises at the following council meeting, the group of residents that had come together started holding Zoom meetings to plan more protests and create an online poll to show the city council how many folks were against the raises. But on June 17, the council voted to push the raises through – without a public hearing – before working out a better system for calculating salary changes, which they vowed to do in the fall.

One resident who had seen the writing on the wall had already been researching how to UNDO the raises once they had passed. She found out that according to state law, any measure (like the raises) can be repealed if 12% of registered voters physically sign a referendum petition within 20 days of the measure’s final passage. We had more Zoom meetings, and debated whether we could get the 8,000 signatures needed by July 8. After all, that’s equivalent to 40% of the voter turnout in the 2023 election, which people had a higher chance of knowing about, in large part thanks to the ubiquitous yard signs and frequent mailings that one of the candidates spent about a million dollars on.

Could we, a group of about two dozen residents who had come together to organize the protests, along with the signers of our online poll, get so many signatures in such a short period of time? In the summer, when many residents are away for the July 4 holiday? Was it worth the daunting effort? And if we didn’t get the signatures, which seemed likely, would that contribute to more cynicism about residents’ ability to effect change and even about the democratic process itself?

We discussed it and decided that the effort was worth it. The trying was the whole point. By trying, we could spread awareness of how this raise process was handled, and remind our elected officials that they are meant to look out for our interests above their own. By trying, we’d meet new people, build community, and flex the muscles of our out-of-shape democracy, where less than a third of eligible voters cast ballots in the last election.

And it’s working! Nearly a hundred volunteers have taken petition forms to collect signatures, and we’re all meeting new people across the city and having conversations and (thankfully respectful) debates about how we want things to run here. I am energized after these conversations. Sometimes I start to worry that we’ll never reach our goal of 8,000 signatures at that pace, but then I stop and remind myself that those conversations are the goal. That sense of community and camaraderie is the magic that makes a street feel like a neighborhood. And that mutual sharing of information and hopes and frustrations is what a democracy is all about.

A bonus is that this magical feeling of connection and empowerment seems to be spreading, and people have been lining up to sign the petitions. So while I think that our efforts have already paid off in strengthening our democracy and community, I am increasingly hopeful that we will also meet our goal of repealing these raises and forcing our elected officials to come up with a fairer and more sensible raise process. 

So if you haven’t already, please find out where to find tireless signature collectors at ajustquincy.com/petition. And stop to chat with them, even if you don’t end up signing. Talking together is not just a way to keep democracy alive. It’s our only hope.

Folks signing the petitions to repeal the mayor’s and council’s raises

—Maggie McKee

Will a higher mayoral salary encourage more candidates to run?

The following is from a Facebook post by Maggie McKee on June 5 (after the city council’s finance committee voted on June 3 to approve the mayor’s 79% raise).

At the city council meeting the other night, a couple of councilors mentioned that people don't tend to run for office in Quincy (and one suggested that lower-than-the-private-sector salaries could keep more women and people of color from trying).

But I think what prevents more people from running is the political machine that builds up around incumbents, making it very hard to compete as a challenger (particularly a new challenger).

For example, Quincy's incumbent mayor, Tom Koch, raised and spent more than all 85 of the other mayoral candidates on Massachusetts ballots last year, taking in about $620,000 and spending about $962,000. (https://ocpf.us/Reports/MayoralReports?year=2023)

The average amount spent by all mayoral candidates on Massachusetts ballots in 2023 was $62,000. Mayor Koch spent nearly $1 million.

That war chest (war bank vault?) seems more likely to discourage would-be contenders from throwing their hats in the ring than the mayor's purportedly "low" salary of ~$158,000 ($150k base salary plus car allowance).

If we truly want to help more people run for office, campaign finance reform might be a good place to start.

Thoughts from a resident, data edition

These comments were made by Maggie McKee at a standout against the raises in front of City Hall on May 29, 2024 (before the council voted on them).

Hi, everyone. My name is Maggie, and I live here in Quincy with my family.

I want to start out by saying that I am not opposed to salary increases for our elected officials. I believe that all employees should get cost of living adjustments regularly, and the fact that this does not happen now is, I think, a fault in the system.

But the mayor is not proposing a different system, one that would tie his salary increases to, say, annual rates of inflation or teacher contract changes. He is simply asking city councilors to vote for a 79% raise for him, from $159,000 to $285,000. The basis for this request is a mayoral compensation review done by the City’s Finance Department.

But I do not think the council should vote for the mayor’s proposed change. That’s because the amount of the raise is far outside of state – and national – norms.

