Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Checking. Back in Quincy, City Council President Ian Cain is joining us to talk about the May 5th city council meeting. Hey, Ian, how are you today?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good morning, Joe, how are you?
[00:00:10] Speaker A: I'm doing well now. It was a Cinco de Mayo meeting. That's why I'm all flustered.
Did the council show up on time?
[00:00:19] Speaker B: The council showed up on time, yep. And as promised. Sorry, I'm just looking for the numbers for a couple things, but we can look at them later. Yeah, council showed up on time. It was a, it wasn't too busy of a meeting last night. A lot of introductions. Things, a lot of things went into committee.
The mayor came and submitted his budget for the fiscal year 2026.
We're looking at a 456 million dollar budget, approximately. It's, you know, 455, 835, 577 to be exact.
The budget has gone up 8.6%, which is an increase of 36 million dollars. And the majority of that increase is from the debt service on the pension obligation bond that was moved a couple years back. So that's 88.8% of the increase.
Otherwise there are increases in health care 13.8%, trash and recycling 7.1% and energy 1.9%.
Most of the, I guess, as you know, as it was represented to us, that it's maintaining service levels across departments, but also continued investments in schools and public safety. So the remaining 11.2% of that spending is directed towards the fire department, which is 30%, education 27.3, and the police department at 26.7%. So we start the deliberations next week.
Our first budget hearing will be on Monday night. Next Monday night, the 12th of May. So we'll review each departmental budget with department heads and, you know, we'll discuss, you know, approving the budget right now.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: I know on the pension bond, Ian, I know that you voted against that back in 2021. Do you still feel the same way now that you did then?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: I do, yeah. I, I thought it was, you know, I, I understand the, the rationale at the time, which was, you know, sort of a short term solution, it was a short term solution, but also a long term solution to both short and long term problems.
And that rate that they got was low. That's great. I still thought that the, the risk that we were taking to meet that investment hurdle was going to be unforeseen. I just didn't, I didn't think it was, I thought it was a risky move. So just to, you know, to have to meet that. Because if we don't meet those, if the market doesn't meet those investment hurdles, then you're in, you know, deeper water than you were before. So, yeah, I still stand by that. And I think that, you know, it's a considerable. I also didn't fundamentally believe in the philosophy of using a liability to fund a liability, you know, so it's not solving the ultimate problem, which is having that liability on the books to fund pensions in this case. But yeah, I still stand by that.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: According to the mayor, this will be the highest payment on that bond. He's. He's anticipating savings going forward for another, what, 15 years?
[00:03:43] Speaker B: That's the, that's the projection. Yes.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Will this come up every year in the budget? Is that how that will work?
[00:03:51] Speaker B: It will. It was just like before. So instead of having that line item for, you know, yearly annual payouts for the pension obligation, you will now have long term debt.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Gotcha. Okay.
Okay. So, yeah, onto finance committee now. That'll. That'll be the next step in the process, right?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: That's correct. Yeah. So stay tuned next week.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Alrighty.
And what else? We had ordinance committee meeting.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: We did have an ordinance committee meeting that was to approve. So we had talked about the, the change in the floodplain overlay district where we're taking, I think about 300 homes out of the floodplain by changing this overlay. So we, we, you know, briefly went through that. We passed it unanimously.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Okay. It's, it's, it can't be understated. I think that that is a huge amount of properties being, you know, taken out of the plane and potentially.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Saving on flood insurance. Yeah.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: I think, you know, you and I talked about this before. The DPW and Granite City partners have been working diligently to continue to like, ameliorate people's issues with the floodplain that have been caused over the last decade. You know, this is, again, this is more of the quiet work that goes very much understated that is being done on a, on a constant basis. And this is truly impactful for, for people's lives because, you know, that's another, in some cases, mortgage payment that people are, are picking up in the by way of flood insurance. So, you know, this is, this is great work.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. Very good. Okay. What else?
[00:05:37] Speaker B: So that was the ordinance. We introduced the budget and the sewer and water enterprise funds. We had the nomination and election of the city clerk. Nicole Crispo was the only nomination and she was reelected unanimously to her role as city Clerk, we had an order to designate early polling places for the preliminary election on Saturday August 23, 2025 through Thursday, August 28 and election Saturday October 25 through Friday, October 31. So these are the designation of early polling places which, let's see, for the city council and the school committee, three of six seats. The in person early voting is at Quincy Hall, 1305 Hancock St. For the 2025 elections. And that's for, for both of those periods that I mentioned.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Very good. Nomination papers come out today.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Actually, I heard that, I heard that last night.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yes, I'm sure you did.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Someone Nina mentioned it, I think.
