City Council
City Council
Mon, June 22, 2026
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summaryAI-generated
Quincy City Council — June 22, 2026
This was a lengthy session that combined an Oversight Committee hearing, a Rules Committee meeting, an Ordinance Committee meeting, and the regular City Council meeting. The evening included a detailed administration briefing on the Council on Aging fraud case, passage of three salary-related ordinances, a transparency ordinance, and a response to an Open Meeting Law complaint. The meeting was also marked by a disruptive incident in which a city employee in the audience was removed after making personal remarks directed at councilors.
Oversight Committee: Council on Aging Fraud Investigation (Order 2026-056)
Chief of Staff Chris Walker, Police Chief Kennedy, Municipal Finance Director Paul DiBarbara, and Treasurer-Collector Molly Smith briefed the council on the theft and federal prosecution of former Council on Aging Director Thomas Clasby, who was indicted in January 2025 on charges of embezzlement, mail fraud, wire fraud, and interstate transportation of stolen property.
Timeline: Walker first learned of potential misconduct from a COA employee on April 16, 2024. Full documentation was provided at a second meeting on April 18th. That same evening, Mayor Koch directed Walker to contact the police chief and city solicitor. Clasby was placed on administrative leave the morning of April 19th. The FBI joined the investigation in May 2024 after a Quincy detective assigned to an FBI task force flagged the case following media coverage. Clasby was removed from his position on May 17, 2024, and formally indicted January 8, 2025. He pleaded guilty and was ordered at sentencing last week to repay approximately $136,000 to the city.
Scope of fraud: Councilor Riley noted that a forensic review identified 262 suspect transactions totaling approximately $329,000, far exceeding the roughly $36,000 to which Clasby pleaded guilty. The scheme involved a fictitious New York consulting firm (Celtic Safety Consultants), cleaning companies performing no city work, and excessive towing charges from a single vendor. Walker and Treasurer Smith noted that the consulting firm had a federal tax ID and was registered in New York — part of the fraud — and that most other vendors appeared to be unwitting participants.
Remedial actions: Treasurer Smith described a new citywide revenue turnover policy published in October 2024, including a $500 cash-in-office threshold, at least weekly bank deposits, department-level cash handling policies, and annual on-site audits of all revenue-collecting departments. DiBarbara described the existing multi-step Munis requisition and purchase order approval process, noting that the Quincy Fire Department is currently the only department using fully electronic invoice attachment in Munis, with citywide rollout under consideration.
Council questions and concerns: Councilor Riley pressed for a formal fraud policy (the administration acknowledged none exists beyond what Massachusetts General Law requires), a third-party whistleblower hotline (described as still under consideration), mandatory fraud training (not currently required), and expanded electronic record-keeping. Councilor McKee raised the lack of monitoring of revenue trends over time and questioned whether the gradual decline in cash deposits from the COA would have been caught earlier under current systems. Smith acknowledged the difficulty of tracking small revenue streams across a $500 million operation. Councilor Mahoney raised questions about employee bonding for those transporting cash (Smith acknowledged her staff is bonded but expressed uncertainty about other departments), and about connections among individuals involved in the case — remarks that drew an objection from Walker. A city employee in the audience, identified as purchasing agent Kathleen Logan, verbally interjected during the hearing and was removed by Quincy Police after the chair called a recess. Council President Jacobs apologized for the incident and called it out of character.
Councilor Yuan raised a broader concern about a culture of intimidation in city government, citing his experience gathering petition signatures in 2024 when city employees — including a firefighter — were afraid to sign publicly. Walker rejected the characterization, saying Clasby's manipulation was the act of one bad actor and not reflective of the administration's culture.
No vote was taken; this was an informational oversight hearing.
Oversight Committee: Quincy Housing Authority Board Appointment Process Review (Orders 2026-100 and 2026-101)
Councilor Jacobs reported that documentation requested from the administration in March regarding two QHA board appointments — Timothy Baker (at-large) and John Del Carly (tenant representative) — has still not been provided, three months later. Walker acknowledged the delay, noting that a formal council order filed the previous week is now under legal review and the administration expects to respond in the fall.
Jacobs pressed for one specific document immediately: the required letter to tenant organizations notifying them of the expiring tenant representative seat, as mandated by M.G.L. Chapter 121B, Section 5. Walker said he believed that letter could be provided the following day. Jacobs noted that if no such letter was sent, the 90-day waiting period for tenant nominations would need to restart promptly to bring the city into compliance with state law before fall.
Order 2026-101, a non-binding resolution asking the mayor to consider appointing a family housing resident to one of the at-large QHA board seats (in addition to the existing elderly housing tenant representative), was advanced to the full council agenda without a committee vote and passed later in the evening without recorded dissent.
Rules Committee: Transparency Ordinance (Order 2026-006)
The committee considered Councilor Yuan's ordinance requiring that supplemental materials (slide decks, reports, memos, etc.) be posted publicly at least 48 hours before any City Council meeting, and prohibiting a vote on any matter at the same meeting it is first presented.
After discussion, Councilor Yuan moved to amend Section 5 (the no-first-presentation-vote rule) to apply only to ordinances, contracts, and other "dispositive" matters — removing proposals, orders, and resolutions from the restriction to preserve flexibility for time-sensitive directives. Councilor Ash suggested and the committee accepted replacing "substantive" with "dispositive" for greater legal precision. The ordinance was assigned to Chapter 19, Section 9 of the city code.
Vote (as amended, committee): 5–0 (Ash, Hubley, Riley, Yuan, McKee all yes). Passed to full council with a favorable recommendation.
Full council vote: 8–1 (DiBona no).
Open Meeting Law Complaint (Late Item)
Council President Mahoney presented a complaint filed June 21, 2026 by Leah Del Gloria, alleging that Councilor McKee's distribution of proposed ordinance amendments to the full council via the clerk's office — before a public meeting — constituted an improper deliberation outside a posted meeting.
Mahoney reviewed the materials and found no evidence that councilors had exchanged opinions, debated merits, or reached consensus through the email distribution. Councilor McKee addressed the complaint directly, citing a 2018 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court opinion supporting the simultaneous public and council distribution of documents prior to a meeting as consistent with the Open Meeting Law's transparency goals. She also noted that the specific amended language referenced in the complaint was ultimately not used — the final amendments came from the city solicitor.
Vote: Council found no violation and authorized the council president to respond to the Secretary of State's office. 8–0–1 (DiBona absent from vote per transcript; Jacobs abstained or not recorded; Ryan yes).
Salary Ordinances (Orders 2026-029, 2026-030, 2026-031)
The council passed three ordinances rolling back salary-related changes enacted by the previous council in 2024. All were described by sponsors as housekeeping to clear the existing ordinances from the books, with a commitment to hold data-driven public discussions on appropriate salary levels beginning in September 2026.
Order 2026-029 amended the mayoral salary ordinance to remove the $285,000 figure (which Mayor Koch never received) and restore the current salary of $159,430.
Vote: 8–1 (DiBona no, citing the mayor's own $225,000 proposal already on file as Order 2026-012).
Order 2026-030 amended the city council salary ordinance, returning the listed salary from $44,500 to $29,800. Because of conflict-of-interest law, this change cannot take effect for sitting councilors and will apply beginning January 2028 at the start of the next term.
Vote: 9–0 (DiBona switched to yes after receiving assurances the $225,000 mayoral salary discussion would occur in September).
Order 2026-031 deleted the provision for automatic annual CPI-linked raises for elected officials that had been added in 2024.
Vote: 9–0.
Solicitor Timmons confirmed that the Quincy Retirement Board calculates pension benefits based on actual compensation received, not the ordinance figure — meaning the rollback carries no pension implications for the mayor.
Auditor Powers Ordinance (Late Item)
A previously drafted ordinance strengthening the city auditor's powers, which had been held up due to a need to place it in the correct section of the municipal code, was approved as amended.
Vote: 8–1 (DiBona not recorded as yes; all others yes).
Key Takeaways
COA fraud findings: The administration presented a detailed timeline of the Clasby embezzlement case but acknowledged gaps including no formal fraud policy, no mandatory fraud training, no third-party whistleblower hotline, and incomplete bonding of cash-handling employees — all areas the council signaled it intends to push for improvement.
Mayor's and council salaries reset: All three 2024 salary increase ordinances were effectively undone; the council will begin a fresh, data-driven salary discussion in September with a stated ceiling of $225,000 for the mayor (his own proposal on file).
Transparency ordinance enacted: The new Chapter 19, Section 9 ordinance requires 48-hour public posting of all supplemental council materials and prohibits same-night votes on ordinances and contracts — a significant procedural reform championed by Councilor Yuan.
QHA appointment process unresolved: Three months after the council requested documentation on two QHA board appointments, nothing has been provided; the administration committed to resume the process in the fall and to produce the required tenant-notification letter within days.
Disruption by city employee: Purchasing agent Kathleen Logan was removed from the hearing by Quincy Police after making personal remarks toward councilors — an incident the council chair said was inconsistent with her character and which drew pointed comments about the administration's responsiveness to council oversight.
AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.
What happened at this meeting
2026-006 - Ordinance/Rules - Safeguarding Transparency, Public Access to Councillor Mahoney Information, and Democratic Participation in City Council Councillor Jacobs Proceedings Councillor McKee Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
# Summary: Ordinance 2026-006 - Safeguarding Transparency and Public Access to Councillor Information
Councillor Yuen presented Ordinance 2026-006 to safeguard transparency and public access to city council information, requiring supplementary materials and meeting documents to be posted on the website at least 48 hours before meetings. During committee discussion, Councillor Mahoney proposed an amendment to Section 5 limiting the prohibition on first presentation voting to ordinances and contracts only, allowing flexibility for routine orders and resolutions; this amendment was supported by Councillor Hibily and passed. The committee ultimately voted unanimously to remove proposals, orders, and resolutions from the restriction list, keeping only ordinances and contracts subject to the same-night voting prohibition. Councillor McGee reported the Rules Committee's positive recommendation, and the full Council voted unanimously to accept the ordinance as amended, which will be added as a new chapter in the city code under the city council rules section. The discussion also surfaced broader concerns about documentation and compliance, with councillors pressing for immediate production of required state-mandated notifications to tenant agencies and questioning the administration's appointment confirmation process for lacking adequate background information and CVs.
Councillor Yuen presented Ordinance 2026-006 to safeguard transparency and public access to city council information, requiring supplementary materials and meeting documents to be posted on the website at least 48 hours before meetings. During committee discussion, Councillor Mahoney proposed an amendment to Section 5 limiting the prohibition on first presentation voting to ordinances and contracts only, allowing flexibility for routine orders and resolutions; this amendment was supported by Councillor Hibily and passed. The committee ultimately voted unanimously to remove proposals, orders, and resolutions from the restriction list, keeping only ordinances and contracts subject to the same-night voting prohibition. Councillor McGee reported the Rules Committee's positive recommendation, and the full Council voted unanimously to accept the ordinance as amended, which will be added as a new chapter in the city code under the city council rules section. The discussion also surfaced broader concerns about documentation and compliance, with councillors pressing for immediate production of required state-mandated notifications to tenant agencies and questioning the administration's appointment confirmation process for lacking adequate background information and CVs.
2026-029 – Ordinance – Repeal of Mayors Raise (Ordinance# 2024-055) Councillor McKee Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
# Summary: 2026-029 – Ordinance – Repeal of Mayor's Raise
Councillor McKee moved to accept ordinance 2026-029 to repeal the mayor's $285,000 salary established in 2024-055, setting it instead to the current amount of $159,243 as a bookkeeping measure. Councillor McKee emphasized this is the first step to clear the books, with a commitment to return in September 2026 to discuss the mayor's proposed $225,000 salary alongside comparative data and broader salary discussions for all elected officials. Solicitor Timmons clarified that the Council has clear authority to set mayoral salaries and confirmed the Quincy Retirement Board will calculate the mayor's pension based on actual compensation received, not ordinance amounts, addressing pension concerns. Councillor Ash raised concerns about the flawed original process that lacked public hearings despite widespread protest, while public commenters noted the original 79% raise was excessive compared to major city mayors. The Council voted 8-1 to accept the amended ordinance, with only Councillor Deona voting no.
Councillor McKee moved to accept ordinance 2026-029 to repeal the mayor's $285,000 salary established in 2024-055, setting it instead to the current amount of $159,243 as a bookkeeping measure. Councillor McKee emphasized this is the first step to clear the books, with a commitment to return in September 2026 to discuss the mayor's proposed $225,000 salary alongside comparative data and broader salary discussions for all elected officials. Solicitor Timmons clarified that the Council has clear authority to set mayoral salaries and confirmed the Quincy Retirement Board will calculate the mayor's pension based on actual compensation received, not ordinance amounts, addressing pension concerns. Councillor Ash raised concerns about the flawed original process that lacked public hearings despite widespread protest, while public commenters noted the original 79% raise was excessive compared to major city mayors. The Council voted 8-1 to accept the amended ordinance, with only Councillor Deona voting no.
2026-030 – Ordinance - Repeal of Council’s Raise (Ordinance 2024-056) Councillor McKee Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
# Summary: 2026-030 – Ordinance - Repeal of Council's Raise
The Council voted unanimously (9-0) to approve Ordinance 2026-030, which repeals the Council's raise approved in October 2024, reducing the council salary from $44,500 back to $29,800. Councillor Ash proposed a friendly amendment to strike language referencing the state ethics commission's conflict of interest concerns, keeping the ordinance objective, which passed 8-1 before the full ordinance passed unanimously. Councillor Deona had raised procedural concerns about the original salary deliberation, noting that multiple requests for public hearings were denied, while Councillor Mahoney supported the repeal to allow for a fresh, transparent, data-driven discussion on appropriate salary levels in September 2026. Council members, including Councillor Ash and Councillor Dono, acknowledged constituent feedback and the difficulty of addressing salary matters, with plans to revisit compensation determinations in the fall after gaining perspective from their first six months in office.
The Council voted unanimously (9-0) to approve Ordinance 2026-030, which repeals the Council's raise approved in October 2024, reducing the council salary from $44,500 back to $29,800. Councillor Ash proposed a friendly amendment to strike language referencing the state ethics commission's conflict of interest concerns, keeping the ordinance objective, which passed 8-1 before the full ordinance passed unanimously. Councillor Deona had raised procedural concerns about the original salary deliberation, noting that multiple requests for public hearings were denied, while Councillor Mahoney supported the repeal to allow for a fresh, transparent, data-driven discussion on appropriate salary levels in September 2026. Council members, including Councillor Ash and Councillor Dono, acknowledged constituent feedback and the difficulty of addressing salary matters, with plans to revisit compensation determinations in the fall after gaining perspective from their first six months in office.
2026-031 – Ordinance – Repeal Annual Raises for Elected Officials (Ordinance Councillor McKee CO# 2024-090) Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
# Summary: Ordinance 2026-031 – Repeal Annual Raises for Elected Officials
Councillor McKee presented ordinance 2026-031 to repeal annual raises for elected officials (previously established under Ordinance 2024-090), which the Ordinance Committee recommended as amended. Councillor Ash explained that the previous system lacked a path forward for future salary adjustments, and the new CPI index mechanism, while imperfect, provides established parameters for potential future increases that the council committed to revisiting in September. Councillors Deona, Hubley, and Yuen expressed support, with Hubley noting positive feedback from Lemonster City Council about similar provisions that depoliticize salary adjustments. The motion to approve the amended ordinance passed unanimously with all nine council members voting in favor.
Councillor McKee presented ordinance 2026-031 to repeal annual raises for elected officials (previously established under Ordinance 2024-090), which the Ordinance Committee recommended as amended. Councillor Ash explained that the previous system lacked a path forward for future salary adjustments, and the new CPI index mechanism, while imperfect, provides established parameters for potential future increases that the council committed to revisiting in September. Councillors Deona, Hubley, and Yuen expressed support, with Hubley noting positive feedback from Lemonster City Council about similar provisions that depoliticize salary adjustments. The motion to approve the amended ordinance passed unanimously with all nine council members voting in favor.
Agenda items (4)
Ordinance
1Ordinance2026-006 - Ordinance/Rules - Safeguarding Transparency, Public Access to Councillor Mahoney Information, and Democratic Participation in City Council Councillor Jacobs Proceedings Councillor McKee Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
This proposed ordinance aims to strengthen transparency and public access to city council records and proceedings, ensuring residents have better access to information about how their elected officials conduct city business.
What happened
# Summary: Ordinance 2026-006 - Safeguarding Transparency and Public Access to Councillor InformationCouncillor Yuen presented Ordinance 2026-006 to safeguard transparency and public access to city council information, requiring supplementary materials and meeting documents to be posted on the website at least 48 hours before meetings. During committee discussion, Councillor Mahoney proposed an amendment to Section 5 limiting the prohibition on first presentation voting to ordinances and contracts only, allowing flexibility for routine orders and resolutions; this amendment was supported by Councillor Hibily and passed. The committee ultimately voted unanimously to remove proposals, orders, and resolutions from the restriction list, keeping only ordinances and contracts subject to the same-night voting prohibition. Councillor McGee reported the Rules Committee's positive recommendation, and the full Council voted unanimously to accept the ordinance as amended, which will be added as a new chapter in the city code under the city council rules section. The discussion also surfaced broader concerns about documentation and compliance, with councillors pressing for immediate production of required state-mandated notifications to tenant agencies and questioning the administration's appointment confirmation process for lacking adequate background information and CVs.
2Ordinance2026-029 – Ordinance – Repeal of Mayors Raise (Ordinance# 2024-055) Councillor McKee Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
This proposal would repeal the pay raise given to the mayor under a 2024 ordinance, effectively reducing the mayor's salary back to its previous level.
What happened
# Summary: 2026-029 – Ordinance – Repeal of Mayor's RaiseCouncillor McKee moved to accept ordinance 2026-029 to repeal the mayor's $285,000 salary established in 2024-055, setting it instead to the current amount of $159,243 as a bookkeeping measure. Councillor McKee emphasized this is the first step to clear the books, with a commitment to return in September 2026 to discuss the mayor's proposed $225,000 salary alongside comparative data and broader salary discussions for all elected officials. Solicitor Timmons clarified that the Council has clear authority to set mayoral salaries and confirmed the Quincy Retirement Board will calculate the mayor's pension based on actual compensation received, not ordinance amounts, addressing pension concerns. Councillor Ash raised concerns about the flawed original process that lacked public hearings despite widespread protest, while public commenters noted the original 79% raise was excessive compared to major city mayors. The Council voted 8-1 to accept the amended ordinance, with only Councillor Deona voting no.
3Ordinance2026-030 – Ordinance - Repeal of Council’s Raise (Ordinance 2024-056) Councillor McKee Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
This proposal would repeal the pay raise given to city councillors under a 2024 ordinance, effectively reducing council members' salaries back to their previous level.
What happened
# Summary: 2026-030 – Ordinance - Repeal of Council's RaiseThe Council voted unanimously (9-0) to approve Ordinance 2026-030, which repeals the Council's raise approved in October 2024, reducing the council salary from $44,500 back to $29,800. Councillor Ash proposed a friendly amendment to strike language referencing the state ethics commission's conflict of interest concerns, keeping the ordinance objective, which passed 8-1 before the full ordinance passed unanimously. Councillor Deona had raised procedural concerns about the original salary deliberation, noting that multiple requests for public hearings were denied, while Councillor Mahoney supported the repeal to allow for a fresh, transparent, data-driven discussion on appropriate salary levels in September 2026. Council members, including Councillor Ash and Councillor Dono, acknowledged constituent feedback and the difficulty of addressing salary matters, with plans to revisit compensation determinations in the fall after gaining perspective from their first six months in office.
4Ordinance2026-031 – Ordinance – Repeal Annual Raises for Elected Officials (Ordinance Councillor McKee CO# 2024-090) Councillor Mahoney Councillor Riley Councillor Ryan C ouncillor Yuan
This proposal would cancel automatic annual pay raises for all elected city officials, including the mayor and city councillors, that were authorized under a previous ordinance.
What happened
# Summary: Ordinance 2026-031 – Repeal Annual Raises for Elected OfficialsCouncillor McKee presented ordinance 2026-031 to repeal annual raises for elected officials (previously established under Ordinance 2024-090), which the Ordinance Committee recommended as amended. Councillor Ash explained that the previous system lacked a path forward for future salary adjustments, and the new CPI index mechanism, while imperfect, provides established parameters for potential future increases that the council committed to revisiting in September. Councillors Deona, Hubley, and Yuen expressed support, with Hubley noting positive feedback from Lemonster City Council about similar provisions that depoliticize salary adjustments. The motion to approve the amended ordinance passed unanimously with all nine council members voting in favor.
