– Quincy News from Quincy Quarry News with commentary added

First responders responding to rockets’ red glare
A 2009 Reuters image

Quincy Quarry Weekly Fish Wrap: Red eyes from rocket’s red glare may finally be over but local emergency healthcare is getting two in the hat.

Amazingly – all things considered, local pyrotechnical pyromaniacs have yet to fuel either a house fire or a wildfire of significance as well as look to have pretty much shot off their overcompensating rockets.

While occasional immature poppings off continue, they appear to not be sufficient to encourage herd behavior by others to go to the expense of restocking their illegal fireworks stashes.

Accordingly, after months of nightly pyrotechnics, locals who suffer from anxiety, are veterans with PTSD, furry family members, and others are finally able to chill and perhaps even return to sleeping normally.

Will still be staying up nights for other reasons?
A Castle Rock Entertainment image

Then again, maybe not as there are other problems on the horizon.

For example, the local emergency healthcare facility still in operation at the site of the now long former Quincy Medical Center will be vacating its facilities in November when its lease term expires as landlord will not be extending the lease.

In turn, the landlord plans to then go ahead with its plans to build an outsized apartment project at the site of the former hospital featuring well above average local rental rate units and so add to the many such units already built in Quincy in recent years.

So what, apparently, for the fact that lower cost affordable housing is far more needed.

Soon to be apartments and apartment complex offices?
Image via Steward Health Care

As fearlessly exposéd by Quincy Quarry News, the imposing closing of the local emergency healthcare facility at the site of the former Quincy Medical Center is but the next to fall in a conga line of cascading dominoes of all manner of additional hits to long pummeled locals.

Granted, while the emergency healthcare facility has long been less busy since the hospital closed, having local emergency care facilities does provide an added level of capacity for readily accessible emergency healthcare services in the event of a dire emergency, a snow event or during the weekday road congesting commute.

Instead, Quincy will soon be the largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts without a local emergency healthcare faculty, much less a hospital.

FoxRock failing to deliver on promised new medical offices building?
A Fox Rock image

Next up to hit the fan, it would appear that the long touted by Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch plans to build a large medical offices building in Quincy Center have hit the fan even if these plans were part and parcel to the rationale for the City of Quincy selling its residual interest in the now long shuttered Quincy Medical Center.

In turn, this poses yet another delay for the already sorely behind plan redevelopment of Quincy Center.

The key problem to then follow: local taxpayers are the debtor of last resort to cover the nut on the currently approaching $200 million in municipal debt that Mayor Koch has seen undertaken.

Where the money went
A cheatsheet.com image

In turn, Mayor Koch has already pretty spent or otherwise committed the proceeds on infrastructure, land purchases, payroll and arguable payoffs in the hope that developers might opt to come.. 

So far, however, they have not sufficiently come in Quincy Center other than a few connected few who have in turn been showered with many tens of millions of dollars in ultimately taxpayer-funded incentives.

Granted, while most of this massive slug of debt is currently only requiring interest payments which are at essentially low ticker rates, this debt has to start rolling over into far more costly principle and interest paying bond debt in 2028 or thereabouts.  

Look. See. It all works. For me, that is.
A Koch for Koch campaign image

Additionally, the impending balloon payments will hit the fan just as the City of Quincy’s ever as well as fast-growing annual city budget make-up payments for the city’s woefully underfunded employee pension obligations become an outsized burden on the local taxpayers who largely fund the city’s annual budget.

But not to worry for our peerless mayor as by then one can only hope that he will be out of office if he might so be undeservedly collecting a sizeable monthly kiss in the mail.

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