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— News and commentary about elsewhere covered by Quincy Quarry News
“The stare”
A Paramount Television image
The long awaited ruling by Dedham Superior Court Judge Rosemary Connelly finally hit the fan on Friday.
Judge Connolly’s ruling following an evidentiary hearing in February ordered the City of Quincy City Clerk to re-review 1,297 signatures to a local ballot petition to subject the still pending 89% raise for Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch to so become among the highest paid mayors in the United Sates to a plebiscite by local voters.
Per reasonable expectations, the re-review will find more than sufficient votes to see the ballot question qualify for consideration by local voters.
Senior attorneys of the law firm Dewey, Cheatum and Howe yet again wasting the court’s time
An old Columbia Pictures image
In short, Judge Connolly found the City Clerk’s rejection of these voter’s signing on to the petition to be errantly persnickety.as to the form of the petition given that all required information per applicable state law was provided and in a readily discerned format.
Even so, Quincy Quarry News fully expects that the expensive outside legal council retained by Mayor Koch will undertake further steps to endeavor to keep the ballot question off the ballot and so strive to keep the controversial pending raise on track to happen as of January 1, 2028.
Simply put, the mayor clearly appears to believe he deserves the stupendous raise even though he his free spending ways have seen the city;s credit rating cut twice in less than a year with at least a further cut yet looking possible in as soon as coming weeks.
Yet again taking it on the chin
A Quincy Quarry News exclusive image
At the same time, a new wrinkle to the underlying raise grifing has surfaced.
At a city council meeting this past week, a ward councillor asked the City Solicitor if the pending raise would be factored into calculating the mayor’s pension over the three years the raise has been suspended.
The reason for the suspension of the raise?
The set date of January 1, 2025 for the raise was found to be invalid by the State Ethics Commission as it was in clear violation of applicable state law as the effective date posed a conflict of interest.
Don’t let the smile fool you …
A City of Quincy head short
Even so, as well as specifically, the city councillor asked the City Solicitor for a written response to her ask.
The solicitor, however, became curt as well as clearly implied that he would not be formally answering the question asked.
In turn, one can only reasonably assume that the plan is to see the final three years of the mayor’s current term of office viewed as seeing the 89% percent raise counted towards determining the mayor’s pension even though the raise has been at least delayed until January 2028 to potentially even revoked as well as that the mayor has not been subjected to any known paycheck deductions to fund his expected pension and which is supposed to be so funded.
Another “L” for Tiny Tom and his legal team.
Hey Hey Ho Ho
The City Clerk Has Got To Go
Hey Hey Ho Ho
The City Clerk Has Got To Go
John,
So too has the Assistant City Clerk got to go. Dollars and especially donuts, he surely was the button man who capped over twelve hundred ballot question petition signers’ right to petition their government.
The Quincy Signature Scam: Where Voting is Easy, but Challenging the Mayor is Forensic Science.
Let’s talk about the supernatural expertise of the Quincy City Clerk’s office.
Have you ever heard of a single mail-in ballot being tossed out because the voter’s signature didn’t look quite right? Me neither. Zero cases. Zip. In fact, if you walk into a Quincy polling place on election day, the security clearance is basically a vibe check. They ask for your street name and house number, and boom — here’s your ballot. No photo ID, no DNA sample, no questions asked. Yet, we are suddenly expected to believe the City Clerk is a world-class forensic document examiner? Please.
We all know the only signature that actually matters to get appointed by the mayor in this city isn’t on a voter registration form — it’s on a campaign donation check. And let’s be honest, nobody in City Hall cares what your cursive looks like there, as long as the numbers in the “amount” box are nice and legible. I’d bet my house that none of Mayor Koch’s campaign fund “donation” checks have ever been returned due to a “signature mismatch.
I actually bought a baseball signed by Red Sox legend Jim Rice. I’m thinking about bringing it down to the City Clerk’s office to see if she can authenticate it for me. Though, knowing how things run around here, she’d probably disqualify it because Jim didn’t print his zip code next to his laces.
That’s because voting is a right…
Lately, Quincy’s local digital landscape and City Council chambers have turned into a theater of complaints. Local police officers, firefighters, and their spouses have taken to social media and public comment sessions to publicly criticize members of the City Council.
While public debate is a cornerstone of our community, there is a glaring, uncomfortable irony at play: many of the individuals leading the charge are doing so while actively disregarding the very state laws that govern their employment.