Additional votes recorded in minutes
Amend Section 5 of transparency ordinance (strike proposal, order, and resolution)
aye 5
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Richard Ashaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Amend transparency ordinance to add to Chapter 19 Section 9
aye 5
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Richard Ashaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Amend Section 5 to change 'substantive' to 'dispositive'
aye 5
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Richard Ashaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Approve transparency ordinance as amended (Rules Committee)
aye 5
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Richard Ashaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Allow late item (OML complaint) onto meeting agenda
aye 9
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaaye
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt transparency ordinance (Order 2026-056) as amended - full council
aye 8 · absent 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaabsent
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Allow late item (auditor powers ordinance) onto meeting agenda
aye 8 · absent 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaabsent
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt auditor powers ordinance as amended
aye 8 · absent 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaabsent
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Find no OML violation and authorize response to Secretary of State
aye 7 · absent 2
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsabsent
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaabsent
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Amend Order 2026-029 (mayor salary ordinance) - accept amendment
aye 8 · nay 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonanay
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt Order 2026-029 as amended (repeal/delete mayor salary raise) - full council
aye 8 · nay 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonanay
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt Order 2026-029 as amended - full council (Item 4)
aye 8 · nay 1
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonanay
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Amend Order 2026-030 (council salary ordinance) - accept amendment striking ethics clause
aye 7 · absent 2
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsabsent
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaabsent
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt Order 2026-030 as amended (repeal/delete council salary raise) - full council
aye 9
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaaye
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt Order 2026-030 as amended - full council (Item 5)
aye 9
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaaye
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Adopt Order 2026-031 as amended (repeal annual raises for elected officials) - full council
aye 9
Anne Mahoneyaye
David Jacobsaye
Deborah Rileyaye
Maggie McKeeaye
Noel DiBonaaye
Richard Ashaye
Virginia Ryanaye
Walter Hubleyaye
Ziqiang Yuanaye
Verbatim transcript available
741 transcript segments indexed
Good evening. Um, thank you for coming to the um, June 22nd um, oversight committee hearing um, at 6 o'clock. I'm going to read the open meeting law. Um, 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 acknowledgeable and permissible. We'll take the role.
Councelor Ash. Council Deon present. Council Hubley. Council Mahoney. Present. Council McKe present. Council Riley present. Council Ryan. Council Yuan. Chairman Jacobs. Present. Members. You have a quum.
Very good. Uh tonight at tonight's meeting um we're going to be addressing um 2026 uh-056 resolve on the Council of Aging uh department head theft and federal charges uh 2026-100. Order uh Quinsey Housing Authority Board appointment process review in 2026 101 resolve of the Quinsey Housing Authority Board tenant representation.
So at this time I'm going to uh turn it over to uh Mr. Walker uh to say a few words. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, councilors. Uh thank you for the opportunity for the administration to outline its response to the theft and sub subsequent criminal investigation uh from the department head of the elder former department head of the elder services department responsive to this body's resolution earlier this year.
We have a number of team members who have been working on this matter for some time with us tonight to provide a brief overview of the timeline of events, the city's response and remedi remedial actions that were taken.
You will hear from the police chief Kennedy to talk about the investigation itself, municipal finance director Paul Delbaba to go over the review processes and treasure collector Marley Smith to review cash handling policies and changes that were made.
Uh we also have with us solicitor Jim Timonss and to answer any legal questions and purchasing agent Kathleen Logan relative to any procurement questions. Um the mayor uh and his team took this matter extremely seriously, responded immediately and conducted a robust, responsible review.
I want to stress that ultimately at its core, this is a case of an individual perpetrating a fraud on the city and its people. It was about this individual manipulating the system and manipulating the people and manipulating people to achieve that fraud, not a systemic breakdown in the system itself.
That however does not mean there are not things we cannot do better. And this unfortunate matter was used to improve those sets of processes. Before I hand it over to the police chief, I would just start the timeline myself um that this matter came to the mayor's attention April 2024 upon the reports uh hearing some troubling information from a staff member at the council on aging department.
I met with that council on aging department employee uh once. we established um that she that the employee would be uh protected that there was nothing to worry about and that we needed to understand the information.
Um subsequent to that on a second meeting on I believe it was April 18th all of the full documentation was provided by this employee. Uh upon receiving that information I immediately spoke to Mayor Ko.
Mayor Ko this was now after hours. My memory serves me right. It was probably 8:00 or 9 8 or 9 in the evening. Mayor Ko immediately directed me to contact the police chief and the city solicitor uh to evaluate the next steps.
Uh with that, I'll leave the timeline to Chief Kennedy. Good evening, counselors. Uh as Mr. Walker stated, um on the evening of April 18th, 2024, I did receive a call from Mr. Walker uh informing me that um my presence was requested in the mayor's office with uh several other um members of um the mayor's team.
Um I didn't really understand what was happening at the time, but um I was informed that there were some allegations of potential um financial malfeasants that came to light earlier that day and uh he wanted to talk to me about it.
Uh so we went in, we met, I believe uh Mr. Walker, Mayor Ko, Solicitor Timonss, and possibly Helen Murphy. I'm not 100% sure on that, but definitely uh Mr. Walker, Mayor Ko, and Solicitor Timonss. Um uh upon hearing the allegations, I immediately spoke with our detective Lieutenant um who's in charge of uh Bureau of Criminal Investigations and one of our detectives who uh specializes in financial crimes.
that night uh on the night of the 18th. The plan was also put into place that Mr. Timonss uh drafted um in order that we were going to serve to Mr. Clasby the next morning when he arrived for work. Uh so on the morning of the 19th um around 8:00 a.m.
We had detectives sitting outside of the Kennedy Center. Um when uh Mr. Clasby arrived for work, uh we went in, I met him in his office, I served him with the letter that he was being uh put out on leave.
uh pending the results of of our investigation. That was uh the morning of April 19th. Um and then uh our detectives really started working the case and over the course of the next couple weeks they gathered evidence um and uh we ended up um uh the um FBI and the US attorney's office reached out and asked if we would um work the case with them as it may have some uh federal implications.
We met with uh our federal partners on May 14th and we agreed at that point to work with them um as there were some um uh you know potential mail fraud, wire fraud and uh inter interstate transportation of stolen property that we had already uh uncovered.
Um so at that point really we started working it with our federal partners. Um, we gathered enough evidence that on May 17th, the mayor did um serve Mr. Clasby, a letter removing him from his uh position.
And um on uh January 8th, 2025, uh as I said, uh Mr. Clasby was formally indicted by the US Attorney's Office for embezzlement, mail fraud, wire fraud, and inter interstate transportation of stolen property.
So that's really um the rough timeline of what happened. Uh the Quincsey Police Detective Division was actively working with our federal partners during the entire uh length of the investigation. Um and um I think they they left no stone unturned.
So uh with that, that's basically just a brief. I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Deaba from municipal finance and then I believe afterwards we could answer any questions you might have. Good evening, councils.
Um, I'm going to talk about the approval process on um how departments enter in requisitions into our system, how they get approved, and how it flows through the system. Um, it it's not different now than it was back then.
Um, but this is this is how the requisition process works. Um, first of all, a requisition is not a purchase order. doesn't give any approval to spend money right away. It's just a requisition for an amount and for a vendor.
Um it is the however it is the beginning of the process of creating a purchase order and it will incumber funds uh within specific organ objects uh within a fund or a department to be used for specific purposes as um as stated.
So the process begins by a clerk will first enter the requisition into Munis. That requisition that request is then approved by the department head at the department head level. Once approved at the department level by the department head, it is submitted to municipal finance for our review where we see it.
Uh we'll see the vendor, the amount, uh the accounts. we verify that there's funds there uh to create that requisition and that's when it gets our approval specifically my approval. So upon that that approval the once I approve it mun right along the system to the purchasing department and they'll have the final review of the vendor the procurement the dollar amounts with the 30b law and so forth.
Um once that's approved, purchasing will create a purchase order and they'll send one copy of that purchase order to the vendor and one purchase one copy of that will go to the department that requested that so they know that that money has now been encumbered for that expense with that vendor.
Now to pay an invoice against a purchase order, a clerk will enter the invoice information and purchase number into munis. The clerk then sends that original invoice to municipal finance. Municipal finance will retain that with a copy um of the check, the purchase order for auditing purposes and invoice verification.
uh for invoice verification includes uh reviewing the amount of the expenditure and matching that with the check uh and the invoice uh it's you it includes reviewing vendor remitt remittance addresses vendor names etc.
So once that's all confirmed um it once again the department head after this process then needs to go in and approve that expenditure. So at different levels multiple people are looking as at this as it flows through the system.
Um so once the department head approves the payment of the invoice MUN in Munice, it'll be cluded on the city warrant and then paid out. Um so that that really concludes the approval process, the review of each requisition that gets put into the system.
Um with that I'll turn it over to Treasurer Smith. Thank you. Hi counselors. Thank you for having me. Um, so maybe I'll pick it back up on the timeline. Um, so on April 19th, I was made aware of an allegation of financial misconduct at the senior center.
Over that weekend, I worked with chief of staff and the CFO at the time to execute a response plan. I secured a city laptop and worked with someone on my staff to physically be at the senior center for the duration of the investigation.
I worked with local and federal investigators to supply documentation as well as worked with our forensic auditor auditor to try and determine the scale and scope of the issue. I was physically on site for the first week and then someone from my team was there for approximately 5 weeks while Quinsey police did their investigation.
Throughout the evidence that was collected and almost 100 100 turnover sheets that were scanned and sent in to investigators, we determined that checks were being turned over to the treasurer's office, but cash was not.
The Division of Local Services created a financial policy manual for the town of Sterling that I found in some of my research and they outlined the best practices for senior center operations. The senior center in Quinsey was following all of those best practices to a tea.
This was not a breakdown in policies and procedures. This was pure theft by a bad actor. But I think what this did do was highlight where we can be better. And as such, my office created the city's revenue turnover policies, which we posted to our website in October of 2024.
And I believe Mr. Walker sent those um around to this body, but they're also posted on our city website. Some key highlights included adding a cash inoff threshold of $500, at least weekly deposits, and the creation of departmental policies that sit underneath the citywide policy, which are required to be on file with my office.
We also implemented the creation of an annual on-site audit in which myself and two members of my staff physically go to visit each department that accepts any form of revenue. We have a checklist of items um that I believe you guys all received as well um that my staff and myself will go through and we take this as an opportunity to physically see the department space where cash and checks are stored and to speak to the staff that's working um with any payments.
So we're now on the second year of annual onsites. And again um the schedule was sent around. So everybody should have a schedule of the dates that we um have seen everybody for the first round. and now we're on our second round.
Um, and I'd say overall they're going really well. So, I think the silver lining of all this is we've really taken this as an opportunity to help departments streamline some of their revenue capabilities.
So, I keep using the school department as a good case study, but we've been working with their business manager. We installed a local mobile deposit check scanner and a cash counting machine. So, instead of that individual counting out 3,000 $1 bills for maybe like a school field trip, she can simply put them through the cash machine.
So, it's just one example, but it's really been and and I'm not this is it's it's genuinely been really nice to go see every department, see the great work that they're doing um and where we can be helpful.
We're the we're in the weeds on on cash and finances every day. And so, we've really taken this as an opportunity to help other departments um and and kind of figure out streamlining. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
I know the cash piece was the big the big headline piece, so I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys might have. All right. See you. Uh, thank you so much, Miss Smith. Um, I just want to, um, open this up for questions from any of my colleagues on the council if they have any questions for Miss Molly Smith in regards to this.
Uh, Councelor Riley, Loans. Thank you. Um, you folks did answer some of the questions I have here, so I'm going to jump around a little bit and I don't know who can answer best, but so does the city have a written fraud policy in place, not just a cash management policy, but a a fraud a more comprehensive fraud policy?
So, I think a lot of what we do is governed by mass general law. And so, Mass General law governs invoicing, right? And I'm going to speak for my colleagues here. Mass General law is going to govern procurement.
It's going to govern invoicing. So a lot of that is already captured by mass general law. So is there is no fra written fraud policy? I mean I I think of fraud as being a little bit more broader. Um you know fraud can be time theft, lararseny, credit card and purchasing abuse and then external crimes like fishing, cyber theft.
We certainly saw that with the with the uh pension system. So does anyone else want to say whether or not there is a written fraud policy in place? through you, m Mr. Chairman, I would I would just reiterate what uh Treasurer Smith said that, you know, some things are so self-evident that they don't require policy manuals, um it's standard practice, that you don't commit fraud, um that you don't uh misspend city money, that you don't steal.
Um, so to the extent that there that there would be a a there would just wouldn't be a written policy, there's not a a written policy, and I don't mean this on flip council. I appreciate the question, but you know, there's no written policy against, uh, theft, um, blanket theft.
Um, it's just part of the nature of doing business in a in a prudent and efficient and and legal way. Um, and just reiterate what Treasurer Smith said that uh all of our actions are governed by mass general laws.
All of our procedures are governed by mass general laws and we're also audited uh every single year uh to find uh to look at operations and how we op and what mechanisms are in place and what needs to potentially change.
So no, there is no formal written fraud policy because fraud is fraud. Well, the Office of Inspector General recommends that municipalities have a more written formal policy. So, I guess the answer simple answer to that question is no.
Um, relative to the treasurer's policy, there was reference to the Munice accounts um being the responsibility to the department heads to ensure that they're actually recorded into the correct general ledger account.
Um, but doesn't this create vulnerability if the department head is the one responsible for it? In this particular case, would not have we would not have found that. Yeah, it seems a lot of the policy falls uh in the in the purview and responsibility of the department head which in in this particular example would not have provided the kind of assurance that that there was checks and balances there.
Yeah, I think my intention on on putting that in the policy, someone should be checking us as well. So, so someone should also be checking the checker and and so if the department head is turning over money to me, I need to I'm saying I'm putting it into your munis account and I want to make sure that people are also verifying what I'm doing and my team is doing.
So, so this should be mutually um people should be mutually checking each other's work. So, I think in all of these things, what we realized is it it behooves everybody to to be double-checking and making sure the money is being posted into the correct MUN account that our bank reconciliations are being reflected on what's in the mun account.
So, that was my intention on putting that in the policy. Thank you. Thank you for that. Um, have you had any unannounced site reviews or they all been announced? Um, so they've all been announced. I think the first year I think people Nobody likes to these have been very um awkward is not the right word because people I'm walking into these department onsites and and I've been really impressed with the reconciliations with the financial management that all these departments are doing.
I think the first year people are on edge. I think nobody wants um no one wants to have me walking into their office saying are you doing anything wrong and so people have been really open to showing what they're working on.
Um, so the first year I thought it would be a little unfair to do an unannounced visit. We have been I mean every turnover sheet that comes into my department is being scrutinized pretty extensively. My team any turnover sheet that's incorrect is going back to the department with an email to myself and the department head.
So my intention is that um that over time there's maybe no errors that are coming through. Um but no. Okay. I I understand. And it seems like you've got a second round coming through so you might We've already started one.
Um, so has the city implemented a confidential speak up or whistleblower policy and reporting mechanisms? It was reported that that would be something that would be coming through you uh, Mr. Chairman.
Not at this point not a formal policy. Um, I I' hearken back a little bit to my initial answer. I think that's certainly a possibility. Um, and we've taken a look at it. Um but emphasizing that first point he made relative to the first policy is that uh whistleblowers are always protected.
They're protected under state law. They're protected under federal law. Um they're protected by their their position within uh collective bargaining unit for the most part. Um and part of our process was to emphasize to talk to the department heads and um get more of a sense of what they felt would would be appropriate and where they're um whether or not that that would be an additional step that was necessary or it's one of those things that um may be uh more assumed and part of the normal day-to-day operation of doing business.
Um I would say it's something that's still on the table. Uh but based on the the case just closed uh at the end of last week, I know we'll be taking another look at it. Okay. Thank you. Um the Go ahead.
I I can take a break if you want. Is that okay? Um the report identified 262 transactions totaling $329,148,000 versus the 36,000 that Mr. Clasby plead guilty to um including work for a non-existent business.
Celtic safety consultants, cleaning companies who perform work on non- city buildings, excessive vehicle repair and towing from Schlagger's towing, sometimes multiple charges per day. Have these vendors been barred from doing business in the city or what other steps have been taken to verify businesses and charges going forward?
I'm not sure. So, I'm happy to answer it. I um Paul fortunately or unfortunately was not here for most of it. I don't believe any of them have been barred. A lot of them didn't know they were doing fraudulent business.
that business for sure is fake. So, and that I believe is what um they got him on for the the federal charges. Um I believe that's the um transportation what's the the transportation charge um crossing federal lines.
But all the other vendors, my understanding through the investigation um was that they were largely unaware that they were also being duped. Well, how how could they be unaware that they weren't cleaning a municipal building?
Oh, I can't speak to the cleaning one, but if I mean, I think the senior center has many vehicles. Um, and so I don't know if they were aware which vehicle they were towing. Okay, thank you. Um, if not for the brave actions of one or more whistleblowers, this fraud would likely have continued.
Um, again, I've already asked once, but I I think it would behoove of us to have more uh robust policies for reporting suspected fraud, waste, and abuse and to review those policies regularly. Um, does the city implement any mand mandatory fraud training?
So, again, I'll take this one just on behalf of the group. Um, so the state does require that we take mandatory training, state ethics training. Ethics training isn't fraud training though. fraud training would be through OIG.
I don't believe the OIG requires that we take mandatory training. I guess the question is why wouldn't we encourage it just because it's not mandatory. Um the other question I'm and I'll leave this is my last one.
I know Mr. Delibara, you've mentioned to me about the functionality in Munis to be able to attach invoices and track everything, you know, straight through the system electronically. It does seem like there is an awful lot of paper in this city.
Uh, and currently only Quinsey Fire Department does that. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Where the entire process, the purchase order uh the and the invoice are attached with the uh copy of the check.
Um the fire department's doing that. We've discussed rolling it out citywide. Uh it makes things just more efficient. Everything's right at your fingertips. You want some information, you can pull it right up.
It helps us with our independent auditors when they come uh and want to look at an invoice. Uh so it is something that's on the radar. So we had run into that recently with the community preservation um correct check that I wanted.
So what would it take to implement that? would seem to me that that would be an important um initiative to to implement sooner rather than later. At least start to roll some of these departments in that that are capable of of handling that.
The paper is, you know, not an ideal situation. Well, paper can be altered and lost, right? An electronic record is an electronic record that's preserved as is forever. The auditors prefer to have electronic record versus paper.
And um you know, I would too. I wasn't here when my predecessors started, you know, kicking the tires on a plan like this. But from what I understand, it would be no more than, you know, having some scanners, having some training, maybe some cost to implement uh this program with um a third party consultant who's done it before in other municip municipalities.
So, I think there would be some cost um involved in it, but I don't think it would be a tremendous cost. Well, well, we we'll maybe have you revisit that at a future date. It seems like it would be important, and I I know you're on board with trying to make that happen.
So, thank you, Mr. Delibra. You're welcome. Thank you. Um, Council McKe, you so um I'd like to understand a little bit more about the revenues that come into the city. So, I know there's various sources.
Most of it, our money we make through taxes, but um there are some fees. Um I guess I'm surprised that no one noticed a gradual decline of revenues coming in from the senior center to the point where it went to zero um and seemed to stay at zero for for a few years.
Um what what kind of oversight exists there and how can we improve that? So just as a point of clarity, the revenue was not zero. So revenue was still coming to us. So if you were at the senior center and you submitted a check to them, a personal check, that was still coming to us.
Um I think CO had a lot to do with it. So after CO, um I don't think it was clear what the new flows were and what the new world looked like at the senior center. So I think that was really um a big factor.
Okay. Um but this was happening be before co too right? So presumably the amount of cash was going down uh relative to things over time even before co so I started here in 2022 in this role um but it's hard to man so I wouldn't necessarily be aware of our less seniors taking yoga um so I think if if revenue is coming in and I think that's where these on-site visits are great for us to kind of wrap our heads around what's happening in each department.
So if if the senior center made a policy saying all classes are free, we're not going to charge anymore. Um I wouldn't necessarily be aware of that. So that could explain the revenue. I equate this a lot.
Um so Treasury is a is a bank. And so how I would explain this to the lay person is if you got laid off, Bank of America would not call you and say, "Is everything okay? I noticed you're not getting direct deposit anymore.
So, it's the same thing here. So, Treasury would not necessarily call and say, "Oh, I've noticed that you've had a decrease in revenue. What's going on?" I think through CO um through changes in programming, revenue can change a lot.
I'd also highlight this is a really immaterial amount of money to the broader city organization. And so, I think over time it's just enough to fly under the radar. I think it would be helpful if we thought um about how to track that over time.
I'm sure we have data um you know, historic data going back. Um before I took office, I took an I think I probably learned about this from councelor Riley. I took a fraud class through the inspector general's office, like a Zoom class.
Um, I wish I'd looked at my notes before tonight, but I remember them saying that there were certain things that over time you could implement um gradually to try to reduce reduce all these opportunities for fraud.
So, one thing seems like um you know, just having a sense of what money is coming into the city and then if you see a blip in that, it seems like it would be smart to to for someone to be monitoring that and then looking into it.
Maybe it's explainable and maybe it's not, but we could catch these kinds of things at an earlier point. Um the other question that I have is about um purchase orders. So, um I guess there's no no one who's like kind of overseeing whether purchase order is needed or used.
Um I can answer that. Um a purchase order is always going to be needed because that's how we pay in the city. So we pay through munis which generates a purchase order. So a purchase order is always going to be needed.
I guess I mean like the service that it's there for. So some of these were totally fraudulent um madeup services. If I could um and it seems like a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking here and somewhat of victim shaming as well.
We were all you know just a surprise that this went on as all of you. Um to say that that Celtic uh safety consultants council Riley that was clearly fraudulent. Um, at the time that this was going on, we had a W9 from him and my coworker actually checked the Secretary of State's office in New York and he was registered as a company.
Okay. So, we did do our due diligence as we always do. Nothing was done differently here. And again, just because someone manipulates a system and breaks the law, that doesn't mean we're all implicated and in on it.
No, I didn't mean to imply you're in on it. I'm just thinking about the I know some other councils have just the the systems in place. Um it seems like um maybe having Do you have a question? Council president.
All right, Miss Logan. Yes, Miss McHugh is speaking and council the council president's making faces and I didn't know she had a question. Miss Logan, please stop. Thank you. No, don't don't tell me to stop counselor please.
Respectfully. Excuse me. No, I'm good. I'm good. Go ahead. Um Okay, maybe I'll just um I'll move on. Um yeah. Um I guess I have a question about the some of what I've read in um this isn't this isn't for you.
