Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Quincy City Council President Ann Mahoney is joining us to bring us up to date on the March 16th city council meeting. Good morning, Anne.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Good morning, Joe. How are you doing?
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Well, happy St. Patrick's Day.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Happy St. Patrick's Day.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: And Evacuation Day, too. We can't forget.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Nope, can't. Evacuation day. Happy St. Patrick's Day. We have it all. So, yeah, I used to always be jealous. My dad had St. Patrick's Day off because he worked in the Boston schools and I didn't. So I was like, how come we don't have evacuation day?
[00:00:26] Speaker A: So Suffolk county only. That's right.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Very important this America. 250 this year to make note of that.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: So let's talk about the meeting last night. Started out with some public hearings, ordinance and finance, right?
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Yep. So we had, I think we had six public hearings last night that was run by Councilor Ash. Two of them, I think were held or denied and four of them went through. And that's, that's a typical kind of public hearing type thing. So. And then we moved on to the ordinance meeting, which was Maggie McKee's meeting. And she was talking about the salary raises and really the differentiation of the mayor's salary because it won't go into play until 2028, and the council's raises. That started here. And I think with the.
From the gist of what was going on from the City Solicitor was he's simply saying that we could all just write a letter saying that we basically don't. We decline the raise. But it doesn't sol the problem of how the raises came about and it would not mean all counselors would have to do that. So individually we can do that, but we're really. The raises are across the board. All nine of us get those raises and all nine of us should be paid the same amount. And so the idea of just having. I could defer it and that's great. But if all nine of us are not, then where do you go from there? So really it's. What's the best way for us to do this? We were looking for that advice and they made it seem like everybody came together to defer the raises last time. But ethics also had played a part in that. This was, you know, they, they were going to give themselves raises. This is the prior council ethics got involved and they suggested that they wait until the next one. And that's how that happened. This next election that happened has already happened. Now we're at this stage here and it's a matter of how do we go about all nine of us doing the right thing and going back and really focusing on how we can set those raises in a way that's palatable for the city, the constituents of the city, because they felt as though they were left out of that conversation. So we're just. So that. So that was the beginning of the conversation. There's going to be many more, I'm sure, and I'm sure there'll be many people's opinions of that, too.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Okay, so were there any votes on the ordinances?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: And there were no votes last night on the ordinances. And the meetings went a little bit long. I think public. Public hearing went a little bit longer. So 7 is like 6:35. And then ordinance went a little long. And so when we started for finance, which was the kind of the star of the show last night. Right. Was the finance meeting with the $2.6 million bond for the firefighter equipment gear.
We started that about 7:05 ish. And we had a presentation from the. I think it's kicked off with Chris Walker from the mayor's office, followed by chief Interim Chief Smith, and then the. The head of the union, Tom Bose. And then we had the scientist, Dr. Priestley, that was there as well.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Right. As you said, that took up the bulk of the meeting.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. It was. You know, it's a lot, because when we're talking about this, we're the Finance Committee, so we're there for the financing of it. And I think we all understand.
I mean, I happen to understand PFAS probably in a different context compared to my fellow colleagues, but PFAS is the forever chemical. It's impacting us all. And we did have a lot of conversations. And one of the things that. I know if we're talking about science, but we probably should have spent more time talking about finances. But you can't ignore the science. You have a scientist in the room. You want to be able to ask those questions. So we were given a lot of information.
And the natural thing to do when you get that kind of information is to discuss the science. I don't think anybody. I think one of the things that happened there last night is we ran out of time. There was 15 minutes per counselor. We were going to go back and have an extra five minutes right from the start. You know, no. Came out and made a motion to approve without discussing anything, which is, you know, that's fine except for we have new counselors and people want to ask questions and there's nothing wrong with doing your due diligence and asking questions. And we're going to have another meeting next Monday night.
It's unfortunate to think that this means that we're not supportive of the firefighters. It's never. It couldn't be further or farther away from the truth at all.
However, you know, we. I too, feel as though anytime I've made a big purchase or doing anything, you do the right thing, but you have to make sure that you're doing the way you're doing it. It's equitable for everybody.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Sure. So I watched portions of the meeting, and some of the questions I saw that came up were, one, was there a guarantee that this new gear, if it is purchased, will also be safe? Right.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing is, there's no 100% guarantee for anything because it might be safe from what now is the forever chemical, but tomorrow there might be another forever chemical. Because think about it. Asbestos back in the day was the magic thing for everything. We were using it in our water pipes, in our houses, as insulation.