To understand the hypocrisy, we have to look at the educational reality of Massachusetts law. The City of Quincy utilizes the Massachusetts Civil Service system to hire and govern its police and fire departments. Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 31, Section 58, any person appointed to a civil service police or fire force must establish a legal residence within 10 miles of the perimeter of that city or town within nine months of their appointment. This distance is strictly measured “as the crow flies.”
While a secondary statute, M.G.L. Chapter 41, Section 99A, provides a 15-mile border-to-border allowance for non-civil service communities — and state law allows unions to negotiate larger boundaries through collective bargaining — the core intent remains the same: public safety personnel are supposed to live close to the community that signs their paychecks.
This makes Quincy’s strict hiring guidelines look like an absolute joke. To get hired in the first place, candidates heavily rely on “residency preference.” According to the Mass.gov Civil Service Guide, an applicant must live in Quincy for a full 12 months immediately preceding the exam just to get to the top of the hiring pool.
Local candidates use this rule to box out highly qualified outsiders. Yet, the moment the ink dries on their appointments, many of these same individuals pack their bags and head for the hills.
A quick look at where some of our vocal public servants actually sleep tells a very different story. Take, for example, the wife of a Quincy firefighter who recently stood up at a public meeting to knock the City Council. Public records indicate they reside in Marshfield. Even if you stretch the law to its absolute maximum 15-mile limit, Marshfield is well outside the legal boundary from the Quincy line “as the crow flies.” They aren’t the only ones.
A significant number of Quincy first responders have abandoned the city for lavish homes in South Shore “bedroom communities.”
It is a bizarre spectacle to witness. Cops and firefighters — whose entire careers are built on enforcing the law and adhering to strict municipal codes — are blasting elected officials on Facebook, while their own households openly violate civil service residency rules. Even worse, these same individuals who fled Quincy’s property tax bracket have the nerve to lecture the City Council and demand that local residents pay higher taxes to fund their raises and promotions.
Timmins is wrong 99% of the time. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The city need a new solicitor. He is a waste of taxpayers’ money. We can hire elementary school kids who can get the same record he has.
He clearly doesn’t want to answer on the record.
Koch only listens to the little voices in his head. Courts, Judges, State & Federal Code, be damned. When will this City finally get over the Blue Goo? Timmons needs to go too but what else can he do for work? He cannot practice law in front of the Courts anymore as he has wasted so much of the Courts’ time that they hate him. Real estate developer, not so much. The interest carry on The Imperial (along with his determination not to cut the prices) are eating his deal alive. Prices will come down as soon as the bank realizes he does not know what he is doing. Dog Walker, perhaps, but the dog is Chris Walker.
Did the Mayor’s crowd ever have signs on their lawns a few years ago saying “Protect Hospital Hill” and “Save our Neighborhood from Tom’s Developer friends”? All of a sudden, Tom is going to protect our neighborhoods.
Protect my wallet from Tommy’s Taxcapades.
Think of all the angels and saints ENC will need. That Protestant Property will have to be evangelized and “statuized” by Koch.
And the property will have to be named after someone’s family. The Winter Hill Gang was peanuts compared to the Koch Machine.
FYI: “Protect” did well during workshopping.
Respectfully, an exorcism is in order.
Well said, does Sheets own a part of this? Asking for a friend. I bet yes.
How about when the council was debating cutting the Emergency Director position one of the incumbent councilors asked to ‘table’ the discussion in order to the give the director a do-over to describe his duties and responsibilities?
Same councilor saying the cut seemed to be personal. Well, didn’t the director’s anointment to the job also seem to be personal?
Then there was the other incumbent councilor who seems to have reluctantly realized that indeed, the new members of the council have the control now.
How about that same councilor saying that when other councilors publicly state how much of their city council salaries from the rises would go to which charities, he found it to be “immature.” So, I guess it is immature to be open, honest and transparent about fulfilling campaign promises. And, it just might quiet the “what are you going to do with the raise (and) the election was stolen” crowd.
Good luck with that. Prevaricators live to prevaricate.
There are a bunch of Mayoral Appointees (mostly Councilors and often North Quincy folks) who are there just trying to max their final max to pop their retirement checks. If you retire on a councillor’s pay, it’s peanuts, but if you retire on a Commissioners pay or similar after 3 years you are set. There has to be a crime here. FRAUD is everywhere in Tommy Hall.
Quin,
The good news: all of the retirement grifting should be seen as a sign that the rats are preparing to be at the ready to jump ship.