Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: That is time, as always, to take a moment and chat with Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch for our weekly City hall update. How are you today, Mayor?
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Doing well. How are you, Joe?
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Doing well, thank you. That we're having a summer in October.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Take it. No furnaces on yet. Good thing. Exactly. Yes.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: And boy, was it just super duper for the weekend activities along Coddington street last weekend. Unbelievable.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Once again, we hit it right with the weather, that's for sure.
We had a lot of folks attend the food truck festival in Clonington. A ton of people, actually. It was a great day. I know the food trucks did very well and all the music was well received. It was just another great Quincy day.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
It's not over yet. Certainly we've got plenty more events happening, including this Friday, the US Navy's 250th birthday celebration ceremony.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yes, certainly many would argue we're in Navy City.
I guess unless you're in the army, you wouldn't say that. But certainly there's great history tied to the Navy from the city, both in service and leadership, but also in the, you know, shipbuilding and all that connects to it.
The Navy Pack Memorial that we did just a couple years back really ties the whole story together. So it's appropriate we do that there and hopefully we'll have a nice little turnout and celebrate the 250th. And obviously we're going into a year where there's going to be a lot of 250th celebrations.
Yes.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: So this is Friday, 10am as you mentioned, Navy park at Marina Bay.
And the city's Veteran services director, Christine Cugini, is actually a US Navy veteran.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yes, she is. She's a combat veteran and a great leader for our veterans.
Really terrific. So dedicated.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: There'll be some music. I believe the Navy Band Northeast is going to perform as well.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: I don't know if the federal government shot that affects that, but we'll find that out.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Yes, I'm sure it does affect the events that were planned at the historical park, unfortunately.
Yeah. That is unfortunate. Any. Any repercussions yet in the city from the government shutdown?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Not that I'm aware.
I'm sure there'll be some effect. I just don't know. Off the top of my head, I haven't heard of anything.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Sure. Just curious mostly about the grant programs for the city and the social service agencies as well, I'm sure.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: We talk a little bit about a piece of good news that occurred out at Germantown on Bicknell Street. Groundbreaking For Mariners Cove.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yes, that was a great day. The creation of 16 family housing units for affordable housing. It's pretty remarkable today. And I really give a lot of credit to James Morathas, deputy director of the Housing Authority and the board, Mike Flaherty and the board commissioners, as well as the Affordable Housing Trust, which is participating with a financial contribution toward it, which once again is money derived from. When developers come into the city in lieu of creating units, they can put a cash donation into the fund, which is then used to create units such as this one. So the New Quincy Development Corp. Which is a spinoff from the Housing Authority, new nonprofit is overseeing the construction and will oversee the maintenance and the tenants in there. So it's a nice piece of property there.
Just as you're heading into o' Brien Towers on the right hand side Lodge Parcel. They are vacant for a long time and I think it's great to put it to use for a much needed use such as housing.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yep. It'll be the street, New street will be named in honor of former Ward 1 counselor, longtime housing advocate Leo Kelly.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. He would have been excited about that development for sure.
Leah really loved people and wanted to help people and he did so both on the board, but also as an employee of the Quincy Housing Authority for a number of years.
Leo was quite a guy.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: How will the residents for this new development be selected? Mayor how does that work?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: That's something that Quincy Development Corp. Will figure out.
The beauty is that when we do projects with Quincy Development Corp. Quincy residents will have first preference, which is different than the state program and the HUD program. So we're able to help Quincy people first.
And that's one of our, one of the things we discussed, James and I, a couple years back when we're going down this road, I wanted to do more for Quincy people.
As you know, the state list a number of years ago, change became a statewide list rather than a first list for us to use on a lot of the housing units. So this is a nice step forward and bring it back to the local preference.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Sure.
And speaking of, just popped in my mind about housing. Any news on the redevelopment of the Eastern Nazarene College property?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Haven't heard anymore. No. They obviously we sent a clear message on what they had proposed initially, which is way too big, way too dense.