The city’s compensation review lists 42 salaries for what it calls “chief administrative officers” of relatively small Massachusetts communities, with populations smaller than two-thirds that of Quincy. The salaries of these communities’ leaders range from $98,000 (Southampton) to $293,000 (Plymouth), amounts that make $285,000 seem quite reasonable for a leader of Quincy’s larger size.

The problem is, none of the 42 communities selected have Quincy’s form of government. 

Massachusetts cities and towns can choose from a bewildering menu of government types. Quincy has a “plan A” government with a mayor and a city council, for example, while Plymouth has a representative town meeting form of government, with 135 representatives elected from the city’s precincts, five elected select board members, and a town manager appointed by the select board.

All of the 42 communities list “manager” or “administrator” as the title of their city’s CEO. These positions are hired by an elected council, which can set the desired experiences and qualifications for the position – and can remove the manager at any time through a vote. Like business consultants with expertise in a particular field, these managers are workers whose contracts can be ended if their performance falls below expectations. And as a result, they seem to command salaries more in line with the private sector. Plymouth’s town manager, for example, has a master’s degree in public administration and worked as director of administration and public health in Worcester and town manager of Upton before taking the top job in Plymouth.

Quincy follows a different model. Its residents vote for mayoral candidates who can collect the required 50 certified signatures to run for office. Any eligible candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat, regardless of their level of education or prior experience. And then they serve for a set term (in typical plan A governments, that term is two years; in Quincy, it’s four).

So how much do these directly elected mayors make? I looked up the 15 plan A cities listed in the Massachusetts Municipal Association directory. Their average population is 108,000 and their average mayoral salary is $140,000. 

Quincy, with a population of 102,000 and a mayoral salary of $159,141, is currently very much in line with those averages. But if the city council votes to increase the mayor’s salary by 79% – to $285,000 – it will be far out of line.

Not only that, but the mayor’s requested salary would be higher than that of Governor Healey, who makes $222,000, and our two US senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who each make $174,000. 

And it would be higher than the mayors of nine out of ten of the largest US cities, which have populations ranging from 10 to 82 times Quincy’s size.

For Quincy’s mayor to potentially make more than all of those positions seems unfair, even egregious. But what troubles me the most is the fact that he felt entitled to ask for that much money in the first place. In our plan A government, also known as a “strong mayor - weak council” system, the mayor holds nearly all the power, appointing department heads and members of city boards that rule on any manner of issues. Asking for a 79% raise seems like a brazen display of unassailable power, and I can’t imagine many of us have had the temerity to request the same of our bosses.

But our tax dollars pay for the city’s expenses, and I hope that we will all raise our voices to tell our elected leaders how we want our money spent.

Collecting in-person signatures

We need to get about 8,000 in-person signatures of registered Quincy voters by July 8 to successfully repeal the mayor’s and council’s 79% and 50% raises, so we are going to need everyone to pitch in as much as humanly possible up to that time!

The two petitions (one to repeal the mayor’s raise and one to repeal the councilors’) are available to download and print at ajustquincy.com/petition (please print double sided). You can also request printouts using this form, or come pick them up from the porch at 117 Rawson Road starting Tuesday, June 25.

PLEASE SIGN UP FOR AT LEAST ONE LOCATION & TIME TO COLLECT SIGNATURES HERE. We will post the times and places on our website so registered voters wishing to sign the petitions can find you.

You can also just go out and collect signatures without any advance notice to us, of course (please do!). Some ideas of places to go include playgrounds, dog parks, outside T stations, libraries, and grocery stores (apparently 10 am to 2 pm on Saturday is a peak time for shoppers), or anywhere people have to wait for a while (the line outside the soon-to-close La Paloma Restaurant on Newport Ave, or the pedestrian crossing at Squantum and Hancock Streets near North Quincy T station come to mind!). You can also door knock in your neighborhood or even sit out on your front steps and chat with people as they walk by!

Every day that you collect signatures, please fill out the short form at bit.ly/quincycount with the number you got (for both the mayor and council). That way we can keep track of how many we get and how many more we need so we have the best chance of meeting our goal.

Things to note:

• To be counted, the signers must be registered voters in Quincy. Ask them, “Are you a registered voter in Quincy?” and if they say yes, have them sign the form. (If they’re actually not, their signature won’t count towards the goal, but this is a numbers game, so if there are other people around who might sign, it’s best to get everyone who thinks they are a registered Quincy voter to sign as quickly as possible. If there’s no one else around, and they’re unsure if they’re registered, you can suggest that they check their registration at bit.ly/mavotercheck.)

• PLEASE MAKE SURE THEIR NAMES AND ADDRESSES ARE LEGIBLE!

