Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Council president Ann Mahoney is joining us to update us on the February 2nd city council meeting. Anne, how are you today?
[00:00:06] Speaker B: I'm doing great. How are you doing, Joe?
[00:00:08] Speaker A: I'm well. I really appreciate the opportunity to catch up with you after the meetings, because I think people are interested to find out what's going on.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm happy to do it, and I'm happy to let people know what's going on. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Sure.
Speaking of letting people know what's going on, that's number one on the item agenda. Right. Residents open forum.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Yep. So I think last time when we spoke, I said, this is going to happen, and as council president, I can put it on the agenda. And we did have open forum last night. We had nine residents that came up and spoke. And, you know, it was a. We were asking for no longer than three minutes. We were asking people to be respectful, both the people speaking to us. And I did ask my fellow city councilors to, you know, give the people the attention that they deserve. They're coming up to talk to us about what they're concerned about in the city of Quincy. And, you know, we had nine. As I said, we had nine residents. It was a little bit more than 30 minutes.
And I said we would go as long as people. There was a lot of people in the room, so I said we would go as long as we needed to last night. And, you know, that's what we can do right now. But I did also reintroduce the order amending the council rules, establishing the public participation and procedures for the city council. And what that does is it puts it in the council rules. So now it's not about the president putting it on there. It will become something that's established as a rule for the city Council.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Okay. And there is a committee that will oversee that.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yep. It will go into. We were going to vote on it, but, you know, I decided we would put it into committee so we could have any discussions anybody was concerned with. Pretty much what we did last night is what we'll be doing going forward.
And it will go into the rules committee, and the rules committee will discuss it, and we'll take it up in the next meeting.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Okay. And what are kind of some of the rules that would govern this policy, Ann?
[00:01:51] Speaker B: So it's basically saying we'd like to have an open forum right after the moments of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll start right at the beginning of the meeting. There'll be residents open forum and public comment piece.
We'll start with 20 minutes and 3 minutes per person. I think some meetings, we might have to suspend the rules and let people speak longer if it's a hot topic. But 20 minutes should be. It's usually about enough time. And if we only have two people speaking, then we call out last chance to talk, and we move on to the next part of our meeting. So it's not something that we have to have. You can't stop. We're not going to have a meeting, go for 20 minutes, nobody talk. We're just going to open it and then we'll close it if there's nobody there. And it will give people the opportunity in the city to come up and talk to us. And I think it's valuable information whether it could be viewed as negative. But a negative comment is just as good as a positive comment because we can adapt what we're doing to meet the needs of the community.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: And will there be any kind of rules regarding the content of the discussion?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Just that I will not let anybody be personally attacked. Like, I think last night somebody started to talk directly to Council Dipona about his objections. And I stopped that from happening because this isn't about talking to one person. It's about talking to us as a whole. And I will try to keep people reminded that, you know, we. We all earn trust and we earn respect, but we have to be respectful when we're doing it, too.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Okay. I know he did explain his reason for objection last time last night.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yes, he did.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: And so it went into committee with a full vote.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And actually nothing changed in that particular amendment. So when he was saying that he didn't. He was glad they'd had all this backup. The backup was there last time. I don't think he. Maybe he just didn't have time to read it. And that's okay because, you know, last time is the last meeting. Now we're at the second meeting. We'll be at the third meeting. You before we know it.
And I don't. You know, I think this is a positive thing that we're going to be doing for really understanding every side of the coin so we can make sure we're doing the best that we can as the legislation body of the city council for the city.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: And also coming back last night, the repeal of the raises for the mayors and city councilors.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Correct. So that was Councillor McGhee and she brought back the same ones because you can't take what was. We had to bring them back in. And she tightened them up so she added A few more to go into ordinance. So basically it's the next, the next several are Maggie's and they all went into, they all went into oversight. I mean obviously they all went into ordinance and she had a number of them that she was doing and they were from the previous council and previous council passed for the mayor, the mayor's mayor and the council's raises.