I'm not sure who this is for, but um some of what I've read has concerned me about the the sense that um what was reported that the employees didn't like knew that he was sort of untouchable um because of his connection to the mayor.
And so I know that um we say we don't have a whistleblower policy. Um, but it concern it concerns me that we don't have a W whistleblower policy when it seems like this is this is an actual issue where people were concerned about that.
And I and speaking just personally from my my experience in six months in the council asking questions of this administration has not been wellreceived. though I can imagine that Catherine. Okay. All right.
We're going to go into recess. Thank you. All right. Sorry about that. Uh, we're back from our recess. Um, thank you, Mr. Walker, for handling that. I want to continue the answer of that question. Thank you.
Sure. Through you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the question, counselor, and it the perception uh has been uh very troubling to the administration as well. Uh I think uh over the course of the last several weeks, in the course of the last several months, this body has seen uh the way our departments operate in uh a general sense, in a larger sense, how well they work uh with with you folks, how the well they work in their jobs in particular.
Uh it was troubling to hear that there would be some perception that somehow a employee was being told that someone was untouchable. Um, we have uh the mayor has a record in this city uh that goes back close to 20 years now uh under no circumstances uh has his integrity uh his honesty um in anything like that sort of thing um come to light.
And I would I would sort of point out that ultimately this person did come forward uh and it is the reason why this um theft was stopped and identified. So ultimately the system the system worked. Uh this person was not uh intimidated to come forward.
Uh this person was not afraid to go to the appropriate folks and explain to them what they thought was going on. And this person was confident uh that they had the ear ultimately of the mayor and of myself uh that all of this would end up going in the right direction.
And that's that's what happened. As unfortunate as it is, the system ultimately worked. Now taking the point on a clear defined whistleblower policy, again I said that, you know, whistleblowers are protected.
We feel they are protected. We are comfortable with our department heads. We've had these discussions with our department heads. Under no circumstances should any employee feel like they can't approach their boss, they can't approach their boss's boss about something inappropriate that they've seen.
That is not the way we've operated. Um, and I certainly appreciate the question, but I I I I think in the end uh the system uh worked the way it it needed to work uh and the right thing was done. I believe there was a a report um stating that the the issue stretched back to at least 2014 when the um Mr.
Clasby requested money to pay I believe a car payment. And so um it sounds like people were maybe nervous to come forward for um 10 years at least. Um, and maybe it just got so bad that it it became like, you know, they just felt important to to bring forward.
But, um, it does seem like it's it's an issue whether or not it's um, you know, for good reason. It it seems to be a perception. Um, I guess I have a question about the um the FBI and the um US attorney's office um for Chief Kennedy.
You mentioned that they um joined the effort they reached out to the city. Um I'm not I'm not sure at what point after the April 19th meeting. Um maybe in May. I'm not sure what whether I wrote that down right, but um how did they find out about it?
So, it wasn't that the city reached out to them. How did they get alerted to this? Yeah. So, uh we do have a detective who's assigned to an FBI uh task force. Um, so I believe it was right after I I can't give you the the exact date, but right after it hit the the media, um, this U task force officer, detective reached out and said, "Hey, the the FBI is asking uh, if you would like any assistance with this." And I said, "You know what?
We're we're still in the very early stages of of gathering facts. Uh, I have the utmost confidence in in the two detectives, uh, one detective and one detective supervisor who were working and gathering, uh, facts.
So, at that point, I said, "I think we have everything uh under control." Uh, as they gathered more information, the uh task force detective reached out again and said, "Hey, that they're really interested in this." And so, we set that meeting.
Um, so we set the meeting for May 14th, which was just a couple of weeks after we really launched the investigation. And it was during that meeting, we pretty much gave them everything we had. Um, they looked at it and they said, "Yeah, we'd like to we see some federal charges here and we'd like to work with you on this." So, we uh we welcome the assistance.
Okay. So, it was after they saw it in the the news. Um I believe I'm I'm speculating, but I'm assuming that's what it was. Yeah. That they saw it in the news and reached out. Um Okay. And then, um this is a question for the treasurer.
So, you had mentioned that you would actually like to be checked as well. So, who does that now? So, and that's what um councelor Riley's question. So when I'm alluding in the policies, so and maybe I'll walk through an example because that is how I think, but if a department comes in with a thousand deposit putting it towards a specific mun code and in my team, so how it works, and maybe we should have started with this, but how it would work is in the treasury window, they would come with either a cash or check breakdown.
The turnover sheet is is the face sheet. So that's indicating here's the munus code, here's the department, um here's where we'd like it to go, and here's a breakdown of either cash or check what's in what's included in the turnover.
We will stamp that. So we have a time and date stamp similar to what the clerk uses. So we will stamp that at the time of receipt. We will give the department a copy back. Um and then we will take a copy and we will input that into our daily batch.
So all deposits um we make daily deposits to the bank. So all of that money is going out of our office daily. So essentially what I'm looking for from departments is to make sure that if they gave me $1,000 and I we're putting it to munice code 1 2 3 4 5 that it's getting to where they expect it to be.
And so if you brought $1,000 for the senior center and one of my clerks fat fingered it and put it into inspectional services, I want to make sure that someone has said, "Oh, wait a second. I think I'm not seeing my thousand deposit as I expected." And we can do a little bit of research on that and see did it go into the wrong munus code?
Did it um that's really the only possibility, but yes, so it it is important that someone is also checking us. Okay. Um, okay, maybe that's all my questions for right now. How are you, Molly? I had a nice visit with you and we went over a lot of these things.
So, um I guess one of the questions that I have and I have them all over the place. So, the treasur you get the cash and and you you've only been here since 2022. So, you really can't talk back to 2014, correct?
But and I think when you were using the example and I'm not trying to say your example wasn't good like a bank when you get laid off and you don't have that direct deposit going and the bank's definitely not going to know us.
And I realize we're a city so we're pretty big but these are our departments. So when you see those turnovers going up or down or if they change something that should be something that a director should be communicating especially when the change of flow of money is changing.
So if it was we're not going to charge for this anymore should be notified to the people who'd be collecting that money getting that money like we're we we're stopping we're not taking any of that. I'm just I'm just pointing that out because it's a little different than a big bank noticing whether or not I get direct deposit anymore versus a city whose you know responsibility is for the revenues coming into our city as well as collecting the taxes.
And I'm not saying you did anything. I'm just suggesting that that so that would be something I think when coun councelor McKe was saying there should be kind of something we can look at. But you've only been here for two years and I wouldn't I don't know what they pre like 2014.
I'd be curious. I would have gone back that far too if I could have. Yeah. And and yes, I mean the point is well taken. I think it's it's so hard. Um if you're charging $3 for an activity, it's a 500 $500 million a year is flowing through my department.
So I wouldn't necessarily catch No, I know. I think that's the problem though is that because cash like that, like it's petty cash might not seem like a lot, but when you started going in there, you started to realize it was like $2,000 a week.
So when you see it's $2,000 a week, all of a sudden it's not petty cash anymore. Now it's actually it's it's impactful. And that money can easily be taken away. We have other accounts in the city. So when I talked about the COA and this is just one person who did a bad deed, but we also have revolving accounts in the schools.
How many how often do those things get reconciled? We also have um the schools you just mentioned. And the other thing is when a turnover comes in, you collect the turnover from the the I say client from your department head, whoever's bringing it in, right?
The clerk. But then that same turnover typically goes down to the accountants office so that they know too that at least that's how I understand it. The turnover comes into the treasures. You you mark it down.
You say you did what you needed to do and then the accountants get it and there should be a reconciliation that's happening at the end of the month so that if it does get deposited into the wrong um account you're catching that fairly fast.
Is that correct? So and and or weekly mostly. So you're mostly correct. I think the reconciliations that my team is doing, so I'm my team is making sure that if we've put it into this bank, so think physical cash versus munis cash, if we put it into this bank, that what we're reconciling is making sure the check didn't bounce, that the bricks guy didn't um stop at Starbucks on the way.
So that's what my team is doing. There's there's so if someone has coded put the incorrect code on a turnover that wouldn't get caught throughout the whole life cycle um because we've expected it to go into this incorrect code and it did go into this incorrect code.
So so for all intents and purposes everyone has done everything correctly. I think typically what happens is well reconciliation typically happens like when that department that's looking for the money will say no I brought this and I need deposit and I have my turnover sheets so this is where it is.
So what I'm saying is whether or not you're reconciling everybody should be reconciling. So whether it's whether it's the treasurer's office or the accountant's office or even potentially me who brought it in and saying wait I should have I should have $10,000 here.
I want to get a new van. Whatever it is I want to do that. That's what's happening there. So this cash that's coming in and cash is always dangerous. I always say this like it's better to pay like well actually that's not true because now people steal your credit cards so like all sorts of things happen but it is a trickier thing because cash is something you want to get in and get out as fast as possible because you don't want to be responsible for the cash at the COA at the schools at any place because it can easily something easily can happen.
So obviously when it comes into the treasures office it's not like you have stacks of $100,000 sitting around because you get out to the bank every day and same thing with with um the COA. So I guess my question there is um if there's any way it could have gone back to 2014 because that's a long time 2014 to 20 24 10 years and it only seemed to go back I think to in the report it only was like the last two years that they were reconciling and how they came up with the number seemed a little like there's no real way to be able to tell right so I guess my question there too would be I have to go back to my notes um so the earliest what was the earliest date that we figured out that there was improperly.
Was it the 19th when you went to when the whistleblower came? Like how did how did they just came to you with the whistleblower? Was that when we all found out? That was the first time that I became aware of it.
Correct. Maybe it's maybe it's through I'm sorry. I'm guessing it's definitely not. So maybe to Mr. Walker. When when did exactly did this kind of get flagged? I had the initial meeting with the employee on the 16th of April.
The subsequent meeting was on the 18th of April. What was the 18th of April? Sorry. What was that? What was the 18th of April? The second meeting. So the first meeting was was preliminary in in nature, general conversation.
Um with the request that uh this seemed very serious. uh we needed to see the backup information that the employee had. Um that was produced um that at the subsequent meeting and it was at that subsequent meeting that you know basically the the the switch was flipped that this is that serious that yeah we needed to get the police and the and the city's lawyer involved.
So it was identified and this is not this is not the reporter that identified it. It was in the report from the from the the um the feds cuz he he pleaded guilty, but it did say that people were intimidating and and employees were moving money.
Did you investigate any of that either? Because it seems a little strange that it's actually documented that people who worked at the COA knew what was going on and they were they were hiding money from this person.
So, this is this might have only got come out to you on 419 or 416 2024, but this sounds like it was going on for a long time. So, I'm just curious about that. Again, my knowledge starts at 4:16. Mhm.
Um, and moves on to 418. Um, from there, you know, the investigation that took place and, you know, what was said within the federal filings certainly wasn't anything that was ever raised uh to our office.
Okay. Well, it's in the federal filing that the employees were hiding cash from Mr. Glasby. Um, and then the other question that I had was, so I understood, you know, we have a PO and you have the PO.
I understood. Thank you very much, Miss Hovind. I I understood how a PO works. Um, and I didn't have a question for you. I was just kind of embarrassed for you. That's truly what I was feeling. Yeah. Yeah.
No, I was I was embarrassed for you. Hoben, I wasn't answering your question. I was answering Miss McKe. You said my name. Yes. Recess. You have to open. Okay. So, Catherine got the city of Quinzy. Um, that should not have happened.
And as for the other spectator, um, you know, I'm not giving her a pass, but she's not, you know, an appointed member of the city. So, um, I just wanted to apologize. I want to thank the Quinsey police for taking care of that, and I want to thank Chris Walker, um, you know, for trying to conference with that individual.
um before you know that just happened. So, thank you Mr. Walker. Council Mahoney, you can continue. Oh, so yeah, we're going to wait till 7. Okay. What are we doing? We're waiting till 7. So, um council, you on?
Let me just hold on one second. Sorry. Thank you chairman. Before I started to ask this crispy case, everyone just saw what happened. Is she here some department head? I strongly suggest administration give a discipline of this kind of behave.
Yeah. So, council, we can't really talk about that. that's under the purview of the mayor to to do that. You could certainly talk to Mr. Walker, you know, um outside of this meeting, but we we can't really talk about um any disciplinary that might happen between uh you know, now and then.
So, um so just be advised on that. Thank you. Thank you. I just feel someone put the shim on this great grand hall. That's it. Okay, my first question is so follow up with councelor um McKe's comment this officious questionable behavior since seems start of 2014 is that correct you miss Chris I I am not aware ware of this the anything suggesting um and it may have been in court at at some portion of the the uh the proceedings but um I think the investigation that that took place the police department and the city uh was over the course of the last several years what we had access to.
So I'm I'm not aware of anything going back as far as 2014. Yes. Thank you. And so Mr. Worker, so you mentioned you start to pay attention April 16th. Which year is that? 2020 through uh 2024 council.
Okay. Um and how how long has this questionable behavior uh last lasted according to the court report? I don't know. Is there any I know the the city investigation uh went back a number of years uh to what we had access to.
Um once we found out that something was going on, that's when the switch was pulled and all the appropriate parties were then involved. I don't have the specific dates on the investigation on what when uh how far back it went.
Um my knowledge is that it was several years. Um and that's as far as I can go with it. I actually not asking you this question. I just asking from the report councelor Maris mentioned 2014 So, this is um this is a story that ran in the Patriot Ledger uh June 17th or updated June 17th and it said that the US attorney Christina Barklay, sorry.
Um okay. Clausby's known improprieties began in 2014. Barkley said when he asked his assistant director for $260 out of petty cash to make a car payment. For the 10 years that followed, the various women within the department would try to hide cash from him, moving it around the office from one drawer or cabinet to another, Barkley said.
And that's the US attorney. So, it seems to have been going on for 10 years at least. Who? Thank you. Uh, council mar provide that information. So for 10 years employees are hiding cash from this jaw to that jaw.
For 10 years that's kind of looks like in the movie and how many that means not just one employee found it. I'm wondering how many employees have reported this to either FBI or reported to the city. How many employees have reported through you?
Again, council, no one reported anything um to the city uh until April of 2024. And uh so when when did that employee start to report to FBI? So that employee reported to FBI first. No, the employee reported to the city first.
Okay. The city then informed the police department. The police department conducted a thorough investigation. At some point the police department was joined by the federal government in that investigation.
Okay. Thank you for the clarification. And so as I read I remember the employee reported as anonymous. Is that correct? She didn't uh uh report she didn't tell her name. Uh no that's not that's not true.
I mean I think again through you Mr. chairman, I think we refrain from using the the employees name, but it certainly wasn't anonymous to me. Uh certainly wasn't anonymous to the mayor. It certainly wasn't anonymous to the investigative team.
Um that person uh is an employee of the elder services department and they saw something wrong and they raised it. Um my next question is since it's already last for 10 years multiple employees hiding cash around why only one employee reported to the city?
How about other employees? Are they afraid of something or they just uh and I don't know what what to say through you. I think I answered that that question earlier about the process and what it takes and what that this person committed a crime and it was through the manipulation of people that he committed crime.
It's why there ended up being a federal indictment. It's why there were federal charges is because this individual used those people in a way that was against Massachusetts state law and against federal law.
And ultimately that's what took place here. My next question is uh did the employee just reported a cash being stolen or she also found those fake checks or the checks was not being used on the right correct use through you uh council.
It was it was both that the employee was uh aware of issues relative to the cash and the employee was also uh aware of and the issues with procurement. So um sorry I'm just going to stop right there because according to the bell outside it's 7 o'clock.
So, we're going to take a recess from this oversight committee hearing and we're going to open the rules committee and the ordinance committee and the general city council meeting and then we're going to come back and continue this conversation.
I Okay. All right. Hello everyone. Um I am just officially opening up the rules committee meeting um for June 22nd. Um we will take a recess until after we come back from various other opening ups. Good evening everybody.
We're going to open the June 22nd, 2026 um council meeting. I don't have my notes. That's okay. Um could you call the Could you Yep. Sure. We call the role. Councelor Ash. Council Deona. Council Hubley.
Council Jacobs. Council McKe, Council Riley, Council Ryan, Moment of Council Win, President Mahoney, present. Eight minutes. If we could all stand um for a moment of silence. I'd like to recognize tonight for the passing of Quinsey High School graduate Ka Ka Garcia Costa, a young man remembered by his teachers and his classmates for the character and kindness he had.
I ask that we all observe a moment of silence in memory of Ka Kron and support of his grieving family, his loved ones, and his friends. Thank you. Can turn to pledge allegiance to the flaggy and justice for all.
Y if we could read the open meeting 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 are deemed acknowledged and permissible.
Thank you very much. And then we're going to we go back to finding. We're going back to um oversight. Okay, we're going to we're going to reassess and go back to oversight. Back to oversight. Councelor Yuan, you want to continue your questioning?
Thank you, chairman. Just keep my question. So, uh Mr. worker. You said that employee also found some check is had you Mr. Chairman. Um there were no fake checks. Um there were purchase orders that were originally deemed suspect and then purchase orders and payments uh to various vendors that were eventually deemed criminal.
But there were no there were no fake checks. If the checks didn't really pay for the real services in the department should not be just only one person found it that mean and since it's last so many years must be multiple employees have found this problem I'm just wondering why why this kind of criminal can last so many years before it was recovered through you Mr.
chairman again I would repeat the the answer is that he manipulated the system he manipulated people uh that is why criminal charges were filed my next question is from the report some other counelors also mentioned the one way of his manipulation is by frequently toted departments and openly referenced his close relationship with the mayor.
I'm not pointed to the mayor but I just say one way of his manipulation is through this way which intimidate the staff from reporting him and that's why last so long to recover his criminal. So for this I want to know what's the administration's opinion about that?
How to prevent this kind of things happen again? Staff being intimidated by some by someone who who has a close relationship to some powerful person. Sure. Through you, Mr. Channon. This is the dictionary definition of manipulation.
Doesn't mean it was true. Doesn't mean people needed to have this concern that those employees had. Uh that is what when I say the word manipulation that is what happened. This individual manipulated people into believing a certain thing which allowed him to then perpetrate this fraud on the city.
Uh again, I would go back to the overall history of this administration, the our department heads, the staff that we have. Um and there has never been any kind of indication like this. Um other than in in this particular case that people need to feel like they don't that they should not be raising questions when questions are appropriate to to be asked.
We've reviewed this with department heads. We've reviewed this with staff. Um the level of comfort that people have in talking directly to the administration. We have a wonderful relationship with just about all of our collective bargaining units, with all of our leaders of our collective bargaining units.
Um, and I can say personally that there's not a leader collective bargaining that isn't that is afraid or or uh in any way um uncomfortable coming directly to the administration with any kind of an issue.
Um, and that has been bar none the the way the process has worked over the last 18 to 19 years. So I would hate for again a person, an individual who manipulated the system, who manipulated the people to be suggested as symbolic of the way um this mayor and this community has operated over the last 19 years because it's just it the evidence does not back that up.
My next question is this kind of intimidation is not just happened in one case. I can give you my own experience in 2024 when I when I connected signatures to repeal mayor's pay raise. I met several city employees even they even they are willing even they disagree about this pay raise they want to sign but they afraid to sign it and one extreme case is one firefighter who has signed his name on it but since his name is on the top of that signing sheet and He immediately taught it and asked me to give him another signing sheet with several names already on it so he can hide his name among those names.
So what uh what is he afraid of? I thought in America signing petition is every citizen's constitution right should be protected. Why a firefighter supposed to be a most brave man even afraid about signing his name on the petition?
And if this happened in this city and not just only one case, several employees also including teachers, they want to sign but they are not they dare not to sign. Um that's why I thought that this is not just one case uh staff been manipulated to be intimidated to report some very questional behave.
I think the atmosphere the working atmosphere has some problems. Also residents have reported for years that nepartisan is rampant in this city. This city has entrenched power and entrenched interests that make change very difficult because no one wants their wasted interests challenged or affected.
They will push back against reform-minded new counselors sometimes even to the extent of personal attacks. I can illust illustrate it more. Okay, let me just speak all I want to say. My home address and the councelor McKis home address were posted on that Facebook page with the words let her know how we feel followed to our addresses.
This is openly inviting harassment. Yet many employees and officials who are active on that Facebook page said nothing about this. said nothing about this beyond an acceptable post. Silence is violence.
Residents are taking note. I encourage I encourage residents to stay vigilant. Making change is never easy. Electing reformed counselors is only the first step. Real meaningful change can only be achieved through constant public engagement and oversight.
Thank you to the residents who continue to stay involved and pay attention just like that employee is brave enough to report this criminal behave. We don't want another class B case to happen. We need to we need to clean house and end the culture of nepotism.
Thank you. All right. Do any other counselors have questions? Councelor McKe. Um, so I wondered when did um Mr. Clausby take the helm of elder services? You would ask me that, council. Uh, it was well before I'm being whispered that it was 1999.
Okay. So before Mayor Cook took office. Okay. So I guess one other point that concerns me is that in 2009, Mr. Clausby stepped down from the board of a nonprofit that he was on. Um, and according to the the ledger, he helped his parents move into a unit that had been owned by the nonprofit.
Um, even though another, um, another person was first on the waiting list. So, um I guess I'm if he was there as the head of elder services before that and then showed this kind of judgment in 2009, it suggests and he was able to still hold that position.
Um I don't know if anything, you know, I it doesn't seem like anything happened to him or he lost his position there. So that was a red flag that I think was a missed opportunity. Um through through you, Mr.
Chairman, I don't know the veracity that that my recollection of that issue. Um was that that was during a year there were a number of things um as this body well knows that get thrown out in politics and and things are written, things are said.