• Since there are two different petitions - one for the mayor's raise and one for councilors' - it's important to clearly identify the forms so people know what they're signing. Because marking up the petition forms (such as with a highlighter over the words "mayor" or "council") might not be allowed (why risk it?), it's a good idea to use your own system: different-colored post-it notes (or a post-it note on just one form and not the other), or a colored ribbon tied around the clipboard used for one and not the other... Also, given that most people seem more upset about the mayor's raise than the councilors’, we recommend asking people to sign that one first. Thanks!

• Here are some talking points about the raises. Please use them only to the extent necessary – talking too much can turn people off.

• Signing one or both of these petitions doesn’t mean you don’t like the mayor or councilors or don’t think they deserve raises. It just means that you object to the size of the raises and/or the way they were pushed through.

• For comparison, Quincy police, firefighters, and teachers recently received raises of 3% per year.

• This raise would bring the salary of Quincy’s mayor from $159,000 to $285,000, making him the highest paid mayor of any city with a similar government type in the state. With the raise, Quincy’s mayor would make more than the Massachusetts governor and both US senators, as well as the mayors of major cities like New York ($258,000), Boston ($207,000), Chicago ($221,000), and Houston ($236,000).

• The raise will substantially increase the mayor’s pension, which will cost taxpayers for the rest of the mayor’s life.

• The report used to justify the mayor’s raise is fatally flawed and included no mayors of cities with similar government types to Quincy. It uses a specious argument that city managers’ jobs are equivalent to that of Quincy’s mayor. That’s not true. A city manager is hired and subjected to regular performance reviews (which are often public) and can be fired at any time. (If the same were true for Quincy’s mayor, it’s unclear that he would still have a job after some of the things that have taken place under his watch.)

• Councilors quickly green-lit the raises without debate or a public hearing, even though they admitted that the way the pay boosts came about was flawed.

• More info here and here.

Please make sure to take a picture of each page of signatures you collect, and then drop off the completed forms (even if they only have a single signature on them!) BEFORE JULY 8 to:

Maggie McKee

117 Rawson Road

Quincy, MA 02170

617 669 1832

or

Kathy Thrun

234 Everett Street

Wollaston, MA 02170

1.617.872.4048

Or if you can’t drop them off, please email info@ajustquincy.com and let us know where to come pick up the signed forms from you.

THANK YOU!

The Real State of the City og

Blog post by AJQ executive committee member Spencer Henderson

Given the immaterial State of the City address and the recent city council meeting that was canceled due to ‘no business’, you’d be forgiven for thinking there were no pressing issues facing our city. 

Sure, the roads are in horrible shape, but I’m sure we'll be getting freshly paved roads any day now. Sure, the mayor and city council were forced to delay taking their 79% and 50% raises in response to the state's ethics investigation, but they decided to leave the raises on the books and in the budget, so there must be no problems there. Also, that guy who stole all that city money from Quincy Elder Services? He was caught. Yes, he is a close friend of the mayor, who also happened to be a leader in the same local men’s-only prayer group, but you never really know who you can trust nowadays. Sure that prayer group (the Men of Divine Mercy) has special guests such as Father Tom Hoar, who posts and reposts pro-Trump and anti-climate change messages repeatedly on X/Twitter and who seems to believe quite literally that we are in a spiritual war between God and the devil. But surely the prayer group’s leaders – the mayor, his media director, the commissioner of public works (you know, the guy in charge of the roads), the commissioner of natural resources, the chief financial officer, a city lawyer, and the former director of plant facilities – don’t actually believe that, right?

Most recently, we got a glimpse of the very affordable $850,000, 10-foot tall bronze statues that will flank the entrance to the new public safety building. Saint Michael the Archangel (representing the angel of death and the model of spiritual warfare in the Catholic tradition) and Saint Florian (patron saint of chimney sweeps, soapmakers and firefighters) are beloved figures in Quincy’s history, apparently. Never mind that most of the city council was totally unaware of these sculptural features. The designs evolved after the building’s plans were presented to the council, the mayor explained. “It seemed natural to do those images.” 

Speaking of things that have evolved over time, check out this chart of the city’s net financial position that I made using the city’s audited financial statements. “Net position” means just what you’d think – it’s the value of the city’s assets minus the value of its debts. 

Data from the City of Quincy’s audited financial statements (Image: Spencer Henderson/AJQ)

When Koch won his first mayoral election in 2007, we were running a net positive $152 million balance sheet – we were “up” by $152 million. That climbed to a $175 million surplus in 2013 before dropping down to a deficit of $762 million in 2023 – a loss of almost $1 billion in a decade. 

That is quite a feat, and the mayor’s unilateral decision to add ~$1 million of religious statuary to a $175 million public safety building (which, with interest payments, will ultimately cost taxpayers $320 million) is just the latest example of the kind of leadership that got us here. Amazing work!