Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good morning to Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch for our weekly City hall update. How are you today, Mayor?
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Doing well. How are you doing, Joe?
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Okay. Happy that we're back into the sunny, warm weather. Of course, because it's the week, not the weekend.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Very true. Good. Gorgeous. Let's enjoy it nonetheless.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. For sure. And I guess we should start off by saying right off the bat, cleaner. Greener Quincy this Saturday is go rain or shine.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Indeed. Yes. It's a great event going on a long time. Jim Sheets, way back when, and I can remember in those days, Joe, that we had one ward a week. Today it's all done in one day. But in those days we were pulling out dumped cars and washing machines and mattresses and the marshes and parks. It really was a mess.
So today it's so much better. We do a much better job maintaining the city overall. And the people, I think, take greater pride today in the public spaces. So it's more of. It's some litter and winter debris and we're doing mulching and it's a whole lot better today than it used to be. But nonetheless, it's a great day. Community comes together. Take some pride in our city. And this year being a little extra Pride with that Quizzi 400 going on.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. For. For folks who are newer and not familiar with it. It's for first Saturday of May, Right. Nine to noon or so all over the city.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep, yep. And then we have a appreciation cookout up at Pageant Field following.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Yes. Which is stunning in its own right, too. If folks haven't seen it in a while, they'll be very impressed, I think. For sure.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: It is beautiful up there.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Also in May, Mayer Senior Olympics right around the corner. I think it's the 41st annual this year.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Are you playing this year, Joe?
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Not quite there yet.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Just checking.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: But I wouldn't want to compete with some of the seniors, believe me. They are tough.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Very competitive. It's really cool. I think they. The opening ceremony, I think, is officially Monday night at the Kennedy Senior Center. I won't be there because I'll be at the city council presenting our municipal budget.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Seeing as you brought that up, Mayor.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: You would have. Anyway, you're right.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: I know we've talked about it in the past and you've talked about the. The increase to pay off the pension bond obligation, but do you have any kind of final figures you could share with us?
[00:02:31] Speaker B: No, actually, we're still working it.
We don't really put it to bed till really Monday morning. Quite frankly, we go over it and go over it and go over it. Department heads keep going over it, making sure that we get everything right, no mistakes.
Yeah, the pension obligation bond is the big year. Debt service is up dramatically this year. This is the peak year on that bond. And then it flattens out going forward. And yeah, it's a big hit this year. But as I've said many, many times that this was a game changer overall because all pension systems, and I know we get complicated, but Quincy has its own system, but we follow the rules of the state. The county has the system. Several cities and towns have their own systems. They all have to be fully funded under state law by like 2039, 2040. So we were. And it's a separate entity. The retirement board is not a department of the city. It's a separate entity that follows the laws of parac, the state agency that oversees pension systems. I have an appointee to it, the city auditor serves on it. There's two elected by the membership and then one appointed by those other members, somebody from the outside. So when a number of years ago we were looking at it, they were only 43% funded. And I was looking at the graph of payments needed coming out of the regular general fund going forward, it would have been extremely difficult and dramatic. So we made the decision a few years ago to, to bond it when we got 2.62% interest rate on it.
Over time, we're going to be saving, I think it's 130 or 40 million dollars in doing it this way. So this year we take our medicine for it and then it flattens out several years going forward. By the way, it's the law. I know there's people that don't work in the public sector that don't like necessarily some of the benefits the employees get. But it is the law, and I am under the law required to fully fund the pension system. So we're in a much better place today.
It secures the system. Going forward, it'll meet the law because we're now with the market situation, Joe. It goes up and down a little bit. So one year you might be 98% funded, the next year you might be 102% funded, depending they go to the market going up and down. But that is the big item. That pension obligation bond debt service line is up 20 million. So that is a huge jump in the one year. But again, over time, we'll be saving tens of millions of dollars.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Okay. And so that'll be included in the overall budget presentation. Coming up Monday night?
[00:05:08] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Okay. And do you have any indication as to how that would impact property taxes later this year?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: No, I don't. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into that. You know, local aid, what the values are, you know, all the pieces that go into it. So even permit fees and where we are, excise tax and other local receipts, and there's a lot of pieces that go into that. So we don't. We don't want to have that nailed down, but, you know, it'll be a modest increase for sure.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Will there be. Have to be cuts in other areas to make up for that 20 million hit?
[00:05:41] Speaker B: No, we're not.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: We're proceeding with. We're not doing any great expansion in any of the areas because we're also, you know, disposal, rubbish disposal is up, health insurance is up.
Those are. Those are all big nuts, so. But having said that, we're holding the line. We will have a few new firefighters and police officers in the. In the budget, but pretty much other than that, be pretty status quo.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Any work in the budget to accommodate for what's going on in Washington in terms of loss of federal funding?
[00:06:15] Speaker B: No, we're just paying attention to it and waiting to see what happens. There's not much we can do about it. I know that my team that works on the grants and federal grants, state grants, they're watching it closely. I know they're in touch with Congressman Lynch's office and seeing how things play out. I don't know if the public understands, but we have several areas that are funded by the federal government, and that includes the community development block grant program, which is pretty bipartisan. I don't see that one getting whack, Joe. But you got title one of the schools. We have title one schools that, you know, you meet certain criteria on income and so forth, and we've got a number of, you know, formula grant money, and then we get discretionary grant money like the award we got for the $10 million road project on Southern Artery. So, I mean, we're just monitoring it, watching it closely. And, you know, I don't like to deal with the hypothetical, but, you know, we'll. Just. As things develop, we'll deal with it.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Sure. Mayor, can you bring us up to date on the Foxrock Properties developments going on on the parking way?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Well, it's now McConville Drive, right? Yes, Dunford Drive. So the north of the bridge is the Fox Rock project, which is the VI facility.
