City Council

[Music] i couldn't this morning though good evening welcome to the ordinance committee of the city council we're going to start with public hearing on two items in ordinance the first is ordinance amending zoning section 8.5 transit oriented districts i'd like to ask those speaking in favor to come up to the podium if they'd like to speak in favor okay anybody wishing to speak against please feel free to come up to the podium if you'd like to speak against all right and there's also sheets in the back for folks to sign in opposition or against as well for all items but just wanted to mention it for this one as well all right if there are no comments on this particular item we'll close the public hearing for again ordinance amending zoning section 8.5 transit oriented districts and come back at 6:35 p.m for the next public hearing item okay we're going to move on to um order number 2025-068 order amending housing development zone and plan also known as HDIP and this is the second public hearing we're having on this matter but I still like to ask anyone wishing to speak in favor to please come up to the podium good evening if you could state your name and your address for the record sure thank you maggie McKe 117 Rosson Road um so several of the items on tonight's agenda are for new housing but where is the affordable housing that will be needed even more in the coming years if the proposed 44% cuts to the federal housing budget go through why with homelessness set to rise and less federal funding set to come to into the city would we ever consider giving a 20-year tax break towards a luxury development where the TJ Maxx and Dollar Tree now stand why would we propose selling the property at 1620 Hancock Street which the city bought for $2.2 $2 million to a developer at a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars 28,000 families in the state live in federally funded public housing with another 72,000 receiving federally funded rental assistance and those numbers are dwarfed by the state's unmet need with more than 300,000 people on the waiting list for public housing at a recent panel of Massachusetts housing experts Donna Brown Rigo of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials said "Cutting these programs by half homelessness is going to go up and the looming budget cuts could have wide-ranging ripple effects on the local economy landlords who depend on federally funded housing vouchers might have to foreclose on their mortgages banks might be unable to collect on their loans developers who count on vouchers to secure loans to fund affordable housing units might not be able to build them which would in turn hurt the construction industry said Joel Wool of the Boston Housing Authority which could be forced to cut 8,000 vouchers that's 8,000 families from its program none of us are better off and none of us are safer if more of us are unhoused in our neighborhoods said Mark Martinez of the Mass Law Reform Institute why am I bringing this up now because these discussions are happening all over the state except from the looks of tonight's council agenda here in Quinsey other cities in the state want to charge minor fees of less than 2% for high-end real estate sales to help fund affordable housing but Quinsey seems to be going in the opposite direction giving money to developers of high-end housing i urge you to vote against both this proposed tax break for the TJ Maxx lot and for the proposed fire sale of 1620 Hancock Street neither deal seems to be in the best interest of Quincy's residents thanks anybody else wishing to speak in favor of this matter we're going to go in favor and then against anybody wishing to speak in favor okay anyone wishing to speak in opposition hello my name is Kathy Thr i'm live on 234 Ever Street in Quincy i'm here to ask you to please reconsider giving any more tax deals to developers tonight we're going to consider buying selling property low that we bought high further we're going to consider more debt i'd like to read you the S&P global rating for 2025 can you hear me okay s&p global rating revised the outlook to negative for Quinsey from stable and affirmed its AA long-term rating on Quinzy the outlook reflects the city's elevated debt burden and diminished budgetary flexibility following years of rising costs if you can't listen to your constituents then perhaps you should listen to standard and poor how much more can we afford to give developers in terms of tax deals buying property high and selling it low incurring yet more debt it's not going to be good for the S&P rating next year believe me thank you okay and Justin before you come up I just want to make sure you have enough time to speak and we have a 640 public hearing scheduled for the next item so during ordinance committee when I open up the ordinance committee meeting I am able to hold public hearings in that ordinance committee even though it's not scheduled and so I'm going to go ahead and make sure that we stay on the timeline that was published publicly and then when I come back to ordinance committee I can reopen or continue the public hearing and that way no no worries do I get to speak or do I later on when I open up ordinance yes and then chairman you have the 6:40m so I'll kick it over to you thank you very much um Council Yang so I'd like to um call to order the Monday's uh June 16th 640 public hearing uh to order this public hearing is for council order 2025-078 Grant Location National Grid Verizon Granite Street at Walter Hannon Parkway so at this point I'd like to ask anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition to come to the podium state your name and address if you do not wish to speak but would like your support or opposition to be recorded please sign in on the sheet on the table at the back of the chamber so anybody want to speak or oppose seeing none I will close this public hearing at uh 6:41 and I'm going to go immediately into the 6:41 public hearing i'd like to call uh the Monday uh June 16th 641 public hearing to order this public hearing is for council order 2025-079 granted location grid Verizon Elm Street and Edward Street and again at this point uh uh anybody wishing to speak in favor or opposition please come to the podium if you do not wish to speak please sign on sign the sheet on the table at the back of the chamber so anybody wishing to speak uh uh in favor nope so seeing none uh I'm going to uh close this this meeting at 6:42 and go right into the 6:42 public hearing which is 2025-080 grant of location National Grid Verizon Quinsey A and Fax and Park Road so at this point I'd like to ask anyone wishing to speak in favor or opposition to come to the podium state your name and address if you do not wish to speak but would like your support or opposition please on the back of the back table uh you can um fill out the sheet and it will be recorded and again seeing none seeing no public comment I will close the public hearing at 6:43 43 thank you very much just folks know so that folks know the um the order of things today again we have to stick to the meeting agenda as it was publicly published um according to the time and so the next public hearing opens at 6:45 p.m for the order on the land disposition agreement and so again just being mindful of giving folks time to speak instead of squeezing it into two minutes i'm going to hold and then go into the 6:45 p.m public hearing and then go into ordinance committee and reopen the ordinance committee public hearing okay okay i know it's a little bit confusing but again I I need to make sure to stick to the published schedule okay okay i'd like to open up the 6:45 p.m order uh I'm sorry um public hearing for order number 2025-074 land disposition agreement 1620 Hancock Street anybody wishing to speak in favor of this order please feel free to come up to the podium chris would like to speak oh yes go ahead Mr walker thank you Madam Chairwoman good evening councilors is my pleasure this evening on behalf of Mayor Ko to testify in support and walk us all through the land disposition agreement for 1620 Hancock Street marking the next step forward in our collaborative efforts to revitalize our historic downtown simply put in all the years we've been doing this together there hasn't been a more straightforward textbook example of the benefits of urban renewal and why we've had to engage in this kind of sweeping program to bring bring life back to the downtown than the agreement before you this evening in the past we've had some complicated transaction transactions before this body we've had some transactions with substantial public investment involved directly tied to them we've had agreements with multiple parties and multiple moving parts the proof of all those efforts of Mayor Ko together with this body for the last 15 years are fully evident just outside this window the downtown of 15 to 20 years ago which had suffered decades of stagnation and almost no growth no longer exists thanks to the work in large part due to this body over the last 15 years a neighborhood that was once a drag on city resources and a net negative for city finances is today a growing vibrant mix of businesses homes in the most thriving restaurant and bar scene anywhere outside of Boston we've got plenty of work to do but just a couple of numbers to show the progress we've made so far since we started redevelopment assessments in the downtown have risen $370 million $370 million in increased value in the downtown since we began this process that is tens and millions of new tax revenue to the city of Quinsey values have grown 351% on residential side and 50% on the commercial side which is actually a pretty big number considering where we are with the market trends on the commercial sides what's before the body tonight is not among the more complex of our redevelopment projects and many members of this body will remember some of those over the past several years the subject property located at 1620 Hancock Street was about 11,000 square ft and was severely damaged in a fire and left vacant and bled for more than 20 years there's probably no better example of why we've embarked on this process over the last decade and a half than 1620 Hancock Street during all that time the property owners took no action to reuse the building and took no action to make the property available to the open market forcing the city in 2022 to use its eminent domain authority under urban renewal to take the property it is truly one of the last vestages of a downtown that pulled against progress for so long now a couple years later with the adjacent property what folks will remember as the Coleman's and Good Health Store came on the market comes an opportunity to re-energize that block with a new development it's instructive to look at this LDA as a purchase and sale agreement like any purchase and sale agreement it sets a price and it details a set of conditions in which the trigger to the closing of the red development and the real estate transaction will take place i'll touch briefly on those two key elements and look forward to answering questions the council will have during committee deliberation the first is the price you'll note that the city took the property for slightly more than the price in this agreement $2.2 $2 million versus $1.9 million while both sale prices were dictated by appraisals there's a difference between an eminent domain appraisal and a development disposition appraisal and that's the delta you see here an eminent domain appraisal the property owner absentee landlord or not is entitled to go to court for more money projecting what may or may not ever happen on that property and raising the potential price tag to a level that probably would go beyond market fair market value in some cases that is why an eminent domain appraisal leans a little bit in that direction to provide the protection to the city it needs so it can stand up in court and say no we sold this property at the highest we we possibly could or we bought um this property at at the the price that we possibly could and no further protections are needed for the landlord the disposition appraisal which is before this body tonight which is the subject of the LDA takes a little bit of a different path it takes a path that there are certain conditions that are laid out now through this process that have to be in place for development to take place at this site um the developer has to meet all of the conditions set by our planning to board process under the cons certificate of consistency process they uh under this case there's no public parking will be available for this project those considerations all factor into the appraisal and the $1.9 million before this body tonight now should anyone think that the city is somehow getting the short end of the stick on this I want to make clear that right now that vacant piece of property is generating no taxes three years ago prior to it being taken by the city and for 20 some odd years being a blighted piece of property it generated a grand total of $12,000 annually in taxes together with the adjacent property the project that will be proposed eventually to the planning board will create $650,000 in annual taxes that is the exact reason why we do urban renewal that is exact reason why we've been forced to take eminent domain authority it's the exact reason why we've been successful in the downtown over the last 15 years because we know there's the short term versus the long term the short term is well you're paid 2.2 2 you should get 2.2 the long term is we provide the opportunity to the developer to create a t-fold increase in revenue to the city of Quinsey that's the price aspect the second key element and many of members of this body are very familiar with the conditions to which the city will come to a closing on the LDA within the document I'll point you to several specific provisions that ensure the city's interests are protective protected for example for the city to close sale must be approved by the state this is a state process urban renewal is governed by the department formerly known as DHCD i won't say the new name because I can never remember it um the developer must have approval through the planning department for a certificate of consistency in line with the rules regulations and ordinances we've set up to foster this kind of development so this body is not expected to vote on a project this body is expected at some point to vote on providing the planning board the opportunity to hear the project and let the planning board and the engineers and the peer review and all of the things that are part of the LDA process and the planning process take place and that's a condition so we don't close until we have a viable project the developer must produce evidence that it has construction financing we don't close until the developer shows up shows us that they have financing to build the project they've been permitted to do they must produce evidence that they've closed on the adjacent property to show that they have a viable project