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— Quincy Massachusetts News by Quincy Quarry News – News, Opinion and Commentary
This year’s local election season concluded with a resounding rebuke of the long koched-up status quo as well as a record-setting outcome.
Mayor Koch appears to have a problem. A lot of problems as a matter of fact.
A Koch Problem bumper sticker graphic
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The people have spoken!
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Six candidates running for city council seats and who are variously critical of Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch who was not on this year’s ballot won their races with five of these races blowout wins as well as including wins over a number of incumbents who were viewed by at least some as likely in safe seats.
Only one incumbent Koch tool on a stool city councillor survived the tsunami inflicted by fed-up voters via a city council chamber power washing that well-exceeded the expectations of those long fed-up with the slimy Koch Machine.
(“Dawg — I need an ace of spades.”)
A Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
And as for record setting, five of the challengers are female and thus the City Council will be majority female when those elected are sworn into office on the first of January at the start of 2026
Needless to say, the mostly boyos club that is the Koch Machine are now likely looking at fury in excess of Hell coming their way over the next two years.as well as for ample cause.
The only consolation for Mayor Koch is that only two of three races for School Committee seats were won by opponents of his status quo and so leaving the mayor with a close 4 to 3 majority control of the School Committee.
At the same time, there is a bright side: with Koch already on the record as unsuccessfully voting to see Lunar New Year made a local school holiday, either Lunar New Year will finally become a school holiday or will Koch face even more umbrage if he changes his mind and so withdraws his support for making it a school holiday.
Walkbacker & a “friend” party while Quincy burns?
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Plus, it would be safe to further suggest that during the remaining two years in office Quincy Mayor Koch is pretty much now a de facto dead duck in a barrel lame duck and thus at least somewhat willing to go along to get along.
Further surely to be amusing will be watching both Quincy’s peerless mayor and his Chief of Staph Pinocchio Walkbacker henceforth endeavoring to whistle past a graveyard soon to be the final political resting place for his de jure lame duck vassals given their but weeks left on the city council and then the mayor and Walkbacker will be left to try to talk up how everything is just fine within the local body politic.
In the post apocalyptic rubble that was QATV interviews, the “dead man walking” mayor was asked: “why Quincy’s election turnout so low? He answered in his smug condescending tone, “well Joe, everyone is happy with the way the city is run and there’s no need to come out and vote” and while chuckling.
Then it was time for Noel Dibona’s turn to wax poetic and he immediately apologized for his vote on giving himself a pay raise (what a rube).
The “wordmaster“ then proceeded in describing the election as a “surge of insurgents.”
Clearly, Koch does not have the mental acuity for the job and his “little man syndrome“ will be on display when his 5 incoming female colleagues then put him in his place.
Boss Hogg has been running the City Council for years. Anne — on the other hand — does her homework and then has the nerve to stand up for local citizens. Parades and concerts are nice but in your own homes if are in debt up to your ears and your credit rating has tanked, you don’t buy expensive things because they are nice. When a family is in debt they don’t look for a million dollar piece of art.
The last council meeting all the Koch campaign fund donors (AKA Department Heads) clapped when they heard being $1.6 Billion in debt is a good thing. As long as it doesn’t affect their inflated budgets, pensions, and take home vehicles it will always be a good thing!
Why hasn’t “A Just Quincy” organized getting term limits on the ballot? If Mayor Koch really is a CEO and wants to be paid $225,000 a year or more, let him go get a degree and become a City Manager or Town Administrator. Those are positions where you HAVE to negotiate your salary as opposed to set it yourself. Conversely, you don’t run for an elected office and then tell local taxpayers that you don’t like the salary of a job you decided to run for and bleed city employees & contractors for donations to get you elected.
Quincy needs a City Manager and a mayor for ceremonies. He can be a professional mourner at all the wakes & funerals & all the City events & we hire a City Manager to keep us out of debt and not beholden to donors for city jobs and promotions. Quincy has become a little Chicago with the dirty politics and it needs to stop.
Good Luck to the new Council. Don’t kiss the rump of the Mayor. Hopefully he negotiated a raise that he will never see because the citizens have been awoken and are now putting an end to the Koch Machine. Maybe State Street Bank is interested in Koch as their CEO. He can sell them on his (limited) education and tell them how his current record of $1.6 Billion in debt and a downgraded bond rating justify a huge salary.
In all honestly, I am surprised no big corporations are trying to scoop him up!
The empty suit DiBona’s appearance on QATV was embarrassing. DiBona tried to correct a wrong in admitting the vote on the raises was a mistake, gee he must have forgotten his push for his own raise a couple of years back.
Someone must have informed him that topping the ticket was the beginning of the end of his political career. Not only did he not top the ticket, he got swamped by Ms. Mahoney.
The whole episode was a repeat a few years back when he claimed to have heard the people in not wanting higher taxes and he would fight to lower the taxes. How did that work out for us? Not well he voted for all of Koch’s outrageous spending proposals.
Lesson to be learned Noel: signs don’t vote and yet this is second election in a row you have placed more signs than your opposition and yet you still don’t finish first!!!!
A truly historical night for the city of Quincy. The beginning of unplugging the Koch machine.