And she's looking for, and I think everybody who signed on to this is looking for a more transparent, data centered process and they're hoping the orders will go into committee so we can discuss it fully. And you know, she also explained the reasons why she was doing this. The previous council voted for raises into law without single public hearing, without reviewing salaries of similar elected positions. The process and lack thereof eroded the public trust and inspired many people to run for office.
So the orders that she was putting in last night was really to redo the process to make sure that we're calculating the politicians raises and restoring the faith and trust of the thousands of city residents that they felt ignored.
And really it's less about the money and more about the process. And the number will come from the process. So I always say it's, you know, nothing set in stone and we will discuss the process and hopefully build that trust back in our community.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Okay, and these ordinances would just repeal the raises, right? Not the total salaries?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yep, just the raises. And then what we'll do is then we'll build a process that we can actually come back with data driven information to determine what the raises should be.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Okay. And did Councillor Dimona explain his objection last time these were brought up?
[00:05:53] Speaker B: He did. I think it was at the end of the meeting and I think Council Yuen tried to explain it as well, which is less about the mayor. So the mayor's raise won't go into effect until 2020, the next election for mayor. And the city council's raises went into effect at the beginning of this term.
And you know, we can't. So the problem with that is you can't just automatically repeal it across the board. We can individually do whatever we need to do, but what we're trying to do is change the process and we can potentially change it at the, it could be six months before we could make a complete change. So we're going to let that go into committee and discuss it. And then Councilor Bono was like, yep, that's, that's exactly right. You know, basically if he wants to keep his raise, he can keep his raise. He didn't say that. That's what he wants to do. But the raise has already been started. And the question is, how can we can't repeal something that's already started, per se.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Okay, so the rule regarding objections was that clarified last night?
[00:06:52] Speaker B: So there was a bone of contention in the minutes. And Susan did explain that she wanted her piece where she challenged it. And you know, as it stands, the clerk Crispo basically said to me later that that's the way it's always been done. And we did do some research after the meeting last time, and if it was going through, if we were going to be taking a vote to the last meeting, we were going to take a vote for the rules and adopt those rules would be on the agenda going forward because I didn't want it to wait.
And when he objected for that, that was a clear objection because it would have fast track to going to open forum. But the other ones were going into committee. When something's going into committee, it hasn't been fully discussed and it wasn't being voted. Putting something into committee is not voting yay or nay for something. So in that particular case, the objection would not have stood. And I asked myself, as the council president, I can challenge that. And basically, you know, the interpretation was what was there. And then I would have just taken a vote of if this was to happen again, I could have taken a vote of the members of the council to see if they wanted to put it into committee because nobody was making a final decision for the repeal.
So that's the difference there. So it's a technicality. But, you know, in Nicole Crispo's standing, I don't know how many times somebody has used the objection in the past 10 years. So it's not something that gets used very often. So these types of things can be. The best thing to do when something happens like that, Joe, is to move the meeting, as I did last time, do your research and come back. And that's what happened.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Okay, very good.
Let's see here. Moving on. You have an order regarding the Monroe building?
[00:08:30] Speaker B: I do.
So my order for the Monroe building was just simply that, you know, we did that.
The mayor, through the ARPA fund, purchased that building.
And, you know, what we were trying to do is say, like, that was really purchased by the taxpayers of the city of Quincy. ARPA funds are federal money, but it was purchased. And there's. There's people renting and leasing and people moving out. And, you know, I just want an audit of what's happening. And I put a resolve in place asking for those things. So that we can, we can understand as the owners of that building, the taxpayers, the owners of that building, what the city is doing with the funds that they are collecting, where the funds are going and who's renting and what the terms are, if there's been any forgiveness or you know, the typical things that you would do when you're doing an analysis of real estate piece. So that's what that resolve was. And that went into, I believe it went into oversight.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Okay.