so those conditions all have a second set of conditions to them and that's the timing in which and the schedule in which they must take place all of these things are tied to timelines within the LDA uh which you'll see which you have seen in the document closing conditions must be met one year from the date of state approval with an outside date of December 31st 2027 so developer has strict timelines that it must meet otherwise the city has its rights protected and it can h move on to a different developer from 120 days from the date of that closing 120 days to start construction in 30 months from that starting construction date the project must be done those are the conditions that will be met under each of those provisions you'll see in the LDA there are triggers that revert the city's rights back to the city there are repurchase rights in some cases there are extension rights in some cases uh but in any event the city is well protected that we'll have a timely project well permitted and ready to go in a timely fashion i know this is the public hearing portion of the meeting but when we get to ordinance um we will we do have the full downtown redevelopment team here with us tonight to answer any questions you may have uh from our outstanding planning department director Jim Fatsy's Rob Stevens and Joe King uh who have really over the last these years uh paved the way uh to make downtown redevelopment possible working with developers individually on individual projects and making sure we get the biggest bang for our buck out of uh downtown redevelopment uh we have Bill Giri who's been special counsel to the mayor on downtown issues for quite some time uh many years now and prior to that he was chairman of the planning board so he's really been on ground level of downtown redevelopment since since we started uh we have Joe Sha from Grand Sydney Partners another member of the team going back to uh to day one so there are few engineering minds and and and property knowledge base than than we do have than we have in Grant City Partners and we do have a couple of new faces to the development team on the legal side um Brian Golden some of you may know the name from he was the head of the Boston Planning and Development Agency under Mayor Walsh and he is uh now a partner at Keegan World LLP and he was assistance to us on this LDA and with him uh together Sean Nhill also 16 years at the Boston Planning and Development Agency uh he has joined our legal team he's a partner at uh Green Big Greenberg Tor um with that Madam Chairwoman uh I hand it back over to you and look forward to the discussion at uh committee thank you Mr walker so we're late to open up ordinance committee so I'm going to continue to hold this public hearing as well to leave it open to discuss when we are able to in finance committee so with that I'm going to open the ordinance committee meeting at 6:50 p.m we do have to open finance at 7:00 p.m so I'm going to open ordinance close it open finance at 7:00 close that and reopen ordinance so we can continue that public hearing we're having for ordinance committee so going to go ahead and open up the ordinance committee meeting at 6:56 p.m and then close it again for now open finance and then we'll come back to it all right so I'm going to open up the finance committee meeting scheduled for 7 p.m and then recess it at 7 p.m as well and now I can go ahead and reopen the ordinance committee meeting scheduled for this evening madam clerk could you call the role please councelor Ash Council Kane Council Campbell present council Divine present council Deona present council Harris Council McCorm thank you pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible and so I'm going to go ahead and continue with the ordinance public hearing that we were having earlier on order number 2025-068 amending housing development zone and plan HIPP thank you for your patience thank you i don't understand any of it but that's okay i spoke before on the at a public hearing on this same issue i'm going for the record jocelyn Sedney 85 Monroe Road here in Quinsey i spoke before at the public hearing on this issue and I'm going to reiterate some of the things I said but add to those comments as well my first point before was that this is a program offered by the state for gateway cities and it's to promote housing market rate housing to promote housing in areas that otherwise would not be developed without the advantages offered by the state under this program and I suggest to you that the pro the project at issue this luxury development is not appropriate for this program it's wrong to take advantage of the state benefits for this program if you read the statute there's limited money under this provision by suggesting that we should take advantage of these state benefits for the Grossman family we are disadvantaging truly gateway cities there are many gateway cities that have been designated by the state there are cities that we would recognize brockton River places like that that should be able to take advantage of these programs if we do wrongfully the money won't be available for them we are not a gateway city as defined by the statute i have the statute here and I said this before a gateway city is defined by population and we do have a population that complies with that a gateway city is defined by whether or not the median household income is below the Commonwealth average a gateway city is a city that has a rate of educational attainment of a bachelor's degree or above that that is below the Commonwealth's average we do have an educational attainment of bachelor's degrees that is above the state average and a simple de um review on the internet will clearly demonstrate that that is the case we are 10% approximately 10% above the average in Massachusetts so we don't qualify now we have been designated as a gateway city in the past does that mean that we take advantage of benefits that we are not entitled to and I say no is this a moral question i say yes if one of us qualifies for food stamps and when I say food stamps you can see how old I am because they're not called food food stamps anymore because our income is low and all of a sudden we get a job with a higher income do we say to the state "Stop i don't need those benefits anymore." Or do we simply continue to collect them until it comes time to make the routine disclosure to the state the question is do we take advantage of benefits to which we are not entitled is this Grossman project going to go forward without this tax benefit yes when they presented their plan to the planning department when they spoke about it publicly they never said "Oh we need help from the Commonwealth we need help from the state we need help from the from Quinzy for public infrastructure to for the residential component of this project they never said that and all of the sudden Quinsey proposes that we we extend this special developmental area to a luxury development why two reasons so the developer the Grossman family gets a tax break a commercial tax break we're residents here it's time for each of you to stand up and advocate for the residents and not commercial developers this is not a tax break that should be provided to the Grossman family this project will go forward without this tax break this project will go forward whether they can collect those tax credits under the state just go ahead and say no it will go forward we don't need it they don't need it it's disadvantageous to the residents and it should not be approved now you look at some of the things that I've heard after the last time we had this public hearing we've heard well we need to stimulate economic development in this area it the project's going to go forward it's a luxury development not with commercial enterprises like TJ Maxx and the dollar store it's going to be high-end it's going to raise the level of the economic development in that neighborhood which is what we heard from the Grossman's we heard this is going to benefit everybody it's not just something that you know we be concerned about that the grossman's get a benefit this is going to benefit all of us when I open my tax bill I am not going to see this as a benefit and I suspect no taxpayer in this city is going to consider that a benefit it's certainly not a benefit that or a detriment that the Grossman family or the Grossman people who are involved in this project are going to feel they don't live in Quinzy they live in places like Weston Dover Nem we live here you represent us all of you represent us it is time to stop the tax giveaway and especially in a situation where it is morally wrong to do so thank you anybody else wishing to speak against again anyone else wishing to speak against please feel free to come up to the podium good evening if you could just say your name and your address for the record please yeah uh my name is Steven Dishop uh I live at 44 Wedgewood Street thank you uh I mean I I don't have too much to say i just think uh if they're not building affordable housing I think it's absurd to give them a tax break uh we all here pay our fair share if someone's who's building luxury housing can't afford to pay their fair share i I just don't understand that uh I I think it's absurd to be giving them a tax break for nonaffordable housing uh they've made no guarantee that they're going to do that and as the person before me said you know they're going to go forward with the project whether they have this tax break or not so I don't see any reason to offer it to them uh and that's all I got to say so thank you anybody else wishing to speak against good evening council um Annalie Johnson 36 Garfield Street in Quin i would like to join uh previous speaker Attorney Sydney's Sydney's um uh comments regarding Grossman family they are well regarded family they have been good family they have gained much from Quinsey's being in Quinsey uh they have been excellent in donating land when Lincoln Hancock school was built and um even a name on the street over in West Quincy in my neighborhood is named after the Growman family so it's um but now uh this issue is truly a moral issue do we really give this well regarded very rich developer these benefits and our own residential tax rates go up annually not two and a half% but eight and 9% and I am among the seniors all over the city in the Kennedy center and other places and I speak to seniors similar to myself they try to live in their own home and they always keep on saying "I love to live in Quincy but my taxes keep on going up annually." And that's an issue that the council should really carefully consider rather than giving multi-billionaire developers breaks um I know it sounds like a socialism but this is a moral issue and nothing to do with uh with it's just your the responsibility to look out for us as taxpayers and so carefully consider when you grant these special provisions and instead of extending these provisions that's available for homeowners such as myself i appreciate you taking these under your consideration thank you thank you anybody else wishing to speak against hi my name is Gerlyn McKay i live at 447 Quincsey Shore Drive thank you and I did a little research online and I saw that last year when the Grossman Companies gave their proposal for this development their director of development Avy Shash quote said "The project would improve the area's culinary entertainment and shopping options." And my question is for whom right now there's a Dollar Tree there's a TJ Maxx i shop those stores um frequently several times a week supposedly i and I don't know all of the details i couldn't find any names of retail shops that are proposed to go in there but I did read that they're high-end and my question is who's going to be shopping in those highend stores you're take I'm a senior citizen on a fixed income and they're taking away the stores that I shop in and a lot of other residents in Quinsey shop in to put in shops that the the renters who were going to be paying high exorbitant rents are going to be shopping in those renters are not taxpayers i am a taxpayer i was never asked what kind of shops I want to go in there to improve the area of the district i'm very happy with TJ Maxx in the Dollar Tree store and I also if I needed a high-end boutique which I don't I would go to the Derby Street shops and I also did a little looking up there hangingham has the Derby Street shops and from what I can gather it appears that this is the type of shop that the Gen Companies want to put in this development well the median household income in 2023 was $222,696 the median income for Quinzy in 2023 was $95,711 we don't need high-end retail shops for the residents and taxpayers of Quinsey and if the renters in those high luxury apartments want a high retail shop they can go to the Sturby Derby Street shops where the income is $222,696 i saw no survey i wasn't quite or questioned i'm not aware of anyone else in Quinsey was but the Grossman companies determined that they are going to improve the area's culinary entertainment and shopping options based on what based on whom based on their opinion well their opinion is not the opinion of most of the Quinzy shoppers thank you thank you any else to speak against good evening bill Zamile 46 Tilden Circle Quinsey there are variety of problems with this proposal serious to fatal problems first up there are three criteria to get this sort of a proposal into place quinsey only checks two or three also there's a problem this is a premium apartment building project with some retail at most what they're going to do for housing which is the basis for this underlying tax credit program is they're going to pay an in fee for affordable housing to the affordable housing trust alone just this alone provides horrific op optics this is just unconscionable to go forward with that sort of a thing next up are the tax angles proposing to provide a tax break on a project that can still stand on its own without the break is providing a giveaway at taxpayers's expense this tax break is further adverse to local taxpayers as it caps future revenue to the general fund to basically the pre-development assessment plus 1% a year another all the additional revenue will go to paying down the greater downtown redevelopment debt the problem with this is every year that assessed limit cap that goes to the general fund will become smaller in terms of actual value because of inflation this doesn't benefit homeowners and it benefits the redevelopment of downtown which for the most part benefits developers this is wrong we also had the problem that last year they came in and said "Well we got a little problem with the way the downtown's going and we're going to crew about a $25 million negative until around 2050 or thereabouts." Not sure about the exact date last year I'm old i don't remember dates as well as I used to the people that are going to have to pick that up are the homeowners because they're going to have to cover that shortfall because the debt's going to run into the negative until we get way out on the