It was everywhere. Only to come to find out that it's very toxic and it can't be used. PFAS is the next. You know, there's a generation of. And Teflon was the same thing. You know, Teflon was. You don't, don't. Everybody was buying it. I said it last night. You know, you can still buy a Teflon pan at homesense and go grill your, you know, make your grilled cheese off of it, and it's not going to be healthy for you, but people will continue to use it. Maybe they don't understand, but that's one of the things. And at the end of the day, this is a synthetic material that we're using. So it's all 100% man made with chemicals going into it. And the question was, what's the secret sauce behind that chemicals? And they don't have to tell you.
So what we came away with is they use pfas, and we understood that, but they also used another chemical that was not promised to not be in there, but was in there. That's the flame retardant chemical. That's very dangerous as well. So those are two chemicals in the last couple of years that we've identified that are dangerous. And, and now we have to go get equipment that they tested and they believe is the right equipment. But the science. And that was one of the questions that came up. The science is evolving so fast, no different than our technology.
And you know, what we could be investing in for the next 10 years could eventually also be a problem. That doesn't mean we shouldn't invest. It's just. We just have to make sure that we qualify that so that if we're in the situation again, that we documented that as well.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So Chief Smith, the union president, spoke about. This is the best information that we have at this time.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Right. And. Exactly. And it's the best information the whole country has at this time. And this isn't just even the United States. This is, this is all around. And when you really think about it, it's in your groundwater. It's in your. It's. We're drinking that water. We're. We're eating foods that are grown in the ground that are also having those chemicals there. So it's, it's. It's a real issue. And then it's in the equipment. And part of it is to keep that. The reason why they're putting in the equipment was because it was. It was a chemical that prevented to make that equipment work better for the firefighters. But it turned out to be a chemical. The protection was just as dangerous as what they were protecting them from. So it's definitely a balance. I don't think anybody was amiss of understanding the danger of PFAS or the chemicals we're talking about.
The extension to the next meeting, I think, was simply there was more questions, and it really needs to get back to the financial questions. And it was geared last night as the science presentation. It wasn't geared towards the finance presentation. And I'm hoping that on Monday night it will be geared towards the finance presentation. And I'm positive that we're going to come to the right decision for this. It's just. It's just not going to be done. It just could be done in one meeting.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Okay, so this would be done as a. As a bond, is that right?
[00:07:56] Speaker B: That is the request of it being done as a bond. And that is one of the. That's. That is some of the concerns that people have. You know, when we talk about this, we're a city the size that we're at. We have $1.6 billion worth of debt. So when we're talking about the debt that we're taking on just for the 2.6 million dol.
Question is, why do we have to bond? $2.6 million. That's not a lot of money to bond. First of all, we should be able to either use free cash or use something. But we've used all of those reserves to draw down to lower the taxes last year. So we're really in a spot right now that there's no free cash is only $55,000, I believe. So we're being forced to bond something that typically gear in most other communities. Newton paid from free cash. I think Providence, Rhode island used the last of their Arbor funds to purchase them. San Francisco did the same thing. They were not bonding this equipment. So that's the question, like, why do we have to bond? And if we don't bond it, the problem is we don't, we can't, we can't spend what we don't have in the budget. So we're being forced to bond something because the city's savings account, and I know the mayor had said that he's not, that's not his job to create savings account, but this is the exact reason why you would want to for these kind of emergency things. So, so we're being forced to bond. So we're really trying to, in my opinion, understand how we're moving forward, because this is a small number, 2.6. But when we're getting into some of those bigger things that are on the wish list, those are going to be a lot more. And we're already $1.6 billion into debt. So that's, that's the concern. We have a balancing act that we have to play here. And that's. Those are the questions have to be asked now. Does that mean that we're not going to do it? I don't know. Those, those finance questions haven't been answered. Like, so those are the, like when you think about it, we lowered the taxes using premiums from sales of bonds.
Is there any more premiums that they could get? We have $175 million. Public Safety Building.
Is there, you know, that, that bought equipment for everything that's in that building. Is there any money in public safety building at this point? What's the, what's the final number looking like there? I don't know if there's any money that's. But obviously there mustn't be because they're asking for 2.6 billion, $2.6 billion bond.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Right. But is using, you know, this bond request the right avenue to get those questions answered?
