— News about Quincy from Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

Kim Jong Koch has a manual Roomba®!
A Quincy Quarry News file photo

Some Quincy Parks are more equal than others.

With apologies to the original line in Animal Farm, the maintenance of City of Quincy parks is variable at best.

Actually, it is more like that one city park is infinitely more well cared for than pretty much all of the others.

And that arguably obsessively maintained park is Kim Jong Koch Plaza which is surely but coincidentally in front of Quincy’s two City Halls.

As such, Quincy Quarry in turn opted to only look to one other city park as a point of comparison.

Sloppy signage at KIncaide Field …
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image

That park: the very cleverly reimagined and then somewhat recently renovated Kincaide Park in park-poor West Quincy.

Long but worn out and a boring field with a couple of rarely used baseball diamonds, a year almost to the day Kincaid Park was reopened after it was remodeled into a multiple-use facility.

The new features at Kincaide include a soccer field, basketball courts, a sprint track, an exercise parcourse and Quincy’s only purposefully designed to be a recreational splash pad. 

The park also functions as a stormwater catchment in a neighborhood long known for flooding.

MacGyver making do with his Swiss Army Knife
Image via YouTube

In short, the park is the recreational use and otherwise equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, if not also a clever MacGyver of a solution to a problem. 

Even better, the renovation of  Kincaide Park ran but $6 million, less than one-fifth of the money spent on Kim Jong Koch Plaza in front of Quincy’s City Halls for a space roughly five times larger than the plaza.

In short, the Kincade makeover was a bargain. 

A wicked bargain.

Even better, the remodeled park has proven to be a huge success. 

When Quincy Quarry personnel checked out Kincaide Park early in the day on a cool and overcast summer weekday morning, roughly two dozen people were found enjoying the park – a father teaching soccer to two of his children, a mother pushing a stroller, a couple of groups of seniors out for walks as well as some social time, several kids shooting hoops, someone working out on the exercise workout stations, and the like.

Only the splash pad was not in use; then again remember that it was a cloudy day as well as a cool one for a summer day.

Splash pad in full, left; Splash Pad No Running sign off at a distance, center; second No Running sign partially covered over by unkempt landscaping, right – click on image to see clearer images).
Conjoined Quincy Quarry News exclusive images

Busy place notwithstanding, the but year after it was redone the park itself was in less than great shape. 

The problem was not so much from use; rather, the maintenance of Kincaide Park was found to be at best a disgrace even though the park was very thoughtfully designed to be low maintenance.

Incomplete planting, left; incomplete planting, center; full trash can early in the day, right
Conjoined Quincy Quarry News images – click on image to see clearer images

Weeds, dead plantings, dirt on the soccer field’s artificial grass giving rise to real grass growing on top of the Astroturf®, trash cans full, obvious shoddy installation work, grassy areas that were cheaply hydro-seeded rather than sodded are now laden with large patches of clover, and all sorts of punch list sorts of things left unpunched.

Dead bushes, left; Dead tree, center; grass growing in AstroTurf, right
Conjoined Quincy Quarry News images – click on image to see clearer images

.

Clover patch instead of grass
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image

And when many of these problems were addressed by the germane ward councillor during the recent City Council review of Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal for city spending on local parks and so brought these problems to the attention of Quincy Quarry, a representative of the maladministration then chirped that there had been problems with the contractor on the project.

So what, however, for the fact that the Koch Maladministation picked the contractor.

That and how the maladministration has failed to see that the terms of the contract were duly met.

Punch list, what punch list?
Click on image for a clearer image
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image

Then again, West Quincy has not exactly been a part of Quincy where Mayor Koch often travels, other than to perhaps pick up a doughnut or three at best in Quincy doughnut purveyor Donut King.

That and how West Quincy has never been cited as a font of illegal straw campaign contribution to the Koch Campaign fund.

QQ disclaimer