— Quincy Massachusetts News by Quincy Quarry News – News, Opinion and Commentary

“Facts are stubborn things”
An Asher B. Durant portrait of John Adams

Quincy Mayor Thomas P, Koch has gone negative in his reelection bid.

Hard negative in his latest of the innumerable campaign mailings that have burdened local mail carriers and littered local mailboxes.

As is both well-known as well as common practice, going negative is a common practice when a candidate, especially an incumbent, is facing a close race.

Going negative also typically entails playing fast and loose with the facts and in this case such is case.

Then again, such is only to be expected as the Koch Maladministration has long been known for playing fast and extremely loose while at the same time also going dark on transparency.

Dark as night while in a small boa with no lights in the middle of the ocean on a moonless night dark.

A Koch campaign junk mail mailer screenshot

Accordingly, Quincy Quarry News has opting to fact check Mayor Koch’s negative assertions lodged against his challenger, at large Anne Mahoney in his latest mailing and found them problematic, if not also laughable at times as well as especially so with his first mudball tossed.

“You lose!”
A file photo

As for the first mudball hurled from the list above, unmentioned is that the City of Quincy lost the  referenced lawsuit.

Then again, the Koch Maladministration losing in court is nothing new; in fact, such is pretty much the usual case when it ends up in court.

In this case, however, there was something uniquely embarrassing for the Koch Maladministration: the person who drafted the winning complaint and was thus the lead person in what was a local taxpayers class action lawsuit is an auto mechanic and thus filed the suit against the city pro se as he is not an attorney.

And as for the winning complaints filed by the mechanic, he detailed allegations that the Koch Maladministration was proceeding in violation of various Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection regulations. 

The court agreed with the mechanic with avoidably expensive for local taxpayers corrective actions subsequently so undertaken by the maladministration to address the problems of its doings and especially misdoings.

Further note that Candidate Mahoney’s problems with the plans for the track were raised at a time when she was a member of the School Committee.

“Goose Grease” laden not MIAA design specifications Quincy High Track
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive file photo image

Her demurs further includied that the design of the track eventually built would not be compliant with Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association design regulations and thus any record-setting performance at the track would not be recognized. 

She was further critical of the fact that Koch’s plan for a new track at Quincy High would cost significantly more than the projected cost of the original plan to build a proper quarter mile/400 meter track at Veterans Stadium. 

This plan did not happen, however, as then-Parks and Recreation Commissioner Tom Koch koching-up when he mis-measured things at the stadium and so mistakenly claimed that a proper quarter mile/400 meter track could be built at the stadium during a renovation of the stadium.

In short, a far better case can thus be readily made that Mayor Koch has a long ongoing record of koching-up things in ways typically expensive to very expensive for local taxpayers and thus a legitimate complaint for Councillor Mahoney to pose.

Next up, as for Mahoney’s vote against the Autism school soon to finally partially open after all but interminable delays, her concerns were well-founded, especially in light of the fact that during her time as a member of the Quincy Public Schools School Committee she was a strong and knowledgeable supporter of Special Education. 

School bus accidents happen …
A file photo

That and how she also has the endorsement of the local teachers’ union in her bid to become Quincy’s next mayor as well as first female mayor.

One of Mahoney’s valid concerns is that the facility will be hard upon MBTA Red Line and Commuter rail tracks and adverse reactions to noise is common among those on the Autism Spectrum. 

Granted, sound-proofing of the building is possible; at the same time, however, students will be outside at the start and end of their school days as well as for recess.  In turn, such poses various problems and safety risks.

Mahoney also had concerns about the costs of the tactility. 

As things have since played out, her concerns were found to be valid as actual construction costs are running roughly twice what was originally foisted by the Koch Maladministration. 

Mahoney also questioned the maladministration’s claims of cost savings arising from opening the school as well as its lack of an operating plan, points which Quincy Quarry News finds compelling.

For but starters, the facility will have student capacity roughly twice that of local needs and the Koch Maladministration is expecting that this extra capacity will be filled by students on the Spectrum from other school districts to a program without a proven record of performance. 