redevelopment of downtown this project only adds to that problem this is wrong because homeowners are subsidizing a private development and they're getting no piece of the action you know they'll talk up all the great and wonderful development for Quinsey but they don't get a piece of the action but they're paying for it that's wrong by the way I've looked at the 25 million and I think that that number is low i think that the rate negative is going to run more like 50 to 100 million or more if you look at the way things are in a realistic set of cost accounting concerns there are a couple more problems with this proposal the administration has talked up a related tax break to see Whole Foods come to Quinsey good luck with that whole Foods is still reigning in store count and more importantly Quinsey is more prime for an Aldi not a Whole Foods similar there's been talk of Market Basket coming into town somewhere this is a problem first up Market Basket is in the middle of another family food fight and the other thing is their business model is they want to buy their sites there isn't anything in Quinsey that accommodate a Market Basket store and the only way that that could happen would be an eminent domain taking and that proposes all sorts of problems which people pointed out are a problem with the 1600 block project on Hancock Street no matter how they try to say it'll be wonderful and get it fixed if it doesn't work on market value then there's a problem it just doesn't work now let's be more realistic grossman's renovation for Granite Plaza fine great let them put up apartments let them do some retail but the reality is more likely space they're talking about for re grocery store is going to be to relocate to Star Market that makes the most sense that allows them to then go back in and re figure out a way to redo Walgreens the Walgreens current Walgreens star parking lot footprint and do it in a nice stage manner with the least disruption to the various businesses involved that makes sense the problem then there's the other problem the mayor let it slip that he's been discussing doing yet another parking publicly financed parking garage to support Grossman's plans and this just presents us with another city garage that at the end of the day is a net net money loser until the construction debt is paid down 30 years down the road if you look at the current Kilroy garage they're losing money hand over fist because they borrowed short-term when rates were 200 basis points and now they're running about 4450 they're losing money and they're only getting rent that covers about a maybe half of the financing cost of that building nothing towards operating costs that thing is a money loser no matter how you want to look at it they could talk all kinds of differential sideways provided the parking to do the restaurants and all that the numbers don't work folks trust me they don't work in short I have no problem with gross redeveloping the two sites but what the mayor's proposing is going to cost people local homeowners money a lot of money and for a final point returning to Market F Market Market Basket and Whole Foods both seek to be large draw area locations as opposed to a more neighborhood shop like Star such doesn't work for Quinsey getting around Quinsey is bad enough locally and oh by the way because they're right next to the water that makes it bad to have property going that way to draw upon how's Next not going to feed us Whole Foods trust me getting around in town is terrible you can't come in and out you they Whole Foods would need to draw from as far down as Hangingham parts of Boston into Brainree Milton they're not going to come here it's too hard to get in and out and that's the same problem that basically killed street works plans egress in and out of Quinsey is terrible they're only about six or seven major ways to do it and they're not particularly wide and they're only getting more congested because they're putting developments right on top of things the project they disapproved next to Common Market is going to be a nightmare simply put Quinsey is not going to ever be in Arlington no matter how they try to talk it up in fact parody with Somerville would likely be a stretch no matter what the administration proposes that local taxpayers keep underwriting to make things happen in Quinsey Center bottom line what is before you is instead Coke and Mirrors thank you for your time thank you anybody else wishing to speak against i just said thank you and then asked if anybody else would like to speak against can you hear me evening yes can you say your name and address of the record please thank you my name is Virginia Ryan i live at 89 Albert Road in Quinsey Mass i spoke last month on this ordinance this tax break and I am again opposed to it in fact we seem to be getting giving a lot of tax breaks to developers to build apartments and why aren't we doing anything about increasing home ownership our home ownership right now is 43% it's below 50% with home ownership people care a little bit more about the community and they'll vote a little bit more our voting statistics in this city is atrocious and I have never seen any type of outreach from the city to increase it i would also like to state that this sound system sucks you need to spend some money on a new sound system i can barely hear you when you talk this speaker stinks so please if you spend a lot of money spend it on a new sound system thank you thank you anybody else wishing to speak against good evening hello my name is Changen i'm living at 8 harvest land unit B so well big developers keep getting tax breaks resident see their property tax increase every year and another reason for the property tax increase is because Quincy is in a huge depth 1.5 billion dollar depth for a city of this size is outrageous i know you will later discussing that $ 8.25 million actual borrowing on the top of 2026 budget i want to tell you people's response when they heard this actual borrowing no more borrowing that's their response they even didn't want to hear what this borrowing is for just listen just hear the city planning to borrowing more money already scared them why why why did people feel so strong about it is because Quincy has borrowed too much $1.6 billion dollar depth for a city of this size is ridiculous quincy is not a rich city and also is not a poor one is something in the middle in Massachusetts but how come the depth per capita is the highest in the whole of Massachusetts and that directly drive up residents property tax residents are held hostage to pay back for this huge adapt for for decades and when residents raised concerns about the rising property tax become unaffordable at the past hearings I was shocked to hear some counselors commented saying that's because they mismanaged their finance and that's their problem not the city's problem how can you say that you are elected to represent your constitutions they are problems are your problems i hope you remember that and work hard to work to work for the best interests of people thank you thank you anybody else wishing to speak against okay and I just want to remind folks that there are uh papers in the back for folks to sign either for or against if you're undecided okay with that we're going to continue on with the ordinance committee meeting first item in ordinance is 2025-058 ordinance amending zoning section 8.5 transit oriented districts before I open up to my colleagues uh for discussion I just want to uh mention that during the public hearing there was something submitted um in opposition from Maria Mulligan from 21 Winthorp Avenue so I just want to make sure that that's on the record and with that I'd like to open it up to my colleagues for any questions or comments on again um order number 2025-058 transit oriented districts councelor Campbell make a motion make a motion to approve okay we don't need a second in committee any questions or comments on the item yes okay all those in favor i any opposed okay moving on to the next item in ordinance 2025-058 I'm sorry 2025-068 order amending housing development zone and plan HIPP and before I open up to open it up to my colleagues for um any questions comments or discussion I just want to clarify for us so that we're clear on the discussion this evening that this vote is not on a tax break or the discussion is not on a tax break it's on the zoning itself and so I just want to remind my colleagues and folks tuning in on that that this item again is not a discussion on the tax break itself that's not what's being discussed it's not what's being considered um but rather the zoning itself so with that clarification I'd like to open up to my colleagues for any questions or comments just gonna make a motion councelor Cam to make a motion any questions or comments on this motion yes Councelor Ash madam Chairwoman um as the as the ordinance reads the the last line um of of the ordinance the last sentence does say uh further the city council authorizes the mayor to negotiate tax increment exemptions for a period not to exceed 20 years for certified HD projects within the HD zone in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law Chapter 59 section 5M um I know through um Madame Chairwoman your testimony today and discussions um w with the intention of the ordinance is not to um authorize the mayor to negotiate these tax increments and increases but rather to submit this property for the zoning under the HDIP requirements um I do think that that language needs to be specific though in in this ordinance um so I would propose an amendment um to this language that says that any potential tax breaks or um tax increment exemptions come back to the body uh for a vote on each um specific increment exemption should that be the case down the line okay so councelor Ash you're offering an amendment to the last sentence or the last section of the ordinance where it says further the city council authorizes the mayor to negotiate to negotiate tax increment exemptions and then do we want to say like right there at that point to insert the language about it having to come back just codifying I mean that's what has to happen anyways but you would like to codify the language in this ordinance correct correct that has to come back before this body yeah if we added um subject to city council approval i believe that accomplishes what I would like to see in this ordinance okay so we're going to go ahead um and say again uh just to my colleagues at the the bottom of the ordinance that last sentence further the city council authorizes the mayor to negotiate tax increment exemptions subject to city council approval and that's the proposed amendment correct correct again and this just codifies what the process already is but we'd like to include it in here okay that's fine um second by council Harris any questions about the language that we're looking to add in here to codify okay so with that I do want to make sure I do a roll call on this amendment so madam cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes council Council Campbell yes council Divine yes council Deona yes council Harris yes council Mitten yes jay Leang yes okay the motion passes okay any other questions or comments we do have a motion to approve now um I just want to make sure can we um so motion to approve as amended yes correct can we just motion to approve as amended by councelor Deona okay and that's all right if you retract your motion great okay so we have a council to approve as amended by councelor Deona all those in favor i any opposition okay so we're going to go ahead and before I open finance committee because we do have a city council meeting scheduled at 7:30 go ahead and open city council at 7:30 before we go back into then finance committee for those items okay and with that I'd like to adjourn the ordinance committee meeting at 7:28 PM i'd like to open up the Monday June 16th meeting of the Quinsey City Council madame Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash present councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine Councelor Deon present councelor Harris present councelor Leang present council McCarthy Council Minton President King seven members you have a quorum thank you and I'd like to ask everybody to stand if they are able to and take a moment of silence to use as you see fit you turn to the flag for the pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you madame Cler could you read the open meeting law please pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible thank you so much and can we just go to the first item on the agenda before we recess honoring the U15 Quinsey Youth Boys lacrosse team thank you Councelor Campbell [Applause] thank you Madam Chair exciting to follow the exciting talks going on so uh I'm happy to be here i'm gonna see if we can get them to come in jen's getting You'll hear them before you see them so I I wanted to um council can you just move it up a little can you yeah thank you there it is better yes thank you all right [Music] oh they brought the trophy all right well so I wanted to welcome the uh Quincy Youth Boys lacrosse program here tonight uh typically I think you stick with the high schools maybe and and maybe if they go to a high level um but I think this is a significant uh group of guys and uh group of families group group that uh that's come in here the lacrosse program over the past several years has really really really evolved and it's unfortunately taken a number on on the baseball and the um uh softball teams for for the girls it's it's really something that's become incredibly popular um and I think when we started it with my family there was definitely a big leap that went from being good Quinsey good to really really good and I think this group here has proven to be a really really solid uh team and they did things this year that really weren't possible a few years ago and I think a lot of that has to do with the coaching kevin Lynch where is he kevin Lynch kevin's got a family full of lacrosse players his his two daughters and his son played um incredible athletes but he uh he completely bought into lacrosse spring and he's actually from Hangingham right he's from Hingham and he came here and he knew that the program needed some work so he is constantly working he called me this past summer looking to just create a program we could bring kids in and work with it and I think watching this whole develop has a lot to do with the parents the coaches and certainly Kevin and all his work so Kevin congratulations on on an excellent job uh so I I want to read this because I think it's it's worth it the um the director of Quincsey Boys lacrosse is uh Dan Samson dan where are you there he is right there he's got about 45 kids and I think they all play are exceptional in sports so really great kids but um really the whole the whole group really just buys in and they do an incredible job and it's it's really a credit to the city uh to see how we have so many um options available for these kids and they're taking advantage