Um but the level of veracity that I have no is approaching now 18 years ago. Um I don't know the ver the the veracity in my my my my head is that that was largely uh disputed at the time and it was he said he said sort of situation.
Okay. Um the other issue that um I just want to highlight uh we've brought it up before and um we're told that it's kind of a nothing burger, but it did it did raise concerns for me. Um when I was looking at the purchase orders for the fire gear um in the past, I noticed that um the former finance director's signature was on some of those from um two of those from months after he had left his post, which raised questions for me about who was overseeing these purchase orders And um I do I do think that kind of cumulatively we we need a better we need to look really carefully at these systems um because that shouldn't be allowed to happen even if it didn't go out to people.
the fact that it was still there raises questions about who's overseeing it and if anyone is overseeing it and if so why is it being allowed to continue? Thank you. Is there a question? Was there Did you have a question about we just No, I'm just I'm I'm concerned about it.
That's all. All right. Thank uh councelor Mahoney. I didn't really So I think I was talking to Molly when she first came up and I don't mean to go back and forth, but I I was going into the purchase order first.
But so just for clarification, so you can't go back to 2014 or can you go back? It's just not your records. So I can go back to 2014 for MUNS receipts which I think councelor Jacobs requested and we provided.
So we can what we can't do is provide the paper turnover sheet. So mass um I I can't I don't have room for 10 years of records in our office. So we follow the records retention schedule set forth by the state.
So we only have the last two fiscal years in physically in the office. Okay. And then I don't know who this is for, but I'm assuming everybody in the city who has to touch physical cash is bonded. Is that correct?
That is incorrect. That's incorrect. Um, so and why is that? Because if they're transferring money, they're supposed to be. I thought So I don't know the specifics on that. Um, so I'm bonded, right? So So my staff um people in my staff are bonded.
I'm bonded. I don't know if um the extent of what that looks like for different departments, but it's certainly something I could look at. So maybe that's through to Chris Walker. Um that is a policy that should happen because if you're transporting cash from the COA, which is in North Quinzy to city hall, you're carrying whatever $2,000 a week, that should be bonded because that car could be stolen or something could happen.
And you know, if you're not bonding them, then you're not that's another safeguard that we're not doing. And that's that's something that we should be doing and that's good practice. And I'm surprised we're not.
So anybody that would be the schools, too. So if the schools are carrying money over, somebody should be whoever the delivery person should be at least bonded. It doesn't take much. It's an insurance policy.
And if you did, if it was bonded, you could go back to 2014 and potentially collect some of that money that goes back that far. So if this was identified in 2014, my next question was, who was the assistant in 2014?
And who is the assistant now in the for the not? I really would rather not. I just I'm asking a question. I need to know that because I don't know. I don't know. Okay. So you don't know who the assistant was?
20 in 2014. I don't know that we had an assistant. So I know who it was. So it was it before it was Marie it was somebody named Kathy Bose. So, the reason why I'm bringing that up is because tonight although we were talking about things and saying that and I'm changing the subject right now, but I'm going to change it because we're talking we we had a purchasing person up here who was directly talking to us talking down to us cuz she knows that she can say what she wants to at that microphone and there's going to be no this she won't be fired tomorrow.
But here's the interesting thing going back to 2014. If I just look at the track record of what we're talking about, we're looking at in 2014, I just lost my notes because I had it written down someplace.
In 2014, what we know is that um Glazby was the was the COA director. Kathy Bose was I think the assistant because I know when I would go in there, I was told I'm not invited in there because I'm not elected official, but I was an elected official, so that really bothered her that I got to go in.
Chief Keenan was the chief and Mayor Ko is the is the mayor. Eric Mason was probably not yet the chief financial officer, but when this all happened, he was. And most of these people, well, Ko, Eric, Glasby, and Mark Kerry, who was in the recording studio, are all part of the Men of Divine Mercy.
I find it impossible to believe that that optic isn't standing out to everybody. And I'm bringing that I wasn't planning on bringing that up tonight, but I'm bringing it up tonight just because of the actions of one of your directors coming up and speaking to us.
completely unprofessional and yeah, I'm sorry, but that that needs to be said. So, when we talking about this, we're not trying to say that there's only one bad actor. What I'm trying to say is there was something really bad going on at the COA.
The person's not bonded. We know that they were moving money around. It was in a report and we want to say that we've got all the safeguards figured out, but we don't bond people. And you know, the other things that we're not I haven't heard anything about reconciliation.
We have revolving accounts at the schools. Are we are we are we reconciling those on a monthly basis? Do we know that there's no money missing from that's a lot of money in revolving accounts and it's not just that it's also in our water and so we have revolving accounts don't we do we reconcile those to the dollar I mean just curious because this is a as you said this is a half a billion dollar business that we're running here so and although this might be small money it's money that came from our seniors and we should all be horrified and why wasn't there anybody from the city representing those seniors at that at that judgment that's what I really want nobody from the city was Okay.
So, so just as a couple points of clarity, so we absolutely reconcile monthly. Um, we reconciled to within $10 of fiscal year 2024. So, we we 100% reconcile. It's hard to reconcile something that was stolen.
I know. I just I'm just pointing it out because not because I'm there certainly am not upset with you at all. What I am upset with is the optics of what we're what we're all living through. I'm a resident of the city, too, and it's embarrassing.
So, then I might just say the second thing. So, I was subpoenaed for that. um for Wednesday and the FBI asked that I didn't that I not come. So So yes, there were certainly I was planning on going up until they asked you not to come.
Correct. Yeah. It just looks bad again that this this optic of who was in trouble and that nobody from the city went to protect the residents, the pe the seniors in the city. It looked as though hey, you know what?
We're just going to quietly step over here. And you and I realized the connections. I'm not by any means. I just point them all out to you. Those are connections in our city. Those are the optics. So if if you're working underneath Tom Clasby, the COA director, and he's saying, you know, you better not say anything to me.
I'm I'm positive nobody's saying anything because that's that's the that's the reality of something. I mean, if you work in a family business, you don't say anything bad about the family, the guy that's running the family business to the brother.
That's, you know, that's how it's working here. And I'm not pointing fingers, but I am suggesting like it's great to sit up here and say, you know, I think you did a great job, Molly. I really do cuz you called in on a Friday night.
You've got three kids. You're probably like, "That wasn't my plan for the weekend." And you and same thing with you, Chief Kennedy. You did a great job. Same with you, Paul. However, it seems to me that there should have been flags much earlier than what you did.
And you know, I think the only real reason, truthfully, this is just my opinion. The only real reason why this even got any anything he got walked out the door is because it was the the the federal part of it.
I'm sorry. That's how it feels through you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, council. That you can say you're sorry. I'm pretty mad already. So that's I'm sorry. No, that's that's just not that's just not true.
He was terminated before the federal government was even involved. Mhm. So in 2009 when he did this and that's usually that's the start of something when somebody No, in 2009 you said you said that was a political thing.
I don't know if it was a political thing or not. in 2009 he um got his parents into it and then um and relatively shortly after somebody else's family member got into the naval terrace as well. I I really did not want to go in that direction, but I will say that it is incredibly incredibly impossible not to look at the optics of what we're looking at here and to suggest that anything different is happening.
I'm going to go to my end because this is probably better for me to you know. So ultimately this resulted in a federal criminal prosecution. What assurances can the administration provide that similar misconduct not occurring elsewhere in city government such as department heads coming up and just calling people out?
That's that's the fact because she might not be stealing something, but she's she's certainly behaving in a way that's not really professional. What independent review has been conducted to verify that other departments do not have the same vulnerabilities that existed in the elder services?
What safeguards now exist that would have detected this scheme much earlier earlier because it's been going on from what it sounds like since 2014. And there were people there with, you know, let me tell you, I don't think those people were afraid to go and tell the mayor what was going on.
They might have even been helping in a bedding. How quickly would similar misconduct be detected today? These are real questions. I mean, you can tell me you have the safeguards in place, but how quickly would these things happen?
Yeah. So, um, so I'm happy to go through the policies again. So, I I certainly, this is before my time. I am not aiding and abetting anybody. I promise. Um, I also I think we've put some really strict policies into place and we're doing the on-site.
I can't change the past. Um, I actually don't know if I even met him. So, so I I can't change the past. I cannot change what we've done. I can what I can do is control what's happening moving forward.
Moving forward, we are doing annual on-site. We are doing annual reviews. We are thoroughly looking at all of these departments. my team is calling departments saying, "We haven't seen you this week. What's going on?" So, that's something I I can't I can't go back in time, but but what I can do and what I can promise and I and I hope my track record speaks for itself, my team really is fantastic.
Um, and so, so certainly, yes, something bad happened. I can put all the policies and procedures into place. My policies still don't say don't steal. They still don't say that because that's the law. They don't.
And the thing is is there's this is this is one that actually stuck and somebody got caught. But this isn't the first time that you've heard of somebody's being removed because there and those are the rumors, Chris, that don't necessarily make it out there.
But there's lots of those like something happened and this person's being removed because they were doing stuff during work time and they had stuff. I a lot of that's happening and I I just that those are rumors though.
So, but this one was this was you know this was not a rumor. this is the real thing. So, I question, you know, I'm sure there's other things that are happening well within the city because I can tell you that the um the bravado of who you're connected to does matter in the city.
And that's not pretend. That's not a pretend thing. I mean, it just isn't. And Molly, I know I know how hard you work. I came in and met with you. I met your department. I and I came in and met with Paul and his department.
I know that you put those safeguards into place and I know you put your best effort forward. I suggest also getting them bonded though because that would be able to be something you could have cashed in on a little bit because of the loss.
Not it'll probably be $10,000 but it's something that everybody that's carrying cash in the city should be and and that so then I'd have to come for an appropriation that it's it's dozens of people that doesn't matter.
Yeah. So we certainly you can say it's dozens of people. That's like saying I'm only going to get one license to use Adobe like I you know you got to if you have if you're running a half a billion dollar budget then you need to have multiple people on it.
And if you want to cheap out on it, then when the person steals, which happens, I'm not saying you're cheaping out, but I mean, if the person steals or gets robbed or something, then it's shame on us for not having that.
I understand we're self-insured. What happens with the money that gets recovered from I believe it's Mr. Clasby's pension that he's going to have to pay back. What happens to the money that comes back into this?
Does it go back into the Is this a question for Mr. Walker? I'm not sure who it's a question for. I think that would be miscellaneous non-recurring revenue. Sorry, I don't mean to make a joke. It's getting it's getting tense, but I I think it would go into miscellaneous non-recurring revenue.
Um, and it would go back into the city's coffers. Mhm. So, it would go into free cash. So, and the reason why I asked that because where do where would it normally have gone to when it comes into the same place?
So, it would go into the senior center account. It would go into the what? The senior center account. So, the $136,000 it would come in would normally when it came in the right way would go into the senior center account.
And in this particular case, it would go into miscellaneous. Is that what you're talking? I'm just speculating. Sorry. I was just making I'm just asking. I'm asking. I was just making a joke. I don't know where it would go.
I We could put it into the senior center account. Certainly. I wasn't sure. Yeah. I So, it's it's it's fine. You're lightening the mood. But but again, you know, when I'm looking at this and I I I did I found it a little bit just alarming for somebody who had done something so egregious to the seniors in our city, the people who we talk about and and should be most concerned about, but yet nobody from the city went there.
And I I sorry councelor that again there were there were staff city staff from elder services at the sentencing on Wednesday. So only his family moved. Y uh if I may answer that question for you. Um the way the uh disposition in the federal court went um that's a uh reimbursement that's being paid to the city.
Uh there was no penalty assessed against Mr. Clasby, but he was ordered to return the funds in the amounts 130 some odd thousand. Um it's a negotiated amount that goes back into the general fund. The only way it could go anywhere else would be through an appropriation process, but that's um I forget the term.
I used to know the term, but there's a term for money that the city receives that's unassigned to any particular um matter or reason, and that money goes into the general fund. Thank you. So, I guess the last question I'd have is um so I've learned a lot.
What has the administration learned from this um this organizational cultural reporting, oversight, accountability, public confidence, um lessons that have been implemented throughout the city government and how do we make people realize that it doesn't matter who you know, if you do something wrong, you're going to get fired.
I just curious about that because it is a who you know here. So, I through you, Mr. Chairman, again, I obviously couldn't disagree uh more vehemently relative to that. I think the track record speaks for itself.
Uh that there was a person that used that manipulated the system to criminal ends. Uh and that is what happened here. Uh the public has shown great faith in the city. Uh the city is showing great faith in the public.
I would again look at the bigger picture and everything that goes on in this community. Um there is no reason and there is no real evidence that there's any sort of culture that was suggestive of what has been raised previously.
It doesn't it doesn't exist. People may think a certain way. They may be manipulated into thinking a certain way by certain individuals who are perpetrating crimes. But it quite simply does not exist.
All right. So I sorry I have a few questions here. Um Miss Smith, if I could just ask you a few questions. Sorry. So today I I had the opportunity um after work to go down to Elder Services and uh speak with Mrs.
Hanley and you know on top of giving me a tour of everything that was going on at Elder Services um she let me sit in on while they were doing like the the fee remittance um and she kind of walked me through the steps of how it happens down there, right?
Um I guess I'm just curious like what happens. He just walked through like what happens when it gets to your office. So that envelope is sealed, right? It has like the you know the cash is in there and it's wrapped up in the yellow sheet of paper that she has and it has the amount of people who took you know chair yoga zoom zumba you know and the amount of money.
So what happens when it gets to your office? So the format what it will look like will vary by department but the procedure is always going to be the same. So the clerk at the time of receipt will verify the cash in front of the other departmental employee who's doing the drop off the turnover.
Um so we will if there's cash a cash component. So maybe I'll if there's cash in the turnover we will run it through our cash recycler that will kick out any fraudulent bills and we'll double count the amount.
We'll verify that amount with what's on the turnover sheet. If those two match we will stamp it paid. We will then prepare a deposit slip um to go to our bank. If the deposit has checks, if it's a small amount of checks, sometimes departments are dropping off two or three checks.
We can easily do the math right there. There are sometimes where a department is dropping off dozens of checks. Um and so we don't have the capacity at that moment in time to to count it instantly. So, what we'll do is we will email that department um back their copy once we've verified and and gone through those amounts.
If there's cash, it is always being counted at the time of the turnover. Um, as part of our new policies, you may not um leave a turnover in the window without a clerk receiving it. So, um so I'll use sorry, chief.
I'll use police as an example where police are they're they're up earlier than my staff is. And so there was a moment in time where they were putting it into our um windows and leaving it. And so we've we've stopped that um entirely.
So once it comes into my department, we've stamped it, we've verified the funds and the amounts. We will then batch all of the day's receipts together. Um we will put that into our cashbook, which is a ledger, um an independent ledger from Munis.
We will then input the receipts into Munis into the respective code that was indicated on the turnover sheet. Um it will then kind of flow through the rest of the batching process. Um it will go over to our bank.
Okay. So do you ever actually do any of that or is that just somebody on your staff that does that? Oh, we all do it. So, ideally, it's um you're separating all of those duties. And so, I have a front um clerk who will receive the cash, verify the cash, and stamp it.
Ideally, a second person is also verifying that second that that amount of cash. So, we have a second sign off. That person will input it into Munis. they will put all of the receipts from Munis from that day in and then it will then flow into me and I will post the entire day onto um into the the system.
So let me just kind of throw this out as an example and I'm not saying you're this is you but let's say you're related let's say Mr. Clasby brought those things in and you were related to him, right? Do you think it would be okay for you to remit those fees?
No. No. Because I have it I did some research and the former city treasurer Deborah Coughlin and Tom Clasby are related through you, Mr. Chan. I mean, we're getting we are going down paths that are entirely in my mind respectfully inappropriate to suggest that the any treasurer collector of the city had we're just getting down to the levels of insinuation um that I don't believe respectfully is doing is doing anyone any good.
Um, if there was a relationship there, it's it's third it's it's getting respectfully down a path. I'm just asking questions. I'm I'm glad to know that you would not you would recuse yourself as I think any person should.
That's all that's on that's all I'm saying about that. If yes, I would not do that. Um, so the the uh person or the um sorry the uh vendor who was out of state uh from New York, what what uh service did they provide for the city?
What service was it said was being provided? I think it was a fraud a fraudulent service. So no service was provided. Yeah, but what what service did they say was being provided? I believe it was a consulting um consulting for what?
Yeah. Are you coming? I believe it was a consulting. Um I'm not sure. You want me to give it? Sure. Yeah. Counselor, that was uh part of the fraud. Yeah. I know. I'm just asking what was the I mean because there was obviously uh a form filled out was obviously given to Mrs.
Logan and the purchasing department. So there was obviously some um you know service that they said that they were providing. I'm just curious what that service is. If we don't know that's okay. Maybe you can tell me later.
I'm just curious to the to the extent that we're conducting a productive oversight hearing um where the legislative body of government is trying to work with the executive branch and help improve things.
Um, I can tell you that there's nowhere really to go as far as further inquiry into the company in New York because that was clearly a shell. Although, as the treasurer explain, uh, the purchasing agent explained, it all checked out.
That was part of the fraud. They had a, uh, federal ID number. They were registered in the state of New York, but they didn't provide service. And I don't know if anyone read the sentencing memorandum.
I did. I still haven't been able to find I checked tonight for the first time tonight. I heard about the 2014 um incident. And the only thing I can find in the record and the federal court about 2014 is that when we started that's when the city started doing what are those sheets called for the cash?
Turnover. turnover sheets. Um the way it's reported in the federal court is 2014 is when the turnover sheets began. Um there's no reference to what it is and and I saw the same thing that council McKe said she saw.
It was only reported in the Patriot Ledger. Um which I note I recently corrected some date errors in. But to the extent you want to go down that road, there's no road whatsoever to go down with uh former treasurer Deb Coughlin who is an outstanding individual question I had had no record.
Excuse me. That's not May I finish my answer, please? And then the question I'm addressing the chair. The question I had. Could I get a point of order from a council? The question The question I asked This isn't supposed to happen.
No, I'm No, I'm not. The question I had was what service because there was a form filled out was given to the purchasing department that said what service this fraudulent person was providing. I'm just curious what was the service because I'm hoping that someone in the purchase department looked at this and said, "Oh yes, this is the service they're providing.
That seems logical to the services for elder service." So what I'm asking is what was the service the fraudulent service that that that was being provided. All right. Well, I answered that and it was part of the fraud.
So there was clearly no service. um they were listed as a consultant and the purchasing department cannot look behind one contract for the amount of money involved when they're running 40,000 transactions a year.
So that was part of the fraud and I had moved on to councelor I'd rather former treasure coughlin because to bring her name into this was the microphone just turned off. Yep. You're all done. Thank you.
Well, I'm not all done. Okay. for the record and I'll let at least the people present here that this is how this transparent group of individuals who are supposed to be working with the executive branch are actually working.
You're making insinuations that are an absolute disgrace about a treasurer who served with honor had no reason to recuse herself from anything and it's a disgrace that her name was brought into it. We are here to participate in an oversight process and this has been a political rally similar to what I objected to back in January.
This is an over it's not an oversight process when you come in here and don't answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Would anyone else like to Would anyone else like to answer that question?
Do you know the answer to that? Chief Kennedy. Chief Kennedy. Yes. Yep. Thank you. Sorry. Yep. Um, at the beginning, I don't have my notes up here yet. They removed, but at the beginning, you said that um, a detective was dispatched out, I think, on the 18th.
I don't have the notes. Who can you say who that was? Who was the detective who initiated this investigation? Yeah. So, well, I had two detectives working that night after I left the mayor's office. Uh, Detective Lieutenant Steo Donghue and, um, Detective uh, Bill Mont.
uh who does a lot of our financial crimes work happened to be working. So uh I gave them the heads up that night and uh they immediately started working on it. Okay. Thank you. I just was I just was curious.
That's all. Um all right. Uh any of the coun you have a question. I can't see that. Thank you, chairman. This question is for an missed worker. So, just follow your comment. You keep saying it's just the one bad actors, one bad actor manipulate people into thinking they they can't report him, intimidated him.
But I want to ask how about other employees like that firefighter they are not sign petition even he finally signed to hide his name whom manipulated him and the several teachers want to sign it they are not sign it even though teacher always teachers always teaches student to uphold your constitution right but finally themselves dare not to sign the petition what they wanted sign who manipulated them and this I just asked these two questions and I would like to know what kind of at atmosphere in this city and what's the answer the administration can give right uh through you Mr.
chairman. Um, in response to that question, first of all, it's very difficult to know, um, I'm not questioning your veracity, but the truth of the allegations that have been conveyed to you. So, you're asking us to respond to pure speculation.
I'm sure you're familiar with the fact having worked in the public sector at the library with folks who are in a union that there can be fissurers within a union and there can be people who get along with others and people who don't and whatnot and there are statements that that can be made.
So we can't respond to that type of question raised by you because it's really in the world of allegation human interaction that goes on everywhere. So the city is not taking any steps to address the world of rumors in the workforce.
That's that would be overwhelmingly difficult to do. Thank you. Uh followup. So in 2024 we did report this kind of uh situation like uh employees want to sign the petition but they are not. Instead of alarmed by this kind of situations city administration should be feel really cautious why employees are afraid of it.
Instead of doing that you are very defensive about uh we put forward this question. I think to work with to to work with resident to ensure a health open environment for not only for employees for people work together.
We should really take a serious consideration of why people will be afraid to exercise their constitution rights. I think for any any officers, any employee, any resident, if you live in America, a democratic country, the beacon of democracy, you should take this matter seriously and consider how can we improve.
