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— Quincy Massachusetts News by Quincy Quarry News – News, Opinion and Commentary
Lady Justice plays no favorite
Image via Your Fine Sculpture
As could only be reasonably expected, the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”) has stepped up to the plate to challenge Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s use of public funds to install outsized bas relief statues of Michael the Archangel and Saint Florian, the Roman Catholic patron saints for police and firefighters respectively, on Quincy’s impending new public safety building.
With the statues would clearly appear to be unarguably at odds with the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution as well as all manner of case law, the ACLU went oh so ironically simple with its opening shot across the bow, if not amidship for a kill shot.
Religious art
A City of Quincy image
The ACLU asserts with ample good reasons that the religious statues slated to be installed on the City of Quincy’s impending new new public safety headquarters are “a very straightforward violation of our state constitution.”
- Do the statues serve a primarily secular purpose?
- Do the statues advance or inhibit religion?
- Do the statues show excessive entanglement between government and religion?
A politician striking out
Image via nj.com
Needless to say, Mayor Koch’s plans for installing this statues can only properly seen as going 0 for 3 for the out per the Lemon Test.
And for a local angle, Article 2 in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights as well as the Declaration itself was penned in 1780 by Quincy native John Adams.
The Declaration of Rights also sets he basis for the United States Constitution and most especially as regards the constitution’s Establishment Clause.
In turn, what with Mayor Koch’s obsession with Quincy 400 he should have learned about John Adams’ authorship of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights as well as what the declaration sets down as law.
At the same time, Mayor Koch does have a long history of viewing rules as more guidelines than actual rules.
Regardless, 2025 continues to be a rough year for Quincy’s peerless major.
The statues are ugly.
No argument, the statues are butt ugly and I know butts.
It should be interesting to watch Jim Timmons (aka O-Fer) defend this one. He’ll probably have to hire outside Counsel for another few hundred thousand dollars. How many millions of taxpayers’ money has this mayor wasted on legal bills to satisfy his ego?
Juice, Mayor Koch is a piñata when it comes to legal disputes.
If our City Councilors voted an additional $120 million dollars (that is $120,000,000!) requested by Mayor Koch to build our new $175 million dollar (that is $175,000,000!) Quincy police station along with another $23 million (that is only a measly $23,000,000!) request for additional funding to build our new $175 million dollar Quincy police station, I calculate the original cost of the new Quincy police station was $32 million (that is $32,000,000!) ($175 million – $120 million – $23 million). Hence, our new $175 million Quincy police station costs 7.6 times the original estimated cost of $23 million. Our Mayor proposed it and our City Councilors approved it! What is wrong with this picture?
So, if our Mayor Koch wants to spend another $850,000 for a couple of statues for the new Quincy police station, this is only half of a percent of the total $175 million total cost. Mayor Koch believes this $850,000 cost for the two statutes is just chump change.
Goobs,
Somehow or other you missed a $32 million debt authorization that was mostly spent on buying land as well as undertaking some early design work and such. And yes, key land buys were koched-up buys from connected peeps.
The Chief, another political hack, (Look at the donations over the years …) is like Colonel Klink who kisses the ass of General Burkhalter at every chance he gets. 175 million for a building. There are about 170 police officers working for the Quincy Police. A million per cop even though they work four shifts? I was having breakfast two weeks ago and 3 cops were seated near me eating. By their language I would have never guessed thay they are as religious as we have been told. Are the DPW workers not brave? Don’t they get a statue? Then again, it’s only tax money & citizens just need to pay up because “Things evolve.”
Colonel Noble: It wasn’t me. I never eat in Quincy. Maybe one of the three was Higgins.
Seems hypocritical for those who claim to be devout Catholics, to now downplay the religious nature of these statues of CATHOLIC SAINTS. Pretty convenient way to foist their religious icons on everyone else. Though other religions may recognize them, they don’t revere them as “saints.”
Some of the statements the Mayor has uttered and some of the things members of the rubber-stamp council have offered are simply devoid of substance. They don’t know. They DO know AND they don’t know. They’re begging off. They’ll have to think more about it. They’re deferring to Koch. There have been a couple (at least) of instances where both the Mayor and Cain — who increasingly appears to be a sanctimonious twit — have sarcastically insulted and denigrated those who disagree with them.
If you voted for Koch this is the kind of crap you voted for.
This time, the ACLU had to step in and remind Mayor Tom Koch that taxpayer dollars aren’t his personal church donation fund. Who could’ve guessed that publicly funding religious statues might be, oh, I don’t know—unconstitutional?
It’s almost impressive how Koch manages to keep finding new ways to blur the line between “mayor” and “parish council president.” Meanwhile, the city’s infrastructure crumbles, housing costs skyrocket, and potholes have their own zip codes—but sure, let’s pour public money into a bunch of religious monuments. Priorities!
Of course, Koch’s defense will probably be the usual “Quincy’s history is intertwined with religion” routine, which is just a fancy way of saying, “I do what I want, rules be damned.” At this point, I half expect to see a taxpayer-funded “In God We Trust” neon sign blinking over City Hall.
So kudos to the ACLU for stepping in where common sense failed. Maybe now, Quincy’s public funds can go toward things that actually benefit the public—like fixing roads, funding schools, or maybe even a bronze statue of fiscal responsibility. Now that would be a miracle.
Here’s a revolutionary idea — an idea that’s apparently light years beyond the imagination of the statue-happy mayor and his rubber stamp council. If there must be statues or relief images adorning the new police/fire/public safety palace — are you ready for it ? — why not a statue of a fire fighter and a statue of a police officer? I know, I know, this is clearly too logical, too appropriate, too sensible to have even crossed Koch’s mind.
Oh. and on another topic, the Christmas lights are still blazing away (It’s now March 4th, by the way) in the trees of the instant forest at Adams Green. How much is that adding to the city’s electric bill?
Fredzo,
Surely you know that Mayor Koch is trying to score at least a two-fer pander as well as a tacit manner of dispensation even if such are no longer accorded.