of it and they're also doing well so there is a huge group of group here so I want to read the uh uh Quincy Youth Boys lacrosse team competes uh completes an undefeated season the Quinn youth boys lacrosse team at 11 and0 capped off its historic season by winning the 2025 Old Colony League lacrosse championship the U15 team consisting of current seventh and eighth grade students uh student athletes achieved the first undefeated season in program history by beating Bridgewwater U15 10 to1 uh 10-1 by a score of 5-2 their journey to the championship also included winning the 2025 Battle of Boston tournament the team's achievement is a testament to the hard work of both the players and dedicated coaching staff the 2025 Olll Championship of the Quinny Youth Boys lacrosse marks a second title in three years the recent success highlights the growing popularity and talented student athletes in Quinsey with a strong foundation established on skill development a skill development and teamwork the future of lacrosse in Quinsey looks bright for these young athletes so I wanted to uh count off all the names here of the guys i think maybe what we'll do is I'll I'll uh say your name we'll go up we'll take a picture after all that but I wanted to make sure in the seventh grade group uh Liam Samson Sillian Connor Aiden Tran Cameron Dow Anthony O'Brien Joseph McClurley Kleti Giovanni Owen O'Connell Michael Norton Kaden Wallace Declan O'Hare Eddie Ford and Hunter Clap seventh graders nice job the eighth grade group brian Ley Brady Proto Michael Bole David Debbana S Joe Campos Benjamin Long Ryan Green Joseph Burke Nicholas Lammon Monica Gregory Hugh Merrick Konish and Charlie Mclofflin eighth grade nice work i mentioned the head coach Kevin Lynch he's incredible uh we have guys coming back at Jack O'Brien Finn Sullivan and Brian Kish as the assistant coaches in the whole program really deserve a great round of applause congratulations um so yeah opportunity to remind us of one of the most important reasons why I do our job and thank you all for making us uh so proud so with that I'd like to call a recess of the city council meeting to have folks come up have the team come up their family members we can all squeeze in here um to grab a photo and then after that we'll go into finance committee thank you could [Music] you call the role oh do you mind calling the RO for her cuz she's so Oh sure madam could you call the role please councelor Ash Councelor Campbell present councelor Divine present council Dona present council Harris Council Leang present councelor Mitten present seven oh six thank you pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting i'm sorry yeah and transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible so I'm going to go ahead and reopen the public hearing that was open before on 2025-074 order land disposition agreement 1620 Hancock Street again anybody wishing to speak in favor please feel free to come up to the podium okay anybody wishing to speak against please feel free to come up to the podium i'm not sure if this helps at all people have to let me know so I'm speaking to you once again this is a different public hearing so if you could just state your name and your address for the record joelyn Sydney 85 Monroe Road i am once again speaking to you on behalf of the taxpayers of Quinsey because nobody else seems to be doing that i have no problem with this land disposition agreement in terms of selling this piece of property it's clearly a blighted property it's a mystery to me as to why we didn't put that little pocket park on the piece of property that we took by eminent domain rather than buying the piece of property down the street taking a commercial entity off the tax roles but be that as it may I have no problem at all selling this piece of property but look at the terms of the sale we hear "Oh the appraisal for the eminent domain is different than the appraisal for the sale because the appraisal for the eminent domain takes into account all the potential uses in the future of the property this is the use of the future this is the use of the property and it's being used for a tremendous development where people are going to make a lot of money and would they pay another $300,000 for this piece of property yes are they going to let this deal go away without paying what we paid for that property no it's time to stop we buy property high we sell property low as I understand it maybe I'm wrong this piece of property the blighted piece of property is a subject of litigation the entity from whom it was purchased thinks they didn't get paid enough well if they win and we didn't pay enough then we're going to have to pay them more and it's even a greater loss that we're taking if it gets settled like most lawsuits do and we say "Oh we'll pay you another $200,000." That's another loss that's an even greater loss for the taxpayers of Quinsey we're supposed to be a city led by a mayor who's so tremendous he deserves one of the highest salaries in the United States of America who can drive a hard bargain why are we agreeing are you being even asked to agree to sell a piece of property for less than we bought it for and you can hold up this deal because of that all the other terms must might be great might be fantastic i have no problem with the other terms but this is wrong and it's wrong for the taxpayers of Quinzy and again as I said before tonight it is time for somebody in this room to stand up for the taxpayers of Quinsey thank you anybody else wishing to speak against good evening debbie Riley i live at nine Land Grain Street um Joselyn's always a hard act to follow um I I don't know if I'm necessarily you know against this other than it just seems to be another project that is being initiated when there's so many projects already um in place it seems like we've become sort of a uh almost a real estate investment trust where we are just amassing properties we're selling them we're repurposing things and I'd just like to for the record um you know remind people of a couple of things that have still lingered on um and I have to credit Peter Blandino with pulling together a really nice update for the people of the city um on these matters and a couple that he missed so 128 Bay View Road um was purchased by the city in 2018 for $450,000 as was 1303 C Street for $500,000 and my recollection was that was intended to be a maritime center um my last time looking at one of those properties it was incredibly blighted i don't know where the maritime center stands we were supposed to have the police marine unit in there um and that seems to have sort of stalled at a time when there is so limited housing that to have taken two single family homes off the market is unfortunate in addition to the taxes um 662 to 674 Southern Arty this thing is terrible my goodness um that is uh on Southern Arty where we paid $4.5 million in 2021 and it seems like at this point we are just landlords for um CVS and Marne I think um 74 Greenleaf Street um that was acquired in 2017 for $700,000 i guess that houses the public buildings department but 50 Savile A was to be sold to pay for that and that never happened oh we Anyways um 797 Quinsey Shore Drive I think we can all remember the drama that took place with that uh the old Beach Comr site that was purchased in 2021 for $2.25 million after it had been sold to a developer for $1.45 million so we paid a premium for an unimproved uh piece of property there 24 26 28 Adams Street that's all um intended to be for the Adams um library but I think we're hearing that that's probably not going to be the use of that any longer um 231 Southern Arty was purchased for $300,000 that's the site of the old Burke car rental and that seems to be used for equipment storage uh 1227 Hancock Street the old Monroe building that was uh intended to be for the new city hall in Quinsey College purchased with COVID money for $15 million and again we seem to be just a landlord at that point for that property um 47 to 61 Quinsey Avenue that was purchased in 2020 for 1.5 million for the new fire headquarters and um I guess at this point 5 years later it's still in the design stage and um finally I think this is my last one oh no there's two 119 Crescent Street the site of the former St mary's Catholic School was purchased in 2019 for $2.7 million and um I I think it's used for some training but there's certainly no plans for a school yet and uh finally uh 6 to10 McGrath Highway was purchased for $1.8 million and um they we were told that it was going to be used for AA meetings and you know that that was a really important use for the community and it has since been transferred to state control so I just hope that this particular project um you know ends up being what's intended and what's presented here to this body and that they make their decision and it gets executed somewhat in line with what was planned thank you anybody else wishing to speak against okay so we'll go ahead and move on to discussion and before we do I just want to I know my colleagues know but I just want to remind my colleagues that since this is the first time we're meeting on this in committee um in finance committee that this is an initial conversation we are going to keep this in here so that we can continue to discuss this um before anything moves so again just I know my colleagues know this but just want to remind us u but are there any initial thoughts or comments from my colleagues on this particular item councelor Deona uh thank you Madam Chair so what I come to the conclusion that there's no vote tonight is that correct correct yes i I just want to talk a little bit about this particular property um you know I grew up in the neighborhood of Quinsey Point um where the former Previes Mr kelly's Sumn Bakery Mr kelly's became uh Quinsey Adams restaurant in that little neighborhood my dad still lives there today and as a child as a kid as a teenager I used to ride my bike and even walk up to the Tasos Pizza they had a nice Greekstyle pizza and they had some pinball machines and some video games and it was something I frequent quite a bit and I knew the Taso family i went to school with a couple of the kids and he was a very nice guy and um what happened in April of 20 2001 is there was a fire and the fire unfortunately um displaced them um they ended up relocating to Norwood they still exist today um they're still over there but and then for a while it sat there decrepit blighted nothing being done and then finally it was demolished a few years ago it's been sitting there on that vacant lot or blighted lot for now 24 years 24 years later here we are tonight talking about this particular property um next door 16 maybe 30 i know Mr walker talked a little bit about Coleman's which I used to buy my shell toe Adidas there when I was a kid and all my sneakers and I think he forgot that there was a blockbuster video that went there right after and then Good Health good health used to be across the street and they relocated across um but we're talking about that little basic parcel particularly there um just a little history i mean former counselor Palucci and I many years ago probably eight years ago we put forth a resolution about the Hancock Street corridor everything that went from the beginning of Hancock Street in the Quinsey Square the downtown all the way down and it extended down to this particular property we talked about and we asked the mayor we asked the administration to come forward and do anything in your power to get to to to add some value to these particular properties and here we are tonight talking about this particular property 24 years later where 8 years ago we continued to ask um the mayor to you know we got to move forward the downtown we got to get it revitalized um I wish we had done it eight years ago because we would have missed the COVID five years the rates would have been different um development probably would have been a little different but here we are tonight we're no vote tonight i just wanted to give a little history and a little backtrack of that's the economic engine that continues to moves Quinsey forward if you look what was been done down there um you can see it you can feel it you can touch it you can frequent it we've done a lot of great things down in the downtown already with the farmers market um and all the different um you know you know community events that we've done inside that fours area um we want to continue to move and move forward and everybody's got to do a little piece of the pie um as you can see I used to freak with the Naples pizza which is just recently torn down but these were blighted properties um people no longer use these these particular properties and now we have to move forward to get to another stage of it um I heard someone talk about TJ Maxx i love TJ Maxx i'm I'm sure we're going to be able to talk to a developer to tell them "Hey listen can we find a TJ Maxx in in the mile radius of this area?" I know when we were doing the Abbey we talked about a target was able to get a target um so you know you got to have a relationship with these folks and you got to be able to initiate um these different properties and having the proper retail i love the dollar store i love Dollar Tree um as well someone talked about a little earlier i love those two faces and I'm sure we'll find another location for those i I'm sure in the vicinity of it back to 1620 um you know it's it's been sitting there for 24 years how long are we going to wait how long are we you know other people are doing the property if you look and you go down to the Hannon Park Hannon Parkway you're seeing a lot of construction going on today um we put in the infrastructure of the General's Bridge and now those two to the left to the right have now been constructed they're they're constantly moving along and chugging along a nice general's Park is there this is just right across the way this is just right across the way right across the street is this 1620 property so I I know folks are a little hesitant about change but I wanted this change 8 years ago and that's why me and councelor Palucci move this forward to ask the administration and ask the mayor let's get let's get moving on these properties so we can get the downtown up and running but just just look look outside look look at Hancock Adams Common um look at all the different variety of things that we have right now this is the next piece of the puzzle and this extends it down i mean this particular property has been blight for 24 years and I'm sure there's going to be other properties around there like the Naples Pizza is going to be re revitalized as well um but this is all this is where we want the construction to be this is where we want our development to be in the downtown because this is the economic engine that is going to make us go forward and once these thing these particular properties are completed another developer or another person or another entity will come forward and do another development like particularly Quincy Center right out here but it's all a piece