Have not heard any subsequent proposals or a counter, if you will, or anything. It's been very quiet.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Couple of items on the city council agenda last night. I hope we could talk about the retirement board's acceptance of the disabled employee supplemental annual allowance.
This was, I guess, a state statute that was needed to be approved at the local level.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yes. That was just as you stated, that there's nothing controversial about it. Right.
And the board requested of the city. And we're happy to oblige.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yes.
Basically increases the annual allowance from 6,000 to $9,000.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Imagine that.
Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: It's annual once a year, not quarterly or monthly. Once a year.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: And also the municipal broadband project was back on the agenda and approved to move forward with the design build method. So what's. What's going on with this, Mayor? It seems like it's been for so long.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: It has been. And there's a lot of pieces to it.
It's. It's a.
It's an admiral thing for us to pursue, but we're going to make sure that we're doing so in a way that it can finance itself over time.
And again. There's a lot of pieces to it, Regulations, dealing with the companies that own the polls. So this is not necessarily an easy thing to do, but it's something, as you know, Ian Kane, council for Ward 3 and current council president, introduced way back when, so chipping away to see where it goes. Still not 100% sure we'll build it all out, but we need to go through these steps to make that final decision, whether it will pay for itself or whether it makes sense for the city to do it.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. As I understand, there'll be kind of a pilot test program in Marymount and Quincy Point next year to kind of gauge interest.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: That's the goal, correct? Yep. Okay.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: And then funding at the state level. There's a revenue bond pending at the state level. What is that?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Well, more to learn on that.
You know, this is. Sometimes there's bonds passed by the legislature, sometimes is bond availability.
I'm not 100% sure on this one.
Again, you know, that's something the committee and I know Chris Walker's been working with on my behalf with this group. So I haven't had the latest on that regard.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Okay, stay tuned for that. It's only been seven years.
See what the future takes us.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: And any update, Mayor, on the fire department gear that was sent out for testing? I know we talked about this a bit last week.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah. More to come on that. We're still in discussions.
So we'll have. We'll have more to say hopefully in the next week or so.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Okay. Look forward to that as well.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Actually, we're. We got the coincident Fire Department annual retirement dinner. Tonight we're, I believe, seven members are retiring. And of course, they invite all the retirees back. Usually a fun evening.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Oh, very good. Where's that?
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Lorian hall, of course.
Of course. Imagine that.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Yes. Just recently, several promotions on the fire department, a captain and I believe, seven lieutenants.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Yes. That backfilling the openings, we're adding out of that group, adding seven new lieutenants as floaters, which will, we believe, cut back on some of the overtime in the budget, which is a growing number we're concerned about. So we think this will help get that under control a bit.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Any update on the new public safety complex?
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Speaking of Fire Department, yesterday I had an update walk through with Chief Kennedy and a couple of other folks working on the project.
It's really shaped up since the last time I was in there. They're actually bringing furniture in, setting up furniture in offices. So the outside looks very unfinished, particularly the grounds. The inside is really shaping up and it's all painted out coppice in. Obviously, they work on the punch list and final cleaning on the place, but it's really coming along nicely. So, you know, the goal still is around the end of October to start moving the things that we are moving into the building. Obviously, we're not bringing a lot of old stuff over, but, you know, records and evidence and those necessary items that we moved into the building. But other than that, obviously the whole building is going to be brand new and all furniture to go with it. So we won't be dragging those big old clunky file cabinets over a lot of other old metal furniture that has certainly served its purpose over the years.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Yes, maybe a museum would be interested.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: What about that big radio tower there? Is that going to remain, Mayor?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: No, it will not. That will be coming down.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Oh, it will.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Necessary communication elements are being placed on the roof of the new public safety headquarters. We will not need that big ugly hour any longer.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Oh, very good.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: When will that take place again?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Once we move everything over as part of the demolition of the building, the demolition of the tower will happen as well.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: I see. Okay, very good.
All right. Appreciate your time as always, Mayor. Great to talk to you.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Same here. Enjoy the day. Thank you.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: You too.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Bye. Bye.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: Mayor Thomas Koch, our weekly City hall update here on AEM Quincy.
