Collecting in-person signatures
We need to get about 8,000 in-person signatures of registered Quincy voters by July 8 to successfully repeal the mayor’s and council’s 79% and 50% raises, so we are going to need everyone to pitch in as much as humanly possible up to that time!
The two petitions (one to repeal the mayor’s raise and one to repeal the councilors’) are available to download and print at ajustquincy.com/petition (please print double sided). You can also request printouts using this form, or come pick them up from the porch at 117 Rawson Road starting Tuesday, June 25.
PLEASE SIGN UP FOR AT LEAST ONE LOCATION & TIME TO COLLECT SIGNATURES HERE. We will post the times and places on our website so registered voters wishing to sign the petitions can find you.
You can also just go out and collect signatures without any advance notice to us, of course (please do!). Some ideas of places to go include playgrounds, dog parks, outside T stations, libraries, and grocery stores (apparently 10 am to 2 pm on Saturday is a peak time for shoppers), or anywhere people have to wait for a while (the line outside the soon-to-close La Paloma Restaurant on Newport Ave, or the pedestrian crossing at Squantum and Hancock Streets near North Quincy T station come to mind!). You can also door knock in your neighborhood or even sit out on your front steps and chat with people as they walk by!
Every day that you collect signatures, please fill out the short form at bit.ly/quincycount with the number you got (for both the mayor and council). That way we can keep track of how many we get and how many more we need so we have the best chance of meeting our goal.
Things to note:
To be counted, the signers must be registered voters in Quincy. Ask them, “Are you a registered voter in Quincy?” and if they say yes, have them sign the form. (If they’re actually not, their signature won’t count towards the goal, but this is a numbers game, so if there are other people around who might sign, it’s best to get everyone who thinks they are a registered Quincy voter to sign as quickly as possible. If there’s no one else around, and they’re unsure if they’re registered, you can suggest that they check their registration at bit.ly/mavotercheck.)
PLEASE MAKE SURE THEIR NAMES AND ADDRESSES ARE LEGIBLE!
Since there are two different petitions - one for the mayor's raise and one for councilors' - it's important to clearly identify the forms so people know what they're signing. Because marking up the petition forms (such as with a highlighter over the words "mayor" or "council") might not be allowed (why risk it?), it's a good idea to use your own system: different-colored post-it notes (or a post-it note on just one form and not the other), or a colored ribbon tied around the clipboard used for one and not the other... Also, given that most people seem more upset about the mayor's raise than the councilors’, we recommend asking people to sign that one first. Thanks!
Here are some talking points about the raises. Please use them only to the extent necessary – talking too much can turn people off.
Signing one or both of these petitions doesn’t mean you don’t like the mayor or councilors or don’t think they deserve raises. It just means that you object to the size of the raises and/or the way they were pushed through.
For comparison, Quincy police, firefighters, and teachers recently received raises of 3% per year.
This raise would bring the salary of Quincy’s mayor from $159,000 to $285,000, making him the highest paid mayor of any city with a similar government type in the state. With the raise, Quincy’s mayor would make more than the Massachusetts governor and both US senators, as well as the mayors of major cities like New York ($258,000), Boston ($207,000), Chicago ($221,000), and Houston ($236,000).
The raise will substantially increase the mayor’s pension, which will cost taxpayers for the rest of the mayor’s life.
The report used to justify the mayor’s raise is fatally flawed and included no mayors of cities with similar government types to Quincy. It uses a specious argument that city managers’ jobs are equivalent to that of Quincy’s mayor. That’s not true. A city manager is hired and subjected to regular performance reviews (which are often public) and can be fired at any time. (If the same were true for Quincy’s mayor, it’s unclear that he would still have a job after some of the things that have taken place under his watch.)
Councilors quickly green-lit the raises without debate or a public hearing, even though they admitted that the way the pay boosts came about was flawed.
Please make sure to take a picture of each page of signatures you collect, and then drop off the completed forms (even if they only have a single signature on them!) BEFORE JULY 8 to:
Maggie McKee
117 Rawson Road
Quincy, MA 02170
617 669 1832
or
Kathy Thrun
234 Everett Street
Wollaston, MA 02170
1.617.872.4048
Or if you can’t drop them off, please email info@ajustquincy.com and let us know where to come pick up the signed forms from you.
THANK YOU!