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it has to be because that's, that's how it was positioned to us. This is, this is how it was sent to the council as a bond request. And that's our job, the due diligence that we have. And if in the end we exhaust those answers, we will be Getting the equipment one way or another, because it's something that needs to be done. But those questions have to be answered. I just personally, if, if, if one of my counselors, if I was chairing that meeting and one of our counselors had questions, they, you might say, well, it's only one. We have the votes. But I think everybody's questions should be at least answered. And there were still a lot of questions on the table last night. And you could have gone around and you could have given everybody an extra five minutes, but they moved the vote instead. And moving the vote is just to say approve and take out.
So it failed because the questions weren't answered. It's not failing because people don't want to get the fire department their equipment. It just failed because there are more questions to be asked. So one more meeting, seven more days, I don't think is going to make a big difference. I don't think I understand. People feel as though it needs to. It needed to be done two weeks ago when it came in, it couldn't have been done.
The criticism was that this was political because they just came to understand this in February. They had a press release about it. Last August, they could have had several updates about what was going on. And if they only found the equipment since last February, that's fine, too. But it's, it's still, it's seven months later, and one week isn't asking much for the city council to have questions answered.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Okay, so it'll be Monday night, the 23rd.
What time, Ann?
[00:11:37] Speaker B: I think it's at 6pm If I remember right. Yeah.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: And what will the meeting entail in terms of presentations?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Not sure. That will be up to the finance chair.
And, you know, she'll, she'll work with the administration to do that. But, you know, obviously, I don't think the doctor, Dr. Priestley is going to be back. So if there was any more science questions that needed to be asked that didn't get asked last night, that's a, that's an unfortunate thing because it got shut down for the conversations, I think. You know, we do have one member that's a PhD and she has a background in chemistry, so she's, she has questions. And does that mean that she's going to say no to the financing? No, I think she's just really trying to understand the methodology. Now, other people might say, we've read it and I don't need to know about the science, but that's the presentation they were giving. So if you're giving a presentation on science, and you have people that understand science, they're going to ask those questions. So, you know, and what we're really there to do is to talk about financing. And it's, it's, it's. It goes both ways. So we need to be able to ask those questions. And the doctor was only going to be available last night, and we'll move on to hopefully getting some of the finance questions. And, you know, my hope is that all the questions will be answered. And if they're not and you still lose a vote, it's because they're still people that have questions. It's, it's, it's. I. What I can guarantee you, Joe, is at some point there's going to be a vote on this and it will be approved. I just, I can't talk for other people as to where they stand on those things.
Okay.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: All right. The vote was 5 to 4 last night, I believe.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: 5 to 4 y. Yeah.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: What would it take?
What questions do you have, Ann, that need to be answered before you can vote?
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yes, I have a lot of financial questions that need to be. That I, that I. And I, I really did feel like last night that if I just jumped into the finances, if I wanted to level set, I really. You could feel the temperature in the room about the science. But again, level setting, that is really how I looked at it, is being able to understand, like, I totally understand what PFAS is, the forever chemical and the danger of it, as well as the fire retardant. I can't say the bro. I can't. I never can say that one. So I'm just going to skip. I kept saying it last time like I'm going to skip it, but the reality of it is, is, is, you know, PFAS is in everything. When you microwave something in plastic in your microwave, it's PFAS is in there. When they go into fires, the construction equipment, the construction material that they built those houses and have PFAS in it. That's why they were talking about the analytics, inhaling the smoke and the ashes.
They're exposed to it far more than the average person is, but they're exposed to it because we're all living in homes that have a lot of PFAS in them and in our cars and PFAS is in just about everything.
And we're just fine, just like asbestos was. We're just finding out about the dangers of it and we're absorbing it with our, you know, our rain jackets that maybe not to the same degree but again, because they're going into fires, but we are all exposed. It's a dangerous chemical, and my hope is that it's going to be eradicated from everything. But it's still. It's still going to be in our water and our food supply channels, too. So it certainly shouldn't be in their equipment.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Okay. All right. We'll catch up again next Tuesday, if that's okay. See how that meeting goes.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. Always okay. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Then you had your regular council meeting.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So we kicked off the meeting and then we went right back into finance. And then when the vote was happening, I think the chair wanted to put like she wants. She felt as though it was getting to a point where she wanted to either refer back to committee or take the vote. And we took the vote.