of the puzzle it's all a piece of the puzzle west of Chestnut was the first one and they constructed their steel and then Galvatron did their their their particular property then LBC did theirs and the Okconor did everybody did a little piece of the pie this is another part of the piece of the pie to move the city forward so I echo um what Mr walker had had mentioned earlier because he brought me back 10 years ago when everything was trying to be constructed here 2015 so I know we're not going to vote on this tonight but folks need to know that we've been sitting on this property for 24 years 24 years it's been blighted and been sat there um going to waste without tax tax funds coming into the city so I just wanted to get that out there people think that you know this is a property that hasn't been done in the last year a couple years but it's been 24 years it's mentioned so I know we're not voting on anything tonight but we got to move this city forward and and this downtown district is where we want the construction to be at we want the downtown to move forward thank you Madam Chair thank you councelor and yeah absolutely we're just looking for any initial thoughts since this is staying in committee for further deliberation so any other um initial thoughts questions comments from my colleagues okay Councelor Ash thank you Madam Chairwoman um I do you know I've gone through the LDA um I I think that the property is ripe for development um of course I would like to see the number higher i think that goes without saying um I appreciate that we're not voting on this tonight so we can go through the appraisals um I also understand you know the the difference between the points in time when the property sold and kind of the the the risks associated with each transaction uh but I do think that to be selling it at the the lower number uh does warrant a dive into the appraisal so I appreciate that we're not going to be taking a vote tonight thank you questions again initial thoughts comments from folks all right great right so we're going to move on to the next item in committee which is 2025-075 appropriation 8,250,000 for equipment and capital improvements we're going to go ahead and move to the presentation first before we open up for deliberation mr walker thank you Madam Chairwoman it is my pleasure to provide a brief overview on this year's uh relatively small capital investment um as this body knows uh in years past um these capital programs have come in with usually one maybe two major projects tied to them uh this year's a little bit different uh this is truly the bare bones basics of what the administration believes we need to keep our various departments uh up and running at a at a sustainable pace um I always go back to Council Deona occasionally we'll say you know what are the needs versus the wants um and I think the mayor and the team this year really took pains on pairing this down to the wants um I'm going to touch briefly on an overview and I'm also going to play the role of Commissioner Hines this evening uh as he is out of town on his particular projects um and we'll have a couple of the department heads come up just briefly talk about what's in their item items but as you can see from this summary um it's public buildings $3.1 million natural resources 1.6 fire department 2 million police department $800,000 public schools 750,000 and between fire police and public schools that is all transportation related those are police cruises fire engines and school buses we'll have uh Chief Kennedy speak briefly on the need for the cruiser investment chief Jackson speak briefly on the fire engine investment and uh the school department's here to answer questions i don't know that we need to they're school buses so fairly self-explanatory um but I will walk through uh Commissioner Hines just briefly for public buildings general repairs this is everything in the kitchen sink uh window replacements what anything we need to do um around various city buildings including most likely a new sound system in this room uh one of the big items you'll see here is asbestous abatement across uh our municipal buildings that's primarily schools and we've done Commissioner Hines working with the school department over the last five or so years and thanks to the help of this body just an outstanding amount of work um getting our older buildings uh rid of asbestous and that process will continue here and the last item here you'll see is city hall elevator replacement anyone who has been in that elevator knows why it needs to be replaced see some upgrades to the Thomas Grain structural mechanical systems uh a similar elevator replacement at the Lincoln Hancock school again going back to needs um these are facilities that need to be upgraded at this point in time um Department of Natural Resources I'm going to have uh recreation director who's with us tonight Chris Rooney come up and say a few words thank you council um the Department of Natural Resources the citywide playground and open space equipment uh this funding will support the replacement and upgrading of playground and open space equipment at multiple municipal parks and recreational areas across the city many of these sites contain activity structures and fixtures that are approaching the end of their functional lifespan so the proposed upgrades will focus on replacing current equipment in new installations that meet current safety and accessibility standards um the fleet modernization is allocation will be used for the acquisition of heavy heavy duty equipment specifically trucks and frontline service vehicles larger than one ton in capacity so replacement vehicles will be of the same classification and selected based on operations suitability for daily maintenance groundskeeping and site management then we have recreational vehicles in utility equipment uh we are going to request for 1/ half ton pickup truck two small utility trucks one carry all 1700 vehicle for park access um and this project is for the four vehicles to enhance mobility and operational capacity for our department and lastly the light equipment and groundskeeping tools uh this funding will support the purchase of individual use light maintenance equipment eligible items include commercial grade lawnmowers leaf blowers string trimmers small tractors and other portable tools utilized for daily maintenance of city parks and green spaces thank you uh as the fire chief's on his way up here to talk briefly about uh the engine investment I forgot to mention at the top that uh municipal finance director Eric Mason and his team are here uh you all are in receipt of the finance report on this um and he's here to answer any questions you may have relative to the the financial aspect of it good evening Madam Chair good evening counselor chief of staff Walker thank you for your consideration here to answer any questions that you might have about these trucks okay could we do would you mind if we actually went through the rest of the presentation first and then opens it up for questions or comments sorry about that she No no no worries at all thank you so what I'll do is I'll just walk through the rest of the presentation that the Thank you knowing that all the departments are here uh the police department uh as we mentioned earlier 800,000 for uh new vehicles and you can see the details on that purchase in this presentation you also have the full report in front of you and for the schools $750,000 for school buses one large bus and uh actually I'm sorry three three full-sized buses and five smaller buses and the school department is here to answer any questions anyone has on school buses and the last slide here you just see how this is all break up how this is broken up great thank you so let's go um if my colleagues will indulge me I just want to go department by department does that sound good to folks great so let's go ahead and start with public buildings um any questions comments or thoughts from my colleagues on just the public buildings section okay oh yes councelor Deona thank you Madam Chair um just real quick I'm just looking at it um 3.1 million for general repairs to firehouses schools maintenance buildings um aspesus um across Monosable buildings and city city hall elevator replacement um and then we get into um Thomas Crane Public Library and Lincoln Hancock elevator um replacements um I'm glad and happy that uh Commissioner Hines went around and did a punch list as as well as administration and the mayor to upgrade these things before it gets far behind um I see elevators in here city hall elevator replacement um I could imagine that one um but you have to get in front of some of these things and the CIP coming in front of us tonight um uh that's what we had a capital improvement plan and and when needed come in front of the the council to look for these items um uh I think it's very important to get to these these particular items before they get out of whack and and as a safety precaution um so talking about um this particular I and and Mr walker said it alluded to uh wants versus needs i'm sure that these needs uh are due and I I'm I'm I'm happy to have you guys in front of us tonight so just just an overview just on public buildings thank you Madam Chair great thank you i got any other questions or comments just on the public buildings section council Ash thank you Madam Chairwoman um I think my my question is maybe um an overall question with the CIP but I guess it it well I shouldn't say I guess it lends itself to it lends itself to specifically the public buildings with respect to say the elevator replacements um because I see here we're discuss we're looking at elevator replacements 400,000 for city hall 400,000 for Lincoln Hancock um my question is is there a cost um is there a benefit to doing a number of these similar projects at the same time and is there a um costsaving is there any way that we are saving money by say looking at all of the elevators at the same time with one contractor and in the aggregate then um saving money in the long term and if we've considered that um with with this CIP given that you know at least with public buildings a number of that a number of the issues will be common between the buildings as they get older sure through you madam chairwoman on the elevators in particular they uh they tend to be one-offs uh they're very different in in each building uh no elevator is in any building is sort of uniform so I'm not quite sure that we would benefit because you have to speck everything out um and you're not getting any economies of scale um perhaps some relative to the labor but on elevators in particular I don't see any great um difference between um doing them as they come up or in one larger package i think some of the other projects you do see some of that um the asbestous is one is certainly one um HVAC systems is certainly another and we've done a lot of that work um you see that there's there's venting system in installations here there's rooftop chiller um replacement at um the library here i think Commissioner Hines over the years has done a great job prioritizing to find those economies of scale that if we do have a batch of boilers we can come in for a batch of boilers because there might be some savings there or a batch of Hback repairs because there might be some savings from there um so in particular on these two elevator questions I think probably the the answer is not much but um it's certainly worth looking at and if we can uh add a couple more in there then we certainly would thank you great thank you councelor councelor Campbell thank you Madam Chair uh just a quick question that the stone steerway is is that that is that the whole cost or is that is there anything through CPC that's that's paying for uh part of that is that That is the whole cost okay so there's no other there is no CPC on that project okay gotcha thank you great thank you any other questions or comments on the public buildings before we move to the other departments great so let's move on to Department of Natural Resources councelor Deon thank you Madam Chair um Mr rooney thanks for coming up tonight i know you're doing a great job since you've come in the position i'm going to appreciate all your hard work and uh we really appreciate you ice skating and teaching the kids how to ice skate out there so it's a lot of fun thank you we appreciate it um citywide playground and open space equipment um you know obviously the CPC is we've done over close to close to 30 playgrounds are you going to be upgrading those particular playgrounds and all of them yes so we're going to be updating a wide range of playgrounds um a lot of the equipment from the six and seven years where we'll be replacing um from the last time warranty on this equipment is about two years um and we're in years four five and six on a lot of the equipment so it's going to be a wide range we're also going to um target you know Russell Park and Mardle Park is the smaller playgrounds that we're going to do as well i have a little ask for you um my colleague from Ward One is not here tonight um Lere um I know it's a new playground used to be the one over on the um the little side street there um and we moved it it had a lot of shade over there and I've had to ask over the years about maybe possibly getting some type of umbrella just because the hot months especially during wreck season when when the wreck leaders are out there having some type of canopy um because the sun is direct it's it's on the exist the the the old existing um basketball court it used to be so that's where it's at on in Lere if we can maybe take a look if you could take a look at some of the playgrounds that don't have shade and maybe if we can I know the new Rick the Crust Faro Center has it whereas like kind of a canopy/ umbrella type of thing and you know people can get underneath it it's just during those hot hot summer days um that it really really um comes down on them so if you can maybe take a punch list and maybe look around and see if any other playgrounds in in particular throughout the city may need those absolutely counselor i appreciate it i appreciate it um the heavy equipment the recreational stuff um uh based on what you have in house right now um will this give you the ability to actually um time management would it allow you to condense down um how much time it takes to do some of the grass cutings and all these other things yes so for the heavy equipment it is just phasing out the older equipment we have here but um like we said it's going to be the same quality equipment um it's just going to be upgraded and more fuel efficient as it is going to be the newer equipment as well what are you going to do with the existing ones that we have are you going to put them to the back end or how do you I don't ab 100% know the plan for that um that hasn't been brought to me but I think there the plan would be to get rid of them and update the whole fleet of new new vehicles i'm I'm happy to see this in front of us tonight um as you know the equipment can really