And a couple of more resolutions to speak about as well. Short term regulations, dignified discourse and productive communication in public meeting regulations.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: So this was Councilor Riley who brought this forward. She had attended the Mass Municipal association conference and had listened to a keynote speaker who was introducing this. And it's something that's happening throughout the context. We watch the news and you can see discourse happening all the time. And how do we, how do we as people who are trying to help move government along, do this in a way that's respectful to each other? And this is really what it's about. So whether it's at our meetings or on social media, there's, you know, the anger that's there. How do you displace the anger and make it so that it's productive? And that's really what she was saying that we have to, we all play a part in this. Let's not feed into it. And it was really inspired from, you know, several speakers that she heard and saw. And it kind of works well with the, with the Open Forum piece. But in general, just in life, I think it's just something she was inspired for and she wanted to put it forward.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Okay. And she also did the short term rental regulations resolve as well.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yep. So that's been in place for. The rental regulations have been in place for a couple years. But as we know, it's a big issue.
The city just wants something in court with regards to that. So she's just really looking for the department heads to come forward, professional services to come forward and explain, like what we're doing, how we're doing, and give kind of a feedback after the last couple of years and see how we can tighten things up.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: All right, very good.
Let's see three more. Right. One regarding community media programming.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yes. So that was Councilor Hubley who brought that forward. And I think he did an excellent job, you know, explaining what he was bringing forward to the state. And I encourage anybody that's listening at home to get in touch with your state legislations and ask them to push this forward because it is in regards to public access.
And as we know, Joe, public access is getting harder and harder to survive because we used to get the funding off of.
We used to get the funding off of cable when it became Comcast and Verizon. We have Comcast and Quincy. But now more and more people are streaming, and that money is not coming in potentially to fund public access. And public access plays a key part in every community. And this isn't just about Quincy. It's about all public access. But of course, we were talking about Quincy last night in qatv.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Sure.
That passed.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: I'm assuming it did pass. And, you know, and there were many, many nice things to be said about qat. In fact, I think one of the counselors said it's really important. It might have been Walter that said it was pretty impressive to see that your budget goes down, but yet you're still performing at a rate, being able to communicate to people. Many people can't, you know, come out to the meetings. They have to only watch them on TV or they can't go to the parade. So my health issues. So they might have been a Flag Day parade goer for their whole life, but they can't go this year for some reason. And these things are able to connect them to the community. So it's really important that people understand the value of public access in qatv.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Well, we thank him for introducing that and thank all of the supporting counselors for that.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Do appreciate it.
Let's see here.
Ordering a review of resident interactions with City hall and opportunities to expand accessible online municipal services. Also from Councilor Hubley.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: So Councillor Hubley is. He's chairing Muny Tech, and I'm thrilled that he brought this through, too, because so many times these smaller committees, not the committees of the whole, tend to not be active. And one of the things I did ask when I was creating the committees was I wanted people to feel their strength in what they're doing. And this is one of Mr. Helsa Hubley's strengths is Munitech. And he is jumping into this with the idea that he's going to do a review of what we're doing now and see if there's other ways that we can adapt our communication to be able to meet the needs of our residents. And I think it's a great collaboration both with the council and the IT for the city.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Okay. And the committee is. What is it? Ann Munitec.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Munitec Municipal Technology.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Who else is on that committee?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: I knew you were Gonna ask that. So give me one second. I wasn't prepared that night that you said. Everybody else, I can tell you Unitech is chaired by Councilor Hubley. Vice chair is Councilor Riley, and then the members are Councilor Ashe, Dubona and Ryan.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Oh, very good.
And was that it last night?
Oh, there's one more regarding. Oh, regarding snow removal.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So the last one was regarding snow removal and what I like to say when it comes to snow and it doesn't matter where we live, so we haven't had snow in a really long time, but we had a lot of snow and it did hit and it was a lot for every community. And you know, nobody's ever going to get an A in snow removal because it's just, it's just it doesn't happen frequently enough here in New England anymore. But there are things this is. You have many new counselors, ward councillors, dealing with ward things that are going on. There's an opportunity for the dpw, Emergency management to come up before the council, maybe answer some of the questions some of the open forum people had last night, code enforcement, those types of things, and just discuss like what the wins were for this, for this storm. You know, they were exhausted. How did they get through it? And then also, how can we do better? I know one of the things that happened since our last major snowstorm in Quincy is one of the contractors that was working with the city for a very long time didn't renew this year. And that was 40 vehicles that came off of our roads. You have to replace those 40 vehicles with new contractors. And that can be a big challenge to make sure you're hitting every road and doing it in the manner that people are used to.