I just say that. Okay. All right. one of the conflicting, you know, viewpoints you have to consider. You were talking all kinds of constitutional um notions and teachers teaching in high school and that's all terrific, but it's also the case that for the government, for the executive branch to get involved in a situation where people have conflicting views, and that's really what you're talking about, some on one side of a petition, some on another.
we can't be taking steps to enforce someone's right to sign a petition for fear that we will be impeding the right of someone who opposes the position. So that's our major reason for staying out of things like that.
And although you know your your general notion is um is a good one and a fair one. Uh the problem is as we've seen plenty this year um you know the democratic process can get a little messy and a little difficult because views conflict.
So that's why I we wouldn't be taking any further steps in that regard. Um Thank you. Um, since I brought this forward, I would like to ask that you just indulge me with a few um, closing remarks. I want to thank Chief Kennedy, u, Miss Smith, and Mr.
Delabara for being here tonight and answering our questions. Um, but I do think that there are some areas that could be improved. Um, I think comprehensive fraud training or I'm sorry, comprehensive fraud policy, not just a cash management policy would be beneficial encompassing cash and procurement and municipal finance.
Um, I think that the fraud training that myself and and certainly Council McKe have been through should be available and and required of all department heads and employees. I think a third party whistleblower reporting um mechanism should be implemented separate from the city.
And I think a review of procurement and purchasing policies and procedures um should definitely be revisited. Some of the questions that I asked here tonight, while I can appreciate um why Miss Smith was the one fielding those, u many of them really should have been gone to the purchasing and what I witnessed here tonight did not give me confidence that there have been lessons learned in that area.
Um, I personally had an incident with a public records request a couple of years ago. Um, that I was asking for basic information and um, the response from the purchasing head was uh, that she found my tone threatening.
She CCed Chief Kennedy and um, I never got the information that I requested and I backed off. I did feel intimidated and I did not pursue it and instead I ran for city council again. Um and finally, I think that the Munis implementation for electronic invoice payments um should be implemented across all departments within a year.
And I think that that's a reasonable goal. I think it would protect against fraud, waste, and abuse and help to detect any anomalies in reporting. So, thank you very much for being here tonight. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Uh Molly, I did have a couple questions if you have a if you can indulge me. Um did you say that the site visits are one time annual or semiannual? So we've started doing them annually. It's a it's a significant lift for my team.
So um there's only three people in the treasury staff. So it's it's hard to take everybody out of the office. Um but yes, we've been doing them annually. And are you all going together? Is so it's myself and two of my staff members.
Correct. Um, do do the do the departments receive the annual department revenue site visit checklist? Is this internal for your office or is this do you send this to the the department prior to your visit?
So, a little bit of both. We do prepare um we we gather some information before we've gone. So, um just so that it's a more informed discussion. So, we're making sure they're sending us their updated policies and procedures before we go.
Um so that if we have changes, I don't I don't like to go anything without reading it through. Um, so I am a preparer for meetings and so we prepare for meetings and so we we look at their policies and procedures before we go in.
Okay. Um, and the with respect to the actual reviews, are the reviews public or where where are the reviews kept or held? So they're not public um in this binder. So So they're not public. We certainly could look at um a lot of these things.
Again, the departments on the whole are doing a really lovely job. Some of these things are are tweaks to um what I was referencing earlier, having a second person there when they're counting the cash, for example.
Um so they're not public, but it's certainly something we could explore. And and you mentioned this is largely modeled after the town of Sterling. Is that right? Um so maybe a point of clarification. So DLS department um division of local services had gone into the town of Sterling I presume for some type of um review and they drafted financial policies for the town of Sterling.
So when I was doing research um because my goal was is always like well what is everyone else doing? So I was trying to find best practices for the senior center and so if DLS was kind of blessing those best practices my thought was we should do the same and as I was doing the reading on that we were already doing it.
And then um you know this may be a good a good note for for you to end on at least with with my questions. Um I do have a few other points but I know you have a program an app rolling out on July 1st.
You know, I think what kind of the overarching sentiment here is the less cash the better because the the less uh room for error or margin of error or room for for fraud or a bad actor as as you say. So um I know you have Pay Quinzy MA rolling out next week if you wanted to touch on that.
Yeah, thanks for the plug. Um so yes, we are launching a new online payment system um with the goal really being to give departments the opportunity and the um the mechanism for accepting non-cash or check payments.
So and actually councelor Ryan perfect timing. So, councelor Ryan had the same question on can we look at maybe eliminating cash and I think um my my prior life in the private sector we were always striving for efficiency and that cash would have been the first thing to go.
When you look at government, we need to service all types of people. We need to offer payment methods that um for the unbanked population for people who maybe don't want a credit or debit card for um populations that that don't have bank accounts.
So, we really need to be able to provide services to all sorts of people. So, eliminating the cash I I do think changes um the services that we can really offer to different types of people. Um thank you.
And then um I guess I'll just end you know I I know a number of my fellow counselors um discussed tonight you know whistleblowing and just really reiterate that the city is an employer. You know the employees of the city many are in different unions and certainly there's a human resources department.
You know they we are the employees of the city are afforded protections. Massachusetts has uh you know whistleblower statutes and whatnot. So certainly to the extent that that was brought up today, just you know make sure that of course everyone at home to the to to that point.
Um with respect to the and Molly this isn't really a question for you but just something I wanted to note the the um internal audit service uh elder services operations review date August 27th, 2025. There is um you know a spreadsheet in here with what's labeled um list of AP transactions deemed suspect after review of invoices.
I just want to make sure that to the extent that this is that this list is is public that folks um you know see businesses on here that certainly shouldn't be implicated in this. Um and I I don't want to see that spiral.
Um, I know that this investigation was obviously investigated by a number of bureaus, QPD, federally, um, a number of different boards. So, to the extent that this list, um, has transactions from two businesses, uh, reiterate that, um, as far as I'm concerned sitting here, they shouldn't be implicated in um, in this.
So, thank you very much. Thank you chairman. Um through you. So like most of us when I saw the news reports of this fraud and crime I was deeply saddened. I was deeply saddened but that by the fact that I mean all fraud and all crime is obviously on its face bad but this is skimming instances of skimming dollars from seniors who have a fixed income and for chair yoga right I mean just that type of thing it it was just really upsetting um right after getting sworn in I reached out to director Hanley and asked if I could come down and and go through all their procedures that they've put in place in her tenure.
I know she came in sort of after it all happened, but I wanted to get an appreciation and understanding and just compare them to that which I'd seen in my various business careers. and she took me through all of the different transaction handlings, the different recordkeepings, the different reconciliations, um how cash is transferred into envelopes reconciliations down to the $2, uh amounts.
Um in some instances they, you know, the the head count differed from the money count, but it was because the instructor checked in and the instructor doesn't pay for the class. So, they're really getting down to the the the fine transactional amounts.
One question did occur to me, and I know it doesn't change it from um being a cash transaction, but Molly, um if you might for a moment, um is there the in order to reduce the frequency of cash transactions, is there a way that maybe seniors could put down say $50 and then have a credit or some type of thing just to reduce the the the volume of transactions?
I know it doesn't make it cashless, but I'm just trying to think a little think aloud a little bit on that. Yeah, that's certainly something Director Hanley and I had looked at. Um the software I believe does provide for that optionality.
I'm not sure what the fees that come with that are. Um but it's something I know she's been excited about trying to roll out. Um I listened to her budget meeting. She said she had four decades of of seniors going there.
So, I think that's that's a big breath of um different types of of payment methods. So, I'm sure it's something that we can roll out in the near future. Yeah, it just might reduce the amount of cash handling.
Um but the going all going cashless, while it sounds great, it also has its trade-offs because now we're paying transaction fees related to that. So, it erodess from the revenue in some way, but in in in a lot of ways, it seems like a fair balance to to move as much cashless as possible.
Um, also I I had Miss Hanley take me through all of her different recordkeeping and where, you know, board of trustees minutes were kept and all that kind of thing. And and I was not surprised at all having um encountered Miss Hanley over the years uh when she was the recck department.
Very thorough, very diligent. Um, and so, uh, I was pretty happy to see see that, you know, I I feel good knowing that the leadership in place right now, um, going forward and for the past since Miss Hanley's taken the helm, um, is riding the ship and doing so with integrity.
And I really appreciate that. And, uh, that's all I have for now. Thank you. Yep. Sorry. Um, so I don't know who to ask us for it. So I think it goes back to reconciliation. If I could just ask one last question about that to you, Molly.
It might be to you to Paul. I'm not sure. Um, so you're using turnover sheets and the senior activities. That's how they pay for it. When the theft happened, did the seniors still were you still collecting stuff from them or how did those those trips and everything still went on, right?
You just say the end of your So they were collecting the money for the trips or whatever they were doing. So they're coming in, they're giving the $3 for yoga, the $10 to go to bingo. I don't know what they were doing, but then some of that money paid for trips too, didn't it?
So did the trip still happen even though they were being money was being embezzled. So they they did. So after what's come out of the investigation is if you paid for the trip with a check, then that did make its way down into my department and then into the city's coffers.
if you paid for ca for that trip with cash. Um, it was not. So, did they have to pay for it again or did the city pay for the trip? I mean, how did that get reconciled? I'm only speaking from my thought of spending a couple weeks there after that um during the incident.
I I believe all the trips and hopefully I'm not misspeaking, but I believe all the trips you had to pay with a check. Okay. So the I was just asking that because again I'm going to go back to the fact that this is the unfortunate part of this is that I do think that this could be happening in other departments.
Just saying that you know there's there's some I feel like there's some really unstable things that were happening here tonight. But at the same time what I realize is that the focus, you know, this is a connected person no matter how we look.
You may not have met him but everybody knew who he was and and he felt like he was above reproach. He thought he could do whatever he wanted and he did do whatever he wanted and it seems like he did whatever he wanted for a really long time without being checked and then maybe when he decided to go just a little bit step further because he needed more money to get the money across federal lines.
I mean this is the stuff we watch on Netflix not really come you know we don't really think it's going to be happening here in Quinsey. Do you do you as you're reconciling do you the department heads that come in because you said earlier you know if they call us and say do you send the mun reports to them or do they have access some of them don't have access to munus reports so I'm not sure if they do to be able to reconcile it themselves to be able to be able to flag something that might have got mis misdone so all department heads or all departments as part of our review um and is written into our new policy is that well new two years is that all departments need to be doing a reconciliation um against the turnovers that they've provided us.
So if you've deposited if you've given the treasur's office seven turnovers be looking and making sure there's seven deposits in your mun account and those figures are correct. Yeah. So the reason why I was bringing that up and I don't I don't think the library has a ton of free like petty cash that they deal with over there.
I think they do though and I know the director basically said I don't know how to use munus and and that's my concern like like it's one of those types of things where you know you can put all the safeguards into it and say everybody has to do some things but if they don't have the training they don't know how to do it and it happens it doesn't happen just because you're not doing it.
It can happen because everybody gets comfortable and things change and you kind of have to refresh them even though you're like I already know how to do that but you know we all take annual tests for like ethics and everything else that we have to do.
or a designate. So, so if the department head So, so I do know that there is someone in the library and and I won't name names, but there is absolutely someone in the library that is looking at their mun deposits and verifying them with what my team has done.
Okay. And I do I want to thank you, Molly, because I know how hard I mean you are extremely proud of your staff when I came in and the transition that you've had in that department. I'm not saying anything about any that was prior to you.
I'm just saying that you you run a really tight ship and I love that about you. And I also want to thank Chief Kennedy because you know this is this is this was probably not your like the highest part of your day when you come in and go, "Oh, it's one of ours." Like that's horrible to have to deal with no matter who it is.
And the same thing with um Paul, you kind of stepped in. But what I will say that's really disturbing to me is every time somebody stands up at the microphone and talks to us like we're dealing with something really bad because we're asking questions, it's offensive.
That's how I feel. and that we're supposed to be working together. I mean, solicitor Timmons came up and basically said we should be working together and we are working together. There are uncomfortable things that we have to talk about and I'm just saying that because I I have asked for things and I work I work well with Mr.
Walker, but when we're looking at this in particular, this is this is a giant stretch across a lot of departments. We don't have the procurement person here tonight to answer questions because she had to leave um because of her behavior and her behavior.
I'm going to go back to that because her behavior is a reflection on this administration. It's a reflection on everything that we're talking about tonight that we're asking questions and we can't have that civil dialogue back and forth.
She didn't come up to answer questions. She came up to attack us. That's what she was doing. She was up here like I don't like the way you look. And I don't care about that, but I care about what it looks like to the rest of the people at home.
And that's our job. We got elected to come in and ask these questions. And I didn't I didn't create the Clasby situation. Clasby created the Clasby situation. And you know, I remember when you were growing up, you're kind of like, don't hang around that one because you're going to get in trouble.
It seems like there's a lot of like people who get in trouble in the city of Quinsey that are part of the city of Quinsey's administration. Seriously. And that's true. So, be careful who you hang out with.
But thank you very much. I really do appreciate everybody's willingness to come up and answer questions. who are blaming you. Did any of the other counselors have any questions before I I just I just want to um have I have some closing remarks as well?
Uh similar on what President Mahoney just said. Um this is the oversight committee. Um it's supposed to be somewhat uncomfortable. It's kind of where we go to ask really difficult questions. I know that in the past there have been other chairs of the oversight committee where they didn't meet.
No questions were asked. um at least for the next 16 months that's not going to be the case. Um we are going to have regular oversight uh committee hearings and hard questions um are going to be asked.
Um as for what happened earlier um when Miss Logan had to leave um you know I've known Miss Logan for 20 years. Um, she's always been a familiar face to me, a friendly face when I go out in in public.
Um, I was a little caught off guard by her um, behavior here tonight. I I just want everyone at home to know that that's not the Katherine Logan that I've come to know over the last 20 years. Um, um, you know, I' I've known her a long time.
Her I had her mother as my favorite math teacher in school. And you know, I know that she's she has done good work for the city and we all have, you know, times that aren't so great. Um, but it is my hope that she will reflect on this and, you know, be sending some apologies um to some of the counselors um here that were spoken about tonight.
Um, on a kind of a separate note about Mr. Clasby, um, you know, we talked a lot about him. you know, tonight I just wanna, you know, he got caught up in, you know, put himself in a bad situation and he uh he got caught up there.
Um I did know him. Um you know, just from being around in in local politics for years, um I was, you know, like the mayor said on one of his podcasts, when um this event happened, he was surprised. Um, I was also surprised.
Um, Mr. Clasby was always somebody at an event that would come over and ask how I was doing, ask how everybody was doing and my family and and that's the person that that I knew um up until, you know, this event uh happened.
But sometimes we we take a separate path and we go down a dark road and, you know, people can be, you know, disappointed. Um, so, um, I just wanted to to say that. Um, but this will close this part of the, um, oversight, um, hearing.
Uh, we have two more things on here. Uh, 2026100. Um, it's order the Quinsey Housing Board uh, appointment process review. So, um, back on I'll wait till Yeah. back on um February 23rd. This was initially uh it was initially introduced to be on the February uh 23rd, 2026 city council meeting, but I I believe that was the one that was cancelled for the snow.
Uh so it was pushed off until March 2nd. It had to do with the appointment of two of the members of the Quinsey Housing Authority Board. One of them was uh Timothy Baker. um who's an atlarge member um of the Quincsey Housing Authority Board and the other one was a John Del Carly.
He is um the res tenant representative member. Um so we discussed it at the March 2nd, 2026 meeting. Uh the council voted to table those appointments um and requested additional information regarding the nominees and the appointment process so that members could make fully informed decisions.
The council requests included information regarding the nominees qualifications and prior service as well as documentation related to the tenant representative appointment process under general law chapter 121b section 5.
The council made these requests not as a criticism to any individual, but as part of the responsibility of this council to exercise thoughtful oversight and to ensure that public appointments are being made through a transparent process that complies with the applicable state law.
Since March 2nd, members, I know I have um and I know council yan has uh of the council have continued to seek additional information. I recognize that gathering records and coordinating responses, you know, can take time, but I am disappointed that none of the requested documentation has been provided here tonight.
I had hoped that by the time of today's hearing, we would have information necessary to fully address the council's questions and bring this matter to a conclusion. I believe that both the council and the administration share that same goal to ensure that the public has the confidence in the appointment process in the important work that has to be done by the Quinsey Housing Authority.
Transparency and communication are essential to maintaining that confidence. Today's hearing is not intended to assign blame. Again, it's not. rather it's just an opportunity to better understand the process that if it was followed to obtain the information we had requested um and to work collaboratively towards resolving any outstanding questions.
I appreciate everyone who's taken the time to participate in this process and I remain hopeful that through open dialogue and cooperation we can provide clarity for the council and the residents of Quinsey Housing and to the broader Quinsey community.
With that, I look forward to any discussion that's going to happen here tonight. And I'm going to ask um Mr. Walker to tell us why we don't have the information that we requested 3 months ago. Um hold on.
Sorry. Through you, madam, Mr. Mr. Chairman. Um you know, quite simply, I think we talked about it last week. I I think uh the communication to the administration uh relative to some initial questions I think that was responded to and and there was some slippage there.
Uh the council then filed a comprehensive order uh requesting documentation or ordering documentation. There were some issues with that. Um the administration has not signed that order. uh it has not evaluated that order that we're within the time frame of that.
Um so based off of the fact that that order was submitted last week with a lot more uh information beyond the information that was initially requested um we're taking our privilege and determining how best to handle what was actually filed in the order and address it in the fall.
So, I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna say something. I'm just put on my my work hat for a second, right? So, it's the end of the school year, right? And what do you think I got going on at the end of the school year?
Who's coming up to me every 5 seconds? I need extra time for this. I need extra time for that. Right? So, and I say to them, you know, you can have that time, but I like to put it right back on the students.
How much time do you need? So, I'm going to ask how much time do you need to get the documents that we've requested? There's two things. First, there is what was in the actual order and whether or not all of that documentation was properly requested.
Uh secondly, the base level information that that you have s sought, I think we'll most certainly be ready to go in the fall. Okay. So there's there's one piece of information that I I would like immediately and we did talk about this um offline earlier is the letters that went out to the tenant agencies.
Um because I I you know you said you could get that from me tomorrow. I believe so. Okay. So you believe so or it's going to happen? This is M Mr. Chan. This is not a court of law. Yeah. Well, no, because I I just want because the thing is is according to state law, we have you have to let that sit for 90 days.
So, what I'm saying is if the letter doesn't exist, we should get that letter out ASAP. So, that way at the end of the summer, the 90 days, you know, we get to the end of September, the 90 days has has gone by.
That's why I'm looking for that letter so we can actually make sure we're following the state law. So, do we think we can have that letter tomorrow? We believe so. And and if if if the letter was not produced or can't be produced, would the administration be amendable to producing a letter and starting the nomination process over for the Look, I again the order is not properly before this body as it was submitted last week because it has not been signed.
Uh whether or not it's a proper order or not is being reviewed. If that's the direction we're going, we we'll file what we need to file. We'll be ready to go in the fall. I would just say from a practical perspective that the mayor's appointees are already sitting.
They've been sitting. These are follow-up terms that the mayor's appointees succeed until their successors are appointed. If this body does not choose to confirm those appointees, those me bodies those members are still members of the body.
Correct. But we still need to make sure we're following the state law which says that when their term expires, which was on February 2nd, we, you know, we 90 days before that, we were going to submit a um a letter to the 10 or 11 tenant agencies in Quinsey housing, which we're required to do by law.
And as far as I know from the tenant agencies I've talked to, they did not receive a letter. So that's why I'm trying to confirm if the letter exists. Okay. So I'm hoping you I am hoping that we can get that tomorrow.
So that way if we don't have it, if for some reason it doesn't exist and again, you know, as you said, it's not really a huge deal because the members are already sitting, but we can at least get the ball rolling so that we can come into compliance with state law.
see what I can do. Okay. Uh, any other counselors have any questions? Council, you want? Hold on one second. Go ahead. Thank you, chairman. So, I would like let a resident know how this confirmation process is.
So in March administration just send two orders ask city council to confirm two appointees of the housing board member with no CV no no information whatever and they just give to city council say confirm it.
Confirm what? And is this the standard practice of administration to submit a po appointment for city council to confirm? I just feel that's very strange. Uh I would like to ask Miss worker is that the standard practice of the administration just submit to order say confirm these two appointees with no information whatever.
How do we know these two appointees CV previous experience qualification and we have to do research and find out find out oh this is the current incumbents so if it's incumbent you should have a performance record and for I know why you are not a rush because without a confirmation since they are incumbent they can still sit at on that seat to keep connecting compensations until you find the find a new appointee to confirm you.
So they don't care they just sitting there doesn't matter you confirm or not confirm. So the whole confirmation process is become a ceremonial for at least for the previous city council I guess if they if they do like this just confirm it without any information but we don't want this city council don't want to just do ceremonial work we want to really if you want to me confirm give me information let's let's check if this one is qualified otherwise how how how can we confirm I would like to know Mr.
workers opinion about this through you madam chair madam chairman the I'm just so used to the finance committee meetings um look there's been a process here the council's asked for subsequent information that has not been asked for previously uh initially it was going to be scheduling the two appointees in front of the body uh the council was with within their rights to ask them questions that changed to different kinds of information culminating in last week a couple weeks ago when the council reminded that we hadn't addressed this issue which I took ownership of that we have not and then subsequent to that there was an order that was put in place which sort of now trumps our response to anything we're going to evaluate that order we may not sign that order we may be able to provide the information that the council feels appropriate Um, that's essentially where we're at.
It's not over complicated. It's not any attempt at anything. It's the information requested has moved a little bit. We've certainly um not been in any great hustle. Sure. Um, but it's not that complicated.