bear down and be be broken i'm glad you're up here tonight so very important items thank you thank you thank you counselor councelor Divine oh yeah thank you very much for coming in tonight um on Bunker Hill Lane we have a very small little playground there is that uh included in there because that one seems to be forgotten yeah so that would be looked at if the equipment is older and if we need to upgrade any of that safety equipment we would be looking at that yes okay should I follow up to make sure it's uh Absolutely yeah just want to make sure and then um yeah great and uh this has nothing to do with that uh this but I saw a lot of trees going in today uh in Ward 4 some very big 22 25 foot tall trees super excited and uh that's part of you guys natural resources so thank you for all your hard work thank you counselor thank you counselor any other questions or comments for Mr rudy on this one all right thank you thank you let's go ahead and move on to the fire department any questions or comments from my colleagues for the chief on the fire department items councelor Divine please we'll let him catch up of course go on quick quick hi again Chief oh yeah thank you again for your considerations tonight how are you Chief thank you for coming in good how you doing uh super excited how um I've forgotten how long does it take to get these um modular fire trucks now because we were having issues before these trucks just to put it into context I know that I've been in front of you before for fire apparatus and we've talked about the extended weight times these trucks here these F brothers trucks would be available in a couple of months so the difference is uh Fros this company builds one fire truck there's no customization they just build the same exact truck every single time as opposed to us being able to sit down um with the manufacturer and spec a truck out for the city of Quinsey which is normally what we do that being said these are really nice trucks they use the same motor the same pump the same transmission that we normally put in the reason these trucks the lion share of the difference in price is in the motor this is a 9 liter motor we've been using 12 liter motors much bigger much more powerful that being said these trucks aren't underpowered the way that we spec out our trucks uh it's the best bang for your buck basically is we build our trucks to keep them on the road for 20 to 25 years we'll put the biggest engine that they're using at the time so like I said these trucks that we spec out nowadays that they're 12 L motors we tune them down so they run like these motors we're talking about tonight these 9 liter motors and then um what we'll do is we'll d-tune them in 10 or 12 years so the truck never misses a step we don't have that luxury with these Fel Brothers trucks these are just nine liter engines they'll run as 9 liter engines the entire life of the truck so these are probably 12 to 15 year trucks as opposed to 20 plus years what we normally get but they're a lot less expensive and we can still perform our mission to the citizens of Quinzy with these trucks no doubt about it there's just some differences operational that we'll have to we'll have to get used to so and we confirmed that uh we have a couple of these that Yeah y uh that's great uh I'm so happy to hear all that because uh I know it's been a nightmare for you trying to get other trucks and it keeps going longer and longer yeah uh so for the safety of uh our constituents and our our neighbors and uh all you firefighters and everybody involved and I'm happy to hear uh because you definitely do not want an old fire truck trying to come out and Yeah no I appreciate it and you know to address I heard that talked about the wants and the needs up here this is in need um you know postco this threw our replacement schedule for the apparatus way off i mean we went from getting a truck in a year to it takes four years to get a truck now through a getting these trucks um would be a huge boon for us this would kind of put us back on track this is absolutely a need this isn't a want this is kind of critical we were lucky to kind of come across these trucks so that's good and then one other thing uh somebody mentioned Crescent Street and the purchase of um the school uh I just wanted to put a plug in there that I love seeing you guys there you're almost you're there all the time you're doing safety training and uh I believe you run the academy out of there yeah i mean Crescent Street's been a huge boon for us i mean quite frankly that that has been uh we've trained so many people down there to be able to go down there and throw ground ladders wrap a hydrant we use the school to do ash training with the police like we have we've really rung the towel out on that location so that has not sat idle just doing nothing in the meantime i mean it's been a huge huge boon for us yeah I have a selfish reason too is that uh I like knowing that you guys are there because uh we had a fire around the corner on Hall Place and uh I don't think you came from there but you your men were able to put it out in uh in record time so I remember we were we were all training there that day actually companies yeah basically right across the street i feel uh I feel like we're lucky that we have you guys hanging around there you know and uh you you'll get to us quicker sorry about everybody else but that's it uh but thank you very much yeah no thank you thank you for your support councelor thank you councelor councelor Ash Madam Chairwoman's chief thank you for the u the explanation um I just want to be clear are these two engines going to be replacing current engines that are Yes in are they broken down or do they need I know so these two engines one will replace engine three at Quincsey Point the other will replace engine four at Wallist both of those trucks right now are 2007s so they're both 18 years old um which we got to think about moving on these trucks and getting rid of them nfpa after 25 years has mothball them entirely uh we're fortunate having two good mechanics that keep these trucks on the road and they get the maintenance they need when they need it so we're very lucky in the city of Quinsey to have two very capable mechanics that extend the life of these trucks but um yeah are those 2007s are those the old those the oldest trucks no so right now engine 6 is running a 2005 uh E1 so the plan is and I know this is kind of it's tough to follow I think in these terms every day so one will go to engine three one will go to engine four which would two free up two 2007s one 2007 would go to Squanum and the other would go to engine uh six so the Peninsulas would all have 2007 E1s for right now and we have other trucks on order with KME we have an engine and a ladder that will be coming in this calendar year when that engine comes in it will go to engine five and the truck that's running right now at engine five will go down to engine six the ladder truck that comes in this calendar year will go down and become ladder five the truck that's ladder five tonight will go down to engine six so engine six will be 7 and 12 years old and ladder four will be 10 so they'll be in pretty good shape down there so like I said this will kind of get us back on track with our replacement schedule these two trucks so essentially each station will have this as close to the same makeup of vehicles as as possible years models yeah making sure that you know if if each station has uh one vehicle that's 18 or 20 years old they also have some that are say seven or eight years old or or brand new and and rotating that right um the I know when we were discussing the FY26 budget um we discussed a grant really that came in to to to fund or um supplement a lot of the the new hires that the fire department was looking at yes are are there any other um potential avenues for third parties with funds to cover things like vehicles and if so have those been explored uh I don't think that they are always being explored we have about a half dozen grant writers on our job that as you know uh do a fantastic job matter of fact couple of our latest purchases the rescue and engine two were bought with grant money right now I don't think that vehicles are something that we can follow up on but they're always scouring looking for that okay and then my um my final question chief I hear um often um you know we the ward counselors or dare I say all the counselors we often hear one of the big issues in the city is parking and people will say in case of an emergency a firetruck could never get down my street because I've got cars on each side of the road um are you finding or seeing that maybe um emergency vehicles are being designed differently to combat that even maybe it's not mun maybe it's not municipality based but nationwide statewide you know with the congestion in the cars um whatever side of the argument you fall on and with that particular argument are you finding that emergency vehicles are being constructed differently or maybe more narrow so for our purposes here in Quinsey it's interesting that you bring that up people are going to think that we spoke prior to this meeting so that's a very good point so we we normally keep the trucks at 96 in you have a a choice between 96 and 100 mhm you can go 94 but then you start to sacrifice compartment space so we usually keep the trucks at 96 in and we'll try to 45 the front bumpers for these squeeze through accidents and on corners uh believe it or not that goes a long way towards minimizing uh swapping papers at the scene by 45 on the front bumper so we do keep the trucks as small as possible and these Felts Brothers trucks that we're talking about the cab is 96 in and the body is 100 okay so no I know I I see uh I see your team uh on Mound Street they often uh some some of your department they practice the turns down there so that's always fascinating because you you don't think it and so it works but you think it will initially we'll make it work so one of the big differences with these Fel Brothers trucks as opposed to the the KMEs that we customize we put an intake on the front bumper usually when we get the KMES and we customize and the reason for that is when I say a front intake the water will go right from the hydrant through a hose right into the front bumper the intake on the front bumper reason we put that there is if trucks are on both sides of the streets sometimes we can't access the side intakes for the truck so this opens up the front with these Felts Brothers trucks we don't have that as an option they have side intakes only uh we'll we'll get by this is how we we operated like this for a millennia we'll just go back to operating like that with these trucks uh that's one of the things one of the big differences with these trucks as compared to the KMES got it thank you thank you counselor any other questions or comments for our chief here yes councelor Deon thank you Madam Chair just Chief Jackson just want to thank you for coming in tonight giving us a breakdown of where these these trucks are going to go to with the new new two vehicles coming in um I also see you know medical kits and defibrillators um fire hoses and other outfitting equipment uh procurement so I just want to say thank you for all your hard work i'm wishing you safety for all firefighters throughout the throughout the summer as well yeah thank you and and just continue to do what you're doing you guys are doing a great job got guys and women as well so thank you yeah thank you for your support thank you all of you for your support over the years it's made a huge difference thank you thank you counselor any other questions or comments great Chief thank you again for your time we appreciate it thank you have a good night you too let's move on to the police department councelor Dona good evening chief Kennedy uh thank you for coming in tonight um I know previously I've been on the council now for 10 years and previously um um Chief Keenan would come in and we'd go through the particular items like this i see the 10 new Ford Police Interceptor U utility vehicles it was kind of a question I asked a little earlier um are you going to be outfitting these and moving them u some of the other vehicles to other routes or different fleets how how is this particular uh operation going to happen yeah so um council so essentially we have um 18 real frontline patrol cruisers in service there's uh 15 sectors in the city uh and then another three frontline patrol supervisors uh so what we generally try and do is turn those frontline cars over every year or two usually every two years so this appropriation would allow us to get 10 or 11 probably 10 new frontline cars and an administrative detective car y um the detective cars obviously last a lot longer uh you know we have detective cars on the road right now that are 12 years old uh but the frontline cars are going 24/7 365 so uh it's not only the the miles that we put on them but it's the engine hours because they're constantly running you know they're running computers and everything like that so um we we try and flip them over uh in the good times um you know every every two years or so to keep them to keep them going the other vehicles we have and we have uh about 129 marked and unmarked cars um and 14 police motorcycles that we try and purchase um through Department of Justice grants so uh generally those don't come out of our budget we do pretty well getting grants for those and also our specialty vehicles like our SWAT vehicles accident reconstruction vehicles and um the uh command post that we purchased were all uh urban area security initiative money federal money that we were able to take in so this appropriation here is basically for the frontline vehicles well like like the fire department it's public safety i want to thank all the men and women um the police department for all their hard work that they're doing i wish them the safe safety over the summer as well um thank you Chief you've done a great job thank you thanks appreciate it thank you Council Brown and particularly those who are are riding on motorcycles please extend our our hope that they remain safe council me hi Chief thanks for coming in just for the public that's watching can you just go over some of the equipment these modern cruisers carry yeah so I mean the um the frontline cars will be carrying uh you know less less than lethal equipment the 40mm launchers uh they'll carry ballistic shields that'll stop handgun rounds um you know uh helmets ballistic helmets carry obviously the first aid kits oxygen uh the the uh the laptop that officers can actually uh you know write their reports and everything right from the car uh the communication system the you know the lights the siren all that stuff but um you know I think in in here it talked about ballistic glass we don't have um you know the the ballistic rated glass i think uh there's only a couple of departments i think NYPD Chicago PD has the the reinforced glass and uh thankfully um we we don't need that uh here thank you Chief and