So this is not, you know, this idea is that we're bringing it forward to ask questions, see what, you know, ask them themselves, like, you know, what was, what were your challenges and, you know, really how we can work better, including talking about the Munitech. They maybe might fall into Munitech with a follow up of four people to be able to report certain things that are happening.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Okay, all right, very good.
I'm assuming then there were committee meetings scheduled with all these items going into committee.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have our first couple of meetings that have been scheduled. So at the next meeting on the 23rd, I think it's the 23rd.
It is the 23rd. On the 23rd, we have an ordinance rules committee meeting, ordinance meeting and also a oversight meeting for the snow removal. I believe that's the one that's Coming back on the 23rd. And the rules will be about the open Forum to discuss about the open Forum. And then the. Over the ordinance. I'm not sure. There's so many things that have gone into ordinance already. So we'll have to determine what's going to be pulled out because there's a lot of them. And it will be up to the chair to decide what's coming out of that meeting. But we have our first one on the 23rd, and what I'm hoping for is every meeting, we'll be scheduling another meeting so that we can, you know, we can keep moving the business through.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Sure. And that'll be at City hall prior to the full council meeting?
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Yes, I believe there's a 6 o' clock utility meeting. And then at 6:30 it will either be starting with rules or it'll be starting with ordinance. I'm not sure, but Maggie McKee chairs both of those.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: One ordinance is the chair of the full and rules is chaired by Councilor McGhee. Councillor Yuen is the Vice chair, and then Ash. Councilor Ash, Councilor Hubley and Councilor Riley are to make up the five.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Okay, very good.
Anything else, Ann?
[00:17:03] Speaker B: You know, I didn't get to go to the Chili Fest myself on Saturday, but I heard it was great.
I had great intentions of getting there, but I had a migraine headache and it just derailed me for a little bit. But I will say that that's one of my favorite things to go to in the wintertime because it kind of breaks up the winter. But, you know, I heard it was a great crowd and a great turnout for it. So I thank everybody for going for that. I know, you know, we're going to be, before we know it will be at Lunar New Year and we're often. And before we know it will be spring. So I'm very excited for what's ahead.
But, you know, I want to thank everybody for coming. Last night was the first Open Forum and we had, as I said, we had nine participants and I think we're off to a good start with that too. Even the decorum of which people came up to speak was, you know, it was.
They all showed that respect and that's what we can do to work with each other. And we did learn a lot from the Open Forum last night. Some of the, the changes to the snow presentation that we're asking from the DPW and the emergency management, we added code enforcement and then also senior.
The senior analogy, how we can actually help them. So I think these are things that we can make the Council more productive for the people that we serve. So I'm very excited about that.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: And are counselors accessible in between meetings, Ann, as well?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: We are. You can reach us, you can call. You can call us, or you can email us. And, you know, if we don't get back in touch with you right away, most of us have a day job we may not see. That's why I always tell people, if you're going to call, leave a message.
I usually call back and I ask them to text me, let me know what time's good for them. And I try to make sure that I'm arranging that around my day, and everybody is doing the same thing. So I'm, you know, encouraging people to make sure they reach back out. A lot of times I'm getting phone calls that might be ward specific, so I try to pull in that ward counselor so they're aware of what's happening in their ward, and we can work together on that. But, yeah, it's been. It's been.
I've only been back a month, and it's amazing how many people reach out, so I thank them all for doing that.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Great. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to catch up with you after the meetings. It's great.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. I look forward to it, Joe.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: All right. Stay warm.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: You, too. I'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Bye.