Okay. And then we did introduced an ordinance, Counselors Ash and Campbell and the mayor introduced an ordinance around establishing a public art and place making program which was referred into ordinance committee. So that'll be heard at another time.
And then there were two gifts. There was a gift for a hundred dollars from Richard and Mary Cox for the Quincy Animal Shelter which will be opening up over the next couple of weeks. The sort of grand opening of the, I guess Brian pillow, she used to refer to it as the Taj Mah dog. And the $500 from the Fowler House to the DARE program. And those are both passed.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Okay, very good.
And I see an order regarding transit oriented districts from Councilor Devine. Was that acted on?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Oh, I'm sorry. Yep, that was moved into ordinance.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Yes, that's to change some sections of the north and the southern parts of the city around the MBTA stations to create. I think, you know, I think what's going on is we've got a very uncertain real estate market, especially with office properties. And these areas that potentially would be designated would avail different, different opportunities I think for either developers and, or real estate property owners on their properties. So that will be heard another day.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Okay, very good. Plenty of work for you still to do here, Ian.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah, we ain't done and I think even you had brought it up before, but we'll talk, I'll talk about it real quick. So tomorrow night I'm hosting a Ward 3 town hall meeting at Central Middle School at 6:00pm, 6:30pm, 6:30pm Central Middle School, 6:30.
And you know, this is one I, you know, I've been trying to think of new ways to engage people and provide either information or resources that can help them make decisions or, you know, figure out how to live better lives. And so this one's focused on financial planning and housing. So you know, I know that this is a hot topic especially because we're in this sort of inflationary economy. And I think, you know, people are certainly in positions where they need to be minding their budgets a little bit more, if they even have budgets. You know, I think these are some things that even early education should, should be covering. How to plan household budgets and manage finances appropriately. So this is just kind of like a one on one. So we're bringing in Jeff Sullivan, who manages a financial advisory firm, and Colleen Haley, who's the former chair of the board of assessors, to talk about first time home buying and the real estate market in Quincy because I know that it remains elusive for some people. So.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Okay. And it's open to, to anybody.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I advertise it to Ward 3 residents. If there's anyone outside of Ward 3, they're more than welcome to join.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: Excellent. I know you did quite a few of these kind of pre pandemic, so it's nice to see them coming back again.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we did, we did, we did them quarterly and they were great. They were very well received, I think. You know, and Jim Devine and I just recently hosted one with T. PAL and that was very well attended. Yeah, I mean, it just. It's always a good reminder to, you know, for residents to, to show them who does the work. Right. And that we're just kind of the liaisons in the middle if things aren't necessarily flowing properly. But, you know, it's great to connect people with the departments that serve them on a daily basis.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Excellent. While we're speaking about your initiatives, any update on municipal broadband you can share with us?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah, so we, I think I put one. I think I put an update out, what, end of March or sometime around May, April rather.
So we had moved a home rule petition regarding the revenue bond that will allow us to borrow money against the subscriptions that we commit for the program. And that is moving through the state legislature right now. It's in a committee and Senator Keenan has been.
We very much appreciate his shepherding this bill along so that we can move things forward. At the same time, we've been talking with a community engagement firm. So a lot of this will end up being a door to door sales process where people are going to have to commit to purchasing, you know, essentially their, their pipe. Right. Their fiber pipe that will connect to the system. And so they're getting up and running. And then at the same time, there's currently an RFP and an RFQ that is soon to be released so that people can bid on the first parts of the construction.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Okay. Do you need that revenue bond to pass before the trial program can begin?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: So my understanding, the way that we've been working it is that they're, they're kind of commonly moving. They're sort of dual path.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, very good. The next full council meeting is when is next?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Monday.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Oh, right. Because it's no.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: 19. 19. 19, the next council meeting. So we have Finance Committee meetings all next week. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we've scheduled them if necessary. And then we've got a, you know, you know, fourth on the 19th if we need it. But yeah, we've got the next regularly scheduled council meeting is Monday, May 19th.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Excellent. All right. Anything else we should share with folks right now?
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I hope everyone has a wonderful day and that they are truly happy and peaceful.