Noel, it was not just the vote in favor of the mayor’s raise, it was also about the vote for raises for city councilors. You apologized for the mayor’s raise but not for the councilors’ raise. There were not 100 good things done in the city. Quincy 400 was fluff. “I pretty much will probably support that …”it’s three percent, it’s not 285…” “It created a monster of its own”. No it didn’t, the council voting for the raise created the monster. “I’m glad that the nightmare’s over…”
No, it’s not over. Advice to the new incoming councilors “It’s really about being fiscally conservative… the biggest issues out there is the spending”. Did you figure that out yesterday? The voters and the new councilors have known this for years. “A balance of pulling back the reins and getting conservative on fiscal spending” Did you throw the mayor under the bus? Did you throw Cain under the bus?
FYI: my audit peeps know their stuff and I charge less to way than private sector auditors.
Word is the Koch Club having some very contentious discussions today. They will soon be attempting to map the plan of attack to save their agenda and with the new players Koch will have some serious push back. Watch between now and January for some deals to be fast-tracked with the lame duck council in place.
Interesting to see how DiBona plays in the new game now that any mayoral aspirations he had have been deflated to the point of no return. If last night’s comments on QATV are to hold true he may be looking to distance himself from the Koch Club. My hunch is he will take the bait from Koch, resulting in being the last one standing.
Howard,
One would think that even the Koch Machine would know better than try to jam grifts through to formal completion before the new council line-up is installed into office.
On the other hand, we’re talking the Koch Machine and Boner.
A clear message has been sent to Koch. Though he may be considering another run, he can’t ignore the obvious sentiment of the voters. Enough is enough, and the election results demonstrated it in no uncertain terms.
La Kocha Nostra Committee had to pay 55 grand in fines. He was fined a few years ago too. He will get 55 grand back in no time. Think of all the police and fire promotions in 2026. They have to pay the Koch Machine.
Funny thing is they do it until they retire & suddenly when they don’t need a promotion or their kid hired-They suddenly lose interest in donating….. Almost like it was a requirement.
Where is the Attorney General? Where is the State Auditor? Let’s get more than fines going. The momentum is there to vote him out or even do a recall election.
Go figure out the cost the citizens will be paying him and all his other “Department Heads” who will make huge pensions when they retire and then after they die their spouses keep getting huge percent of these inflated salaries — in one case cited 281,000 for the police chief. He is fairly young so he will be up at 320 Grand by the time he retires and your taxes will go up to pay him over 20 grand a month at his retirement home.
And don’t forget that many of them rarely ever use their sick time. Instead, most of them cash out hundreds of thousands of dollars of accumulated sick time at retirement. The citizens never stop getting soaked by the leeches.
One of the funniest stories this year was how the health commissioner who got bagged for a DUI, lost his license, and then city officials said he didn’t need a driver’s license. Does he Facetime inspections or are we paying a driver for him?
He must have a pretty good hook. I mean who does he think he is? Helen “Wheels” in the Mayor’s office and who successfully ducked a DUI or the fireman with a conviction who has no license for life?
One last Question for Quincy Quarry? Is there a patron saint of Political Corruption? I was thinking of a statue for La Kocha Nostra’s campaign headquarters.
Don’t forget the member of the zoning board of appeals who crashed into a house. He avoided a DUI too. He claimed he was not impaired. He claimed he swerved to avoid a dog. Later he said it was a racoon. PETA was happy.
LKN,
The Koch Machine held a fundraiser in September in advance of the latest MA Office of Campaign and Political Finance (“OCPF” fines imposed upon our peerless mayor, however, he is still down by roughly $20k or thereabouts from recent monthly average balances given around $23k in attorney fees paid out to a Quincy resident’s law firm which is the go to firm for politicians mired in ethical messes — talk about a lucrative franchise as per the last look by the Quarry Mayor Koch is by far the most often spanked MA pol over his accepting illegal campaign contributions.
Unclear, however, is if the Koch Machine is going to be able to readily score more money from the trough in light of recent events as well as others expected to follow.
At the same, the new QPD chief is worth every dime if for no other reason than just his seeing the previous chief’s son and one of the mayor’s nephews cashiered for cause over sexual improprieties with an emotionally disabled person.
Sick time, however. is a racket and was enhanced even further this year by the local pension board.
As for the C of Q Public Health Commissioner, bad ice cubes happen and he has supposedly since relied on (probably) self-paid ride sharing services while his legal travails played out.
Helen “Wheels” — OTOH — likely got off by blowing something than an 0.08.
Conversely, “Steak Tips,” the mayor’s rumored best man for his wedding and now the former senior services director is looking at soon enough spending time at a Club Fed even if not likely hard time for stealing short money every month for a lot of months that was paid by seniors on fixed incomes for classes and such enrolled at the senior center as well as simple foods and beverages bought at the center — the courts tend to go easy on bent Massachusetts public officials as they lose their government pensions if convicted of work-related felonies.
Oh, and yes, the Quarry could address a few more things financially abusive but time and column inches are limited.
Next up, a hoser without a driver’s license is not necessarily a bad thing — unless, that is, such poses an unmet core job performance requirement.
And finally, surely there are rumblings that our peerless mayor is under consideration for beatification as the patron saint for political corruption, especially what with his sure to be soon enough self-proclaiming that he is facing martyrdom.