They're in the ground. The I believe the garage we built first foundation for that.
But they're in the ground and moving and south of the bridge is the Atlantic Development Hanover project, which is 300 units of housing, a garage, a specialty food grocer as we've talked about. Yes. And some other retail uses in there. They're both in the ground and underway and we're excited about that.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: The garages will be for those developments or for, for the general public as well.
Okay. That's one of the issues, of course. Parking, Quincy center always a hot topic for sure.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, to an extent. I mean we. The Kilroy has been terrific. The Kilroy garage and you know, it usually has capacity in it. It's, you know, it gets full but doesn't get jammed. So there's usually capacity in that garage. But as we further develop, we're going to need the additional parking, you know, and particularly the BI facility, Beth Israel Medical Building. You know, you're going to people coming and going all day long. So that garage will mainly serve that facility but will have excess capacity for the general public as well.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Sure. And how about the Sam Slater development there at the old Dollar Store?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Yes, that's on track. We're. There's some issues, I shouldn't say issues, but some challenges because the building busts. The current building, Social Health, it's in.
So they have to go through all kinds of extra engineering to make sure as they take that building down, the other building doesn't get affected in any negative way. So it's going to be a little tricky, but remediation is done. I talked to Mr. Slater a couple of weeks ago. Supposed to be meeting on site very soon, but it's full steam ahead. And so is Joey Ikari project on the other side of the empty lot, the lot that was created by the demolition of the other building in there. So those will be coming down fairly soon and we'll continue to see where we go on the permit side on the construction. I mean they're still talking about both of them still committed to residential and restaurants and retail. So.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Okay.
On the other side of the square is the new John Quincy Adams Pocket park development. Looks like it's coming right along.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Yes. I bet you're missing out the pocos, Joe.
It is coming along. We just, we opened the bids this week for the contractor that will be installing the, the pavement and the granite walls, putting in actually installing the statue and so forth. So that project, I tell you, was, I think it was just under a million for this portion of the contract. And $330 separated the number one and number two bidders.
I mean, that's pretty remarkable.
So we're looking forward to obviously, completion, but we're probably looking at the end of the summer. My goal was his birthday, July 11, but I know we're gonna not. We're not gonna meet that. So we're looking out at the end of the summer.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Okay. And any update on the new animal shelter opening?
[00:10:48] Speaker B: I believe it's just about ready. I think there was some punch list items that we had to work through with the building department and the contractor, but I'm pretty sure it's pretty much there. So it should be any day now.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Okay. Look forward to that as well. So many projects going on, it's hard to pick which ones to talk about.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we were behind, you know, we were behind in decades as far as infrastructure goes. And I know infrastructure covers a lot of areas, but the old shelter on Broad street was horrible.
I mean, gosh. So I know that the temporary shelter was well received, but this is going to be really spectacular. So.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: I know the folks out there who love their animals lobbied hard for this and they'll be very happy with the results.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: I was talking to your special events coordinator, John McDonald yesterday about all the Quincy 400 activities. And flag Day came up during the discussion. Mayor, sounds like it's going to be a whiz bang of an event for sure.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: It sure is. It sure is. We've got a lot of floats. We got some big bands, really all quality bands.
I think Four Drummer Bugle Corps, some great high school bands in addition to our own. I believe we have the Navy, the Marine and the army bands.
I think we're at 12 bands and probably settled at that. Then, of course, as you know, we do other specialty units and the ancient Narnibal, for example. We've got a number of historic flags, 15 by 25, that we'll carry horizontally. And I know the Elks have committed, the Lions Club, the Chamber Rotary, amongst others, are committed to carrying that. So it's really shaping up beautifully. We just gotta pray for good weather.
That's the key that night, as you know. Joe.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Yes. We need to break this weekend wet trend for sure.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Yeah, the law of averages. We should be in good shape, but we'll see what happens.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Will there be a grand marshal?
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Well, we've invited all the former grand marshals who are still with us.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: So I know that we've heard from General Dunphan who'll be with us. General Randall Rich Kennedy.
Oh, gosh. A number have responded that'll be joining with us. Whether they want to sit on a float or a car or whether they're going to walk, we'll figure that out. But I forget how many were invited that. But you know, there's a lot of them.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: It's funny, when we looked at the list going way back and think of the giants we had, I mean, Governor Peabody and way back when in the 60s, and Dick Stratton and General Patton, the son of the famous general.
I could go on and on. It's pretty remarkable. The incredible grandmasters we've had. Not to be confused with the Richard Koch Award winners.
Next year will be the 75th of the flag Day. Next year we'll invite all the former award winners to that one, which would be kind of cool too, but it'd be a great day. So. No, we haven't picked a grand marshal. We've invited all the past grand marshals. Unless we get something special, they'll probably be the grand Marshal.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Sure, sure. June 14, right on the day this year.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Indeed. Little earlier start. We're gonna start at 6:00 this year.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yes, Very good. Always good to talk to you, Mayor. Thanks for the update.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Thanks, Joe. Have a good day.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: Yep, you too. Bye.
