– News about Quincy Massachusetts from Quincy Quarry News with commentary added.

Tme for yet another a “honey truck” pump-out …
An iconic Quincy Quarry file photo

The City of Quincy rolls out a new website.

And yes, the rollout was fraught with the sort of problems and shortcomings one has come to expect from a Koch Maladminisrtion project.

Not only was the city’s website down last week while the new site looks to have been in the process of a less than quick and far from smooth implementation of this website makeover, but Quincy Quarry also found a number of errata on the revised site. 

In particular, all manner of information on the old website is MIA on the new one.

MIA, heads rolling — whatever
A stock image

For example, noted links that did not link to anything.

Additionally, headshots were missing for school committee members other than School Committee Chair and who is by local ordinance Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch. 

Then again, he has long ignored School Committee members as he expects their abject as well as obsequious fealty,

That and has long done what he can to see to it that those who do not bend over for him are not reelected and replaced by those who are ready to do so upon command.

Who does City Hall think it’s kidding?
A file photo

Returning to Quincy Quarry’s review of the revised City of Quincy website, the Quarry’s tech talent suspects that a key “official” reason that the city’s new website was redone was to make it mobile-friendly, something that the Quarry did to its own site years ago. 

Even so, online high school newspapers typically have better and more attractive layouts than does the recent makeover of the City of Quincy’s website.

Also, as well as most annoying, is how the city’s new website is often little more than a self-referential infomercial pimping of both Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch as well as many of his grandiose initiatives and extravagant “edifice complexes” which largely rely on many hundreds of millions of ultimately mostly locally-funded tax dollars.

Generalissimo El Jefe
A Quincy Quarry News PhotoShop Phun Team image

That and so concurrently working the power of incumbency so as to effect a de facto soft kick-off’s Mayor Koch’s 2023 reelection campaign, a campaign which Quincy Quarry fully expects Koch will spend upwards of a million dollars – or more if need be – funded via campaign contributions from mostly the usual suspects if Koch finds himself facing a credible challenger.

That and foisting all manner of arguably false narrative canards as well as using staged and often photoshopped to the max images of Quincy’s peerless mayor.

In particular, the mayor’s talking up transparency by his administration when, in fact, the Koch Machine is as opaque as a painted-over window.

For example, no financial statements – for example, budgets, management reports (a.k.a., external audits of the city’s books) are currently not provided online on the city’s new website even if much of such were at least sorta/kinda available on the old website.

Up in flames, smoke – whatever ..
Image via cheat-sheet.com

Nor much of anything else either, for that matter.

Then again, city budgets foisted by the Koch Administration have long failed to clearly provide merely but basic financial information such as the actual total amount of tax dollars spent by the Koch Machine – much less at a budget line item level of detail per a proper municipal budget document.

Also nowhere to be seen is any noting of how many people are actually working in various departments, or even but merely clearly listing the base pay of city employees other than but a few dozen city employees who are department heads or otherwise have one of the kind jobs even if discerning the later often requires a little local knowledge or some assumption-making while reviewing a City of Quincy budget.

The nose is a tell …
A Washington Post/Factchecker image

Further troubling, the website falsely claims that the City of Quincy has the second-highest credit rating. 

Reality: the city’s credit rating was hit with a negative outlook over a year ago and then its rating was cut seven months ago, something which Quincy Quarry appears to have been the only general local news source to have had the stone to report.

Even so, Mayor Koch added further egregious injury to injury by foisting the following bovine byproduct on one of the prime featured pages of the recently “updated” city website.

Click on the image to see an easier to read version of the image
A City of Quincy website page

.

No photoshopping or make-up here …
Image via the Quincy Sun

Needless to say, not only is the above photo likely photoshopped to the max and then some, albeit inexpertly, as well as is rife with hints of make-up used however much also less than effective so done, the mayor’s statements surely rate at least a solid three out of four Pinocchios per the Washington Post’s Fact Checker Pinocchio Scale per the Quincy Quarry’s application of this nationally respected scale.

Then again, not that such is anything new to the ever-growing legions of loyal Quincy Quarry News readers even if such is at least not exactly forthrightly acknowledged by other area media.

Doubling down with Dine Around Quincy and Discover Quincy menu tabs
Image via the City of Quincy’s new website
Click on the image for a better image of it

Even so, as well as in all fairness, Quarry Quarry must note one new addition to the recently revised City of Quincy website: the new website now features as one of its featured guide menu tabs a tab that links to local restaurants.

As near as Quincy Quarry could tell per a spot check, the list of restaurants is at least relatively current as well as appears to be comprehensive when the list was used to order some takeout for a Quarry “staph meeting.”.

On the other hand, it must be noted that such databases are readily tapped for reposting even if a prime featuring on a municipal website is not standard practice. 

Rather, providing lowkey links to a local restaurant website site or a listing of restaurants on the local chamber of commerce website is the usual practice.

Leading the way to a lunch break with French Cuffs rolled up?
An old Facebook photo

Then again, Quincy’s peerless mayor has never missed a meal and – well …

In any event, Quincy Quarry’s ever-growing legions of loyal readers can count on the Quarry’s continuing to review the City of Quincy’s new website to see if and then perhaps when errata and ommissions might be addressed and then report on same as might be appropriate.

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