And then we started back up with the council meeting and we went right back in and we had the open forum and there were a lot of people that came up for that. And many of them were geared at the firefighters and many, many, many other things, too. So we. I think it's a good opportunity to listen to people. And I definitely think everybody was heard. And then we moved on to the regular meat of the meeting, which I don't have my meeting agenda in front of me, so maybe you can tell me what's. What's on that. So I have a meeting.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it was an order from the mayor amending the municipal code regarding synthetic drugs.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Yep. And that went into ordinance. So that would be something that will have to come out of ordinance and that and that, you know, we're getting a lot of feedback from both sides of that. People are educating us on that synthetic drug. And we'll have that in ordinance. We'll have that discussion. And then after that, I think. Was it my order? I can't remember. Yep. So my order resolution.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: So my resolution was going to go into finance. And really what I was asking for that is, you know, and we really want to have bond council finding all of the things that we do. We had, we had.
We had Director Del Pop, Del Baba up at the podium last night really talking about before we go into the budget, the fiscal year 2027 budget, the issues that we're having with our finances. You know, we have $1.6 billion worth of debt. We want to see long term and short term debt, not, not, you know, hand pick things, but really understand where we stand as a city right now because we have a lot of big projects that want to be discussed. And we always talk about bonds. Just as the bond that's coming in, not about the. And they'll give you like a little map saying these things are going to roll off. But what we're not seeing is what things are being expensed at and what they're being used for and how long they're going to be. They're going to be around short term debt is a ban and then they, then they'll roll it over to a long term debt or even the sales, the proceeds to understand a little bit more about the sales of the proceeds for, for bonds, the premiums that they get back. There's a lot of questions that have to be answered before we go into this budget cycle. So that's what this resolve is about. And we're. I'm looking for that presentation in April before we go in. I think the mayor's, he's going to be coming May 7th with the budget. So May 7th will be when the budget comes out.
And then, so they'll have, we'll have two, at least two meetings in April that they'll be able to come in and present to. One of those. It might be a finance meeting because it was referred to finance. So it won't be in the regular council meeting, but we should be having one of the regular council meetings coming up in April. The report on the Monroe Building, it's been past 30 days at this point. It did give a 30 day kind of window on that. And I was asked to be patient because some of the people that are working on that have some family issues, which is understandable. But you know, it's. There are other people that can do the presentation. So we'll be expecting that in April for the Monroe Building. So.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Okay.
And then Councilor Hughley had a resolution regarding veteran Department of Veterans Affairs.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yep. So that was just going to be a letter that we were going to give the authorization to say that we supported it.
And because they had already gotten so much communications about it, they. It's already been closed because they're dealing with it. So the positive action happened before we were even able to send the letter. But I was, I thought it was important for Council Hubley to take the time to educate people who were not aware of what was happening. And he did that. He did. He took that time last night because it was definitely if it hadn't happened, it was an important step for us to take.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Okay, very good. Then just two gifts, one to dare, one to the fire department.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yep. Went to. Darren went to the fire department, which, you know, we, we basically accept those gifts and they go in and then we thank. We'll send a thank you card. And we are always appreciative of all of the gifts that we get here in the city of Quincy because it takes all of us to be able to make the city work.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Anything else, Ann?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: No, I think that was. It was. It was. You know, I do think it was probably from. From, for where I was sitting. You know, it's a hard meeting to go through because you're trying to hear and listen and you know, and understand.
And sometimes it seems as though from one side of the room might seem as though we weren't listening or understanding, but I think there were far more caring people listening than they thought. And, you know, people need to have the opportunity to get their questions answered so they can get to their vote personally. And if in the end, I always say this at the end, if, if there's one person that's just not able to get to the vote, they can. They have to vote no. But, you know, at the same time, you got. We want to get to a yes.
And, you know, last night was no. 5, 4. And hopefully when we move forward, it will be, you know, if, if not 9 0, it will be. It will pass. So I, I believe we're in the right direction for this.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: All right. We'll. We'll catch up next Tuesday, if that's okay.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Perfect. Joe, thank you very much. Enjoy. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: Thank you. Same to you. Bye. Bye.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Thanks. Bye.