Good luck with that.

As for the third mudball, the claim that she voted almost a year and a half ago to prevent the recently out of the blue and so arguable October Surprise press release of the possibility that Trader Joe’s might perhaps open up shop in Quincy Center is laughable on the face of it.

A “generous” Friend of Koch campaign contributor
Image via ThePeoplesVoice.org

Reality, her nay vote in this instance was over the funding of another eminent domain land taking from a development company whose peeps have showered roughly $200,000 in campaign donations mainly to Mayor Koch and certain city councilors as well as that this development company has been sanctioned by the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Financial for making illegal “straw” campaign donations to primarily Mayor Koch. 

Additionally, this company has received company has scored sweetheart deals from the Koch Maladministration worth many millions while at the same time so slipping the banana to the local taxpayers who will have to variously subsidize these sweet deals.

Further note that such sanctions against Koch campaign fund contributors are by far the most cited manner of illegal straw campaign fund donations going away as well as include the second largest fine ever imposed by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance for this manner of violation.

The Koch’s fourth mudball that Mahoney voted against building a new police headquarter is also disingenuous. 

What happens to taxpayers’ tax payments in Quincy
A cheatsheet.com image

Her no was was predicated upon the unarguable fact that the plans for this project are variously over the top, including an unnecessary complicated roof design that will entail expensive construction costs including the use of significantly more cost copper and slate roofing for a design that does not add anything to the final outcome other than architectural design gimmicks of dubious visual value but nothing to speak of in the way of additional useful building space.

It must also be noted that the running well-behind schedule construction of the new police headquarters will likely so end up with a leaky roof given its dubious complicated design and as was long the case with the maladministration’s use of copper and slate roofing when the City of Quincy renovated the Coddington Building roughly a decade ago.

Enough already
A file photo image

As for the fifth mudball, Mahoney’s vote against providing property tax relief for homeowners was because she viewed the proposal as providing insufficient tax relief. 

Moreover, it is only fair to note that — overwhelming majority vote in favor of so providing tax relief — none was then implemented.

The sixth bogus diss by Koch of Mahoney was over her vote against improvements for Broad Meadows School and thus is more of a spitball than a mudball. 

In any event, she had well-reasoned concerns with the plans themselves but did want to see needed improvements happen as well as better done.

The seventh mud ball was also a principled postilion.  She was against going with a significantly more expensive design for a new municipal garage in Quincy Center along Revere Road near the Quincy District Courthouse.

What happens in backrooms …
A Cassius Marcellus Coolidge image

She was also against how the Koch Maladministration had intertwined into the mix the providing of two connected developers with all of the parking required for their planned and since built apartment buildings at below cost long term leases for parking spaces needed, sweetheart deals that will provide these developers with tens of millions of dollars in various sorts of incentives and which at the end of the day will be subsidized by local taxpayers.

And for the eighth mud ball, voting against a new animal shelter for stray furballs, her no vote was yet again principled. 

For example, the council had rejected plans for a $7 million or so new shelter half a dozen years earlier as too expensive, only to see the Maladministration come back with a new plan that ran $20 million, all costs both direct and indirect duly counted, and thus just short of three times more expensive than what was considered to be too expensive in the first place. 

In germane aside, the original $7 million ask was outsized as compared to comparable facilities in similar municipalities and thus $20 million several fold more unduly costly. 

Moreover, cost overruns on a new animal shelter are now only reasonable to expect to run even higher as asbestos were found on the construction site, a site that was once a dump and thus had a high probably site for asbestos pollution. 

Tell us another story Pinocchio …
A Fact Checker/Washington Post image

Further note that the shelter’s design gobsmacking entails digging into the protective cap over the dumped waste material and thus the digging was asking for further trouble on this long delayed the long delayed project as well as also added avoidable cost to an already over the top expensive project.

In short, not only do Mayor Koch’s eight mudballs come apart with but the most modest of fact checking, Koch’s mudballs are far better seen as tar balls that further justify an end to the problems-laden reign of the Koch Maladministration.

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