So in the first meeting I did ask at least the administration have to provide a CV the performance record and any statement of conflict interest to the city council the the basic information but how many months passed three months passed the administration never get back to me and then I emailed you several Several weeks ago, I asked her, so what's the standard administration's process to to do this confirmation?
Specifically, what kind of information usually admin administration provide to the city council about this appointee for confirmation and you said oh that's on me and I will see what I can get to to the city council.
That's it. till now I still didn't get anything again because there's an order that's been passed by this body that trumped my last discussion on this prior to the order being filed was we will discuss and perhaps we can get that done at the meeting on the 17th but the meeting on the 17th an order was filed that order now formalizes a process it formalizes the council's wishes which is fine uh in a way that needs to be reviewed by legal to see if it's in proper since it's an order whether or not it's properly in front of the body or not and that's the way we're going to approach this.
My next question is this always the this way when the previous city council confirms the appointees. No, usually what will happen is the council will ask uh if the appointees can appear before the body and if that's the case, they'll appear before the body, answer a couple questions and we generally move on.
So, uh, thank you and and I and I and I hear you on that and I know that that's how this conversation started. Um, was that they were going to come before the body and then you had said to me that you didn't think that at least one of the parties was capable or or would be comfortable doing that.
and and I said to you at the time that that I totally understood um I I could understand that um you know I I think that person as after going through the meeting minutes does you know very valuable work um on that board and um you know I think that's what kind of like precipitated the discussion about us you know maybe having like a I know this was just kind of like a back and forth like a resume andor a statement of interest.
I know those were kind of more um informal and we did go back and forth about that a few times, but those things um never materialized. Um you know, there's a whole slew of different reasons for that, I'm sure.
But, you know, that was the catalyst for the order because the you know, again, we're working together here. um the congenial way in which we were working together seemed to be kind of breaking down. Um I don't know why because it always seemed very much like oh yeah we're going to get that to you.
Oh this is going to happen. There was never any breakdown about it but then nothing ever um materialized. So, that's one of the reasons why I put the order forward. And it really just is those same things that um you know, we kind of more informally talked about um you know, offline.
Um you know, but again, I I do want to get these two members confirmed. I know that they sit on the board um until their successors are chosen. Um but you know the the people who I represent um a lot of people who live in housing um they have concerns um and they feel like this is just another kind of slap in the face that like their concerns aren't heard.
um they feel like their concerns aren't heard um at the Quinsey Housing Authority board meetings and now they feel like the city council well not the city council they feel like the administration is laying them down because it's the administration's um you know requirement to follow this state law and it's it's not this is not in an effort to you know chastise the administration.
This is our um this is our duty, you know, to some of our most vulnerable residents. This is their one uh representative on the board and they already feel like the board is not doing a great job representing them and now they feel that their one representative, you know, is not even being held to task for, you know, their own confirmation.
Um, I'm just going to open up to anybody else who has a question about this. Uh, councelor Mahoney. Yeah, hold on one second. Really have a question, but I do think we have, you know, we have time to come back at the beginning of September for this and we could probably just move this.
And if you do have anything, u, Mr. Walker, that you can share with them, great. But, you know, if we and if it can't be in the first of first meeting of September, maybe it can be the second meeting in September.
But we're not going to solve this tonight. So, so the other thing on the agenda tonight is the uh resolve that I have um sorry uh 101 um 2026 101. Um, it was read into uh at the city council meeting uh last week, so I won't read it again.
Um, I'm hoping that um the my fellow counselors have had time to review this. Basically, just as a summary, there's five members on the board. One is appointed by the governor um and that's Josephine Sheay right now.
Um two are appointed at large. um one another one is appointed at large but needs to be an AFL CIO member and the last one is the tenant representative. All this resolution does is ask the mayor when making his appointment to the Quinsey Housing Authority Board that he consider um appointing from one of the at two large members or at large members or two of them that he consider um appointing another member or somebody who lives in housing.
Um, you know, I think I had said at the previous meeting that, you know, there's kind of like two I don't want to say there's obviously more than two camps, but there's two large camps in housing. There's there's elderly um and then there's family housing.
It does seem like the elderly housing um the tenant representative has been someone um who lives in elderly housing and the people who live in family housing feel like their voices aren't being heard.
Um, so I would entertain a motion to um accept this order 2026 101 um to move it into the general city council meeting uh for passage. Not not out of not out of committee. There's one more. We don't have to.
Okay. So, how do we So, it's in the calendar, so we can just pull it out. All right, disregard. We don't need to we don't need to move. I thought we had to vote on that. But, um, again, I hope that, you know, um, in the general counsel meeting, you know, my fellow counselors um that we will pass this.
Again, it doesn't um require the mayor to do that. It's just us asking him um from this request from the folks who live in housing. Does anybody have any questions about that? Councelor Riley, hold on one second.
So, sorry. So, are we we're going to just take this up under reports of committees. Okay. So, I would just like to make a a general sort of statement because I know I've said it before that these boards, committees, and commissions um is there are definitely lots of people in the city of Quinsey that would love to be participating in a lot of these and it does seem like most people are appointed sometimes for decades.
Um, I hear there's a book that has all the um expiration dates of when people are supposed to be in the case of this one because it's federal housing, I would imagine that's why it needs to come to the city council.
Um, not all appointments come to the city council, but it does seem like and this particular one kind of in a funny way. Um, I had attended the Quinsey Housing Authority board meeting as I had done several of them and I told them you have two appointees who are whose term is expiring and the question they asked me was which two?
They didn't know which two were expiring and so I told them and then you know a few weeks later this order came. So, I'm going to reiterate that these boards, committees, and commissions have been locked up for far too long.
Um, if there's expirations of terms, nobody pays attention, and it's something that really should be revisited. I think there's one person that handles the book and the appointments, and there should be a little bit more um opportunity for people to be involved in these boards.
Anyone else for any comments on this? Um, I just also want to say that I did um reach out to the housing authority. You know, they have a a very um very usable website. Um, there's also a member on there that's the AFL CIO member, and I did ask them um just for kind of transparency purposes to label them as the AFL CIO member.
They told me they weren't going to do that, but I did um I did ask them to do that. So, I think that would be useful for someone who's doing some research like I was doing at the time to try and figure out who was who and who was meeting um which qualification.
But um I just wanted to add that in. So, if I don't have any other questions, I will u make I need a motion to adjourn this oversight committee meeting. We have a motion to adjourn from councelor Riley.
Very good. All right. Let's we're all set here. Thank you so much. And we'll move on to we doing rules. rules. Okay. So, I would uh before we go into the rules committee, um I would like to open the ordinance committee meeting for tonight as well.
Um and then I will recess the ordinance committee meeting. And now we'll go into rules. Um so for this one um this is where we're where councelor Yuen has has put this forward um like the first thing uh when we first took office.
So this is an ordinance to try to um ensure that we have everything posted on the website 48 hours in advance of meetings. So, if there's any additional supplementary material, that will go online for everyone in the public to to see.
So, um I'm hoping we can kind of keep this moving uh tonight pretty fast. So, um because we have a lot to get through. So, councelor Yan, do you want to briefly speak to this? Um okay. So I was going to I was going to read through it so resident can hear.
But we read it on January. I didn't read the whole it. Okay. At least I want to read the title of each sections so resident can hear. Then I have a small amendment to uh propose. Okay. So the title of this ordinance is uh safeguard transparency, public access to information and the democratic participation in city council proceedings.
And so section one legislative fundings and the democratic purpose. So I should I can read one. So um whereas the city council of the city of Quincy affirms that transparent government and informed public participation are fundamental to a healthy local democracy.
And whereas public confidence in municipal government depends upon depends upon the timely and meaningful access to information used by elected officials in deliberation and decision making. And whereas Massachusetts General Laws chapter 38 section 20 requires that a meeting agenda be posted at least 48 hours prior to an open meeting excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and the legal holidays in order to safeguard the public's right to notice and participation.
And whereas city councilors and members of the public alike must be afforded adequate time to read, analyze, and understand the materials related to matters scheduled for consideration by the city council.
and various supplemental materials including presentation slides, reports, memorandum and supporting documents are routinely relied upon during city council meetings and often form the basis for policy decisions affecting residents.
And whereas the late posting, selective disclosure or withholding of such materials in impedes meaningful public engagement, limits informed the debate and endmines democratic accountability. And whereas the preparation and the timely posting of all necessary materials in advance of city council meetings promotes administrative efficiency, ensures professional prep prepar prepar prepared by city department and prevents reliance on lastm minute reports or incomplete documentation for matters of significant public public importance.
And was ensuring that information is is accessible to public at the same time it is provided to city councilors strengthens transparency protects democratic norms and promotes trust in local government.
Now therefore be it ordained by the city council of quincy as follows. So definition, agenda, supplemental materials including any document, presentation, slider deck, report, memorandum, exhibit, data and other written and electronic material prepared for, submitted to, or presented to the city council in connection with an agenda item.
Emergence. A sudden and enforcing circumstance requiring immediate immediate reaction to protect public health, safety or property for which the once public posting of supplementmental materials is not practic um practicable.
Section three timely public posting of supplemental materials. This I just quickly say like uh 40 yeah at least publish it 48 hours before the meeting exclude weekend and holidays and the limitation on late or last minute materials.
And the section five is a prohibition on first presentation voting to protect a public deliberation. To protect informed deliberation and meaningful public engagement, the city council shall not take a final action or vote on any proposal, order, ordinance, resolution, contract, or other substantive matter at the same meeting at which such matter is first presented to the city council.
And as an emergence as defined in section two is declare is declared and stated on the record later I have a little amendment of this. So section six enforcement and certification section seven transparency and compliance reporting.
So, city clerk shall submit an a new written report to the city council summarized compliance with this chapter including the number of city council meetings held, any instance in which emergence exceptions were invoked and any known failure to post required a supplemental materials.
Such report shall be made publicly available. So effective date. So basically is this. So I have a a little amendment to section five prohibition on first presentation voting to protect a public deliberation.
So, so over the past six months, I have observed several orders being voted on at the same meeting in which they were first presented. Examples include councelor Hub's resolution urging passage of Massachusetts House Bill H91 and the Senate Bill A 2556 to modernize the funding for community media programming.
the order and the order regarding MSBA accelerated repair program feasibility initiatives and the order requesting the administration to provide a two physical year capital bonding plan. So because of orders and resolutions do not create a law in the same manner that ordinance do I believe it is appropriate to allow some flexibility for routine or straightforward matters.
Therefore I would like to amend section five so that the prohibition on first presentation voting applies only to ordinance and contracts. So specifically I move to strike the words proposal order and resolution from the relevant sentence in section five.
So that only ordinance and contracts and other substantive uh substantive matters and would be prohibited from being voted on upon first presentation. So um thank you. So uh that's a motion to Yes. So mo I um hear a motion to amend section five um striking proposal order and resolution and leaving ordinance contract or other substantive matter.
Um we don't need a second. Um on the motion. Yes. Councelor Hibily. Yes. Thank you Madam Chair. Um, so I I completely agree. Uh, actually, let me back up a little bit. So, uh, one of the first conversations I had prior to getting sworn in, I want to say maybe it was back in nove, maybe late November, early December, um, reached out to, uh, to become president, um, council person Mahoney and brought up that I found that there's a lot of materials being provided sort of last minute, right?
not not getting things in enough time to review it. And the watermark that I used was so with our school committee in the city of Quinsey, they receive their package of information on Friday for the following Wednesday meeting, giving them the whole weekend and a few days to digest and reach out to professionals, let's say, or someone in the administration.
And the way things kind of happen on the council is you get something on Friday for the Monday meeting and you got to bug people over the weekend to get your answers. So I thought that was inefficient and I was hoping we could get a better order.
I I completely agree with you what we're what the intent of this is the only and I also agree with the I would say 2/3 of the amendment that uh is being proposed and so I'm totally fine with resolutions uh council UN did a good example of a resolution a lot of times a resolution is simply like back oh there's two good examples actually the the QAV thing was simply to author a letter to send to our delegation to encourage them to pass something that was before that body uh to modernize the um money that the the revenue source for QAV.
Another one was very time-sensitive in that there was uh veterans benefits that could be impacted and we needed to get our letter in and we uh it didn't it fell off the agenda for the previous meeting so we wanted to get it in quickly and it's simply generating a letter of support.
Right. So those things totally get it. That makes complete sense. Um the only thing that gives me pause are things like orders. So I'm complete through you madam chair uh council. I'm totally with you with the exception on on proposal and resolution resolution.
Sorry. Um the only thing I'm not with you on is the order one. And so my question is that um I think so for example orders can call for money appropriation. No. Nope. Okay. All right. Um, so I just want to think that one through a little bit.
I did look at this and thought it was great, but that's the only thing that's getting kind of stuck. Um, I'm wondering what types of uh I just hadn't had time to think through the types of orders. I thought about the other two, but just hadn't had time to think through the other orders.
Any I'd like to hear my uh colleagues thoughts on that one just to make sure I'm not missing anything. Yeah. Council. Oh, I just answer his question. and just answer uh councelor Hub's question. So order I remember that MSBA that accelerated the repair that did ask money but it's called order and my that ask administration to provide two fiscal year capital bonding plan I also put it also order so um question if anything related money maybe we shouldn't vote it on the first time is that is that your suggestion or I I'm trying not not just money.
Money was the first thing that came to my brain, but I'm just trying to think of, you know, we all campaigned on being very thorough, going through the process, taking our time, not kind of rushing things through.
So, I just that's the only thing that got kind of stuck. Um, but I that's why I want to hear from my colleagues, just their opinions on it. Does anyone else have something? I was going to say something.
I'm raising my hand for myself. So, councelor Riley, you're calling yourself. So, I I can understand the need to want to um get all the information in advance. We've all been saying that coupled with though sometimes the need for some flexibility.
So, I'm not sure how I feel about the um the order um specific one. Um but I understand and this this came up with the um Eastern Nazarine College presentation when we had been presented with a slide deck of 30 slides that we had not seen.
So, this speaks to the need to get this stuff further in advance. Um, and so I want to be supportive of it. I want to get the language right and and put forth something that we can all get behind tonight.
So, um, just to speak on the order question, um, I've noticed that everything that comes before us, resolutions, ordinances, anything has an order number. Um so um and as I was look researching things um earlier on uh about trying to sort all this stuff out things that are just orders I think are kind of directives.
So, for example, um the council has the stated right in the in the code or in the charter to that if it requests information within um 7 days of the mayor, then the the mayor has to come back with that information or through a representative.
So, um that's what I would consider sort of a directive to say like we would like this information. So, um, personally, I would strike order because there might be something that's time-sensitive that we would, um, want to be able to, I believe, like with, um, councelor UN's request for the two years of, um, capital project um, information.
So, given the the deadline that we were under, I think that's a useful thing to be able to to say. So, I would I would argue to have order in there while also saying of course like whenever possible, we should always give as much notice as possible.
And I think, you know, when you've when you've brought that up before about some things that I've said, let's do this tonight. You know, we're in a hurry. Um I take your point. So I think whenever possible, we'll try to um give the maximum amount of of notice and not do things in the same night, but there may be times when we need to say like we need this information in the next seven days.
Yeah. And and and my question doesn't come up from a source of knowledge. It comes from a source of being new, right? I just wanted to think it through and to see it because that was the only one that I got stuck on when I heard the three that we wanted to change.
Um, could I propose a what would you call a friendly amendment of just doing the two and then revisiting it at a later date if we feel like it's not effective for us? Maybe give us some time over the summer to think about it.
We could always amend things, right? Just throw it out there. So, we just strike a proposal in the resolution. Yeah. So I I hear uh councelor Hibli's suggestion. So you mean we leave order, ordinance, contract and other substantive matter uh in the language?
So those four items shouldn't be voted on on the first time it was presented. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I honestly don't know enough about the distinction between a proposal and an resolution and order.
I So resolutions I'm totally fine with because I think we have precedent for that. Um I'd be open to my colleagues opinions on this, but that was my only that was the one thing. Yeah, I am I'm really sorry.
I was I was having a side conversation. So um what what what were you just saying very quickly? I thought we were I just discuss discuss if we leave the order in the language or not. I was saying you wanted Yeah, I think so leaving it in means there we're not going to vote them through that night.
That's the point I was going for. Whatever whatever wording change has that effect and that's what I'd like. So you would like to remove order? No, not from her motion from her amendment. Apologies. Okay.
You would like to leave order um in this remove proposal resolution. I'm okay with proposal or resolution being removed. And and council, you are accepting? I think I can accept. Okay. You're accepting this friendly amendment.
So, we have um a motion to amend section five to delete proposal and resolution from this list and leave order, ordinance, contract, or other substantive matter. Um, so we don't need a second. Um, anyone else on the motion?
Uh, count. Oh, I'm sorry. Councelor Riley first and then councelor Jacobs. So, I'm a little bit confused. This is where we're kind of dancing around this. I I thought councelor Huby, you said that you thought you would want to be able to pass an order in certain circumstances.
So, we want to No, the opposite. I No, it says the council shall not take final action or vote. So, I think we need to really re make sure we're stating what I think leaving order in is so whatever whatever doesn't allow us to take action on an order is the language that I want.
I I I thought it was just ordinance. I thought we were agreeing that we would not take action simply on an ordinance, but that proposals, orders, resolutions, and I guess we said ordinance and contract was I don't know when we'd vote on a contract, but I thought we were trying to say that we would take action on an order if necessary in the same night that it was introduced.
It's not ideal, but that we would be able to take action if we if we but I'm not sure what the language is. Let me let me try to let me try to clear it up. I'll do my best. So, there was an amendment offered to remove proposal, order, and resolution.
I made a friendly amendment to only remove proposal and resolution and leave order in there because they're of the nature of orders. But I could be wrong about that. And I say I'm not speaking out of authority.
I'm speaking out of being new. Yeah, I think I do think that the orders as we're talking about them, like if we really needed to do something like the order for the um the two years of data, if we struck this from section five, um we it might limit our ability to um No.
No. Council Riley's right. Shall not take final action or vote. So, you don't want order on there. don't want proposal. You don't want resolution. You just want to keep ordinances from not passing in one night and contract and contracts.
Everything else will be able to be passed in one night cuz it says shall not take final action or vote. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. I think I followed that. I think councelor Huby I think councelor Haley's question is more so which of these um five um iterations of documents or or items that may be before us which are binding and which which are I think councelor Huby you're really asking whether an order is binding if we're voting on an order or whether it's whether it's something more along the lines of um a resolution or proposal.
I think that that would probably solve the confusion. But the so the order is usually a request, right, of we're ordering documents or something to be given to us in a certain amount of time, right? That's the only real order that would be that would be in front of us.
So with that in mind, I guess councelor Hubi, that may determine which avenue you're going. Okay. I think I can accept the amendment that uh council put forward. Okay. As originally put forward. Okay.
So now we have the original amendment. So we would uh remove proposal order and resolution from this list. Uh oh wait oh we because we're saying shall not take final action on any no yeah or yeah so take away proposal order resolution leave ordinance contract or other substantive matter.
Um, so now we're back to the original. Um, anyone else on Oh, Councelor Jacobs, did you have something? No, no, she should say May. I'm just kidding. That was a call back. Um, okay. Uh, councelor um Ryan to be clear, we are removing we are keeping ordinance and contract in section five and removing proposal order and and resolution.
Okay. Okay. Um, shall we take a roll call vote? So, that's me. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. It would only be the committee. It would only be the committee members also. So, councelor Ash. Yes. Council Hubley.
Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Yuan. Yes. Chairman. Yes. Okay. So, that passes. Um. All right. So, um is there anything anyone else wants to or is there a motion um or any other discussion on this um ordinance?
Councelor Riley, just a motion to move it out. A motion to um accept as amended and move it out of committee with a favorable recommendation. We don't we don't need a a motion. I should have also raised my hand first.
So would you actually um we need to add um where in the city code this ordinance would go. So, oh yes, chapter. So, yeah. So, be it ordined be ordained by the city council of Quincy that the general ordinance of the city of Quincy be amended by adding a new chapter entitled transparency and the public access to city council materials.
So, just add a new chapter in it. It would really it would really fall into the city council. Okay. So, so um so the council clerk has suggested putting it in the code where the city council is where the city council rules live which I think makes sense.
So that would be chapter 19 and then um we would be adding a section 9. This would be chapter 19 section 9. So, um, Councelor Riley, is that all right to if I make a motion to amend this to add, uh, this ordinance to chapter 19, section 9?
Okay. And and um any on on the motion, councelor Ash? I'm not not on that amendment. So, if you want to vote on that, that's fine. Okay. Uh, anyone else on that amendment? Okay. Um shall we take a roll call vote on that motion to approve um as amended with council um on putting it into chapter 19 section 9.
Councelor Ash, yes. Council Hubley, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council, yes. Chair McKe, yes. Okay. So, councelor Ash. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I would suggest and make a friendly amendment to change the word substantive to dispositive.
Dispositive. Yes. I think that that um so this reads um vote on any ordinance, contract or other substantive matter at the same meeting. I think just dispositive may be the the better word to accomplish the meaning there.
So instead of substantive, change that to dispositive. Um, do you do you accept that as a friendly amendment, council? I guess first of all, could we have a definition of dispositive? I don't I don't actually know what that means.
Yes. Dispositive means having the power to decide, resolve, or determine the outcome of an issue. Having the having the power to decide, resolve, or determine the outcome of an issue. I guess my my fear with substantive is something maybe substantive to one of us and not substantive sub substantive to all of us.