everybody's all trained to use all that equipment i'm sorry sir and everybody's all trained to use that equipment it's pretty amazing yeah so we're uh that's a it's a work in progress to make sure that especially with the less than lethal equipment that the officers we've identified um uh meet the post requirements in the criminal justice training council requirements to maintain their certification and that so it's been uh it pays off pays pays hu huge dividends and the need to replace these cruises on a regular basis is they're being operated 24 hours a day pretty much yeah it's it's it's it's huge and we're uh we're very lucky in the city that we're able to do that a lot of departments aren't able to do that um and uh I hear some horror stories of people who are you know some departments are driving cruisers that are uh basically not safe to be on the road uh and we're very very fortunate in the city that you know with the support of the mayor and the city council that we're able to replenish our fleet and keep our vehicles running safely thank you Chief thank you any other counselors done move on to um Thank you that's what I got for chugging my water so quickly chief thank you so much we're going to go ahead and move on to uh public schools now thank you thank you so for public schools any questions or comments from my colleagues for the public schools portion councelor Deon go ahead uh thank you Madam Chair um public schools I see a large school bus procurement here um three full-size 77 passenger buses um is it rep Oh good evening council good evening good to see you tonight um public safety wise how are we doing with our fleet of buses out there particularly right now so our fleet is in very good shape um we're asking for these buses for a couple reasons we do obviously um have um particularly the lodge buses that are getting older and absolutely need to be cycled out we have about 12 current lodge buses right now four of which are really in need of being cycled out that's why we're asking for the three large buses tonight we have 25 minibuses um we're asking for five additional mini buses again for um cycling in new ones and cycling out old ones but also to expand our routes so that we can um cut back on using outside vendors which are much more expensive um so in the end it should be cost effective for us to have these new minibuses so that we can eliminate more and more outside vendors which will save us money these new new buses that we have on online here that we're going to be possibly purchasing with the approval tonight um do they have any other extra safety measures um so all of our buses now are integrated buses the mini buses in particular um so that they can accommodate all of our special education students um right now we're looking at and we have already in the fleet uh wheelchair vans which are much more uh user friendly for our wheelchair students uh so we would not be asking for a wheelchair modification for the mini buses we would be asking that those buses all be integrated for our special ed special education students and that our wheelchair wheelchair accessibility students would be driven by uh vans which we have in our fleet very much needed i I'm pretty sure you made a punchline of what we needed and these are definitely needs that we have absolutely yes we absolutely need them for this i appreciate it um good to see all of you at the graduations uh Quinsey High School and North Quinsey High School was beautiful out i'm glad I'm very happy that you continued the North Quinsey outdoor yes um it allowed all the families you know some families had eight people and only been able to have two inside the inside the gym so want to thank you and kudos to all the graduates that have just graduated Quincy and North Quinsey High School and I am here tonight with Dr perkins the assistant superintendent and Mr molany the senior director of business affairs what a crew thank you thank you counselor councelor Vine are uh do these new school buses they they have seat belts they the mini buses are integrated seats so yes they would have um seat belts but the big ones no the large buses are by regulation um should not have seat belts by regulation oh okay yeah I didn't know that i was wondering uh okay and how are we doing with drivers uh we're doing great um we settled the contract as you know and based on our new rate which is the highest definitely on the southshore probably including Boston as well so we are attracting new drivers we have 10 new drivers in the queue now so we probably need another 10 and we'll be uh right back where we were pre-COVID which is great oh good so you're looking for 10 more we're always looking for drivers drivers and monitors there looking paying attention tell your friends highest paid in the area right for it's a great job yeah good glad to hear it thank you thank you for your support thank you counselor any other questions or comments from my colleagues for the public school items great all right thank you all thank you Sam really appreciate you coming thank you appreciate it all right so that's it for each of the sections but are there any overall questions or comments from my colleagues on this um the particular order that's in um finance right now councelor Deona thank you Madam Chair i want to I want to thank thank you for allowing each department to come up and and go over the punch line the punch um uh the different items that were in the budget uh that is asked for tonight i want to thank the city for for going around and and seeing what we really needed rather than all the wants and the needs and u really coming back to this to the city council um with this appropriation um I think it's very important to get in front of these uh particular items and um as you can see I I've been through the capital improvement plan um appropriations over the years and you wouldn't be coming in front of us unless you needed these things so with that I'd like to make a motion to approve okay there's a motion to approve in committee we don't need a second but any other questions or comments from my colleagues overall questions or comments from my colleagues before we move on okay seeing none all in favor i Any oppose all right so with that we're going to go ahead and close the finance committee meeting at 8:34 p.m and reopen the city council meeting um Madame Clerk uh second item on the agenda or number one I should say 202581 an appropriation for 2,611,94.96 for year end transfers okay for the typical year and transfers Mr walk I'll go to you first before I open it up just briefly uh Madam President the the rest of the items almost all the items on the agenda are the traditional year-end closeouts um Director Mason his team are here to answer any questions you have i know he worked uh with Madam Auditor over the course of the last couple days um to get to a good place with these numbers but I just want to give everyone a heads up that it it it looks long but it's really just the traditional June uh wrap-up stuff that we do sounds good thank you okay do I have a motion for this item motion to by councelor Harris do we have a second second by councelor Dona any questions or comments on this item okay madam Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine Council Dona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes number two on the agenda please 2025 082 and appropriation motion to approve by councelor Brona do we have a second i have a second and then on the motion yes please go ahead councelor i'm sorry so we did you make the motion he made the motion oh councelor Harrison sorry I thought it was you okay thank you go ahead on the motion uh I I Thank you Madam Chair i just want to say um you know Karen Tul our administrator for the community preservation and her staff has done a great job this year particularly uh looking up items and and getting back to the to to the committee so I just want to say a shout out to to to Karen Oul for doing such a great job this particular year in the community appreciation thank Thank you thank you any other questions or comments on this item okay so we have a motion to approve by councelor Harris second by councelor Deona madam claw the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Debora yes councelor Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes number three please 202583 an app and appropriation motion to by councelor Harris seconded by councelor Bona any questions or comments on this item councelor Bona please thank you Madam Chair just want to say um in my 10th year as being the city council representative for the community preservation committee i just want to give a shout out to the committee for all their hard work um led by Larry Leuzo our chairman uh Cole Barry John Brenahan uh Connie Driscoll Kristen Powers Elaine O'Donnell and Tony Richie some of them have been on for many many years and all their hard work um the community preservation committee um going out to these different particular projects and taking looks at them um on weekends at different times of the year um this appropriation obviously uh the historical preservation fund um you know the open space fund as well as the recreation projects fund um great year a lot of great projects thank you for the detailed lists um that we have in front of us tonight um that is in front of us and I just want to thank um the entire committee um for for working hard at this particular uh these these these funded projects so it's going to come a long way and uh I wish everybody that's approved for these projects to uh do a great job with with the the preservations so thank you thank you councelor any other questions or comments on this item okay madam cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine Councelor Deona yes councelor Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes number four please 2025 084 an appropriation for 950,000 motion to approve by councelor Harris we have a second second by councelor Campbell any questions or comments on this item okay madam clerk could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Deana yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members item passes thank you number five please 202585 an appropriation for 33 motion to move by council Harris we have a second second by councelor Deon questions or comments on this item okay Madam Cler could you call the role councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Debora yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members item passes number six please number six 2025 086 an appropriation for 1,600 motion to approve by councel Harris seconded by councelor Campbell any questions or comments madam Cler could you call the role councelor Ash councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deana yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members item passes number seven please 202587 an appropriation for 300,000 motion to approve by councelor Harris seconded by councelor Campbell any questions or comments okay could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deborna yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes seven members item passes number eight please appropriation Mass General Law Chapter 44 section 53E and a half setting the limits of what may be expended motion to approve by councelor Harris seconded by Councelor Campbell any questions or comments go ahead councelor Ash thank you uh Madam Chairwoman um what what are the differences in these amounts as compared to last year uh if any um um if uh director Mason thank you good evening council just appeared this right right when I had a hard time for me to sneak around i'm kind of looking is there a uniform increase here across department can you walk me through what this what the spreadsheet actually is no so there's one addition year-over-year counselor and that would be the addition of a Furnisburg golf course revolving fund for building maintenance um it's I believe it's the third to the bottom on the sheet okay um now that addition what's important the Furnburg Golf Course generates a lot more revenue than the $100,000 cap so as part of a special condition to that revolving fund is anything over $100,000 in the fund automatically goes back to the general fund um so that's the only new addition every single member is the the same year over year except the far right column instead of saying through fiscal 25 through fiscal 26 thank you thank you Director Mim also councelor Ash yes great thank you any other questions or comments on this item great madam could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Debona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes seven members thank you item passes number nine please 2025 089 an appropriation for 1,430,000 motion to approve by councelor Harris second by councelor Dona any questions or comments could you call the roll please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Devine yes council Deana yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes seven members thank you number nine please madam clerk approp uh 202589 appropriation for 1,430,000 motion to by council Harris seconded by Councelor Campbell any questions or comments madam Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Devon yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members thank you number 10 please appropriation for 997,652 for motion by councelor Harris seconded by councelor Dona any questions or comments on this item and madam cler could you call the role councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Dana yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten seven members item passes number 11 please 202591 an appropriation for 997,000 motion to approve by councelor Harris second by councelor Deona any questions or comments on the item madam Cler could you call the role councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Deona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes seven members okay item passes number 12 please 2025 092 an appropriation for 3,400 motion to approve by council Harris second by councelor Dona any questions or comments seeing none council councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Debona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes item pass is number 13 please number 13 202593 an appropriation for $1 million for more motion to approve by council Harris second by councelor Deon any questions or comments seeing none could you call the role please councelor Ash councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deborah Councelor Harris yes councelor Leang yes council Mitten yes seven members item passes number 14 please madam clerk 2025 094 order disposition of land 51 Parker Street okay do we have a motion on this item so do we that is that coming out of do we put this into the ordinance committee so from my understanding this does not require um uh moving it into ordinance it's not no and we can certainly have a discussion on it i just need a motion first and then we can open it up for discussion i'll make a motion thank you so we have