Okay. So something now we're really going getting going going down the the weeds. Um I I I think dispositive accomplishes the what is sought with the um the essence of okay this ordinance. We have a motion to amend section five to change the word substantive to dispositive in the list of things or other um dispositive matter at the same meeting.
um on the motion. Oh, council Yuen just to clarify. So council lash so if you change it to this positive means will be no no discussion or like will because you said substantive maybe someone think it's substantive another one is not but if you change it to dispartive means no argument no no dis that through you madam chair dispositive would be the the adjective so to to discern the type of matter So the a dispositive matter is um a matter that um where we have the power to decide in one evening.
What would come out of voting on that would be something that would um be conclusory. We'll say for that that'd be I'm not not rehearsed here on this but um subst my my fear with the term substantive is that we we I could think something was substantive and important and another um of my fellow counselors could feel differently.
Right. Okay. So it's um it's substantive is a bit subjective and dispositive is less subjective where it would be like something that would have would be decided by that. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, any other discussion on the motion?
Okay. Uh, can we take a can we take a roll call vote? Sure. Council Ash. Yes. Council Hubley. Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Yuan. Yes. Council M. Yes. Okay. So, I we might have to um take another motion then to approve this as amended unless there's no other further discussion on this.
Motion to approve as amended. Okay. Motion to approve as amended. Councelor uh Riley, um can you please take a roll call vote again? Council Ash, yes. Council Hubley, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council Yuan, yes.
Jenna McKe, yes. Five passes. Okay, thank you. Um I think that's the only thing that we had in rules committee. So um now I will adjourn rules committee. Motion to adjurnn. Okay. And now we will uh switch gears to ordinance committee.
Um I want to Could you pass? Okay. So, so now we are moving into the ordinances um for the raises that were passed in 2024. Um I just wanted to give a little update. Um, so I had a bunch of different versions of this because I was struggling to understand like whether we could repeal something, etc.
The the importance of the word repealed to me was because I was concerned about pension issues. Um, that that there existed um on the books a law that said the salary is a certain amount um and how that would affect the pension.
So, um, Solicitor Timmons asked the, um, Quincsey Retirement Board, uh, for clarification on this point and sent an email, um, uh, where the interim executive director of the Quinsey Retirement System, Anthony Sarnakiaro, um, said, "You are correct.
The mayor's retirement allowance will be calculated based on his three highest years of regular compensation received for which he received creditable service and not the amount in the ordinance. So um that's comforting.
I then asked um C letter Timonss if the mayor would be amendable to additionally um writing a letter to say that he would not try to appeal this. Um um I haven't seen my email for a few hours. Solicitor Timonss, is there any any update on that?
Yes. Uh, it's still off. It's back on. Turned it on. Um, your your question is whether the mayor's going to write a letter and I have not got an answer for that yet. You asked me on Friday. I didn't get to see the mayor on Friday and he was not around today.
Um I'll suggest to you that I I'm not quite certain. I mean any letter the mayor sent you would be um a word that Mr. Walker particularly likes. Nougatory, it's not going to mean anything. Um the fact of the matter is the Quinsey Retirement Board supervised by Pier Act, they determine what the pension is and it doesn't, you know, there's it doesn't matter what the mayor thinks or what a court appeal might be.
There's a formula and it's based on whatever money you've paid into the system and that money is taken from your actual paycheck. So what was explained in that letter to you that's outcome determinative here.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. So um and I don't know if you had a further chance to look at these ordinances that I gave you. I I think I made all the changes you suggested. Were there any additional issues?
No. I I I got them this morning there and they're all brief, which that's always a good thing. brevity can frequently result in better clarity and um the amendments you made are they're they're actually the ones I suggested uh quite some time ago.
It was really the word repeal that was an issue and I'm delighted we got that resolved. Okay. Yes. Thank you. So, um, I had sent my ordinances that I solely wrote and there was no outside counsel involved to solicitor Timonss and he was kind enough to um, make some suggestions and I have just sent those around here.
I'm comfortable not using the word repeal um and instead using the word delete in some cases or amend in some cases um because we specify what the salary is and because we have this letter from from the Quincy Retirement Board.
So, thank you for getting that. Um so, um I move to um well, I guess we should do them one by one. Um, I move to um accept uh order 2026 029 as amended uh in the documents before you. This is uh setting the mayor's salary um uh to the current salary that he's actually receiving and and and not the $285,000.
Um so are yes on the motion. Yes. Thank thank you Madam Chair. Um this particular item's been going around for the last two years. It's been a long 48 months whatever 24 months. Um, you know what? What's weird to me is the mayor stated in October 2025 that he was going to come in with the lower amount from 285 to 225,000.
Um he stated that you know to the newspapers to the public and with the condition that he wouldn't proceed with anything until the new term had come in and the and whomever the new counselors were going to be would have an opportunity to um speak about the $225,000 adjustment.
Um he so council order 2026-012 came in on January 20th of 2026 with this new council. So it's $60,000 less of what is the $285,000 proposal. So he the mayor had already suggested that he wanted to go down to his salary the 225.
So what confuses me is why don't we just talk about that? Why why why do we have to do this? So, um, as we've discussed in previous ordinance committee meetings, we're going to, I think, do this in two parts by necessity.
Um, because, um, the first part is repealing, deleting, amending the ordinances that still exist on the books. So, the the ordinances that still exist on the books have these higher salaries. um even if the mayor is not taking them, they just still exist.
Um so the first step is to sort of clear the paperwork and um undo that. And then the second step, which um I would like to still pursue beginning in the in the fall, is to discuss the 225, discuss all the other numbers as well.
um so and and have like a rigorous discussion with data from comparable um positions etc. So just to clarify I should have said that before this is just these three orders before you are just trying to sort of clear things away so that we can start from scratch and um and that's what we're what we're doing here.
That's why it's going back to the original salary. So you're going to come in the fall fall of 2026. Yes. September. Yes. Okay. So, you're going to come back in September after this break or you know and we'll start discussing you start discussing the 225.
So, that'll be on the table. Yeah. Okay. That that's good clarification because in my thoughts is if you're going to do this, why don't we go right into the 225 and start discussing it now. So, you want to collect data.
Is that what you want to do? Want to collect data? Want to have discussions with everyone. So we um yeah, this was one of our top priorities for a lot of us um when we got into office and so um I would I would like to get this part of it done uh before the break and then we will come back and discuss it.
So me and you have a clarification that we're 225 is going to come in in the fall in September and we will all be able to speak on that will be part of the discussion. Yes. Okay, that's fair enough. I just for you know you're running the ordinance so I don't know what your thinking is because was we don't talk outside of this so I don't know when you're coming in with these particular items and that's been proposed back in January.
So I would have thought that we were going to speak about it in in conjunction with this particular item. It kind of goes hand in hand to be honest with you. I think I think in the past I've I've talked about separating it out so that we could do um um a second one, but I realize that it is quite confusing.
I mean honestly this this issue of salaries and what we can and cannot do legally has been really naughty and I think um actually is is the case for a lot of communities around the state because you have two laws that say directly conflicting things about what you're allowed to do.
Um and this council can't do certain things that affect our salary now. So, we've written some of us have written letters for this term, etc. It's just gotten it's been very confusing. So, he he did write a letter, you know, deferring it just like the counselor, the original counselors did.
Yeah. But we but it's still on the books. So, that's what we're doing here. We're just trying to clear the books from the previous ordinance that set the salary at $285,000. It's still It's still confusing me because he's never received it.
He's never taken it. I don't think the sometimes people in the public to be honest with you still to this day think he took the the salary increase. They still don't know that. Yeah. It's cuz it's headlines.
It's Mr. uh Bandino's up there. He's got like great headlines. Councelor um Mahoney has a comment and you you don't see the true facts that you know and I'm just trying to state the true facts. I think councelor Mahoney can speak now.
Sure. Go right ahead. So the facts are that there was no there was a one report and this council said yes to that one report for 285 and the public really was upset. There was a signature drive and that's also out there and I think the signatures were due back.
I'm not sure where that stands but that was to 183. The mayor did put in did put his own ordinance in for 225 and he did defer his salary is what he was calling a deferral but he couldn't take that salary because the state came back ethics came back and said you couldn't take it.
ethics also came back and said that the counselors couldn't take it. So, it's not like you were doing a big thing. You were just doing what the ethics told you to do. So, where we're at right now is you have an ordinance on the table that says the mayor salaries at 285.
We're going to we're going to I'm not going to try to use the right word. We're going to delete amend delete that salary back to the 150. We have the we have the ordinance that the mayor put in for 225 and we will probably be getting soon enough from the judge what the what our next call will be whether that's accepting it or letting it go onto a ballot but my guess is know we will want to have that accepted here.
So we'll be at 183 to 225 and that's phase two of this. This is really just bookkeeping to make sure that we're taking care of this where there's no mistakes of how we're handling it. There was not the big the big question that we had here was the word repeal.
I think that's all fixed now. So, this just simply takes takes it back to the same place it was where currently Mayor Ko is being paid. I don't think there's anybody that's suggesting that he's not. The salary would go up at the next election.
And I think the conversations that we have to have here in the council have to happen in the next 6 months so that we can come to that conclusion as to what the salaries will be for both council and for the mayor.
And I think it will be a fair conversation that will be driven by data that we'll all have and it may be someplace between 183 and 225. He set the cap at 225. It was two it was 285 when he came back and said, you know, I'll take 225.
That's great, but that's not it's not the the job of this council is to come up with the data that actually supports what that salary is going to be. So, I just want to make sure we explain that. the will of the people would have been if that ballot question got onto the ballot, it would have been last November that would have been done, but that didn't happen.
So, that's also kind of tied up in court. So, we're just trying to get this passed. I believe the goal tonight is to get this past this step so that we can come back in September and start doing the due diligence that we said we would do to be able to come up to that position of what the salary should be for the mayor.
I don't think I really don't think anybody here I know I haven't said that the mayor doesn't deserve a raise or the person who sits in the mayor's seat. We always keep saying it's not the person, it's the it's the position.
But in this particular case, I do believe that 285 was for the person, not the position. I think that's the difference there and that's what that's what residents felt. Now we're taking this conversation back to say this is about the position and now we want to be fair about what we're doing and whether that it lands at 183 because some people feel strongly that it's 183 and some people feel strongly that it's should be 285 and other people feel it should be 225 but the cap is now 225 because the mayor brought it in at 225.
So that will be the cap and the base will be 183 because there was a petition out there I believe when the jud judge comes back to tell us and I think that's where we're at. So, I think I I'm perfectly okay to move on, but I just wanted to make sure that I stated that for the record.
So, you know, because there's nobody that's trying to fool anybody or cause any damage to anybody. Thank you, Councelor Hubley. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so I came in prepared to support the contention that um, Solicitor Timman said about the repeal thing.
I reached out to other people and work in municipals and talked to one that's been on for like 17 years or so. Um he was like, "Yeah, if if you do the repeal thing, that will kind of wipe everything out." So, I'm very happy to hear that uh tonight we're it's I want to commend um Chair McKe with a K um for uh for for collaborating with Mr.
Timmons and following his guidance. I think that's a good example of working together with the administration. So, I appreciate that and um so I'm prepared to support these, but I'd like to hear from my colleagues.
Councelor Riley. Yeah. So, could we just get an update on where the ballot signatures sit? I thought that we were supposed to have them certified last week. Um which would have been nice to know where that was where is that stand legally?
I don't think we I certainly don't know. My solicit my intention um just to share it in with the body um because I guess if those signatures are Could we just get an update? Okay, thank you. So, Timonss, do you have an update that you can provide the council on um where the signature petition the the petition signatures stand?
Um I do not really I have not been directly handling that case. I'm aware of it and I know that there was some talk going on at the end of last week. Um, I saw one of the plaintiffs here, um, someone with whom I've spoke on a few occasions.
I was going to try to catch him to see what his thoughts were, but there was some talk going on. I know that the city clerk's office has completed what the court ordered regarding uh the count, but both sides, the lawyers on both sides have um have questions that they're sending back to the court to get some clarification.
So, it's still kind of floating but clo closer to an end point. So, and then when um whenever this comes to whenever the various parties um come to a mutually agreed upon decision um potentially that that language could come back to this body for um acceptance as is.
No, it'll it'll be a court order. a court order, but the actions of the body tonight could end up mooding that case. That's another question I'm not fully aware of. Um, we'll have to see. Okay. Yeah. All right.
So, a court order is a court order. Now, it's not going to come back here for any reason. Okay. So, I think um I think there's so much uncertainty with what's going on with the court that um I I think we can move forward on um deleting, amending, repealing these.
Um yes, councelor Riley was my question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. So, Solicitor Timmons, I guess that was my follow-up question to you. If we take action on this tonight, is it going to impact that court case in any way?
To the best of your knowledge, I realize you're not the one overseeing that, but well, the essential question I don't want to do. Let me just Sorry, don't mean to interrupt. I don't want to further complicate this.
So, that's my question is if we take the action and we vote this positively tonight, is it going to affect the court case in any way to the best of your knowledge? Okay. It's been my position all along and um you know I I don't believe that it has ever been not accepted by the council that the law is clear that the council sets the salary for the mayor and the city councilors.
So the action you're taking now is well within your authority. um because of how things played out a year ago, uh there was a group of um folks who filed a lawsuit um because they didn't agree with how they had played out.
But I think, you know, I'll definitely be reporting the outcome of what goes on here at this meeting. And I know the judge has been monitoring whether the council was going to take action on these motions because these motions address the essential questions.
Um, I can't speak for the plaintiffs, but these motions are returning the salaries to what they were um at the time when the plaintiffs brought their lawsuit. But it may be the case that they have some further discontent and that they'll be continue to pursue it.
I'm just not certain. But I think that um you know these are autonomous rails and that the council is acting within its authority that you could have done this last January or a little later. I think if we hadn't if uh the chair and I hadn't got into the little squabble about repeal, it probably would have been done because the essential components of it are are being addressed.
Thank you. Okay. Councelor Ash. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so I'm just looking at the the docket online. It looks like the initial deadline for um the city to look again at the um signatures was June 18th at 5:00 p.m.
which would have been last Thursday. I believe there was a joint motion to extend meaning both parties, the city and um the plaintiffs in each uh of both in both cases filed the joint motion to extend that deadline to this Friday at 5, which was allowed.
So, as far as as far as I can tell, it looks like the the the current deadline um for the clerk's office to revisit those signatures is this Friday at 5. Thank you for looking that up. All right. Um, so I have a motion um on the table to accept this amendment in front of us uh for 202629 uh deleting the $285,000 in the ordinance and um inserting the 15943.
Anyone else on the motion? Councelor Deona. Thank you, M. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the clarification that we were going to revisit this in September. Um, for me, the 225 is already on the table and for me, I don't I don't think there's no need for this to be honest with you.
To just take it a step further, he's already agreed to go to 225. It's on the books. 2026-012 on January 20th. It's on this new city council. Um, that'll be my reasoning, by the way. That'll be my reasoning that the 225 is already proposed and on there.
So, no, no, no note taken, please. Um, no, because sometimes it's written. I just want to clarify. So, will So, you'll be voting no. I assume you're saying voting no on this because the 225 already exists, right?
Okay. So, does it for me? It there's no need to do this. Is there anyone else on this motion? Okay, let's let's um move. We have two more to get through. So, um, could you please count, uh, call the role?
Council Ash, yes. Council Deon, no. Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council Mahoney, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council Yuan, yes. Okay, thank you. It passes. Uh, 8 to1. Um, just for those at home, um 8 to1, Council Dabona, uh, the the no vote.
Um, okay. 2026 030. Oh, I'm sorry. We pass as amended. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Um, do I need to make another I'm going to put you down as the motion and I'll call on it. Okay. So, that was just to accept the amendment to Oh, that was Oh, okay.
That was to accept the amendment. Now, we have to accept the motion as the order as amended. Yes. Okay. So, um, councelor Riley, would you like to make Oh, just a motion. Yeah. Okay. So, a motion to accept as amended.
Okay. And then, uh, can we do a roll call vote, please? Council Ash. Council Deon, no. Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council Mahoney, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council Yuan, yes.
Shannon McCree, yes. 8 to1. Okay. 8 to1 passes. Uh, councelor Deon as the no. 2026 030. Um I make a motion to um accept uh this amendment that sits before us that puts the council salary from um 44,500 um back to well to 29,800 because we cannot change our own salary by ordinance during this term.
It'll have to start January 3rd, 2028 at the start of the next term. On the motion, councelor Deona. Councelor Deona, on the motion. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I appreciate you amending this and writing it a little bit differently, which is uh which is good.
Um, let's take a step back here. Let's let's go into this one a little bit here. Um you write in here the deferment letter which was not aware of the new city councilors um because it was confidential at the time.
So all city nine counselors signed it. They were deferring their raise back in October of 2024 to be pushed to January of 2026. That's if you won your if you won the seat. Um and we did that. take it a step further with the deliberations of that salary.
It was originally salaried at 40 47,500. The motion was made by councelor Ash to to decrease it 3 $3,000. I seconded it and it became 44,500. So clarification purposes, there was a discussion. We knocked it down 3,000.
It got to 445. Um, only two people that got it was me and Mr. Ash because everybody else had been unseated. So, just, you know, I think and you know, it's funny because I was over the summer and he he's sitting in the audience tonight.
I ran into Mr. Mike Carter at Stop and Shop. I was getting groceries as I was coming out the summer. He was getting ballot initiatives, signatures. He directly said to me that I'm okay with the the salaries of the counselors.
I think you deserve it. He also stated a step further that he was okay with the school committee at $20,000. Now, no one ever talks about the school committee's increase 3 years ago that went from $9,000 to $20,000, which is more than doubled.
No one speaks about it. It's unheard of. But he was okay with it. He said those two salaries, school committee and city council should be those rates should be that salary. So I said, "Thank you." We had a conversation.
Oh, sorry. But that was our conversation. I had it that summer. Just for clarification purposes. Okay. So, Council Deon, if you wouldn't mind, we we do have to get through. Is there Oh, I haven't tal all I haven't talked all night.
I let you guys deliberate. And to be very honest with you, you know, I have a rule book here. And rule 10 says I have up to 15 minutes to speak. I'm going to speak about this matter as long as I can before I need to.
I got 15 minutes in the book. And it also says rule 11, speaking to Cororum. No member shall interrupt it while speaking. I'm not finished. I'm talking about this item that's on the table right now. Okay.
I have that right. Okay. I apologize. Go ahead. Okay. I didn't speed anybody up that went over 15 minutes on all these other deliberations. But for this one, I I I don't feel like we should do this. Now, is this another one we're going to revisit in September?
All of them. So, all of the ones that we're we're dealing with tonight is kind of bookkeeping and then we're going to discuss with data um what the salary raises should be because nobody thinks that there shouldn't be a salary raise for the council or the mayor.
Um, it's just I think the process was not one that was clear, transparent, um, and involved public input, but there was nothing that was done that was wrong. But we we deliberated about it in the city council, this particular item.
This it was voted on, but there wasn't um public input. Um, that what didn't exist back then? Well, there was a there many requests for public hearing. um on this issue and they were denied. And who who was who was the council president?
Who was who was the ordinance chair? Who was the over um who was the uh finance chair? That's like me telling you or councelor M or President Mahoney or counselor Riley, I don't like the way you're doing running these meetings.
I want to oppose them. So I think what we we have before us um we have before us this uh this ordinance. We have a motion on the table. Um we we will get back to the what level they should be in this in the fall, but um I would respectfully request that we keep our comments very specific to this ordinance right now.
Okay, I'm almost done. Thank you. Um, but I'm not going to support this. I mean, you have a situation where you're kind of going backwards here. This has already been initiated. Like, doesn't This is another one I don't understand.
I really don't. But I appreciate you coming back in in September and revisiting this. So, you're you're going to come in in September 2026? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Councelor Mahoney. again. Um, this is I think you were in the same election as we were null and people were very upset because there was an input on it and I understand that counselor Ash had to drop the salary from 47 to 44 and it could very well be the salary could be 44, but it needs to be a real discussion with data driven information.
It's as simple as that. And I know it can be very threatening um when you have a raise and somebody's talking about dropping it back to 29. It's we're not asking you to drop it back to 29. We're just saying that the salary should be 29.
We can have this conversation. And the goal I think what we really should be focusing on is not taking as much time as we need to get this through, but to start really deliberating about this in September so we can get to an answer so that we can have it done.
But to do that, we have to get past this point. So, I will be supporting this and I will be supporting the the deliberations as we bring information forward because I think it's an important piece of what people were looking for in that last election which is really just how do we come to these how do we come to these numbers?
How do these things happen? You know, and it's not just the salaries, it's a lot of things in the city. How does this happen? How does this happen underneath somebody's watch? You know, and that was a big You're right.
You know, I appreciate the fact that you are here. Well, but I do appreciate the fact that we have to have these conversations and you'll be part of them. So, I think it will be a good conversation just just to follow just Okay.
Very brief very very briefly. You can Yep. Just to follow up on that. I agree 100% that we're going to have this conversation in September and we'll have a little more data and I appreciate that. That's not on here.
It's not on the um the ordinance change here without any deliberations here in September. So, I'm coming into this thinking we weren't even going to talk about it. So, we got clarification tonight. I'm looking forward to the discussion and uh I I appreciate it.
Thank you. Okay. Uh Council Jacobs. Uh thank you. Good evening. I just want to um thank you, Councelor McKe, for really keeping this on track. Um I will be supporting this tonight. I I do want to um just echo some of the things I heard here.
You know, um there was an election. This was a big part of the election. Obviously, um there was a group that started the petition to lower the salaries originally. I was part of that group. Um my front porch was one of the areas where hundreds of people came to sign the petition.