a motion to approve by council Harris we have a second so we can open up for discussion council Deona thank you mr timmons thank you for being here this evening any questions for Mr timonss on this item should I take a moment and explain um these two orders are quite related thank you Madam President um regrettably both ward counselors are not here tonight um one of the orders uh is for property in house neck and the other one is on Parker Street um I'll start with 094 which is a property located on Parker Street that's just off of Granite Street um and appropriately named as much of the land up there is Granite Ledge and the um property owner who lives at 51 Parker came forward looking to buy the city-owned lot that's next door to his lot um it's pretty much entirely a granite ledge um slab and um the property owner has some plans he wants to try to fit a garage in on his property and with the addition of this land next door it'll be able to do so so he came forward last year toward the end of the summer uh to speak to the mayor's office and um we thought it might be well when it was given to me to review uh desirable project cuz if you know that neighborhood Parker Street it's very narrow um and getting more off- streetet parking would be a a positive outcome so this particular individual lives in the home is um proposing to purchase the property and he'd like to develop it with a garage and he may put an accessory dwelling unit on the second floor of the garage but he has to see how everything will work up there so the plan is if this were to be approved tonight that he would go forward with plans over the summer with an architect and developed the lot um uh I respectfully on behalf of the executive branch recommend that we go forward with this um because this individual has worked pretty hard on it uh he understands there's limits to what he can do the council order is tailored so it's a very limited uh development of a garage accessory to the existing home and he could put an ADU there which wouldn't be a bad thing given the location here at Quinsey Center the process we went through is we check with the engineering department they conduct a review and then um working with the assessor's office we come up with a value range so that's uh order 2594 um and then order number 25 sorry Mr chairman if we could just uh stick to 94 first as that's the one that um currently has a motion to approve so if we could just discuss that and then we'll keep you updated on the next one um any questions or comments for my colleagues on uh 2025-09451 Parker Street okay just before we move to it I just have a quick question this is not the first time that we've had you know sliver of properties that aren't developable by the city given the size that you know are a budding residents and and they just want to take it to be part of their property right i mean I think I recall seeing these items in front of us before um where it's a fairly straightforward process sliver of land right owned by the city still but just given the layout right it's it's really used for either leaving it as is or residents can sort of include it into their property you're correct counselor um if we were to do this on a more regular basis we'd use bid processes and open it up to the neighborhood but in both these occasions that's why we're segueing to the next one because they're very similarly related uh this parcel of land that we're selling is basically undevelopable but this property owner um wants to try to do something he's the only one well he and his wife they're the only ones who could make any use of the property and um they can do everything without impacting the properties on the other side of the ledge so you're you're correct that we've done it before but it's pretty rare because we limit it to occasions where the lots are only useful to one property owner that's what I thought okay just want to make sure no thank you um again any other questions your thoughts yes Council Harris please and and just to make it clear they have to still go in front of the zoning board and am I correct they they don't have a free reign of being able to build whatever they want sizewise or No they don't they still have to go in front of the zoning board correct they do not because this would be a by right we're limiting in the council order i understand your concern i'm sorry I didn't make this clear but the council order really limits what can be done it says a garage ancillary to the residential use so very good uh it might be a Taj Mahal of garages that's okay that's as bad as it'll get all right that's great thank you great question thank you any other questions or comments or thoughts okay Madam Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell council Divine yes council Deborn yes council Harris yes council Leang yes council Mitten yes six members item passes number 15 please oh can I just read the order of course 2025 095 disposition of land 31 Spring Street okay i'm just seeking a motion so that we can have a discussion on this motion to approve motion to approve okay motion to approve do we have a second second second by councel Harris okay mr shimons if you could thank you um this particular property is located at the end of Spring Street um the property owner um I I had suggested to him that he not go forward with this because he can essentially enjoy the land as he wishes because he's it down that end of the street um but it's oceanfront property the city of Quinsey owns all the land and it's owned open space they own the uh I shouldn't say they we the city owns about six lots that have 50 foot of frontage and then go out it's it includes the beaches and flats in the area so in this particular instance what this um property owner is looking to do is buy the 50 foot wide uh lot of land right next door to his home to create a little buffer from the space next to him it'll give him an ability to do a little more with his own lot if he cares to because he'll now own this additional 50-ft strip but there can be no development on this particular 50-foot strip this one's restricted to a no development and the property's owned open space thank you and I do see here it says expressly there cannot be any development here of any kind of nature so thank you for clarifying that um any questions or comments from my colleagues on this particular item okay see oh councelor Ash does the Thank you um thank you Solicitor Timmons quick question if if this lot is is acquired with the purchase and then thiso this particular property owner uh would does he have to go and have the lots joined at some point i I.e the lot that his home is presently on and then this new lot that's being acquired uh they'll merge by operation of law i mean he technically if he were to sell um there might be some question but the way this is laid out it's all cookie cutter lots so I suspect that um based on how we identify this and everything um for the assessor's purposes they'll merge at the registry the lots will merge by operational law so if he needs to do a new plan he'll have to do so at his own expense does this language survive that merger though yes okay thank you thank you councelor any other questions or comments for my colleagues right madam Cler could you call the role please council Ash yes councelor Campbell council Divine yes council Dana yes council Harris yes council Lee Yang yes council Mitten yes six members okay item passes thank you Simmons appreciate thank you thank you next on the agenda please Madam Clerk 2024 157 correction of municipal broadband project use of chapter 149A construction manager at risk delivery method thank you and I just seek a motion and or a second so that we can have a discussion on this item motion to approve okay council Harris second by councelor Deona um Mr walker if you could just walk through this sure this is through you Madam President uh this is an order originally passed unanimously by this body in December i believe this goes back to uh councelor Kaine and the administration's efforts uh to set up the municipal broadband network um we intended to apply for chapter 149A design build um the order mentioned the original order mentioned both design build and construction manager at risk upon review the IG's office which must approve our entry into the program even though it's dimminimous in nature they requested us to change the language to eliminate reference to construction manager at risk and just stick with design build even though technically they're the same thing okay so this is a housekeeping correction that we on this item okay thank you for walking through that any questions or comments from my colleagues on this item i know President Kaine um has been spearheading this and I know that he's not here today but I'm sure we'll be very grateful that we're continuing to move this along uh very aggressively and proactively so with that Madam Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Debana yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes number 17 please 202596 a gift for feed motion to approve by councelor Harris do we have a second second by councelor Campbell any questions or comments to send a letter thank you of course thank you Council Harris any questions or comments on this no madam Cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes council Deborn yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes moving on to the approval of previous meeting minutes of June 2nd do I have a motion to approve by councelor Deona seconded by councelor Campbell any questions on the meeting minutes no okay all those in favor no any oppose all right the meetings pass meeting minutes passed thank you communications and reports from the mayor other city officers and city boards madam clerk please yes um I do have a traffic request to refer to ordinance committee for advertising ward 6 council Harris at handicap parking at 301 Billing Street and a utility utility request to refer to public works committee for schedule and advertising grant a location National Grid Verizon Washington Street at Southern and Beacon Street thank you Madam Clerk unfinished business and proceeding meeting seeing none reports of committees councilor Deona thank you thank you Madam Chair um like to take something out of the ordinance committee um a couple items that were passed and positive recommendation um 2025-058 ordinance amending zone zoning section 8.5 transit oriented district we had a positive recommendation so um motion to approve thank you motion to approve second by councelor Divine madam cler could call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deorna yes councelor Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members item passes also u positive recommendation on uh 2025-068 order amending housing development zone and plan HDIP uh we had positive recommendation so motion to approve motion to approve by councelor Dona second by councelor Harris madam cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten seven members thank you thank you and councel stay with you for uh finance finance so finance committee items passed uh we had a positive recommendation and uh in the finance committee um for 2025-075 earlier tonight appropriation of $8.25 million for equipment and capital improvements um the CIP plan so um motion to approve thank you i have a motion to approve do I have a second seconded by councelor Campbell um any questions or comments on this item no okay could you call the role councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Dona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members okay item passes any other items in committee council Deon that is it for finance and ordinance thank you for taking care of both of them no problem thank you yes i'm sorry i think I missed you earlier Councelor Ash sorry thank you Madam Chairwoman um I just want to be clear um for the ordinance 2025-068 amending housing development zon and plan that that is being uh voted on as amended correct yes thank you for clarifying that absolutely thank you thank you Councelor Ash okay and out of public works committee we're going to go to Chair Harris thank you thank you Council Leang uh earlier this evening we held a a public works committee meeting for 220 2025-078 granted location grid Verizon Granite Street at Walter Hannon Parkway motion to approve we have a motion to approve we have a second second by councelor Bron madam cl please councelor Ash yes council Campbell yes councelor Divine yes council Deona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members thank you item passes we also ha uh held a meeting uh public hearing on 2025-079 grant for location national grid Verizon Elm Street and Edwards Street um positive recommendation pause the recommendation on committee motion to approve do you have a second second by councelor Campbell madam cler could you call the role please councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes councelor Divine yes councelor Deona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mittton yes seven members thank you item passes and we had uh the final one is 2025-080 grant of location national grid Verizon Quinsey A and Fax and Park Road pause of recommendation from the public works committee thank you pause recommendation motion to approve we have a second second by councelor Deon madam cler could you call the role councelor Ash yes councelor Campbell yes council Divine yes council Dona yes council Harris yes council Leang yes councelor Mitten yes seven members thank you thank you thank you Mr chairman for council okay moving on from reports of committees to presentation of petitions memorials and remmonstrants council Dona please nobody has anything okay thank you Madam Chair uh I just want to thank um the city of Quinsey for a phenomenal Flag Day celebration um this past weekend on Saturday um the the weather held off and we were able to get the the parade in and the celebration afterwards uh big kudos to the flag day um you know um committee for from bringing in some beautiful marching bands and some floats and all the kids um youth groups and uh the scouts um and then you know our our Irish teners um Ronan Tanny singing um at the festivities before the fireworks went off um it was a special special night special day for the city of Quinsey 400th anniversary so just want to say everybody that was involved um with the particular um night day uh the preparation for it the beautiful red white and blues throughout the city of Quinsey um just want to say kudos to the entire city it's it's something to be proud of that we were part of this so thank you thank you okay any other presentations and petitions memorials or monstrance okay motions orders and resolutions scheduling of committee meetings and public hearings okay our next meeting will be Monday September 8th and with that do I have a motion to adjurnn motion to journ by council Harris we have a second second by councelor Deon all those in favor all right meeting adjourned at Did I make it to 9 9:01 i was so close thank you all [Music]