And you know, the biggest question I got was, you know, people the biggest thing I noticed was that people didn't want to sign the city council one. You know, for every like one signature someone would sign the city council, like four people signed them.
the mayor's raised one, right? So there is a sentiment out there which has been you know mentioned here by councelor Deona that you know and a member of the audience that you know there is some sentiment out there that people are not as you know you know affronted by the the city council one but I do believe that in my heart of hearts that the process was flawed.
Um, you know, I do want to just say to this board, the city council that, you know, it's very possible that, you know, this could come back at 44,5, you know, I don't know. Um but you know I I do believe that um there should be a public you know comment a period where people can you know address the address the city council and and I think that would if if if that had been done and the finance committee chair was former world one city councelor.
Um I I think things could have stayed just like this and we probably might not have had the election that we had back last year. So that's that's all I want to say about that. Thank you uh council. Thank you chairwoman.
So I would like to say from my experience about uh connecting signatures to repeal race and organized protesting protest uh I feel people mainly upset about two things. One is the process. So the formal city con council just rushed through approved mayor's 79% pay raise and themselves 50% pay raise without giving a single public hearing despite the uh widespread protesting.
So people are upset that and second is they do think uh 79% pay raise from 150 to 285 is too huge jump and so the new salary 285 will put mayor's salary the top three or top four like mayors in whole nation.
So people compare the uh mayors in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Houston and they feel like uh mayor of city of Quincy compared all those big cities. How come the mayor city of Quincy get paid more?
I think I I I heard people talking about that they they also um in the beginning is some consulting company suggest the number the higher the range the higher end is 385 even 385,000 right 370 370 and the lower end is 295 Right.
Yeah, I remember that. So mayor even didn't take that suggestion. So he suggested 285,000. I just think that number given by that consulting company is totally out of touch. So I feel and the reason we want to do this to kind of going back to like have a clean slate so we can have a proper process then compare uh other city other towns and do analysis.
So with the residents involvement with this new council, we can set set up a proper process and to get a number for for the race. We we don't we never say like a mayor or council shouldn't have any race.
So that's just my comment. Okay. Councelor Ash. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I do have um just a couple comments and then um a potential amendment, but I appreciate um that council Deona. Um I I was I did make the the revision to the initial proposal from 47,500 to 44,500.
Um that was the quite frankly the the the revision that I thought would have support. you know, um I I know that I voiced my concern over the process as did councelor Deabona and that um that concern is largely what led itself I would like to think anyway to the um the next agenda item which is 031 and the CPI index.
Um there was really no no path forward to future increases or future revisions. I understand that that uh those parameters are not perfect. Uh but that was um quite what what the the will of the body was at that time.
I look forward to discussing um those you know the the potential increases or revisions to that in the future. Obviously, this is um a matter that has garnered um a lot of um engagement and certainly people um that have organized and um made their their voices and their opinions known and that is hard work in and of itself.
So, um whether or not you agree with with the mission, certainly commend those people for using the democratic process to do that. Um, but that being said, I I do look forward to discussing uh these more in the fall.
I think all of my fellow counselors are now 6 months in realizing um the the all-encompassing nature and the and the the greatness and also the the time um consuming um part of this gig which makes it um so great and so rewarding.
and part of actually this ordinance is must feel to all of my my freshman colleagues part of kind of that reward in a way. So, um I just wouldn't be would be remiss not to say that. Um I did um similarly take issue with the the repeal um the the repeal word and sentiment.
Um I am fine with with this as as um as it stands with the delete or amend um and look forward to discussing it more in the fall. Um I will suggest one um friendly amendment to this and that would be to strike um to strike the clause that says after the state ethics commission raised conflict of interest concerns.
Why? simply because that that isn't in the um the mayoral um revision and I do think it reads it, you know, if if we just say it was administratively deferred until January 5th, I think it accomplishes that without kind of uh you know, the the negative connotation with of that clause.
So, just to just to clarify, the reason why I had this uh preamble for the for the council one as opposed to the mayor one is because I wanted to clarify why this change wasn't taking place until 2028 because we'd gotten a lot of um criticism for somehow getting into office and then grabbing the money, etc., etc., when we really couldn't do anything about it.
um through this ordinance process. So that's why I I included the um the preamble here. Um, I see your point that it's sort of suggesting maybe that there's something different about the council versus the mayor, but given that the whole front is different in this uh order, um, I I would tend to leave it because it's accurate and um, it gets a point across that there were there were there were reasons why um, the previous council had to defer taking those raises.
Um, it was it was because of this state conflict of interest law. Um, Councelor Riley. Yes. Am I on? Um, I'd like to make a motion to accept councelor Ash's friendly amendment. I don't think it adds anything to it and it's fine without it.
Okay. So, we'll take a we'll take a vote on the friendly amendment. Um, yeah, I can just add to that. Yeah, thank thank you, Council Riley. But really, you know, the goal I think with the legislation that we're drafting, it should be as um subjective as possible.
And I think that that this specific clause, so how it would read without this clause would simply say, whereas ordinance 2024-056 established the salary of each city council at 445 effective January 125 and was administratively deferred until January 5, 2026.
I don't think it takes um anything away and I think it's certainly accurate. Um so that's why I would suggest that amendment. If if we could take a a vote on that, I'd appreciate it. Okay. Actually, I noticed that next the next part, the whereas actually mentions the state conflict of interest law anyway, so I changed my mind.
I'm okay with your removing after the state ethics commission raised conflict of interest concerns. Oh, sorry. Okay, Councelor Ryan, through you, Madam Chair, um would we want to add that same language to the ma to the um 2026 29 We've already voted on it and I think we should just Okay.
move move along. Um okay. So um councelor un the same question. Okay. So okay so we we have a motion to accept this with the deletion of after the state ethics commission raised conflict of interest concerns um at the end of the first whereas paragraph.
Um, can we please take a roll call vote? Council Ash, Council Deon, Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, Council Mahoney, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council Yuan, yes. Chairman McGee, yes.
8 to1. Okay, that was 8 to one. Um, with councelor Jacobs, uh, no. Okay, and now we have to pat we have to what? One more um item and not subst not specific to that um ordinance, but I just want to um alert clerk Manning just simply on the agenda.
I think that the the titles of the actual ordinances should be changed because they still read a repeal. I don't think that that's sub that matters really for our business tonight, but just um alerting the body to that as well.
Thank you. You want to say like amended? I think it should say deleted or deleted. Is that fine? That's how you've reworked it, right, Council McGee? Yep. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So now I guess we have to vote to accept order 202630 as amended on the motion.
Councelor Deona. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to support this one. I'm going to tell you why. I was going to give the reason why up there. Um, you're going to revisit this in September and you we got a commitment here tonight.
So, we're going to revisit this. So, I'm okay with it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Please take a roll call. Council Ash, yes. Council Dabona, Council Huby, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council Mahoney, yes.
Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council Yuan, yes. Juni, yes. Nine members. Okay, moving on to order number 2026 0 31. Um this is taking away the annual. So, in addition to the 79% and 50% raises, um there were there was a an ordinance put into place to um in beginning in the 2030s give annual increases to those salaries so that we wouldn't have to come back and do all this every single time and it wouldn't be such a long time between um raise ordinances.
But because there wasn't a whole lot of discussion on that one either, um uh I have put forward this uh ordinance to undo that so that we can again revisit the whole concept of of incremental raises beginning in September.
So um I motion to approve the order as amended before you on the motion. Okay. Um, oh. Oh, councelor Cuby. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, uh, I plan to support this, but I did want to mention a few things before I did before we went forward with it.
And that is um so my brother-in-law, my late brother-in-law, Wayne Nickel, served on the Lemonster City Council for I think it was 25 years until his passing. Um and oddly enough, he put forward this exact same thing for Lemonster, which they've had in place for many, many years.
And the feedback I've gotten from council members in Lemonster is very positive about it. And they said it kind of takes the politics out of it. It prevents us from having to not want to revisit this if you know people feel concerned about the election.
Just takes it the politics out of it and lets lets it trend towards the proper um rate. And now I'm not saying commut consumer price index is the exact right thing although that is what they do. Um, but I think if we can if we revisit this, so I'm voting to to get rid of this, but I I I feel like it might be on the right track is really what I wanted to add.
Um, and there was a currently sitting member that I spoke to who had been on for 17 years and and that was the feedback that I got. So, I think it's on the right track. Um, but I understand the intention that we're going to revisit this in September.
Uh part of me says that anytime a elected official wants to go for an increase in compensation, they should put that before the people. That's one argument that I have. But then the other argument the other argument I have is, you know, maybe we just take the politics out of it.
So, you know, I I can I can talk myself in and out of it in both ways. Uh so I'm looking forward to the vigorous conversation we'll have in the fall. Thank you. Um uh councelor Dono. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
So, you really want to just get rid of this completely? Is this what you want to do and start all over? Exactly. So, again, I I don't I'm not against that. Um I did hear from the public 2%, I did hear 3%, I did hear go with exactly what everybody else gets for the salary increase.
So, we we'll have this conversation again. Is this another one in September? Okay. Yeah. Um but yeah, that was just the feedback I got on just talking to several different people from everywhere was the increases and what you do every year.
And it's always it's always a tough situation. Trust me, I was been up here all these years. We've only put it in front of us twice before that happened. It happened my very first year up here and we agreed not to take it.
It was only like I want to say it was a 3% increase and it wasn't really worth it. So, we didn't do it back in 2016 and then it came up again while I was council president. Unfortunately, it didn't work and then it happened again in this pastime.
It's never it's never going to be a good time to talk about this stuff. People are going to say you're taking a two or 3%. We'll talk about it more, but you're taking a two or 3% every year. You're getting an increase.
What about taxes? And you guess what? You'll be part of the process. Tag you're in. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Did you accept Did you We have to accept the amendments and then we can vote it. I don't think we had Oh, we you replacing, right?
Yes. Yes. Just accept that for this one. Yeah. Okay. Just to keep it consistent with all of us. Yes. All of them. Okay. Um so we should vote first to accept this amendment as it reads and as you have it in front of you.
Um can you please take a roll call? Council Ash, yes. Council Dona, yes. Council Hugley. We're we're voting to accept this amended version. Yeah. Yeah. Uh would do you accept this amended version of this?
Yes. Okay. Council Jacobs, yes. Council Mahoney. Council Mahoney, do you vote? Do you accept this amendment? Yes. Okay. Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council, yes. Chairman McKe, yes. Okay. Now uh motion to accept this as amended.
Um please uh councelor you taking the motion. Okay. Uh she's did you want to make that motion? Okay. So councelor makes a motion. Um on the motion. Okay. Let's take a roll call. Councelor Ash. Yes. Council Dona.
Council Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs. Yes. Council Mahoney. Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Ryan. Council. J. Yes. n. Okay. Well, that wasn't excruciating. Thanks everybody. Um, so we are going to um that's all we have.
So, we're going to we're going to move into the regular council meeting and adjourn ordinance. I'm going to have you read I'm going to have you do it again. If you could just read it into the to the Okay.
Yep. Sure. Uh so this is a review of the open meeting law complaint regarding meeting on June 15, 2026. It was a late item. Late item. So, because this is a late item, we're using um we're using rule 27, which is allowing us to have the late item and it would require two-thirds of a vote of the members of the city council to be allowed into this meeting.
So, do they have to take that vote now? Yes. So, if we could take a vote to allow this into the meeting tonight because I we just got this I just got this open meeting law violation yesterday and if we were to um not have it on the agenda tonight, it would have we would have had to have a special meeting.
So, we're just having it tonight. So, we're going to take a roll call vote on that. Okay. Council Ash, yes. Council Dabona, yes. Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council McKe, yes. Council Riley, Council Ryan, yes.
Council Yuen, yes. President Money, yes. Eight. Okay. So, I'm going to move into this. So, this item is an open meeting law complaint filed by Miss Leah Del Gloria. It was received by the city council, myself on June 21st, yesterday, 2026.
Under Massachusetts open meeting law and regulations of the attorney general's division of open government, the council is required to review the complaint and and determine whether any action is appropriate.
The complaint alleges that the proposed amendments on council orders 2026-030 and 2026-3031 were trans transmitted by councelor Maggie McKe to the clerk committees and subsequently distributed to the members of the city council outside of a posted public meeting.
Before proceeding, I'd like to to clarify the purpose of the review for this evening. The council is not here to discuss the merits of the ordinances or proposed amendments or the source of the amendments.
We are not making findings regarding the intent or the content of any individual council member. The sole question before the council tonight is whether the facts presented established deliberations among a quorum of city councilors outside the properly posted public meeting.
The council has reviewed the complaint. You all have the you should all have the complaint in your package today. The emails correspondents referenced in the complaint in the document distributed to the members of the council.
The materials reviewed show that a proposed amendment were submitted to the clerk of committees and subsequently distributed to the members of the council for inclusion in the meetings materials and consideration of future future public meetings.
From what I can see, the council has found no evidence and I have not found any evidence that the members discussed or proposed amendments through email, exchanged opinions, responded in an other debated of merits outside the proposal, attempted to reach the consensus or otherwise engaged in deliberation outside the post of public meetings.
Um, some of us weren't even aware that we got the email. The council further notes that the proposed amendments had not yet been discussed by the council and were intended to be considered in a future public meeting.
Based on the information reviewed, the council finds that the communication at it as issued consisted of the distri distribution of documents and there is insufficient evidence to establish that deliberation occurred among a quorum of the city councils outside of the posted public meeting.
The council remains committed to transparency and compliance within the open meeting law and will continue to exercise care regarding communication and distribution of materials relating to matters that come before the city council.
Um before opening the discussion, I want to address one procedural matter. The complaint references council councelor McKe by name. I consulted with council um city city solicitor Timmons regarding whether um whether there were any participation concerns related to this complaint.
Um and I was advised that council McKe can participate in the discussion and vote on this matter. According all members accordingly all members of the council are eligible to participate and discuss this vote.
So at this time I'd like to open the floor to discussion regarding the complaint of the proposed and the proposed written response. Councelor McGee second you um I would like to address the latest open meeting law complaint against this council which concerns suggested amendments to two ordinances attempting to repeal salary increases passed by the previous city council.
This complaint raises two separate issues. One is how counselors should communicate outside of public meetings. The other is whether individual counselors are allowed to hire a personal attorney for legal advice.
We addressed the second issue last week establishing that the open meeting law does not preclude a single counselor from consulting with a personal attorney, a fact that solicitor Timmons acknowledged.
So, the claim in this document that my hiring my own attorney at my own cost to look over local laws I had drafted carries quote serious OML implications is simply false. Let me now speak to the other issue and I'll start by providing some context.
At the April 6th meeting of the public works committee, one counselor had suggested a number of amendments to proposed ordinances on sewer and storm water violations. Another counselor responded that it would be helpful for counselors to receive any such suggested changes ahead of time to give everyone a better chance to consider them.
With that in mind, after making some changes to two ordinances I had drafted months earlier to try to repeal politicians pay raises, I asked the council clerk to email the suggested amendments to all the other counselors and to also post them publicly on the city website.
My intention was to get the information out to both the council and the public so that everyone could have time to review the minor edits in advance of the meeting. In fact, that sort of public information sharing is supported by a dicta or opinion that the Supreme Judicial Court published in 2018.
The dicta was about a case where the chair of the select board in Wayland circulated individual members evaluations of the town administrator with board members ahead of a public meeting about the evaluation.
They did not share the written evaluations with the public until after the meeting. The Supreme Judicial Court wrote, quote, "If board members wish to circulate documents containing board member opinions among a quorum in advance of an open meeting, as here, prior and relatively contemporaneous public disclosure of those documents where permissible is necessary in order to comply with the open meeting law and to advance the statute's overall goal of promoting transparency in governmental decision-making." So there is a strong argument to be made to support the sharing of suggested amendments ahead of a meeting as long as that sharing happens with the public at the same time as with the body itself.
That is the same kind of argument that allows counselors as some in this body did with regard to the request for new firefighter gear, for example, to write letters to the editor or social media posts stating how they will vote ahead of a public meeting where that vote will take place.
If it turns out that the public does not feel comfortable with that type of wide information sharing, however, I will refrain from doing it in the future. But my intention was to increase transparency, communication, and efficiency in government.
As an ironic aside, I will close by noting that on May 18th, council never got a chance to discuss the amendments I asked the council clerk to share with the public and the other counselors ahead of that meeting.
And those amendments never will be discussed because the amendments I suggested to the raise ordinances tonight came from the city solicitor. So the two amended versions suggested on May 18th and referenced in this open meeting law complaint have had and will have exactly no impact on council policy.
Thank you. Does anybody else want to speak on the ordinance on the on this? Do we have a motion? Um, what I'm looking for is a motion to approve that. I can respond back. Um, and we we'll take a vote on that.
Councelor Riley. Yeah. I'd like to make a motion that we find that there's no violation and allow the president to respond to this matter and respond to the um, Secretary of State's office. Okay. Do we have a second?
Seconded by Councelor Ryan. Did you want to speak? Okay. Second. Anybody on the motion? Second. Ready for roll call vote. Councelor Ash. Yes. Council Deona. Council Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs. Council McKe.
Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Ryan. Yes. Council. Yes. N. All right. So, we're moving on to item number two. Okay. Item number two. 2020606 ordinance rules safeguarding transparency, public access to information and democratic participation in city council proceedings.
Councelor McGee. So um we had a meeting of rules committee earlier this evening and we passed it um with amendments um with a positive recommendation out of committee. All right. So we need a motion to pass.
Motion to accept it by the full body. Okay. A seconded by council on the motion. Roll call vote. Council Ash. Yes. Council Dabona. Council Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs. Yes. Council McKe. Council Riley.
Yes. Council Ryan. Yes. Councilw. Yes. President Mooney. Yes. Nes as amended. All right. So once again, I'm going to um take into effect rule 27. um taking um the late item that will require two-thirds of a vote that was added to the agenda tonight.
That was just to bring the ordinance amending municipal code for strengthening the auditor auditor um powers of the auditor. So before we do that, we have to take a we have to take a vote to be able to do those.
Do I need Yeah, we're just going to take a roll call vote. Yeah. Okay. Councelor Ash, yes. Council Deona, Council Huby, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council McKe, yes. Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan. Yes.
Councilman. Yes. Yes. All right. So, moving on. So, what you have in your package tonight, this is a while ago, too. I feel like it was a snowstorm. We were um we we were all in agreement with with the language, but we didn't have it in the right right sections within the um within the ordinance itself.
So, that has been updated and it's been redlined and provided to everybody here this evening. And if everybody thinks it looks okay at this point, I'll just need a motion. Motion to approve as amended.
Motion to approve as amended by councelor Riley. Seconded by I did actually That's fine. Thanks. Thank you. Uh, Madam President, with respect to um page 3, section 66-16, there's a miscellaneous provision that reads um the city auditor should be prohibited from contributing to either by financial or inind contribution participating in the campaign of any candidate for Quinsey City Council or mayor or in the campaign of any Quinsey city council or mayor of Quinsey for any other political office.
I guess my question with that provision is is that is is that um does that sentiment is that carried out in any other departments or um are we setting a precedent here or and has that provision? I didn't change it.
That was that was the actual language that was there. Okay, understood. Thank you. That was existing. I I did I saw it in um that's all good. All right. Thank you. Sorry. I can't answer as far as other departments, but Okay.
Is that your only question? Yes. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. Second by council Ash. Um, roll call vote. Councelor Ash. Yes. Council Deona. Council Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs. Yes. Council McKay.
Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Ryan. Yes. Council. Yes. President H. Yes. Moving on to item number four. Item number four. 2026 029 ordinance repeal of may raise ordinance 2024-055. So this is council McKe.
So um this was uh discussed just now in the ordinance committee and we u made amendments and um passed this ordinance um as amended out of committee with a positive recommendation. Excellent. So I make a motion to approve it as the full body.
Okay. Do we have a second? Second by councel here. Do you have someone to speak? Yes. So point of order. Um, I believe councelor through you, sorry. Uh, I believe council Ash mentioned something about having to adjust the way it reads on the agenda or is that did I miss the end of that conversation?
Because right now it says repeal and we changed it. Does that matter? I just want to make sure before we went forward. That's not part of the order, but I'll change for historical. I'll change She'll change it for historical housekeeping thing, not Okay.
Thank you. So, we have a motion by councelor McKe, seconded by councelor Hubley. Anybody else? Roll call vote. Council Ash, yes. Council Deona, no. Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council McKe, yes.
Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Council Yuen, President Money, yes. Moving on to item number five. Item number five, 2026 030 ordinance repeal of council Ray's ordinance 2024056. Councelor McKe.
So this we had a positive recommendation out of committee um as amended and I move to um pass this uh that version uh in the full council. Okay. We have a motion to accept seconded by council on the motion.
Roll call vote. Council Ash. Yes. Councelor Deon. Yes. Council Hubley. Yes. Council Jacobs. Yes. Council McKe. Yes. Council Riley. Yes. Council Ryan. Yes. Council. Yes. President Mooney. Yes. Nine members.
Number six. Okay. Item number 6, 2026 031. Ordinance repeal annual raises for elected officials. Ordinance CO number was 2024090. Council McKay. Positive recommendation as amended out of committee. And I make a motion to approve that version by the full council.
Okay. Motion by councelor McGee, seconded by councelor Yuen. On the motion, not seeing any. Roll call vote. Council Ash, yes. Council Deona, yes. Council Hubley, yes. Council Jacobs, yes. Council McKe, yes.
Council Riley, yes. Council Ryan, yes. Councilw, yes. President Mahoney, yes. So, next is upcoming meetings. Tuesday, September 8th, um at 7:30, we will have a council meeting. So, I'm sure you'll all miss us for the summer.